by that of the moon. In accordance with these ideas, I did not think
it worth while to encumber myself with more provisions than would be
sufficient for a period of forty days.
"There was still, however, another difficulty, which occasioned me
some little disquietude. It has been observed, that, in balloon
ascensions to any considerable height, besides the pain attending
respiration, great uneasiness is experienced about the head and body,
often accompanied with bleeding at the nose, and other symptoms of an
alarming kind, and growing more and more inconvenient in proportion
to the altitude attained.{*3} This was a reflection of a nature
somewhat startling. Was it not probable that these symptoms would
increase indefinitely, or at least until terminated by death itself?
I finally thought not. Their origin was to be looked for in the
progressive removal of the customary atmospheric pressure upon the
surface of the body, and consequent distention of the superficial
blood-vessels -- not in any positive disorganization of the animal
system, as in the case of difficulty in breathing, where the
atmospheric density is chemically insufficient for the due renovation
of blood in a ventricle of the heart. Unless for default of this
renovation, I could see no reason, therefore, why life could not be
sustained even in a vacuum; for the expansion and compression of
chest, commonly called breathing, is action purely muscular, and the
cause, not the effect, of respiration. In a word, I conceived that,
as the body should become habituated to the want of atmospheric
pressure, the sensations of pain would gradually diminish -- and to
endure them while they continued, I relied with confidence upon the
iron hardihood of my constitution.
"Thus, may it please your Excellencies, I have detailed some, though
by no means all, the considerations which led me to form the project
of a lunar voyage. I shall now proceed to lay before you the result
of an attempt so apparently audacious in conception, and, at all
events, so utterly unparalleled in the annals of mankind.
"Having attained the altitude before mentioned, that is to say three
miles and three-quarters, I threw out from the car a quantity of
feathers, and found that I still ascended with sufficient rapidity;
there was, therefore, no necessity for discharging any ballast. I was
glad of this, for I wished to retain with me as much weight as I
could carry, for reasons which will be explained in the sequel. I as
yet suffered no bodily inconvenience, breathing with great freedom,
and feeling no pain whatever in the head. The cat was lying very
demurely upon my coat, which I had taken off, and eyeing the pigeons
with an air of nonchalance. These latter being tied by the leg, to
prevent their escape, were busily employed in picking up some grains
of rice scattered for them in the bottom of the car.
"At twenty minutes past six o'clock, the barometer showed an
elevation of 26,400 feet, or five miles to a fraction. The prospect
seemed unbounded. Indeed, it is very easily calculated by means of
spherical geometry, what a great extent of the earth's area I beheld.
The convex surface of any segment of a sphere is, to the entire
surface of the sphere itself, as the versed sine of the segment to
the diameter of the sphere. Now, in my case, the versed sine -- that
is to say, the thickness of the segment beneath me -- was about equal
to my elevation, or the elevation of the point of sight above the
surface. "As five miles, then, to eight thousand," would express the
proportion of the earth's area seen by me. In other words, I beheld
as much as a sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the
globe. The sea appeared unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of
the spy-glass, I could perceive it to be in a state of violent
agitation. The ship was no longer visible, having drifted away,
apparently to the eastward. I now began to experience, at intervals,
severe pain in the head, especially about the ears -- still, however,
breathing with tolerable freedom. The cat and pigeons seemed to
suffer no inconvenience whatsoever.
"At twenty minutes before seven, the balloon entered a long series of
dense cloud, which put me to great trouble, by damaging my condensing
apparatus and wetting me to the skin. This was, to be sure, a
singular recontre, for I had not believed it possible that a cloud of
this nature could be sustained at so great an elevation. I thought it
best, however, to throw out two five-pound pieces of ballast,
reserving still a weight of one hundred and sixty-five pounds. Upon
so doing, I soon rose above the difficulty, and perceived
immediately, that I had obtained a great increase in my rate of
ascent. In a few seconds after my leaving the cloud, a flash of vivid
lightning shot from one end of it to the other, and caused it to
kindle up, throughout its vast extent, like a mass of ignited and
glowing charcoal. This, it must be remembered, was in the broad light
of day. No fancy may picture the sublimity which might have been
exhibited by a similar phenomenon taking place amid the darkness of
the night. Hell itself might have been found a fitting image. Even as
it was, my hair stood on end, while I gazed afar down within the
yawning abysses, letting imagination descend, as it were, and stalk
about in the strange vaulted halls, and ruddy gulfs, and red ghastly
chasms of the hideous and unfathomable fire. I had indeed made a
narrow escape. Had the balloon remained a very short while longer
within the cloud -- that is to say -- had not the inconvenience of
getting wet, determined me to discharge the ballast, inevitable ruin
would have been the consequence. Such perils, although little
considered, are perhaps the greatest which must be encountered in
balloons. I had by this time, however, attained too great an
elevation to be any longer uneasy on this head.
