adventure were growing every year more and more common on
the Continent. In Scandinavia we find the names of Andree, Fraenkal, and
Strindberg; in Denmark that of Captain Rambusch. Berlin and Paris had
virtually become the chief centres of the development of ballooning as a
science. In the former city a chief among aeronauts had arisen in Dr. A.
Berson, who, in December, 1894, not only reached 30,000 feet, ascending
alone, but at that height sustained himself sufficiently, by inhaling
oxygen, to take systematic observations throughout the entire voyage of
five hours. The year before, in company with Lieutenant Gross, he barely
escaped with his life, owing to tangled ropes getting foul of the valve.
Toulet and those who accompanied him lost their lives near Brussels.
Later Wolfert and his engineer were killed near Berlin, while Johannsen
and Loyal fell into the Sound. Thus ever fresh and more extended
enterprise was embarked upon with good fortune and ill. In fact, it had
become evident to all that the Continent afforded facilities for the
advancement of aerial exploration which could be met with in no other
parts of the world, America only excepted. And it was at this period
that the expedient of the ballon sonde, or unmanned balloon, was happily
thought of. One of these balloons, the "Cirrus," among several trials,
rose to a height, self-registered, of 61,000 feet, while a possible
greater height has been accorded to it. On one occasion, ascending from
Berlin, it fell in Western Russia, on another in Bosnia. Then, in 1896,
at the Meteorological Conference at Paris, with Mascart as President,
Gustave Hermite, with characteristic ardour, introduced a scheme of
national ascents with balloons manned and unmanned, and this scheme was
soon put in effect under a commission of famous names--Andree, Assmann,
Berson, Besancon, Cailletet, Erk, de Fonvielle, Hergesell, Hermite,
Jaubert, Pomotzew (of St. Petersburg), and Rotch (of Boston, Mass.).

In November, 1896, five manned balloons and three unmanned ascended
simultaneously from France, Germany, and Russia. The next year saw,
with the enterprise of these nations, the co-operation of Austria and
Belgium. Messrs. Hermite and Besancon, both French aeronauts, were the
first to make practical trial of the method of sounding the upper air by
unmanned balloons, and, as a preliminary attempt, dismissed from Paris
a number of small balloons, a large proportion of which were recovered,
ha