The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfall
Edgar Allan Poe

The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfall(1)

By late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high state
of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there occurred of a
nature so completely unexpected-so entirely novel-so utterly at variance
with preconceived opinions-as to leave no doubt on my mind that long ere
this all Europe is in an uproar, all physics in a ferment, all reason
and astronomy together by the ears.

It appears that on the - - day of - - (I am not positive about the
date), a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically mentioned,
were assembled in the great square of the Exchange in the
well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was warm-unusually so for
the season-there was hardly a breath of air stirring; and the multitude
were in no bad humor at being now and then besprinkled with friendly
showers of momentary duration, that fell from large white masses of
cloud which chequered in a fitful manner the blue vault of the
firmament. Nevertheless, about noon, a slight but remarkable agitation
became apparent in the assembly: the clattering of ten thousand tongues
succeeded; and, in an instant afterward, ten thousand faces were
upturned toward the heavens, ten thousand pipes descended simultaneously
from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and a shout, which could be
compared to nothing but the roaring of Niagara, resounded long, loudly,
and furiously, through all the environs of Rotterdam.

The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From behind
the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of cloud already
mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open area of blue space, a
queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid substance, so oddly shaped,
so whimsically put together, as not to be in any manner comprehended,
and never to be sufficiently admired, by the host of sturdy burghers who
stood open-mouthed below. What could it be? In the name of all the vrows
and devils in Rotterdam, what could it possibly portend? No one knew, no
one could imagine; no one-not even the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus Von
Underduk-had the slightest clew by which to unravel the mystery; so, as
nothing more reasonable could be done, every one to a man replaced his
pipe carefully in the corner of his mouth, and cocking up his right eye
towards the phenomenon, puffed, paused, waddled about, and grunted
significantly-then waddled back, grunted, paused, and finally-puffed aga
in.

In the meantime, however, lower and still lower toward the goodly city,
came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so much smoke. In
a very few minutes it arrived near enough to be accurately discerned. It
appeared to be-yes! it was undoubtedly a species of balloon; but surely
no such balloon had ever been seen in Rotterdam before. For who, let me
ask, ever heard of a balloon manufactured entirely of dirty newspapers?
No man in Holland certainly; yet here, under the very noses of the
people, or rather at some distance above their noses was the identical
thing in question, and composed, I have it on the best authority, of the
precise material which no one had ever before known to be used for a
similar purpose. It was an egregious insult to the good sense of the
burghers of Rotterdam. As to the shape of the phenomenon, it was even
still more reprehensible. Being little or nothing better than a huge
foolscap turned upside down. And this similitude was regarded as by no
means l essened when, upon nearer inspection, there was perceived a
large tassel depending from its apex, and, around the upper rim or base
of the cone, a circle of little instruments, resembling sheep-bells,
which kept up a continual tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But
still worse. Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this fantastic
machine, there hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver bat, with a
brim superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black band
and a silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that many
citizens of Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat repeatedly
before; and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard it with eyes of
familiarity; while the vrow Grettel Pfaall, upon sight of it, uttered an
exclamation of joyful surprise, and declared it to be the identical hat
of her good man himself. Now this was a circumstance the more to be
observed, as Pfaall, with three companions, had actually disappeared
from Rotterdam about five years be fore, in a very sudden and
unaccountable manner, and up to the date of this narrative all attempts
had failed of obtaining any intelligence concerning them whatsoever. To
be sure, some bones which were thought to be human, mixed up with a
quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately discovered in a retired
situation to the east of Rotterdam, and some people went so far as to
imagine that in this spot a foul murder had been committed, and that the
sufferers were in all probability Hans Pfaall and his associates. But to
return.

The balloon (for such no doubt it was) had now descended to within a
hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a sufficiently
distinct view of the person of its occupant. This was in truth a very
droll little somebody. He could not have been more than two feet in
height; but this altitude, little as it was, would have been sufficient
to destroy his equilibrium, and tilt him over the edge of his tiny car,
but for the intervention of a circular rim reaching as high as the
breast, and rigged on to the cords of the balloon. The body of the
little man was more than proportionately broad, giving to his entire
figure a rotundity highly absurd. His feet, of course, could not be seen
at all, although a horny substance of suspicious nature was occasionally
protruded through a rent in the bottom of the car, or to speak more
properly, in the top of the hat. His hands were enormously large. His
hair was extremely gray, and collected in a cue behind. His nose was
prodigiously long, crooked , and inflammatory; his eyes full, brilliant,
and acute; his chin and cheeks, although wrinkled with age, were broad,
puffy, and double; but of ears of any kind or character there was not a
semblance to be discovered upon any portion of his head. This odd little
gentleman was dressed in a loose surtout of sky-blue satin, with tight
breeches to match, fastened with silver buckles at the knees. His vest
was of some bright yellow material; a white taffety cap was set jauntily
on one side of his head; and, to complete his equipment, a blood-red
silk handkerchief enveloped his throat, and fell down, in a dainty
manner, upon his bosom, in a fantastic bow-knot of super-eminent
dimensions.

Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet from the
surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was suddenly seized with
a fit of trepidation, and appeared disinclined to make any nearer
approach to terra firma. Throwing out, therefore, a quantity of sand
from a canvas bag, which, he lifted with great difficulty, he became
stationary in an instant. He then proceeded, in a hurried and agitated
manner, to extract from a side-pocket in his surtout a large morocco
pocket-book. This he poised suspiciously in his hand, then eyed it with
an air of extreme surprise, and was evidently astonished at its weight.
He at length opened it, and drawing there from a huge letter sealed with
red sealing-wax and tied carefully with red tape, let it fall precisely
at the feet of the burgomaster, Superbus Von Underduk. His Excellency
stooped to take it up. But the aeronaut, still greatly discomposed, and
having apparently no farther business to detain him in Rotterdam, began
at this mo ment to make busy preparations for departure; and it being
necessary to discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to reascend,
the half dozen bags which he threw out, one after another, without
taking the trouble to empty their contents, tumbled, every one of them,
most unfortunately upon the back of the burgomaster, and rolled him over
and over no less than one-and-twenty times, in the face of every man in
Rotterdam. It is not to be supposed, however, that the great Underduk
suffered this impertinence on the part of the little old man to pass off
with impunity. It is said, on the contrary, that during each and every
one of his one-and twenty circumvolutions he emitted no less than
one-and-twenty distinct and furious whiffs from his pipe, to which he
held fast the whole time with all his might, and to which he intends
holding fast until the day of his death.

In the meantime the balloon arose like a lark, and, soaring far away
above the city, at length drifted quietly behind a cloud similar to that
from which it had so oddly emerged, and was thus lost forever to the
wondering eyes of the good citiezns of Rotterdam. All attention was now
directed to the letter, the descent of which, and the consequences
attending thereupon, had proved so fatally subversive of both person and
personal dignity to his Excellency, the illustrious Burgomaster Mynheer
Superbus Von Underduk. That functionary, however, had not failed, during
his circumgyratory movements, to bestow a thought upon the important
subject of securing the packet in question, which was seen, upon
inspection, to have fallen into the most proper hands, being actually
addressed to himself and Professor Rub-a-dub, in their official
capacities of President and Vice-President of the Rotterdam College of
Astronomy. It was accordingly opened by those dignitaries upon the spot,
and found to contain the following extraordinary, and indeed very
serious, communications.

