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actually fell, as they appeared to do, with great rapidity; and that I
had been surprised by the united velocities of their descent and my own
elevation.
"By ten o'clock I found that I had very little to occupy my immediate
attention. Affairs went swimmingly, and I believed the balloon to be
going upward with a speed increasing momently although I had no longer
any means of ascertaining the progression of the increase. I suffered no
pain or uneasiness of any kind, and enjoyed better spirits than I had
at any period since my departure from Rotterdam, busying myself now in
examining the state of my various apparatus, and now in regenerating the
atmosphere within the chamber. This latter point I determined to
attend to at regular intervals of forty minutes, more on account of
the preservation of my health, than from so frequent a renovation
being absolutely necessary. In the meanwhile I could not help making
anticipations. Fancy revelled in the wild and dreamy regions of the
moon. Imagination, feeling herself for once unshackled, roamed at will
among the ever-changing wonders of a shadowy and unstable land. Now
there were hoary and time-honored forests, and craggy precipices, and
waterfalls tumbling with a loud noise into abysses without a bottom.
Then I came suddenly into still noonday solitudes, where no wind of
heaven ever intruded, and where vast meadows of poppies, and slender,
lily-looking flowers spread themselves out a weary distance, all silent
and motionless forever. Then again I journeyed far down away into
another country where it was all one dim and vague lake, with a boundary
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