se from his balloon when over Blackheath. The parachute
descended rapidly, and vibrated with great violence; the large hoop
broke, the machine collapsed, and the unfortunate aeronaut was killed,
and his body dreadfully mutilated.

Fatal accidents of this kind were to be expected; nevertheless it is a
fact that the disasters which have befallen aeronauts have been
comparatively few, considering the extreme danger to which they are
necessarily exposed, not only from the delicacy of the materials, with
which they operate, and the uncertainty of the medium through which they
move, but, particularly, because of the impossibility of giving
direction to their air-ships, or to arrest their progress through space.
Parachutes, however, are not so absolutely incapable of being directed
as are balloons. Monsieur Nadar writes on this point as follows:--

"Let us consider the action of the parachute.

"A parachute is a sort of umbrella, in which the handle is replaced at
its point of insertion by an opening intended to ease the excess of air,
in order to avoid the strong oscillations, chiefly at the moment at
which it is first expanded. Cords, departing symmetrically from divers
points of the circumference, meet concentrically at the basket in which
is the aeronaut. Above this basket, and at the entrance of the folded
parachute, that is to say, closed during the rise, a hoop of sufficient
diameter is intended to facilitate, at the moment of the fall, the
entrance of the air which, rushing in under the pressure, expands the
folds more easily and rapidly.

"Now the parachute, where the weight of the car, of the attaching cords,
and the wrigglings of the aeronaut, is in equilibrium with the
expansion--the parachute, which seems to have no other aim but to
moderate the shock in falling--the parachute even has been found capable
of being directed, and aeronauts who have practised it, take care not to
forget it. If the current is about to drive the aeronaut over a place
where the descent is dangerous--say a river, a town, or a forest--the
aeronaut perceiving to his right, let us suppose, a piece of ground
suitable for his purpose, pulls at the cords which surround the right
side, and by thus imparting a greater obliquity to his roof of silk,
glides through the air, which it cleaves obliquely, towards the desired
spot. Every descent, in fact, is determined by the side on which the
incline is greatest."

That these are not mere th