Two other sensations must, by no means, be forgotten. You become very cold, and desperately hungry. But you have got a warm outer coat, and traveling boots, and other valuable things, and you have not left behind you the pigeon-pie, the ham, cold beef, bottled ale and brandy.
Of the increased coldness which you feel on passing from a bright cloud into a dark one, the balloon is quite as sensitive as you can be; and, probably, much more so, for it produces an immediate change of altitude. The expansion and contraction which romantic gentlemen fancied took place in the size of their heads, does really take place in the balloon, according as it passes from a cloud of one temperature into that of another.
We are now nearly three miles high. Nothing is to be seen but pale air above—around—on all sides, with floating clouds beneath. How should you like to descend in a parachute?—to be dangled by a long line from the bottom of the car, and suddenly to be "let go," and to dip at once clean down through those gray-blue and softly rose-tinted clouds, skimming so gently beneath us? Not at all: oh, by no manner of means—thank you! Ah, you are thinking of the fate of poor Cocking, the enthusiast in parachutes, concerning whom, and his fatal "improvement," the public is satisfied that it knows every thing, from the one final fact—that he was killed. But there is something more than that in it, as we fancy.
Two words against parachutes. In the first place, there is no use to which, at present, they can be applied; and, in the second, they are so unsafe as to be likely, in all cases, to cost a life for each descent. In the concise words of Mr. Green, we should say—"the best parachute is a balloon; the others are bad things to have to deal with."
Mr. Cocking, as we have said, was an enthusiast in parachutes. He felt sure he had discovered a new, and the true, principle. All parachutes, before his day, had been constructed to descend in a concave form, like that of an open umbrella; the consequence of which was, that the parachute descended with a violent swinging from side to side, which sometimes threw the man in the basket in almost a horizontal position. Mr. Cocking conceived that the converse form; viz., an inverted cone (of large dimensions), would remedy this evil; and becoming convinced, we suppose, by some private experiments with models, he agreed to descend on a certain day. The time was barely adequate to his construction of the parachute, and did not admit of such actual experiments with a sheep, or pig, or other animal, as prudence would naturally have suggested. Besides the want of time, however, Cocking equally wanted prudence; he felt sure of his new principle; this new form of parachute was the hobby of his life, and up he went on the appointed day (for what aeronaut shall dare to "disappoint the Public?")—dangling by a rope, fifty feet long, from the bottom of the car of Mr. Green's great Nassau Balloon.
The large upper rim of the parachute, in imitation, we suppose, of the hollow bones of a bird, was made of hollow tin—a most inapplicable and brittle material; and besides this, it had two fractures. But Mr. Cocking was not to be deterred; convinced of the truth of his discovery, up he would go. Mr. Green was not equally at ease, and positively refused to touch the latch of the "liberating iron," which was to detach the parachute from the balloon. Mr. Cocking arranged to do this himself, for which means he procured a piece of new cord of upward of fifty feet in length, which was fastened to the latch above in the car, and led down to his hand in the basket of the parachute. Up they went to a great height, and disappeared among the clouds.
Mr. Green had taken up one friend with him in the car; and, knowing well what would happen the instant so great a weight as the parachute and man were detached, he had provided a small balloon inside the car, filled with atmospheric air, with two mouth-pieces. They were now upward of a mile high.
"How do you feel, Mr. Cocking?" called out Green. "Never better, or more delighted in my life," answered Cocking. Though hanging at fifty feet distance, in the utter silence of that region, every accent was easily heard. "But, perhaps you will alter your mind?" suggested Green. "By no means," cried Cocking; "but, how high are we?"—"Upward of a mile."—"I must go higher, Mr. Green—I must be taken up two miles before I liberate the parachute." Now, Mr. Green, having some regard for himself and his friend, as well as for poor Cocking, was determined not to do any such thing. After some further colloquy, therefore, during which Mr. Green threw out a little more ballast, and gained a little more elevation, he finally announced that he could go no higher, as he now needed all the ballast he had for their own safety in the balloon. "Very well," said Cocking, "if you really will not take me any higher, I shall say good-by."
At this juncture Green called out, "Now, Mr. Cocking, if your mind at all misgives you about your parachute, I have provided a tackle up here, which I can lower down to you, and then wind you up into the car by my little grapnel-iron windlass, and nobody need be the wiser."—"Certainly not," cried Cocking; "thank you all the same. I shall now make ready to pull the latch-cord." Finding he was determined, Green and his friend both crouched down in the car, and took hold of the mouth-pieces of their little air-balloon. "All ready?" called out Cocking. "All ready!" answered the veteran aeronaut above. "Good-night, Mr. Green!"—"Good-night, Mr. Cocking!"—"A pleasant voyage to you, Mr. Green—good-night!"
There was a perfect silence—a few seconds of intense suspense—and then the aeronauts in the car felt a jerk upon the latch. It had not been forcible enough to open the liberating iron. Cocking had failed to detach the parachute. Another pause of horrid silence ensued.