y a very few years, for his type
of mind obviously was not that of a student.

While still in early youth, he got his father's consent to work in the
parental studio, and persevered long enough to acquire some ability in
sketching. Later he employed this art in illustrating some of his
aerial voyages. During these studio days he studied legerdemain and
ventriloquism, and became one of the most expert sleight-of-hand
wizards and ventriloquial entertainers of his time.

Donaldson's first appearance before the public was at the old Long's
Varieties on South Third Street in Philadelphia. His feats as a
rope-walker have probably never been surpassed. In 1862 a rope twelve
hundred feet long was stretched across the Schuylkill River at
Philadelphia at a height of twelve hundred feet above the water. After
passing back and forth repeatedly over this rope, he finished his
exhibition by leaping from a rope into the river from a height of
approximately ninety feet. Two years later he successfully walked a
rope eighteen hundred feet long and two hundred feet high, stretched
across the Genesee Falls at Rochester, N. Y. Five years later he was
riding a velocipede on a tight-wire from stage to gallery of a
Philadelphia theatre, the first to do this performance.

Thus his years were spent between 1857 and 1871; and great as were the
dangers and severe the tasks incident to this period of his career, to
him it was not work but the play he loved. While the work in itself
was not one to emulate--for there are perhaps few less useful tasks
than those that made up his occupation--nevertheless, he was training
himself for his career; and the absolute mastery over it which he
accomplished, the boldness with which he did it, the readiness,
certainty, and complete success with which he carried out everything he
undertook make a lesson worth studying.

Donaldson's career as an aeronaut was brief. His first ascent was made
August 30, 1871; his last, July 15, 1875. The story of the first is
characteristic of the man. In his lexicon there was no such word as
"fail." His balloon was small, holding only eight thousand cubic feet
of gas. The gas was of poor quality, and when ready to rise he found
it impossible even to make a start until all ballast had been thrown
from the basket; and when at length the start was made, it was only to
alight in a few minutes on the roof of a neighboring house. Bent upon
winning and doing at all hazar