scent and descent in the same balloon.

It is very shortly after this that we find Coxwell seduced into
undertaking for its owners the actual management of a balloon, the
property of Gale, and now to be known as the "Sylph." With this craft he
practically began his career as a professional balloonist, and after
a few preliminary ascents made in England, was told off to carry on
engagements in Belgium.

A long series of ascents was now made on the Continent, and in the
troubled state of affairs some stirring scenes were visited, not without
some real adventure. One occasion attended with imminent risk occurred
at Berlin in 1851. Coxwell relates that a Prussian labourer whom he
had dismissed for bad conduct, and who almost too manifestly harboured
revenge, nevertheless begged hard for a re-engagement, which, as the
man was a handy fellow, Coxwell at length assented to. He took up three
passengers beside himself, and at an elevation of some 3,000 feet found
it necessary to open the valve, when, on pulling the cord, one of the
top shutters broke and remained open, leaving a free aperture of 26
inches by 12 inches, and occasioning such a copious discharge of gas
that nothing short of a providential landing could save disaster. But
the providential landing came, the party falling into the embrace of a
fruit tree in an orchard. It transpired afterwards that the labourer had
been seen to tamper with the valve, the connecting lines of which he had
partially severed.

Returning to England in 1852 Coxwell, through the accidents inseparable
from his profession, found himself virtually in possession of the field.
Green, now advanced in years, was retiring from the public life in which
he had won so much fame and honour. Gale was dead, killed in an
ascent at Bordeaux. Only one aspirant contested the place of public
aeronaut--one Goulston, who had been Gale's patron. Before many months,
however, he too met with a balloonist's death, being dashed against some
stone walls when ascending near Manchester.

It will not be difficult to form an estimate of how entirely the
popularity of the balloon was now reestablished in England, from the
mere fact that before the expiration of the year Coxwell had been called
upon to make thirty-six voyages. Some of these were from Glasgow,
and here a certain coincidence took place which is too curious to be
omitted. A descent effected near Milngavie took place in the same field
in which Sadler, twent