e that Rainham, in Essex,
about twenty miles distant, was reached in little more than a quarter of
an hour, and here, on nearing the earth, the grapnel, finding good hold,
gave a wrench to the balloon that broke the ring and jerked the car
completely upside down, the aeronauts only escaping precipitation by
holding hard to the ropes. A terrific steeplechase ensued, in which the
travellers were dragged through stout fencing and other obstacles till
the balloon, fairly emptied of gas, finally came to rest, but not until
some severe injuries had been received.

CHAPTER VIII. JOHN WISE--THE AMERICAN AERONAUT.

By this period the domination of the air was being pursued in a fresh
part of the world. England and her Continental neighbours had vied with
each in adding to the roll of conquests, and it could hardly other be
supposed that America would stand by without taking part in the campaign
which was now being revived with so much fresh energy in the skies.

The American champion who stepped forward was Mr. John Wise, of
Lancaster, Pa., whose career, commencing in the year 1835, we must now
for a while follow. Few attempts at ballooning of any kind had up to
that time been made in all America. There is a record that in December,
1783, Messrs. Rittenhouse and Hopkins, Members of the Philosophical
Academy of Philadelphia, instituted experiments with an aerial machine
consisting of a cage to which forty-seven small balloons were harnessed.
In this strange craft a carpenter, by name Wilcox, was induced to
ascend, which, it is said, he did successfully, remaining in the air for
ten minutes, when, finding himself near a river, he sought to come to
earth again by opening several of his balloons. This brought about an
awkward descent, attended, however, by no more serious accident than a
dislocated wrist. Mr. Wise, on the other hand, states that Blanchard had
won the distinction of making the first ascent in the New World in 1793
in Philadelphia on which occasion Washington was a spectator; and a few
years afterwards other Frenchmen gave exhibitions, which, however, led
to no real development of the new art on this, the further side of the
Atlantic. Thus the endeavours we are about to describe were those of an
independent and, at the same time, highly, practical experimentalist,
and on this account have a special value of their own.

The records that Wise has left of his investigations begin at the
earliest stage, and posse