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the pain endured for the last two hours should have been attributed
altogether to the effects of a deficient respiration.
"At twenty minutes before nine o'clock--that is to say, a short time
prior to my closing up the mouth of the chamber, the mercury attained
its limit, or ran down, in the barometer, which, as I mentioned before,
was one of an extended construction. It then indicated an altitude on
my part of 132,000 feet, or five-and-twenty miles, and I consequently
surveyed at that time an extent of the earth's area amounting to no less
than the three hundred-and-twentieth part of its entire superficies.
At nine o'clock I had again lost sight of land to the eastward, but not
before I became aware that the balloon was drifting rapidly to the N.
N. W. The convexity of the ocean beneath me was very evident indeed,
although my view was often interrupted by the masses of cloud which
floated to and fro. I observed now that even the lightest vapors never
rose to more than ten miles above the level of the sea.
"At half past nine I tried the experiment of throwing out a handful of
feathers through the valve. They did not float as I had expected; but
dropped down perpendicularly, like a bullet, en masse, and with the
greatest velocity--being out of sight in a very few seconds. I did not
at first know what to make of this extraordinary phenomenon; not being
able to believe that my rate of ascent had, of a sudden, met with
so prodigious an acceleration. But it soon occurred to me that the
atmosphere was now far too rare to sustain even the feathers; that they
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