Excerpt from Travels in the AirBut no method more simple could have been imagined than that by which the aeronaut ascends, and which leaves the observer entire freedom to note the phenomena by which he is surrounded. With the ease of an ascending vapour he rises into the atmosphere, carried by the imprisoned gas, which responds with the alacrity of a sentient being to every external circumstance, and lends Obedience to the slightest variation of pressure, temperature, or humidity. The balloon when full and on the earth, with a strong wind, is vehemently agitated, and if a stiff breeze prevail during the progress of ination, it is for the time almost ungovernable. \vhen prepared for ight it offers the greatest powers of resistance to mechanical control, and, bent on soaring upwards, struggles impatiently to be free.In a line of perpendicular ascent the balloon has a motion of its own. It therefore rises or falls according to the action of the atmosphere upon the imprisoned gas. The second motion, which, united to the first, ca1ries the balloon out of the perpendicular line on rising, and directs its onward motion in a plane, is not inherent in the balloon, but is due to the external force of horizontal currents which sweep it in the direction of their course, and communicate a compound motion we can neither direct nor calculate. The simple inherent motion we can repeat at will.

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