Mr. King for the
American Aeronautic Society, at Coney Island last season, simply affords
another illustration of the aeronautical axiom that "Captives are
uncertain." Under the most favorable circumstances, and at inland points
least exposed, on perhaps not more than a dozen days in the year will
the air be sufficiently quiet to make captive ascensions practicable and
pleasant, and the difficulty is of course greatly enhanced at the
seacoast. The society proposes to again thoroughly test the matter this
season, studying the velocity of the wind near the ocean from various
altitudes.

Charles H. Grimley, whose views on aerial navigation have been alluded
to, is a young Englishman who, while an expert air-sailor, has gained
his experience rather in the pursuit of pleasure than of money,
dedicating to the latter a more terrestrial vocation. His introduction
to the upper currents was in the capacity of assistant to Stephen A.
Simmonds, a wealthy enthusiast of London who made ascensions for the
British Aeronautical Society. Mr. Grimley has made between forty and
fifty aerial excursions, on one of them covering a distance of one
hundred and sixty miles in three and a half hours, and on another
occasion attaining a height of nineteen thousand four hundred feet. A
number of these voyages were made in Canada. Some of his descents have
resulted in severe bruises. One of these unpleasantly sudden landings
closed a brief trip made from Pittsburg in October, 1875, and took
place on the Monongahela River five miles above that city. Mr. Grimley
was accompanied by Harry Byram of the _Pittsburg Dispatch_. Two things
regulate the force of impact in a balloon descent--the strength of the
surface-current and the amount of ballast the aeronaut has with which to
overbalance the weight in excess of equilibrium causing the descent.
Both were against our adventurers. Most of their ballast had been
expended in getting into the air, and while they had found almost a calm
at an elevation of forty-five hundred feet, the surface-current was
terrific. The balloon approached the earth at an angle of about
forty-five degrees with fearful velocity, flew across Beck's Run and
tore into a clump of trees growing on a rocky ledge dividing the ravine
from the river. The basket was dashed from one tree-trunk to another,
and, the balloon finally impaling itself on the branches of a huge oak,
both its occupants were hurled halfway down the river-bank, the fal