To their Excellencies Von Underduk and Rub-a-dub, President and
Vice-President of the States' College of Astronomers, in the city of
Rotterdam.

"Your Excellencies may perhaps be able to remember an humble artizan, by
name Hans Pfaall, and by occupation a mender of bellows, who, with three
others, disappeared from Rotterdam, about five years ago, in a manner
which must have been considered by all parties at once sudden, and
extremely unaccountable. If, however, it so please your Excellencies, I,
the writer of this communication, am the identical Hans Pfaall himself.
It is well known to most of my fellow citizens, that for the period of
forty years I continued to occupy the little square brick building, at
the head of the alley called Sauerkraut, in which I resided at the time
of my disappearance. My ancestors have also resided therein time out of
mind-they, as well as myself, steadily following the respectable and
indeed lucrative profession of mending of bellows. For, to speak the
truth, until of late years, that the heads of all the people have been
set agog with politics, no better business than my own could an honest
citize n of Rotterdam either desire or deserve. Credit was good,
employment was never wanting, and on all hands there was no lack of
either money or good-will. But, as I was saying, we soon began to feel
the effects of liberty and long speeches, and radicalism, and all that
sort of thing. People who were formerly, the very best customers in the
world, had now not a moment of time to think of us at all. They had, so
they said, as much as they could do to read about the revolutions, and
keep up with the march of intellect and the spirit of the age. If a fire
wanted fanning, it could readily be fanned with a newspaper, and as the
government grew weaker, I have no doubt that leather and iron acquired
durability in proportion, for, in a very short time, there was not a
pair of bellows in all Rotterdam that ever stood in need of a stitch or
required the assistance of a hammer. This was a state of things not to
be endured. I soon grew as poor as a rat, and, having a wife and
children to provide for, my burdens at length became intolerable, and I
spent hour after hour in reflecting upon the most convenient method of
putting an end to my life. Duns, in the meantime, left me little leisure
for contemplation. My house was literally besieged from morning till
night, so that I began to rave, and foam, and fret like a caged tiger
against the bars of his enclosure. There were three fellows in
particular who worried me beyond endurance, keeping watch continually
about my door, and threatening me with the law. Upon these three I
internally vowed the bitterest revenge, if ever I should be so happy as
to get them within my clutches; and I believe nothing in the world but
the pleasure of this anticipation prevented me from putting my plan of
suicide into immediate execution, by blowing my brains out with a
blunderbuss. I thought it best, however, to dissemble my wrath, and to
treat them with promises and fair words, until, by some good turn of
fate, an opportunity of vengeance should be affor ded me.

"One day, having given my creditors the slip, and feeling more than
usually dejected, I continued for a long time to wander about the most
obscure streets without object whatever, until at length I chanced to
stumble against the corner of a bookseller's stall. Seeing a chair close
at hand, for the use of customers, I threw myself doggedly into it, and,
hardly knowing why, opened the pages of the first volume which came
within my reach. It proved to be a small pamphlet treatise on
Speculative Astronomy, written either by Professor Encke of Berlin or by
a Frenchman of somewhat similar name. I had some little tincture of
information on matters of this nature, and soon became more and more
absorbed in the contents of the book, reading it actually through twice
before I awoke to a recollection of what was passing around me. By this
time it began to grow dark, and I directed my steps toward home. But the
treatise had made an indelible impression on my mind, and, as I
sauntered along the dusk y streets, I revolved carefully over in my
memory the wild and sometimes unintelligible reasonings of the writer.
There are some particular passages which affected my imagination in a
powerful and extraordinary manner. The longer I meditated upon these the
more intense grew the interest which had been excited within me. The
limited nature of my education in general, and more especially my
ignorance on subjects connected with natural philosophy, so far from
rendering me diffident of my own ability to comprehend what I had read,
or inducing me to mistrust the many vague notions which had arisen in
consequence, merely served as a farther stimulus to imagination; and I
was vain enough, or perhaps reasonable enough, to doubt whether those
crude ideas which, arising in ill-regulated minds, have all the
appearance, may not often in effect possess all the force, the reality,
and other inherent properties, of instinct or intuition; whether, to
proceed a step farther, profundity itself might not , in matters of a
purely speculative nature, be detected as a legitimate source of falsity
and error. In other words, I believed, and still do believe, that truth,
is frequently of its own essence, superficial, and that, in many cases,
the depth lies more in the abysses where we seek her, than in the actual
situations wherein she may be found. Nature herself seemed to afford me
corroboration of these ideas. In the contemplation of the heavenly
bodies it struck me forcibly that I could not distinguish a star with
nearly as much precision, when I gazed on it with earnest, direct and
undeviating attention, as when I suffered my eye only to glance in its
vicinity alone. I was not, of course, at that time aware that this
apparent paradox was occasioned by the center of the visual area being
less susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the exterior
portions of the retina. This knowledge, and some of another kind, came
afterwards in the course of an eventful five years, during which I have
dropped the prejudices of my former humble situation in life, and
forgotten the bellows-mender in far different occupations. But at the
epoch of which I speak, the analogy which a casual observation of a star
offered to the conclusions I had already drawn, struck me with the force
of positive conformation, and I then finally made up my mind to the
course which I afterwards pursued.

"It was late when I reached home, and I went immediately to bed. My
mind, however, was too much occupied to sleep, and I lay the whole night
buried in meditation. Arising early in the morning, and contriving again
to escape the vigilance of my creditors, I repaired eagerly to the
bookseller's stall, and laid out what little ready money I possessed, in
the purchase of some volumes of Mechanics and Practical Astronomy.
Having arrived at home safely with these, I devoted every spare moment
to their perusal, and soon made such proficiency in studies of this
nature as I thought sufficient for the execution of my plan. In the
intervals of this period, I made every endeavor to conciliate the three
creditors who had given me so much annoyance. In this I finally
succeeded-partly by selling enough of my household furniture to satisfy
a moiety of their claim, and partly by a promise of paying the balance
upon completion of a little project which I told them I had in view, and
for assistance in wh ich I solicited their services. By these means-for
they were ignorant men-I found little difficulty in gaining them over to
my purpose.

"Matters being thus arranged, I contrived, by the aid of my wife and
with the greatest secrecy and caution, to dispose of what property I had
remaining, and to borrow, in small sums, under various pretences, and
without paying any attention to my future means of repayment, no
inconsiderable quantity of ready money. With the means thus accruing I
proceeded to procure at intervals, cambric muslin, very fine, in pieces
of twelve yards each; twine; a lot of the varnish of caoutchouc; a large
and deep basket of wicker-work, made to order; and several other
articles necessary in the construction and equipment of a balloon of
extraordinary dimensions. This I directed my wife to make up as soon as
possible, and gave her all requisite information as to the particular
method of proceeding. In the meantime I worked up the twine into a
net-work of sufficient dimensions; rigged it with a hoop and the
necessary cords; bought a quadrant, a compass, a spy-glass, a common
barometer with some important modifications, and two astronomical
instruments not so generally known. I then took opportunities of
conveying by night, to a retired situation east of Rotterdam, five
iron-bound casks, to contain about fifty gallons each, and one of a
larger size; six tinned ware tubes, three inches in diameter, properly
shaped, and ten feet in length; a quantity of a particular metallic
substance, or semi-metal, which I shall not name, and a dozen demijohns
of a very common acid. The gas to be formed from these latter materials
is a gas never yet generated by any other person than myself-or at least
never applied to any similar purpose. The secret I would make no
difficulty in disclosing, but that it of right belongs to a citizen of
Nantz, in France, by whom it was conditionally communicated to myself.
The same individual submitted to me, without being at all aware of my
intentions, a method of constructing balloons from the membrane of a
certain animal, through which substance any escape of gas was nearly an
impossibility. I found it, however, altogether too expensive, and was
not sure, upon the whole, whether cambric muslin with a coating of gum
caoutchouc, was not equally as good. I mention this circumstance,
because I think it probable that hereafter the individual in question
may attempt a balloon ascension with the novel gas and material I have
spoken of, and I do not wish to deprive him of the honor of a very
singular invention.

