s to the balloon. We shall then drop like a shot; but
as soon as the air gets under our parachute it will spread open, and
our descent will immediately begin to be much more gradual, and if
nothing unusual occurs to us, we shall come gently to the ground. This
picture shows the manner in which we would come down in a parachute.

[Illustration]

This man's balloon has probably burst, for we see it is tumbling down,
and it will no doubt reach the ground before him.

When all is ready and we are properly seated in the car, with our
instruments and extra clothes and ballast, and some provisions, we
will give the word to "let her go."

There!

Did you see that?

The earth dropped right down. And it is dropping, but more slowly,
yet.

That is the sensation persons generally experience when they first go
up in a balloon. Not being used to rising in the air, they think at
first that they are stationary, and that the earth and all the people
and houses on it are falling below them.

Now, then, we are off! Look down and see how everything gets smaller,
and smaller, and smaller. As we pass over a river, we can look down to
its very bottom; and if we were not so high we could see the fishes
swimming about. The houses soon begin to look like toy-cottages, and
the trees like bushes, and the creeks and rivers like silvery bands.
The people now appear as black spots; we can just see some of them
moving about; but if they were to shout very loud we might hear them,
for sound travels upward to a great distance.

[Illustration: MOONLIGHT ABOVE THE CLOUDS.]

Soon everything begins to be mixed up below us. We can hardly tell the
woods from the fields; all seem pretty much alike. And now we think it
is getting foggy; we can see nothing at all beneath us, and when we
look up and around us we can see nothing but fog.

[Illustration]

We are in the clouds! Yes, these are the clouds. There is nothing very
beautiful about them--they are only masses of vapor. But how thick
that vapor is! Now, when we look up, we cannot even see the balloon
above us. We are sitting in our little basket-work car, and that is
all we know! We are shut out from the whole world, closed up in a
cloud!

But this foggy atmosphere is becoming thinner, and we soon shoot out
of it! Now we can see clearly around us. Where are the clouds? Look!
there they are, spread out like a great bed below us.

How they glisten and sparkle in the bright sunlight!

Is no