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stones for want of a better appellation.
"April 16th. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through each
of the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great delight, a very
small portion of the moon's disk protruding, as it were, on all sides
beyond the huge circumference of the balloon. My agitation was extreme;
for I had now little doubt of soon reaching the end of my perilous
voyage. Indeed, the labor now required by the condenser had increased
to a most oppressive degree, and allowed me scarcely any respite from
exertion. Sleep was a matter nearly out of the question. I became quite
ill, and my frame trembled with exhaustion. It was impossible that human
nature could endure this state of intense suffering much longer. During
the now brief interval of darkness a meteoric stone again passed in my
vicinity, and the frequency of these phenomena began to occasion me much
apprehension.
"April 17th. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will be
remembered that, on the thirteenth, the earth subtended an angular
breadth of twenty-five degrees. On the fourteenth this had greatly
diminished; on the fifteenth a still more remarkable decrease was
observable; and, on retiring on the night of the sixteenth, I had
noticed an angle of no more than about seven degrees and fifteen
minutes. What, therefore, must have been my amazement, on awakening
from a brief and disturbed slumber, on the morning of this day,
the seventeenth, at finding the surface beneath me so suddenly and
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