"On the spot which I intended each of the smaller casks to occupy
respectively during the inflation of the balloon, I privately dug a hole
two feet deep; the holes forming in this manner a circle twenty-five
feet in diameter. In the centre of this circle, being the station
designed for the large cask, I also dug a hole three feet in depth. In
each of the five smaller holes, I deposited a canister containing fifty
pounds, and in the larger one a keg holding one hundred and fifty
pounds, of cannon powder. These-the keg and canisters-I connected in a
proper manner with covered trains; and having let into one of the
canisters the end of about four feet of slow match, I covered up the
hole, and placed the cask over it, leaving the other end of the match
protruding about an inch, and barely visible beyond the cask. I then
filled up the remaining holes, and placed the barrels over them in their
destined situation.

"Besides the articles above enumerated, I conveyed to the depot, and
there secreted, one of M. Grimm's improvements upon the apparatus for
condensation of the atmospheric air. I found this machine, however, to
require considerable alteration before it could be adapted to the
purposes to which I intended making it applicable. But, with severe
labor and unremitting perseverance, I at length met with entire success
in all my preparations. My balloon was soon completed. It would contain
more than forty thousand cubic feet of gas; would take me up easily, I
calculated, with all my implements, and, if I managed rightly, with one
hundred and seventy-five pounds of ballast into the bargain. It had
received three coats of varnish, and I found the cambric muslin to
answer all the purposes of silk itself, quite as strong and a good deal
less expensive.

"Everything being now ready, I exacted from my wife an oath of secrecy
in relation to all my actions from the day of my first visit to the
bookseller's stall; and promising, on my part, to return as soon as
circumstances would permit, I gave her what little money I had left, and
bade her farewell. Indeed I had no fear on her account. She was what
people call a notable woman, and could manage matters in the world
without my assistance. I believe, to tell the truth, she always looked
upon me as an idle boy, a mere make-weight, good for nothing but
building castles in the air, and was rather glad to get rid of me. It
was a dark night when I bade her good-bye, and taking with me, as
aides-de-camp, the three creditors who had given me so much trouble, we
carried the balloon, with the car and accoutrements, by a roundabout
way, to the station where the other articles were deposited. We there
found them all unmolested, and I proceeded immediately to business.

"It was the first of April. The night, as I said before, was dark; there
was not a star to be seen; and a drizzling rain, falling at intervals,
rendered us very uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was concerning the
balloon, which, in spite of the varnish with which it was defended,
began to grow rather heavy with the moisture; the powder also was liable
to damage. I therefore kept my three duns working with great diligence,
pounding down ice around the central cask, and stirring the acid in the
others. They did not cease, however, importuning me with questions as to
what I intended to do with all this apparatus, and expressed much
dissatisfaction at the terrible labor I made them undergo. They could
not perceive, so they said, what good was likely to result from their
getting wet to the skin, merely to take a part in such horrible
incantations. I began to get uneasy, and worked away with all my might,
for I verily believe the idiots supposed that I had entered into a
compact with the devil, and that, in short, what I was now doing was
nothing better than it should be. I was, therefore, in great fear of
their leaving me altogether. I contrived, however, to pacify them by
promises of payment of all scores in full, as soon as I could bring the
present business to a termination. To these speeches they gave, of
course, their own interpretation; fancying, no doubt, that at all events
I should come into possession of vast quantities of ready money; and
provided I paid them all I owed, and a trifle more, in consideration of
their services, I dare say they cared very little what became of either
my soul or my carcass.

"In about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently
inflated. I attached the car, therefore, and put all my implements in
it-not forgetting the condensing apparatus, a copious supply of water,
and a large quantity of provisions, such as pemmican, in which much
nutriment is contained in comparatively little bulk. I also secured in
the car a pair of pigeons and a cat. It was now nearly daybreak, and I
thought it high time to take my departure. Dropping a lighted cigar on
the ground, as if by accident, I took the opportunity, in stooping to
pick it up, of igniting privately the piece of slow match, whose end, as
I said before, protruded a very little beyond the lower rim of one of
the smaller casks. This manoeuvre was totally unperceived on the part of
the three duns; and, jumping into the car, I immediately cut the single
cord which held me to the earth, and was pleased to find that I shot
upward, carrying with all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of
leaden ballast, and able to have carried up as many more.

"Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards, when,
roaring and rumbling up after me in the most horrible and tumultuous
manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire, and smoke, and sulphur, and
legs and arms, and gravel, and burning wood, and blazing metal, that my
very heart sunk within me, and I fell down in the bottom of the car,
trembling with unmitigated terror. Indeed, I now perceived that I had
entirely overdone the business, and that the main consequences of the
shock were yet to be experienced. Accordingly, in less than a second, I
felt all the blood in my body rushing to my temples, and immediately
thereupon, a concussion, which I shall never forget, burst abruptly
through the night and seemed to rip the very firmament asunder. When I
afterward had time for reflection, I did not fail to attribute the
extreme violence of the explosion, as regarded myself, to its proper
cause-my situation directly above it, and in the line of its greatest
power. But at the time, I thought only of preserving my life. The
balloon at first collapsed, then furiously expanded, then whirled round
and round with horrible velocity, and finally, reeling and staggering
like a drunken man, hurled me with great force over the rim of the car,
and left me dangling, at a terrific height, with my head downward, and
my face outwards, by a piece of slender cord about three feet in length,
which hung accidentally through a crevice near the bottom of the
wicker-work, and in which, as I fell, my left foot became most
providentially entangled. It is impossible-utterly impossible-to form
any adequate idea of the horror of my situation. I gasped convulsively
for breath-a shudder resembling a fit of the ague agitated every nerve
and muscle of my frame-I felt my eyes starting from their sockets-a
horrible nausea overwhelmed me-and at length I fainted away.

