though several hundred
ascensions had by this time been made.

In the early practice of aerial voyages, the chief danger apprehended
was from accidental and rapid descents. To countervail this danger, and
enable the adventurer, in cases of alarm, to desert his balloon, and
descend to the ground uninjured, Blanchard invented the parachute, or
_guard for falling_, as the word signifies in French, an apparatus very
much resembling an umbrella, but of much larger dimensions. The design
is to break the fall; and, to effect this, it is necessary that the
parachute present a surface sufficiently large to experience from the
air such resistance as will cause it to descend with a velocity not
exceeding that with which a person can fall to the ground unhurt. During
an aerial excursion which Blanchard took from Lisle in August, 1785,
when he traversed a distance of not less than 300 miles, he dropped a
parachute with a basket fastened to it, containing a dog, from a great
elevation, and it fell gently through the air, letting down the animal
to the ground in safety. The practice and management of the parachute
were subsequently carried much farther by other aeronauts, and
particularly by M. Garnerin, an ingenious and spirited Frenchman, who,
during the course of his numerous ascents, repeatedly descended from the
region of the clouds with that very slender machine. On one occasion,
however, he suffered considerable injury in his descent. The stays of
the parachute having unfortunately given way, its proper balance was
disturbed, and, on reaching the ground, it struck against it with such
violence, as to throw him on his face, by which he received some severe
cuts. To let down a man of ordinary size from any height, a parachute of
a hemispherical form, twenty-five feet in diameter, is required. But
although the construction of a parachute is very simple, and the
resistance it will meet with from the air in its descent, its size and
load being given, can be exactly determined on scientific principles,
few have ventured to try it; which may be owing partly to ignorance, or
inattention to the scientific principles by which it is governed, and
partly to a growing opinion among aeronauts, that it is unnecessary, the
balloon itself, in case of its bursting, forming a parachute; as Mr.
Wise, the celebrated American aeronaut, experienced on two different
occasions, as he narrates in his interesting work on Aeronautics, lately
published at