outlived from the time of
the first stitch in its covering to its final inflation with gas. We
must, however, be content to take up the narrative at the point at which
the 'Geant,' with thirteen passengers on board, had, in obedience to
the order to "let go," been released from the bonds which held it to
the earth. The narrative is, as our readers will perceive, written in
somewhat exaggerated language:--

"The 'Geant' gave an almost imperceptible shake on finding itself
free, and then commenced to rise. The ascent was slow and gradual at
first--the monster seemed to be feeling its way. An immense shout rose
with it from the assembled multitude. We ascended grandly, whilst the
deafening clamour of two hundred thousand voices seemed to increase.
We leant over the edge of the car, and gazed at the thousands of faces
which were turned towards us from every point of the vast plain, in
every conceivable angle of which we were the common apex. We still
ascended. The summits of the double row of trees which surround the
Champ de Mars were already under us. We reached the level of the cupola
of the Military School. The tremendous uproar still reached us. We
glided over Paris in an easterly direction, at the height of about six
hundred feet. Every one took up the best possible position on the six
light cane stools, and on the two long bunks at either end of the car,
and contemplated the marvellous panorama spread out under us, of which
we never grew weary.

"There is never any dizziness in a balloon, as is often erroneously
supposed, for in it you are the only point in space without any
possibility of comparison with another, and therefore the means of
becoming giddy are not at hand."

A very experienced aeronaut, who numbers his ascents by hundreds, has
assured me that he never knew of a single case of dizziness.

"The earth seems to unfold itself to our view like an immense and
variegated map, the predominant colour of which is green in all its
shades and tints. The irregular division of the country into fields made
it resemble a patchwork counterpane. The size of the houses, churches,
fortresses, was so considerably diminished as to make them resemble
nothing so much as those playthings manufactured at Carlsruhe. This was
the effect produced by a microscopic train, which whistled very faintly
to attract our attention, and which seemed to creep along at a snail's
pace, though doubtless going at the rate of thirty miles an