"I was now rising rapidly, and by seven o'clock the barometer
indicated an altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I began
to find great difficulty in drawing my breath. My head, too, was
excessively painful; and, having felt for some time a moisture about
my cheeks, I at length discovered it to be blood, which was oozing
quite fast from the drums of my ears. My eyes, also, gave me great
uneasiness. Upon passing the hand over them they seemed to have
protruded from their sockets in no inconsiderable degree; and all
objects in the car, and even the balloon itself, appeared distorted
to my vision. These symptoms were more than I had expected, and
occasioned me some alarm. At this juncture, very imprudently, and
without consideration, I threw out from the car three five-pound
pieces of ballast. The accelerated rate of ascent thus obtained,
carried me too rapidly, and without sufficient gradation, into a
highly rarefied stratum of the atmosphere, and the result had nearly
proved fatal to my expedition and to myself. I was suddenly seized
with a spasm which laste
d for more than five minutes, and even when
this, in a measure, ceased, I could catch my breath only at long
intervals, and in a gasping manner -- bleeding all the while
copiously at the nose and ears, and even slightly at the eyes. The
pigeons appeared distressed in the extreme, and struggled to escape;
while the cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out of
her mouth, staggered to and fro in the car as if under the influence
of poison. I now too late discovered the great rashness of which I
had been guilty in discharging the ballast, and my agitation was
excessive. I anticipated nothing less than death, and death in a few
minutes. The physical suffering I underwent contributed also to
render me nearly incapable of making any exertion for the
preservation of my life. I had, indeed, little power of reflection
left, and the violence of the pain in my head seemed to be greatly on
the increase. Thus I found that my senses would shortly give way
altogether, and I had already clutched one of the valve ropes with
the view of attempting a descent, when the recollection of the trick
I had played the three creditors, and the possible consequences to
myself, should I return, operated to deter me for the moment. I lay
down in the bottom of the car, and endeavored to collect my
faculties. In this I so far succeeded as to determine upon the
experiment of losing blood. Having no lancet, however, I was
constrained to perform the operation in the best manner I was able,
and finally succeeded in opening a vein in my right arm, with the
blade of my penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I
experienced a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half
a moderate basin full, most of the worst symptoms had abandoned me
entirely. I nevertheless did not think it expedient to attempt
getting on my feet immediately; but, having tied up my arm as well as
I could, I lay still for about a quarter of an hour. At the end of
this time I arose, and found myself freer from absolute pain of any
kind than I had been during the last hour and a quarter of my
ascension. The difficulty of breathing, however, was diminished in a
very slight degree, and I found that it would soon be positively
necessary to make use of my condenser. In the meantime, looking
toward the cat, who was again snugly stowed away upon my coat, I
discovered to my infinite surprise, that she had taken the
opportunity of my indisposition to bring into light a litter of three
little kittens. This was an addition to the number of passengers on
my part altogether unexpected; but I was pleased at the occurrence.
It would afford me a chance of bringing to a kind of test the truth
of a surmise, which, more than anything else, had influenced me in
attempting this ascension. I had imagined that the habitual endurance
of the atmospheric pressure at the surface of the earth was the
cause, or nearly so, of the pain attending animal existence at a
distance above the surface. Should the kittens be found to suffer
uneasiness in an equal degree with their mother, I must consider my
theory in fault, but a failure to do so I should look upon as a
strong confirmation of my idea.
"By eight o'clock I had actually attained an elevation of seventeen
miles above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to me evident
that my rate of ascent was not only on the increase, but that the
progression would have been apparent in a slight degree even had I
not discharged the ballast which I did. The pains in my head and ears
returned, at intervals, with violence, and I still continued to bleed
occasionally at the nose; but, upon the whole, I suffered much less
than might have been expected. I breathed, however, at every moment,
with more and more difficulty, and each inhalation was attended with
a troublesome spasmodic action of the chest. I now unpacked the
condensing apparatus, and got it ready for immediate use.