"How long I remained in this state it is impossible to say. It must,
however, have been no inconsiderable time, for when I partially
recovered the sense of existence, I found the day breaking, the balloon
at a prodigious height over a wilderness of ocean, and not a trace of
land to be discovered far and wide within the limits of the vast
horizon. My sensations, however, upon thus recovering, were by no means
so rife with agony as might have been anticipated. Indeed, there was
much of incipient madness in the calm survey which I began to take of my
situation. I drew up to my eyes each of my hands, one after the other,
and wondered what occurrence could have given rise to the swelling of
the veins, and the horrible blackness of the fingemails. I afterward
carefully examined my head, shaking it repeatedly, and feeling it with
minute attention, until I succeeded in satisfying myself that it was
not, as I had more than half suspected, larger than my balloon. Then, in
a knowing manner, I fel t in both my breeches pockets, and, missing
therefrom a set of tablets and a toothpick case, endeavored to account
for their disappearance, and not being able to do so, felt inexpressibly
chagrined. It now occurred to me that I suffered great uneasiness in the
joint of my left ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation began to
glimmer through my mind. But, strange to say! I was neither astonished
nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it was a kind of
chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to display in
extricating myself from this dilemma; and I never, for a moment, looked
upon my ultimate safety as a question susceptible of doubt. For a few
minutes I remained wrapped in the profoundest meditation. I have a
distinct recollection of frequently compressing my lips, putting my
forefinger to the side of my nose, and making use of other
gesticulations and grimaces common to men who, at ease in their
arm-chairs, meditate upon matters of intricacy or importance . Having,
as I thought, sufficiently collected my ideas, I now, with great caution
and deliberation, put my hands behind my back, and unfastened the large
iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my inexpressibles. This
buckle had three teeth, which, being somewhat rusty, turned with great
difficulty on their axis. I brought them, however, after some trouble,
at right angles to the body of the buckle, and was glad to find them
remain firm in that position. Holding the instrument thus obtained
within my teeth, I now proceeded to untie the knot of my cravat. I had
to rest several times before I could accomplish this manoeuvre, but it
was at length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then made fast
the buckle, and the other end I tied, for greater security, tightly
around my wrist. Drawing now my body upwards, with a prodigious exertion
of muscular force, I succeeded, at the very first trial, in throwing the
buckle over the car, and entangling it, as I had anticipated, in the c
ircular rim of the wicker-work.

"My body was now inclined towards the side of the car, at an angle of
about forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was
therefore only forty-five degrees below the perpendicular. So far from
it, I still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon; for the
change of situation which I had acquired, had forced the bottom of the
car considerably outwards from my position, which was accordingly one of
the most imminent and deadly peril. It should be remembered, however,
that when I fell in the first instance, from the car, if I had fallen
with my face turned toward the balloon, instead of turned outwardly from
it, as it actually was; or if, in the second place, the cord by which I
was suspended had chanced to hang over the upper edge, instead of
through a crevice near the bottom of the car,-I say it may be readily
conceived that, in either of these supposed cases, I should have been
unable to accomplish even as much as I had now accomplished, and the
wonderful adventures of Hans Pfaall would have been utterly lost to
posterity, I had therefore every reason to be grateful; although, in
point of fact, I was still too stupid to be anything at all, and hung
for, perhaps, a quarter of an hour in that extraordinary manner, without
making the slightest farther exertion whatsoever, and in a singularly
tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment. But this feeling did not fail to
die rapidly away, and thereunto succeeded horror, and dismay, and a
chilling sense of utter helplessness and ruin. In fact, the blood so
long accumulating in the vessels of my head and throat, and which had
hitherto buoyed up my spirits with madness and delirium, had now begun
to retire within their proper channels, and the distinctness which was
thus added to my perception of the danger, merely served to deprive me
of the self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this weakness
was, luckily for me, of no very long duration. In good time came to my
rescue the spirit of despair, and, with frantic cries and struggles, I
jerked my way bodily upwards, till at length, clutching with a vise-like
grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it, and fell
headlong and shuddering within the car.

"It was not until some time afterward that I recovered myself
sufficiently to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon. I then,
however, examined it with attention, and found it, to my great relief,
uninjured. My implements were all safe, and, fortunately, I had lost
neither ballast nor provisions. Indeed, I had so well secured them in
their places, that such an accident was entirely out of the question.
Looking at my watch, I found it six o'clock. I was still rapidly
ascending, and my barometer gave a present altitude of three and
three-quarter miles. Immediately beneath me in the ocean, lay a small
black object, slightly oblong in shape, seemingly about the size, and in
every way bearing a great resemblance to one of those childish toys
called a domino. Bringing my telescope to bear upon it, I plainly
discerned it to be a British ninety four-gun ship, close-hauled, and
pitching heavily in the sea with her head to the W.S.W. Besides this
ship, I saw nothing but the ocean and the sk y, and the sun, which had
long arisen.

"It is now high time that I should explain to your Excellencies the
object of my perilous voyage. Your Excellencies will bear in mind that
distressed circumstances in Rotterdam had at length driven me to the
resolution of committing suicide. It was not, however, that to life
itself I had any, positive disgust, but that I was harassed beyond
endurance by the adventitious miseries attending my situation. In this
state of mind, wishing to live, yet wearied with life, the treatise at
the stall of the bookseller opened a resource to my imagination. I then
finally made up my mind. I determined to depart, yet live-to leave the
world, yet continue to exist-in short, to drop enigmas, I resolved, let
what would ensue, to force a passage, if I could, to the moon. Now, lest
I should be supposed more of a madman than I actually am, I will detail,
as well as I am able, the considerations which led me to believe that an
achievement of this nature, although without doubt difficult, and
incontestably f ull of danger, was not absolutely, to a bold spirit,
beyond the confines of the possible.

"The moon's actual distance from the earth was the first thing to be
attended to. Now, the mean or average interval between the centres of
the two planets is 59.9643 of the earth's equatorial radii, or only
about 237,000 miles. I say the mean or average interval. But it must be
borne in mind that the form of the moon's orbit being an ellipse of
eccentricity amounting to no less than 0.05484 of the major semi-axis of
the ellipse itself, and the earth's centre being situated in its focus,
if I could, in any manner, contrive to meet the moon, as it were, in its
perigee, the above mentioned distance would be materially diminished.
But, to say nothing at present of this possibility, it was very certain
that, at all events, from the 237,000 miles I would have to deduct the
radius of the earth, say 4,000, and the radius of the moon, say 1080, in
all 5,080, leaving an actual interval to be traversed, under average
circumstances, of 231,920 miles. Now this, I reflected, was no very
extraordinar y distance. Travelling on land has been repeatedly
accomplished at the rate of thirty miles per hour, and indeed a much
greater speed may be anticipated. But even at this velocity, it would
take me no more than 322 days to reach the surface of the moon. There
were, however, many particulars inducing me to believe that my average
rate of travelling might possibly very much exceed that of thirty miles
per hour, and, as these considerations did not fail to make a deep
impression upon my mind, I will mention them more fully hereafter.

