we rose above the current. The size of objects on
the earth now began perceptibly to diminish, which gave us an idea of
the distance at which we were from them. It was then that we became
visible to Paris and its suburbs, and so great was our elevation that
many in the capital thought we were directly over their heads.

"When we had arrived among the clouds, the earth disappeared from our
view. Now a thick mist would envelop us, then a clear space showed us
where we were, and again we rose through a mass of snow, portions of
which stuck to our gallery. Curious to know how high we could ascend, we
resolved to increase our fire and raise the heat to the highest degree,
by raising our grating, and holding up our fagots suspended on the ends
of our forks.

"Having gained these snowy elevations, and not being able to mount
higher, we wandered about for some time in regions which we felt were
now visited by man for the first time. Isolated and separated entirely
from nature, we perceived beneath us only enormous masses of snow,
which, reflecting the sunshine, filled the firmament with a glorious
light. We remained eight minutes at this elevation, 11,732 feet above
the earth. This situation, however agreeable it might have been to the
painter or the poet, promised little to the man of science in the way
of acquiring knowledge; and so we determined, eighteen minutes after our
departure, to return through the clouds to the earth. We had hardly left
this snowy abyss, when the most pleasant scene succeeded the most
dreary one. The broad plains appeared before our view in all their
magnificence. No snow, no clouds were now to be seen, except around the
horizon, where a few clouds seemed to rest on the earth. We passed in a
minute from winter to spring. We saw the immeasurable earth covered
with towns and villages, which at that distance appeared only so many
isolated mansions surrounded with gardens. The rivers which wound about
in all directions seemed no more than rills for the adornment of these
mansions; the largest forests looked mere clumps or groves, and the
meadows and broad fields seemed no more than garden plots. These
marvellous tableaux, which no painter could render, reminded us of the
fairy metamorphoses; only with this difference, that we were beholding
upon a mighty scale what imagination could only picture in little. It is
in such a situation that the soul rises to the loftiest height, that the
thoughts are exalt