"The view of the earth, at this period of my ascension, was beautiful
indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the southward, as far as
I could see, lay a boundless sheet of apparently unruffled ocean,
which every moment gained a deeper and a deeper tint of blue and
began already to assume a slight appearance of convexity. At a vast
distance to the eastward, although perfectly discernible, extended
the islands of Great Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France
and Spain, with a small portion of the northern part of the continent
of Africa. Of individual edifices not a trace could be discovered,
and the proudest cities of mankind had utterly faded away from the
face of the earth. From the rock of Gibraltar, now dwindled into a
dim speck, the dark Mediterranean sea, dotted with shining islands as
the heaven is dotted with stars, spread itself out to the eastward as
far as my vision extended, until its entire mass of waters seemed at
length to tumble headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and I found
myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty cataract.
Overhead, the sky was of a jetty black, and the stars were
brilliantly visible.
"The pigeons about this time seeming to undergo much suffering, I
determined upon giving them their liberty. I first untied one of
them, a beautiful gray-mottled pigeon, and placed him upon the rim of
the wicker-work. He appeared extremely uneasy, looking anxiously
around him, fluttering his wings, and making a loud cooing noise, but
could not be persuaded to trust himself from off the car. I took him
up at last, and threw him to about half a dozen yards from the
balloon. He made, however, no attempt to descend as I had expected,
but struggled with great vehemence to get back, uttering at the same
time very shrill and piercing cries. He at length succeeded in
regaining his former station on the rim, but had hardly done so when
his head dropped upon his breast, and be fell dead within the car.
The other one did not prove so unfortunate. To prevent his following
the example of his companion, and accomplishing a return, I threw him
downward with all my force, and was pleased to find him continue his
descent, with great velocity, making use of his wings with ease, and
in a perfectly natural manner. In a very short time he was out of
sight, and I have no doubt he reached home in safety. Puss, who
seemed in a great measure recovered from her illness, now made a
hearty meal of the dead bird and then went to sleep with much
apparent satisfaction. Her kittens were quite lively, and so far
evinced not the slightest sign of any uneasiness whatever.
"At a quarter-past eight, being no longer able to draw breath without
the most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around the
car the apparatus belonging to the condenser. This apparatus will
require some little explanation, and your Excellencies will please to
bear in mind that my object, in the first place, was to surround
myself and cat entirely with a barricade against the highly rarefied
atmosphere in which I was exi
sting, with the intention of introducing
within this barricade, by means of my condenser, a quantity of this
same atmosphere sufficiently condensed for the purposes of
respiration. With this object in view I had prepared a very strong
perfectly air-tight, but flexible gum-elastic bag. In this bag, which
was of sufficient dimensions, the entire car was in a manner placed.
That is to say, it (the bag) was drawn over the whole bottom of the
car, up its sides, and so on, along the outside of the ropes, to the
upper rim or hoop where the net-work is attached. Having pulled the
bag up in this way, and formed a complete enclosure on all sides, and
at botttom, it was now necessary to fasten up its top or mouth, by
passing its material over the hoop of the net-work -- in other words,
between the net-work and the hoop. But if the net-work were separated
from the hoop to admit this passage, what was to sustain the car in
the meantime? Now the net-work was not permanently fastened to the
hoop, but attached by a series of running loops or nooses. I
therefore undid only a few of these loops at one time, leaving the
car suspended by the remainder. Having thus inserted a portion of the
cloth forming the upper part of the bag, I refastened the loops --
not to the hoop, for that would have been impossible, since the cloth
now intervened -- but to a series of large buttons, affixed to the
cloth itself, about three feet below the mouth of the bag, the
intervals between the buttons having been made to correspond to the
intervals between the loops. This done, a few more of the loops were
unfastened from the rim, a farther portion of the cloth introduced,
and the disengaged loops then connected with their proper buttons. In
this way it was possible to insert the whole upper part of the bag
between the net-work and the hoop. It is evident that the hoop would
now drop down within the car, while the whole weight of the car
itself, with all its contents, would be held up merely by the
strength of the buttons. This, at first sight, would seem an
inadequate dependence; but it was by no means so, for the buttons
were not only very strong in themselves, but so close together that a
very slight portion of the whole weight was supported by any one of
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 7