"The next point to be regarded was a matter of far greater importance.
From indications afforded by the barometer, we find that, in ascensions
from the surface of the earth we have, at the height of 1,000 feet, left
below us about one-thirtieth of the entire mass of atmospheric air, that
at 10,600 we have ascended through nearly one-third; and that at 18,000,
which is not far from the elevation of Cotopaxi, we have surmounted
one-half the material, or, at all events, one-half the ponderable, body
of air incumbent upon our globe. It is also calculated that at an
altitude not exceeding the hundredth part of the earth's diameter-that
is, not exceeding eighty miles-the rarefaction would be so excessive
that animal life could in no manner be sustained, and, moreover, that
the most delicate means we possess of ascertaining the presence of the
atmosphere would be inadequate to assure us of its existence. But I did
not fail to perceive that these latter calculations are founded
altogether on o ur experimental knowledge of the properties of air, and
the mechanical laws regulating its dilation and compression, in what may
be called, comparatively speaking, the immediate vicinity of the earth
itself; and, at the same time, it is taken for granted that animal life
is and must be essentially incapable of modification at any given
unattainable distance from the surface. Now, all such reasoning and from
such data must, of course, be simply analogical. The greatest height
ever reached by man was that of 25,000 feet, attained in the aeronautic
expedition of Messieurs Gay-Lussac and Biot. This is a moderate
altitude, even when compared with the eighty miles in question; and I
could not help thinking that the subject admitted room for doubt and
great latitude for speculation.

"But, in point of fact, an ascension being made to any given altitude,
the ponderable quantity of air surmounted in any farther ascension is by
no means in proportion to the additional height ascended (as may be
plainly seen from what has been stated before), but in a ratio
constantly decreasing. It is therefore evident that, ascend as high as
we may, we cannot, literally speaking, arrive at a limit beyond which no
atmosphere is to be found. It must exist, I argued; although it may
exist in a state of infinite rarefaction.

"On the other hand, I was aware that arguments have not been wanting to
prove the existence of a real and definite limit to the atmosphere,
beyond which there is absolutely no air whatsoever. But a circumstance
which has been left out of view by those who contend for such a limit
seemed to me, although no positive refutation of their creed, still a
point worthy very serious investigation. On comparing the intervals
between the successive arrivals of Encke's comet at its perihelion,
after giving credit, in the most exact manner, for all the disturbances
due to the attractions of the planets, it appears that the periods are
gradually diminishing; that is to say, the major axis of the comet's
ellipse is growing shorter, in a slow but perfectly regular decrease.
Now, this is precisely what ought to be the case, if we suppose a
resistance experienced from the comet from an extremely rare ethereal
medium pervading the regions of its orbit. For it is evident that such a
medium must, in retard ing the comet's velocity, increase its
centripetal, by weakening its centrifugal force. In other words, the
sun's attraction would be constantly attaining greater power, and the
comet would be drawn nearer at every revolution. Indeed, there is no
other way of accounting for the variation in question. But again. The
real diameter of the same comet's nebulosity is observed to contract
rapidly as it approaches the sun, and dilate with equal rapidity in its
departure towards its aphelion. Was I not justifiable in supposing with
M. Valz, that this apparent condensation of volume has its origin in the
compression of the same ethereal medium I have spoken of before, and
which is only denser in proportion to its solar vicinity? The
lenticular-shaped phenomenon, also called the zodiacal light, was a
matter worthy of attention. This radiance, so apparent in the tropics,
and which cannot be mistaken for any meteoric lustre, extends from the
horizon obliquely upward, and follows generally the dire ction of the
sun's equator. It appeared to me evidently in the nature of a rare
atmosphere extending from the sun outward, beyond the orbit of Venus at
least, and I believed indefinitely farther.2 Indeed, this medium I could
not suppose confined to the path of the comet's ellipse, or to the
immediate neighborhood of the sun. It was easy, on the contrary, to
imagine it pervading the entire regions of our planetary system,
condensed into what we call atmosphere at the planets themselves, and
perhaps at some of them modified by considerations, so to speak, purely
geological.

Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little further
hesitation. Granting that on my passage I should meet with atmosphere
essentially the same as at the surface of the earth, I conceived that,
by means of the very ingenious apparatus of M. Grimm, I should readily
be enabled to condense it in sufficient quantity for the purposes of
respiration. This would remove the chief obstacle in a journey to the
moon. I had indeed spent some money and great labor in adapting the
apparatus to the object intended, and confidently looked forward to its
successful application, if I could manage to complete the voyage within
any reasonable period. This brings me back to the rate at which it might
be possible to travel.

"It is true that balloons, in the first stage of their ascensions from
the earth, are known to rise with a velocity comparatively moderate.
Now, the power of elevation lies altogether in the superior lightness of
the gas in the balloon compared with the atmospheric air; and, at first
sight, it does not appear probable that, as the balloon acquires
altitude, and consequently arrives successively in atmospheric strata of
densities rapidly diminishing-I say, it does not appear at all
reasonable that, in this its progress upwards, the original velocity
should be accelerated. On the other hand, I was not aware that, in any
recorded ascension, a diminution was apparent in the absolute rate of
ascent; although such should have been the case, if on account of
nothing else, on account of the escape of gas through balloons
ill-constructed, and varnished with no better material than the ordinary
varnish. It seemed, therefore, that the effect of such escape was only
sufficient to counterbalance th e effect of some accelerating power. I
now considered that, provided in my passage I found the medium I had
imagined, and provided that it should prove to be actually and
essentially what we denominate atmospheric air, it could make
comparatively little difference at what extreme state of rarefaction I
should discover it-that is to say, in regard to my power of
ascending-for the gas in the balloon would not only be itself subject to
rarefaction partially similar (in proportion to the occurrence of which,
I could suffer an escape of so much as would be requisite to prevent
explosion), but, being what it was, would, at all events, continue
specifically lighter than any compound whatever of mere nitrogen and
oxygen. In the meantime, the force of gravitation would be constantly
diminishing, in proportion to the squares of the distances, and thus,
with a velocity prodigiously accelerating, I should at length arrive in
those distant regions where the force of the earth's attraction would be
superseded 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 bloo d 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, apparen tly 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
th e 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 fa tal to my expedition and to myself. I was suddenly seized with
a spasm which lasted 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 abo ut 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 a ttending 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 c ontinue 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 existing, 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 them. Indeed, had the car and contents been
three times heavier than they were, I should not have been at all
uneasy. I now raised up the hoop again within the covering of
gum-elastic, and propped it at nearly its former height by means of
three light poles prepared for the occasion. This was done, of course, t
o keep the bag distended at the top, and to preserve the lower part of
the net-work in its proper situation. All that now remained was to
fasten up the mouth of the enclosure; and this was readily accomplished
by gathering the folds of the material together, and twisting them up
very tightly on the inside by means of a kind of stationary tourniquet.

"In the sides of the covering thus adjusted round the car, had been
inserted three circular panes of thick but clear glass, through which I
could see without difficulty around me in every horizontal direction. In
that portion of the cloth forming the bottom, was likewise, a fourth
window, of the same kind, and corresponding with a small aperture in the
floor of the car itself. This enabled me to see perpendicularly down,
but having found it impossible to place any similar contrivance
overhead, on account of the peculiar manner of closing up the opening
there, and the consequent wrinkles in the cloth, I could expect to see
no objects situated directly in my zenith. This, of course, was a matter
of little consequence; for had I even been able to place a window at
top, the balloon itself would have prevented my making any use of it.

