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A Ride Across the Channel, and Other Adventures in the Air
A Ride Across the Channel and Other Adventures in the Air Author:Fred Burnaby Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. COMING DOWN. I LOOKED at the thermometer, it marked 28 in the shade. There were only two bags of ballast left in the car. Very little for a fall... more » from the elevation which I had attained. Under ordinary circumstances I should have caused the balloon to descend on reaching theFrench coast; but with the capricious nature of the wind whocouldtell that there might not be now below me a current which would again take the balloon out to sea? It was necessary to remain up a little longer in order to place several miles between myself and the coast. The warmth of the earth had caused the balloon to rise a few hundred feet. Then she began todescend, but very slowly—a few pounds of ballast checking her downward course. At last I determined to descend to about 500 feet from the ground. One pull at ! the valve line, the first time I had touched it during the journey. The gas escaped at the top of the aerostat, the shutters of the valve giving a clear clicking sound as . they sharply closed together. Now the fields and country came clearly in sight through the misty atmosphere. It was easy to distinguish that I was no longer in England. For here women were mowing in a field ; there a girl was carrying what seemed to be a hod of bricks across her shoulders. Farther on I passed over the head of a man ploughing with two oxen and a horse. I dropped a little fine sand on him, as the balloon rapidly flitted onward. The fellow started, not knowing from where the dust had fallen. Presently he looked straight above him, and threw himself on his back, gazing into the clouds, with his hands stretched out in astonishment, and his legs in the air. " Descendez ! dcscendez!" cried some villagers outside a little inn ; and a gentleman, who from his garb I concluded was the priest of the pla...« less