Taking leave, then, of the two friends who had thus far assisted me, I entered the Astronaut on the 1st August, about 4.30 P.M.After sealing up the entrance-window, and ascertaining carefully that everything was in order--a task which occupied me about an hour--I set the generator to work; and when I had ascertained that the apergion was full, and that the force was supplied at the required rate, I directed the whole at first into the main conductor.

After doing this I turned towards the lower window on the west--or, as it was then, the right-hand side--and was in time to catch sight of the trees on the hills, some half mile off and about two hundred feet above the level of my starting-point.

I should have said that I had considerably compressed my atmosphere and increased the proportion of oxygen by about ten per cent., and also carried with me the means of reproducing the whole amount of the latter in case of need.

Among my instruments was a pressure-gauge, so minutely divided that, with a movable vernier of the same power as the fixed ones employed to read the glass circles, I could discover the slightest escape of air in a very few seconds.

The pressure-gauge, however, remained immovable.