"About a foot below one of the side windows was a circular opening,
eight inches in diameter, and fitted with a brass rim adapted in its
inner edge to the windings of a screw. In this rim was screwed the large
tube of the condenser, the body of the machine being, of course, within
the chamber of gum-elastic. Through this tube a quantity of the rare
atmosphere circumjacent being drawn by means of a vacuum created in the
body of the machine, was thence discharged, in a state of condensation,
to mingle with the thin air already in the chamber. This operation being
repeated several times, at length filled the chamber with atmosphere
proper for all the purposes of respiration. But in so confined a space
it would, in a short time, necessarily become foul, and unfit for use
from frequent contact with the lungs. It was then ejected by a small
valve at the bottom of the car-the dense air readily sinking into the
thinner atmosphere below. To avoid the inconvenience of making a total
vacuum at an y moment within the chamber, this purification was never
accomplished all at once, but in a gradual manner-the valve being opened
only for a few seconds, then closed again, until one or two strokes from
the pump of the condenser had supplied the place of the atmosphere
ejected. For the sake of experiment I had put the cat and kittens in a
small basket, and suspended it outside the car to a button at the
bottom, close by the valve, through which I could feed them at any
moment when necessary. I did this at some little risk, and before
closing the mouth of the chamber, by reaching under the car with one of
the poles before mentioned to which a hook had been attached.

"By the time I had fully completed these arrangements and filled the
chamber as explained, it wanted only ten minutes of nine o'clock. During
the whole period of my being thus employed, I endured the most terrible
distress from difficulty of respiration, and bitterly did I repent the
negligence or rather fool-hardiness, of which I had been guilty, of
putting off to the last moment a matter of so much importance. But
having at length accomplished it, I soon began to reap the benefit of my
invention. Once again I breathed with perfect freedom and ease-and
indeed why should I not? I was also agreeably surprised to find myself,
in a great measure, relieved from the violent pains which had hitherto
tormented me. A slight headache, accompanied with a sensation of fulness
or distention about the wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly
all of which I had now to complain. Thus it seemed evident that a
greater part of the uneasiness attending the removal of atmospheric
pressure had actual ly worn off, as I had expected, and that much of the
pain endured for the last two hours should have been attributed
altogether to the effects of a deficient respiration.

"At twenty minutes before nine o'clock-that is to say, a short time
prior to my closing up the mouth of the chamber, the mercury attained
its limit, or ran down, in the barometer, which, as I mentioned before,
was one of an extended construction. It then indicated an altitude on my
part of 132,000 feet, or five-and-twenty miles, and I consequently
surveyed at that time an extent of the earth's area amounting to no less
than the three hundred-and-twentieth part of its entire superficies. At
nine o'clock I had again lost sight of land to the eastward, but not
before I became aware that the balloon was drifting rapidly to the N. N.
W. The convexity of the ocean beneath me was very evident indeed,
although my view was often interrupted by the masses of cloud which
floated to and fro. I observed now that even the lightest vapors never
rose to more than ten miles above the level of the sea.

"At half past nine I tried the experiment of throwing out a handful of
feathers through the valve. They did not float as I had expected; but
dropped down perpendicularly, like a bullet, en masse, and with the
greatest velocity-being out of sight in a very few seconds. I did not at
first know what to make of this extraordinary phenomenon; not being able
to believe that my rate of ascent had, of a sudden, met with so
prodigious an acceleration. But it soon occurred to me that the
atmosphere was now far too rare to sustain even the feathers; that they
actually fell, as they appeared to do, with great rapidity; and that I
had been surprised by the united velocities of their descent and my own
elevation.

"By ten o'clock I found that I had very little to occupy my immediate
attention. Affairs went swimmingly, and I believed the balloon to be
going upward witb a speed increasing momently although I had no longer
any means of ascertaining the progression of the increase. I suffered no
pain or uneasiness of any kind, and enjoyed better spirits than I had at
any period since my departure from Rotterdam, busying myself now in
examining the state of my various apparatus, and now in regenerating the
atmosphere within the chamber. This latter point I determined to attend
to at regular intervals of forty minutes, more on account of the
preservation of my health, than from so frequent a renovation being
absolutely necessary. In the meanwhile I could not help making
anticipations. Fancy revelled in the wild and dreamy regions of the
moon. Imagination, feeling herself for once unshackled, roamed at will
among the ever-changing wonders of a shadowy and unstable land. Now
there were boary and time-ho nored forests, and craggy precipices, and
waterfalls tumbling with a loud noise into abysses without a bottom.
Then I came suddenly into still noonday solitudes, where no wind of
heaven ever intruded, and where vast meadows of poppies, and slender,
lily-looking flowers spread themselves out a weary distance, all silent
and motionless forever. Then again I journeyed far down away into
another country where it was all one dim and vague lake, with a boundary
line of clouds. And out of this melancholy water arose a forest of tall
eastern trees, like a wilderness of dreams. And I have in mind that the
shadows of the trees which fell upon the lake remained not on the
surface where they fell, but sunk slowly and steadily down, and
commingled with the waves, while from the trunks of the trees other
shadows were continually coming out, and taking the place of their
brothers thus entombed. "This then," I said thoughtfully, "is the very
reason why the waters of this lake grow blacker with age, an d more
melancholy as the hours run on." But fancies such as these were not the
sole possessors of my brain. Horrors of a nature most stern and most
appalling would too frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and
shake the innermost depths of my soul with the bare supposition of their
possibility. Yet I would not suffer my thoughts for any length of time
to dwell upon these latter speculations, rightly judging the real and
palpable dangers of the voyage sufficient for my undivided attention.

"At five o'clock, p.m., being engaged in regenerating the atmosphere
within the chamber, I took that opportunity of observing the cat and
kittens through the valve. The cat herself appeared to suffer again very
much, and I had no hesitation in attributing her uneasiness chiefly to a
difficulty in breathing; but my experiment with the kittens had resulted
very strangely. I had expected, of course, to see them betray a sense of
pain, although in a less degree than their mother, and this would have
been sufficient to confirm my opinion concerning the habitual endurance
of atmospheric pressure. But I was not prepared to find them, upon close
examination, evidently enjoying a high degree of health, breathing with
the greatest ease and perfect regularity, and evincing not the slightest
sign of any uneasiness whatever. I could only account for all this by
extending my theory, and supposing that the highly rarefied atmosphere
around might perhaps not be, as I had taken for granted, chemically
insufficient for the purposes of life, and that a person born in such a
medium might, possibly, be unaware of any inconvenience attending its
inhalation, while, upon removal to the denser strata near the earth, he
might endure tortures of a similar nature to those I had so lately
experienced. It has since been to me a matter of deep regret that an
awkward accident, at this time, occasioned me the loss of my little
family of cats, and deprived me of the insight into this matter which a
continued experiment might have afforded. In passing my hand through the
valve, with a cup of water for the old puss, the sleeves of my shirt
became entangled in the loop which sustained the basket, and thus, in a
moment, loosened it from the bottom. Had the whole actually vanished
into air, it could not have shot from my sight in a more abrupt and
instantaneous manner. Positively, there could not have intervened the
tenth part of a second between the disengagement of the basket and its
absolute and total disappearance with all that it contained. My good
wishes followed it to the earth, but of course, I had no hope that
either cat or kittens would ever live to tell the tale of their
misfortune.

