ur ropes cut. These we continued to drag after us like the
tail of a ragged comet, having the telegraph-wires and the posts which
lately supported them attached to us."

After having been dragged thus for some time at the mercy of a hurricane
which they ought to have been able to avoid, these aerial navigators at
last got entangled in the outskirts of a wood near Rethem, in Hanover.
A few broken arms and legs paid for their temerity in meddling with this
monster, and one and all of the passengers have reason to be thankful
that it will be unnecessary for us to proclaim their virtues and their
fate in our next chapter.

Chapter X. The Necrology of Aeronautic

We will conclude this second part by giving a brief notice of some
of those who, in the early days of aerostation, fell martyrs to their
devotion to the new cause, and sometimes victims to their own want of
foresight and their inexperience.

First among these is Pilatre des Roziers, with whose courage and
ingenuity our readers are already familiar. After the passage of
Blanchard from England over to France this hero, who was the first to
trust himself to the wide space of the sky, resolved to undertake the
return voyage from France to England--a more difficult feat, owing to
the generally adverse character of the winds and currents. In vain did
Roziers' friends attempt to make him understand the perils to which this
enterprise must expose him; his only reply was that he had discovered
a new balloon which united in itself all the necessary conditions of
security, and would permit the voyager to remain an unusually long time
in the air. He asked and obtained from government the sum of 40,000
livres, in order to construct his machine. It then became clear what
sort of balloon he had contrived. He united in one machine the two modes
previously made use of in aerostation. Underneath a balloon filled with
hydrogen gas, he suspended a Montgolfiere, or a balloon filled with
hot air from a fire. It is difficult to understand what was his precise
object in making this combination, for his ideas seem to have been
confused upon the subject. It is probable that, by the addition of a
Montgolfiere, he wished to free himself from the necessity of having to
throw over ballast when he wished to ascend and to let off this gas when
he wished to descend. The fire of the Montgolfiere might, he probably
supposed, be so regulated as to enable him to rise or fall at will.

This mix