forward might prove more inhospitable,
they decided to come to earth as speedily as possible. This, in spite
of difficult landing, they effected about the hour that the waking
population were moving abroad, and then, and not till then, they learned
the land of their haven--the heart of the German forests. Five hundred
miles had been covered in eighteen hours from start to finish!

CHAPTER VII. CHARLES GREEN--FURTHER ADVENTURES.

All history is liable to repeat itself, and that of aeronautics forms
no exception to the rule. The second year after the invention of the
balloon the famous M. Blanchard, ascending from Frankfort, landed near
Weilburg, and, in commemoration of the event, the flag he bore was
deposited among the archives in the ducal palace of that town. Fifty-one
years passed by when, outside the same city, a yet more famous balloon
effected its landing, and with due ceremony its flag is presently laid
beside that of Blanchard in the same ducal palace. The balloon of the
"Immortal Three," whose splendid voyage has just been recounted,
will ever be known by the title of the Great Nassau Balloon, but the
neighbourhood of its landing was that of the town of Weilburg, in the
Duchy of Nassau, whither the party betook themselves, and where, during
many days, they were entertained with extravagant hospitality and honour
until business recalled Mr. Hollond home.

Green had now made upwards of two hundred ascents, and, though he lived
to make a thousand, it was impossible that he could ever eclipse
this last record. It is true that the same Nassau balloon, under his
guidance, made many other most memorable voyages, some of which it will
be necessary to dwell on. But, to preserve a better chronology, we must
first, without further digression, approach an event which fills a dark
page in our annals; and, in so doing, we have to transfer our attention
from the balloon itself to its accessory, the parachute.

Twenty-three years before our present date, that is to say in 1814,
Mr. Cocking delivered his views as to the proper form of the parachute
before the Society of Arts, who, as a mark of approval, awarded him a
medal. This parachute, however, having never taken practical shape, and
only existing, figuratively speaking, in the clouds, seemed unlikely to
find its way there in reality until the success of the Nassau adventure
stirred its inventor to strenuous efforts to give it an actual trial.
Thus it came about t