"At six o'clock, I perceived a great portion of the earth's visible area
to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which continued to advance
with great rapidity, until, at five minutes before seven, the whole
surface in view was enveloped in the darkness of night. It was not,
however, until long after this time that the rays of the setting sun
ceased to illumine the balloon; and this circumstance, although of
course fully anticipated, did not fail to give me an infinite deal of
pleasure. It was evident that, in the morning, I should behold the
rising luminary many hours at least before the citizens of Rotterdam, in
spite of their situation so much farther to the eastward, and thus, day
after day, in proportion to the height ascended, would I enjoy the light
of the sun for a longer and a longer period. I now determined to keep a
journal of my passage, reckoning the days from one to twenty-four hours
continuously, without taking into consideration the intervals of
darkness.

"At ten o'clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the rest
of the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which, obvious as
it may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very moment of which I
am now speaking. If I went to sleep as I proposed, how could the
atmosphere in the chamber be regenerated in the interim? To breathe it
for more than an hour, at the farthest, would be a matter of
impossibility, or, if even this term could be extended to an hour and a
quarter, the most ruinous consequences might ensue. The consideration of
this dilemma gave me no little disquietude; and it will hardly be
believed, that, after the dangers I had undergone, I should look upon
this business in so serious a light, as to give up all hope of
accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my mind to the
necessity of a descent. But this hesitation was only momentary. I
reflected that man is the veriest slave of custom, and that many points
in the routine of his existence are deemed essentially important, which
are only so at all by his having rendered them habitual. It was very
certain that I could not do without sleep; but I might easily bring
myself to feel no inconvenience from being awakened at intervals of an
hour during the whole period of my repose. It would require but five
minutes at most to regenerate the atmosphere in the fullest manner, and
the only real difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing myself at
the proper moment for so doing. But this was a question which, I am
willing to confess, occasioned me no little trouble in its solution. To
be sure, I had heard of the student who, to prevent his falling asleep
over his books, held in one hand a ball of copper, the din of whose
descent into a basin of the same metal on the floor beside his chair,
served effectually to startle him up, if, at any moment, he should be
overcome with drowsiness. My own case, however, was very different
indeed, and left me no room for any similar idea; for I d id not wish to
keep awake, but to be aroused from slumber at regular intervals of time.
I at length hit upon the following expedient, which, simple as it may
seem, was hailed by me, at the moment of discovery, as an invention
fully equal to that of the telescope, the steam-engine, or the art of
printing itself.

"It is necessary to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation now
attained, continued its course upward with an even and undeviating
ascent, and the car consequently followed with a steadiness so perfect
that it would have been impossible to detect in it the slightest
vacillation whatever. This circumstance favored me greatly in the
project I now determined to adopt. My supply of water had been put on
board in kegs containing five gallons each, and ranged very securely
around the interior of the car. I unfastened one of these, and taking
two ropes tied them tightly across the rim of the wicker-work from one
side to the other; placing them about a foot apart and parallel so as to
form a kind of shelf, upon which I placed the keg, and steadied it in a
horizontal position. About eight inches immediately below these ropes,
and four feet from the bottom of the car I fastened another shelf-but
made of thin plank, being the only similar piece of wood I had. Upon
this latter shelf, and exact ly beneath one of the rims of the keg, a
small earthern pitcher was deposited. I now bored a hole in the end of
the keg over the pitcher, and fitted in a plug of soft wood, cut in a
tapering or conical shape. This plug I pushed in or pulled out, as might
happen, until, after a few experiments, it arrived at that exact degree
of tightness, at which the water, oozing from the hole, and falling into
the pitcher below, would fill the latter to the brim in the period of
sixty minutes. This, of course, was a matter briefly and easily
ascertained, by noticing the proportion of the pitcher filled in any
given time. Having arranged all this, the rest of the plan is obvious.
My bed was so contrived upon the floor of the car, as to bring my head,
in lying down, immediately below the mouth of the pitcher. It was
evident, that, at the expiration of an hour, the pitcher, getting full,
would be forced to run over, and to run over at the mouth, which was
somewhat lower than the rim. It was also eviden t, that the water thus
falling from a height of more than four feet, could not do otherwise
than fall upon my face, and that the sure consequences would be, to
waken me up instantaneously, even from the soundest slumber in the
world.

"It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these arrangements, and
I immediately betook myself to bed, with full confidence in the
efficiency of my invention. Nor in this matter was I disappointed.
Punctually every sixty minutes was I aroused by my trusty chronometer,
when, having emptied the pitcher into the bung-hole of the keg, and
performed the duties of the condenser, I retired again to bed. These
regular interruptions to my slumber caused me even less discomfort than
I had anticipated; and when I finally arose for the day, it was seven
o'clock, and the sun had attained many degrees above the line of my
horizon.

"April 3d. I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and the
earth's apparent convexity increased in a material degree. Below me in
the ocean lay a cluster of black specks, which undoubtedly were islands.
Far away to the northward I perceived a thin, white, and exceedingly
brilliant line, or streak, on the edge of the horizon, and I had no
hesitation in supposing it to be the southern disk of the ices of the
Polar Sea. My curiosity was greatly excited, for I had hopes of passing
on much farther to the north, and might possibly, at some period, find
myself placed directly above the Pole itself. I now lamented that my
great elevation would, in this case, prevent my taking as accurate a
survey as I could wish. Much, however, might be ascertained. Nothing
else of an extraordinary nature occurred during the day. My apparatus
all continued in good order, and the balloon still ascended without any
perceptible vacillation. The cold was intense, and obliged me to wrap up
closely in an ov ercoat. When darkness came over the earth, I betook
myself to bed, although it was for many hours afterward broad daylight
all around my immediate situation. The water-clock was punctual in its
duty, and I slept until next morning soundly, with the exception of the
periodical interruption.

"April 4th. Arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished at the
singular change which had taken place in the appearance of the sea. It
had lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue it had hitherto
worn, being now of a grayish-white, and of a lustre dazzling to the eye.
The islands were no longer visible; whether they had passed down the
horizon to the southeast, or whether my increasing elevation had left
them out of sight, it is impossible to say. I was inclined, however, to
the latter opinion. The rim of ice to the northward was growing more and
more apparent. Cold by no means so intense. Nothing of importance
occurred, and I passed the day in reading, having taken care to supply
myself with books.

"April 5th. Beheld the singular phenomenon of the sun rising while
nearly the whole visible surface of the earth continued to be involved
in darkness. In time, however, the light spread itself over all, and I
again saw the line of ice to the northward. It was now very distinct,
and appeared of a much darker hue than the waters of the ocean. I was
evidently approaching it, and with great rapidity. Fancied I could again
distinguish a strip of land to the eastward, and one also to the
westward, but could not be certain. Weather moderate. Nothing of any
consequence happened during the day. Went early to bed.

"April 6th. Was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very moderate
distance, and an immense field of the same material stretching away off
to the horizon in the north. It was evident that if the balloon held its
present course, it would soon arrive above the Frozen Ocean, and I had
now little doubt of ultimately seeing the Pole. During the whole of the
day I continued to near the ice. Toward night the limits of my horizon
very suddenly and materially increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth's
form being that of an oblate spheroid, and my arriving above the
flattened regions in the vicinity of the Arctic circle. When darkness at
length overtook me, I went to bed in great anxiety, fearing to pass over
the object of so much curiosity when I should have no opportunity of
observing it.

