A GENTLEMAN OF THE SKY.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 285, 5 June 1909, Page 6

A GENTLEMAN OF THE SKY.

OSE OF THE GREATEST AERONAUTS OF THE AGE TELLS OF THE DELIGHTS AND RISKS OF BALLOONING. You are floating softly upward into ■a great blue ocean of air, fresh, sweet, •exhilirating. S\i ; iftly the earth sinks away beneath v you, blowing up around the horizon lino till it seems like the mouth of an enormous crater. The noisy shouts of "Bon Voyage!" ■die away in a faint, wavering strain, and soon you are in the midst of original silence. Tlio • earth changes, into .a . great, strange map.^ Tall buildings look like pepper boxes, and then are lost in the general squatness. Cities and villages become mere diffused outlines of ground plots 5 fences change into tiny, eranesccnt' lines;, roads look like pale yelloir rJMjons, and rivors like silver cracks in the .earth's surface . Now yon pass above the clouds, and into a dazzling sunlight. The white billows beneath, with the shadow of the car upon them, look like great trackless fields of snow. So realistic is the scene, it seems as if you could put on snoAvshoes and walk away. FROM DISCORD ,T0 HARMONY. • You are on a. new planet uoav, roused with 'a wonderful exhilaration. Beautiful rainbow effects create a veritable 'fairyland all about you. Suddenly a 'faint, weird music : of sweetest cadence strikes the ear, and is gone as swiftly, as it came. That is some great, jarring noise from the earth, or the heterogeneous roar of a big city merged into measured vibrations of harmony, and wafted up to your new world by some upspringing current of air.. Thus -one of the greatest aeronauts of the age describes the Herald Magazine the sensations of a balloon ascent. The beautiful word-picture mafkes one long 1 to take a trip into the unknown mists and sample the delights, of air travel. But there is another side less enchanting, more awe-inspiring, and a trip which the same aeronaut once took in America' illustrates this other phase. . "We went up very nicely," he says, in speaking of this adventure — "straight up for a few thousand feet — and then floated away from the city (Pittsburg) toward Dalton, a suburb. It was a fine, clear day, the weather predictions, were favorable, and when we struck our course we . began plotting on the map just how far we should go, and about where we might land. "Just over Dalton tho balloon stopped for a moment, and circled easily back toward Pittsburg. This move was against our. calculations,

and we. thought if rather fmniy. | Were we going eastward after all? . "That was decided; very qijickly. Just east of -the city w? stopped again, and came back in a narrower ■circle, more swiftly this time, and so around again and again, swifter, swifter — and then, as qiiick as a, flash, we plunged into night, "There was a great long streak of pale light straight up from our heads — a sort of road to Heaven, it 'struck me — and then came a roar like the sound of a cataract. We were still circling, but in such a small, fast ■cimunference that it made«us dizzy. ' "Suddenly there was a flash of light, and my companion leaned over the car. " 'Heavens!' said he. 'Look at that!' '' NOTHING COULD STOP-IT. "He pointed at a drag rope. For. a momenil savr itj it was flying taut, like a curved Vi-ljip-lasli, above our heads. Then it dawned upon me what Lad happened. We were caught in a cyclone cloud — caught in the tail of it— and were being sucked up through* the centre. "My companion motioned toward the safety valve, but .shook my head. ."'l'm not going to" valve!' I yelled, "Yon see, I reckoned that it was false suction pulling us up, and no device. in the world could check that ascent. ""Well, we got to the end of that long funnel after a while, /and seemed , to pop out suddenly upon what looked like a dark, billowy sea. Then we began to descend. "We were going down ..fast, and threw out. most of our sand, then our rugs, carrying cover, ' and lunch basket.- . ' s '■ . ' : "Suddenly the ground loomed up, and I ssatw t an open field and farmhouse. Aman was ploughing, and I yelled to him. He thought someone was calling to him, from the front of the house, and hurried away, leaving' his horses. We were coining down directly over them, and I. threw out miy last half -sack of sand. The balloon stopped, quivered a moment, floated away, and landed nicely." \ . .""■''. .