OVER PYRENEES’ PEAKS IN A BALLOON.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume X, Issue 88, 7 February 1907, Page 2

OVER PYRENEES’ PEAKS IN A BALLOON.

Senor ID.ro, president of the Aero Club of Spain, repeats the fine phrase of Louis XIV., and declares, "There are no more Pyrenees.” The phrase of Louis was a political boast ; its paraphrase by Senor Duro means a physical fact—so far as the ' mountains as a barrier to the aeronaut are concerned. For Senor Duro, for the first time in history, has crossed the Pyrecnees in a balloon. Senor Duro lias given a description of his trip as follows : ‘‘The incentives,” said Senor Duro, "were the love of adventure and the offer by M. Henri Deutsch of a superb Pyreenees Cup to tho aeronaut who starting from Pau in France, wauld cross tho mountains and land the furthorest south of them in Spain or Portugal. "I left Pau alone in my balloon. El Cierzo, at 3.40 p.m., and about 6 o’clock, being then up 1,300 metres I saw by the‘whiteness of the ground that I was above the snow-coverad Pyrenees. The guide rope touching mountains, I threw out ballast and rose to 2,000 metres. "Currents of icy air and a snowstorm brought the balloon down again and the rope caught about a rock and there came a shock that threw me fiat in the basket and jerked the balloon against the face of the mountain. I leaned out to cut the rope, but changed my mind and emptied ballast so quickly that the rope was whipped away from the rock and I shot up to 3,000 metres. "At a quarter to 7 I saw the twinkling, lights of villages to the south and knew I had crossed the Pyrenees. The temperature then was so bitterly cold that the sand ballast was froze into a solid mass, my pate was like a rock, my bottle of wine was an icicle. . | SEES LIGHTS OF TOWNS BE- j LOW, | "My only solace was a cigar, and this I smoked under a irietallic veil to protect the light from the gas. At half-past 1 in the morning I saw by the light of my cigar that the barometer indicated a height of 3,500 metres and a great plain of illumination to the right showed me where Madrid lay. ;

"Soon the plains and lakes of La Mancha showed dimly and I rose to a height of 4,000 metres, keeping at this height and due south until 5 a.m. A dark line ahead seemed to indicate the range of the Sierra Nevada. Pointing my, signal horn towards the earth I blew it and waited for the echo, counting 300 metres per second until the echo camo back. i

"The echo returned so quickly that I .deballasted, shot up, crossed the ridge and then descended tranquilly toward a plain. I sounded the trumpet again and was answered from below by, a man, who said he was a hunter and that 1 was near the town of Guadix. Together we brought tho balloon to earth and J descended at 0.30 a.in., having covered about 800 kilometres.

"It was my second longest trip, my greatest distance being Jtos3 kilometres, which 1 made last year, when I. won second place in the great Aero Club race out of Paris, landing at Lindenau, in Moravia.” I