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| 1 | 90 | 180 | 269 | 359 |
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"It is necessary to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation now
attained, continued its course upward with an even and undeviating
ascent, and the car consequently followed with a steadiness so perfect
that it would have been impossible to detect in it the slightest
vacillation whatever. This circumstance favored me greatly in the
project I now determined to adopt. My supply of water had been put on
board in kegs containing five gallons each, and ranged very securely
around the interior of the car. I unfastened one of these, and taking
two ropes tied them tightly across the rim of the wicker-work from one
side to the other; placing them about a foot apart and parallel so as to
form a kind of shelf, upon which I placed the keg, and steadied it in a
horizontal position. About eight inches immediately below these ropes,
and four feet from the bottom of the car I fastened another shelf--but
made of thin plank, being the only similar piece of wood I had. Upon
this latter shelf, and exactly beneath one of the rims of the keg, a
small earthern pitcher was deposited. I now bored a hole in the end of
the keg over the pitcher, and fitted in a plug of soft wood, cut in a
tapering or conical shape. This plug I pushed in or pulled out, as might
happen, until, after a few experiments, it arrived at that exact degree
of tightness, at which the water, oozing from the hole, and falling into
the pitcher below, would fill the latter to the brim in the period
of sixty minutes. This, of course, was a matter briefly and easily
ascertained, by noticing the proportion of the pitcher filled in any
given time. Having arranged all this, the rest of the plan is obvious.
My bed was so contrived upon the floor of the car, as to bring my
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