er in rapid
succession, and shortly the MM. Roberts essayed a venture on new lines.
They attempted the guidance of a balloon by means of oars, and though
they failed in this they were fortunate in making a fresh record. They
also encountered a thunderstorm, and by adopting a perfectly scientific
method--of which more hereafter--succeeded in eluding it. The storm
broke around them when they were 14,000 feet high, and at this altitude,
noting that there were diverse currents aloft, they managed to manoeuvre
their balloon higher or lower at will and to suit their purpose, and
by this stratagem drew away from the storm centre. After six and a half
hours their voyage ended, but not until 150 miles had been covered.

It must be freely granted that prodigious progress had been made in
an art that as yet was little more than a year old; but assuredly not
enough to justify the absurdly inflated ideas that the Continental
public now began to indulge in. Men lost their mental balance, allowing
their imagination to run riot, and speculation became extravagant in
the extreme. There was to be no limit henceforward to the attainment
of fresh knowledge, nor any bounds placed to where man might roam. The
universe was open to him: he might voyage if he willed to the moon or
elsewhere: Paris was to be the starting point for other worlds: Heaven
itself had been taken by storm.

Moderation had to be learned ere long by the discipline of more than
one stern lesson. Hitherto a marvellous--call it a Providential--good
fortune had attended the first aerial travellers; and even when mishaps
presently came to be reckoned with, it may fairly be questioned whether
so many lives were sacrificed among those who sought to voyage through
the sky as were lost among such as first attempted to navigate the sea.

It is in such ventures as we are now regarding that fortune seems
readiest to favour the daring, and if I may digress briefly to adduce
experiences coming within my own knowledge, I would say that it is to
his very impulsiveness that the enthusiast often owes the safety of his
neck. It is the timid, not the bold rider, that comes to grief at the
fence. It is the man who draws back who is knocked over by a tramcar.
Sheer impetus, moral or physical, often carries you through, as in
the case of a fall from horse-back. To tumble off when your horse is
standing still and receive a dead blow from the ground might easily
break a limb. But at full gallo