t alone. The shades of night were
falling, and the sun had already set, when the enthusiastic aeronaut
re-entered the car, and, casting off the grapnels, began his solitary
night voyage. He was well rewarded. The balloon shot up with such
celerity as to reach the height of about two miles in ten minutes, and
the sun rose again to him in full orb! From his lofty station he
watched it until it set again below the distant horizon. Probably
Monsieur Charles was the first man in the world, on whom the sun thus
rose and set twice in the same day!

In such regions, at that romantic period of night, the aeronaut, as
might have been expected, saw strange unearthly sights. Rising vapours
concealed the lower world from view, and the moon shed her pale rays on
accumulated masses of clouds, casting various hues over their fantastic
and changing forms. No wonder that one thus surrounded by objects of
awful grandeur and sublimity, left, as it were, more completely alone
with God than any of his fellow-mortals, found it impossible to refrain
from giving vent to his emotion in tears.

Monsieur Charles did not remain long at this elevation. As the cold was
excessive, and night advancing, he deemed it prudent to descend; opened
the safety-valve, out of which the gas rushed like a misty vapour with a
whistling noise, and, after the lapse of a little more than half an
hour, alighted in safety near the wood of Tour du Lay, having travelled
about nine miles.

After this, balloon ascents became frequent. We cannot here give a
particular account of each, even if it were desirable to do so, but,
before passing to the consideration of the more recent voyages, we shall
run over a few facts and incidents that occurred during the early period
of aerial navigation.

The first lady who went up in a balloon was a Madame Thible. She
ascended from Lyons on 28th June 1784 with a Monsieur Fleurant in a
fire-balloon. This lady of Lyons mounted to the extraordinary elevation
of 13,500 feet--at least so it was estimated. The flagstaff, a pole of
fourteen pounds weight, was thrown out and took seven minutes to reach
the ground. The thermometer dropped to minus 43 degrees Fahrenheit, and
the voyagers felt a ringing sensation in their ears.

The first long voyage accomplished was about the same period, by a
balloon constructed by Monsieur Robert, which was filled with hydrogen.
It was 56 feet in height, and 36 in diameter. The Duke de Chartres