The
balloon was forced down upon them by the dilation, and one of
them, in the endeavour to work the valve, made a rent in the
lower part of the globe, from which the gas escaping almost over
the heads of the travellers, nearly choked them. The escape of
the gas had the usual result--the balloon descended rapidly, and
fell in a vineyard near Lugny, where they were found by the
peasants holding on to the trees by their legs and arms, and thus
attempting to stop the horizontal advance of the car. They had
risen to the height of over 17,000 feet, and they had descended
from this height in from four to five minutes.
For all practical purposes, the ascent was a failure, and the
aeronauts immediately commenced preparations for a new voyage,
which took place a month afterwards. They rose to very great
altitudes, but experienced no illness from the rarefied air. M.
Bixio did not feel the sharp pains in the ears from which he had
suffered on the former occasion. They passed through a mass of
cloud 15,000 feet in thickness, and they had not yet passed quite
through it, when at the height of over 21,000 feet from the
ground, they began to descend, their descent being caused by a
rent in the envelope of the balloon, from which the gas escaped.
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