Identifier: wonderfulballona00mariuoft (find matches)
Title: Wonderful ballon ascents : or, The conquest of the skies. A history of balloons and balloon voyages
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Marion, Fulgence
Subjects: Balloons Balloon ascensions
Publisher: New York : Cassell Petter & Galpin
Contributing Library: Kelly - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ree at the firstshock, and flapped against the distended part, acting as asail. The shocks continued to multiply so fast that it wasimpossible to count them. The car continued to reboundfrom these shocks to the height of five, ten, sometimes thirty,forty, and even fifty feet, for all the world like an india-rubber ball from the hands of an indefatigable player.Unfortunately, all our human freight, terror-stricken andwithout advice, had crowded into one side of the car; andas this happened to be the side on which we invariablybumped, we experienced all the worst effects of the joltings. What a dizzy whirl ! What a succession of breathlessshocks ! What a strain on both muscles and nerves ! V>ythe least negligence or slip, or by the loss of presence of mindfor one moment, we should have been thrown out anddashed to atoms. Every collision tries our muscles and strains ourwrists or our shoulders ; and every rebound dashes us oneagainst the other, constituting each individual a tormentor
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M THE GEANT BALLOON. 179 and victim at the same time. Our flight is so rapid thatwe can only distinguish an occasional glimpse of anything.Far, far in the distance we distinguish an isolated tree.We approach it like lightning, and we break it as though itwere a straw. Two terrified horses, with manes and tails erect, endea-vour to fly from us. But we consume distances ; we leavethem behind immediately. We skip over a flock of affrightedsheep in one of our bounds. But now comes the realdanger. At this moment, when we were perfectly benumbedwith fear, and had lost all power of articulation, we sawa locomotive, drawing two carriages, running along anembankment at right angles to our course. A few morerevolutions of the wheels, and it will be all over with us,for we seem to be fated to meet with geometrical precisionat one spot ! What will happen ? Travelling at our present hurricane pace, we shallundoubtedly lift up and overturn the machine and what itis drawing. But shall we not be crus

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