y
weather of 1900 that the writer and his son, accompanied by Admiral Sir
Edmund Fremantle and Mr. Percival Spencer, made an evening ascent from
Newbury. It had been a day of storms, but about 5 p.m., after what
appeared to be a clearing shower, the sky brightened, and we sailed up
into a cloudless heaven. The wind, at 3,000 feet, was travelling at some
thirty miles an hour, and ere the distance of ten miles had been covered
a formidable thunder pack was seen approaching and coming up dead
against the wind. Nothing could be more evident than that the balloon
was travelling rapidly with a lower wind, while the storm was being
borne equally rapidly on an upper and diametrically opposite current. It
proved one of the most severe thunderstorms remembered in the country.
It brooded for five hours over Devizes, a few miles ahead. A homestead
on our right was struck and burned to the ground, while on our left two
soldiers were killed on Salisbury Plain. The sky immediately overhead
was, of course, hidden by the large globe of the balloon, but around and
beneath us the storm seemed to gather in a blue grey mist, which quickly
broadened and deepened till, almost before we could realise it, we found
ourselves in the very heart of the storm, the lightning playing all
around us, and the sharp hail stinging our faces.

The countrymen below described the balloon as apparently enveloped by
the lightning, but with ourselves, though the flashes were incessant,
and on all sides, the reverberations of the thunder were not remarkable,
being rather brief explosions in which they resembled the thunder claps
not infrequently described by travellers on mountain heights.

The balloon was now descending from a double cause: the weight of
moisture suddenly accumulated on its surface, and the very obvious
downrush of cold air that accompanied the storm of pelting hail. With
a very limited store of ballast, it seemed impossible to make a further
ascent, nor was this desirable. The signalling experiments on which we
were intent could not be carried on in such weather. The only course
was to descend, and though this was not at once practicable, owing to
Savernake Forest being beneath us, we effected a safe landing in the
first available clearing.

As has been mentioned, Mr. Glaisher and other observers have recorded
several remarkable instances of opposite wind currents being met with
at moderate altitudes. None, however, can have been more notewor