"April 7th. Arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld what
there could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole itself. It
was there, beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my feet; but, alas! I
had now ascended to so vast a distance, that nothing could with accuracy
be discerned. Indeed, to judge from the progression of the numbers
indicating my various altitudes, respectively, at different periods,
between six A.M. on the second of April, and twenty minutes before nine
A.M. of the same day (at which time the barometer ran down), it might be
fairly inferred that the balloon had now, at four o'clock in the morning
of April the seventh, reached a height of not less, certainly, than
7,254 miles above the surface of the sea. This elevation may appear
immense, but the estimate upon which it is calculated gave a result in
all probability far inferior to the truth. At all events I undoubtedly
beheld the whole of the earth's major diameter; the entire northern
hemisphere lay beneath me like a chart orthographically projected: and
the great circle of the equator itself formed the boundary line of my
horizon. Your Excellencies may, however, readily imagine that the
confined regions hitherto unexplored within the limits of the Arctic
circle, although situated directly beneath me, and therefore seen
without any appearance of being foreshortened, were still, in
themselves, comparatively too diminutive, and at too great a distance
from the point of sight, to admit of any very accurate examination.
Nevertheless, what could be seen was of a nature singular and exciting.
Northwardly from that huge rim before mentioned, and which, with slight
qualification, may be called the limit of human discovery in these
regions, one unbroken, or nearly unbroken, sheet of ice continues to
extend. In the first few degrees of this its progress, its surface is
very sensibly flattened, farther on depressed into a plane, and finally,
becoming not a little concave, it terminates, at the Pole itself, in a
circular centre, sharply defined, wbose apparent diameter subtended at
the balloon an angle of about sixty-five seconds, and whose dusky hue,
varying in intensity, was, at all times, darker than any other spot upon
the visible hemisphere, and occasionally deepened into the most absolute
and impenetrable blackness. Farther than this, little could be
ascertained. By twelve o'clock the circular centre had materially
decreased in circumference, and by seven P.M. I lost sight of it
entirely; the balloon passing over the western limb of the ice, and
floating away rapidly in the direction of the equator.

"April 8th. Found a sensible diminution in the earth's apparent
diameter, besides a material alteration in its general color and
appearance. The whole visible area partook in different degrees of a
tint of pale yellow, and in some portions had acquired a brilliancy even
painful to the eye. My view downward was also considerably impeded by
the dense atmosphere in the vicinity of the surface being loaded with
clouds, between whose masses I could only now and then obtain a glimpse
of the earth itself. This difficulty of direct vision had troubled me
more or less for the last forty-eight hours; but my present enormous
elevation brought closer together, as it were, the floating bodies of
vapor, and the inconvenience became, of course, more and more palpable
in proportion to my ascent. Nevertheless, I could easily perceive that
the balloon now hovered above the range of great lakes in the continent
of North America, and was holding a course, due south, which would bring
me to the tropics. Th is circumstance did not fail to give me the most
heartful satisfaction, and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate
success. Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken, had filled me with
uneasiness; for it was evident that, had I continued it much longer,
there would have been no possibility of my arriving at the moon at all,
whose orbit is inclined to the ecliptic at only the small angle of 5
degrees 8' 48".

"April 9th. To-day the earth's diameter was greatly diminished, and the
color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of yellow. The balloon
kept steadily on her course to the southward, and arrived, at nine P.M.,
over the northern edge of the Mexican Gulf.

"April 10th. I was suddenly aroused from slumber, about five o'clock
this morning, by a loud, crackling, and terrific sound, for which I
could in no manner account. It was of very brief duration, but, while it
lasted resembled nothing in the world of which I had any previous
experience. It is needless to say that I became excessively alarmed,
having, in the first instance, attributed the noise to the bursting of
the balloon. I examined all my apparatus, however, with great attention,
and could discover nothing out of order. Spent a great part of the day
in meditating upon an occurrence so extraordinary, but could find no
means whatever of accounting for it. Went to bed dissatisfied, and in a
state of great anxiety and agitation.

"April 11th. Found a startling diminution in the apparent diameter of
the earth, and a considerable increase, now observable for the first
time, in that of the moon itself, which wanted only a few days of being
full. It now required long and excessive labor to condense within the
chamber sufficient atmospheric air for the sustenance of life.

"April 12th. A singular alteration took place in regard to the direction
of the balloon, and although fully anticipated, afforded me the most
unequivocal delight. Having reached, in its former course, about the
twentieth parallel of southern latitude, it turned off suddenly, at an
acute angle, to the eastward, and thus proceeded throughout the day,
keeping nearly, if not altogether, in the exact plane of the lunar
elipse. What was worthy of remark, a very perceptible vacillation in the
car was a consequence of this change of route-a vacillation which
prevailed, in a more or less degree, for a period of many hours.

"April 13th. Was again very much alarmed by a repetition of the loud,
crackling noise which terrified me on the tenth. Thought long upon the
subject, but was unable to form any satisfactory conclusion. Great
decrease in the earth's apparent diameter, which now subtended from the
balloon an angle of very little more than twenty-five degrees. The moon
could not be seen at all, being nearly in my zenith. I still continued
in the plane of the elipse, but made little progress to the eastward.

"April 14th. Extremely rapid decrease in the diameter of the earth.
To-day I became strongly impressed with the idea, that the balloon was
now actually running up the line of apsides to the point of perigee- in
other words, holding the direct course which would bring it immediately
to the moon in that part of its orbit the nearest to the earth. The moon
iself was directly overhead, and consequently hidden from my view. Great
and long-continued labor necessary for the condensation of the
atmosphere.

"April 15th. Not even the outlines of continents and seas could now be
traced upon the earth with anything approaching distinctness. About
twelve o'clock I became aware, for the third time, of that appalling
sound which had so astonished me before. It now, however, continued for
some moments, and gathered intensity as it continued. At length, while,
stupefied and terror-stricken, I stood in expectation of I knew not what
hideous destruction, the car vibrated with excessive violence, and a
gigantic and flaming mass of some material which I could not
distinguish, came with a voice of a thousand thunders, roaring and
booming by the balloon. When my fears and astonishment had in some
degree subsided, I had little difficulty in supposing it to be some
mighty volcanic fragment ejected from that world to which I was so
rapidly approaching, and, in all probability, one of that singular class
of substances occasionally picked up on the earth, and termed meteoric
stones for want of a better appe llation.

"April 16th. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through each of
the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great delight, a very
small portion of the moon's disk protruding, as it were, on all sides
beyond the huge circumference of the balloon. My agitation was extreme;
for I had now little doubt of soon reaching the end of my perilous
voyage. Indeed, the labor now required by the condenser had increased to
a most oppressive degree, and allowed me scarcely any respite from
exertion. Sleep was a matter nearly out of the question. I became quite
ill, and my frame trembled with exhaustion. It was impossible that human
nature could endure this state of intense suffering much longer. During
the now brief interval of darkness a meteoric stone again passed in my
vicinity, and the frequency of these phenomena began to occasion me much
apprehension.

"April 17th. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will be
remembered that, on the thirteenth, the earth subtended an angular
breadth of twenty-five degrees. On the fourteenth this had greatly
diminished; on the fifteenth a still more remarkable decrease was
observable; and, on retiring on the night of the sixteenth, I had
noticed an angle of no more than about seven degrees and fifteen
minutes. What, therefore, must have been my amazement, on awakening from
a brief and disturbed slumber, on the morning of this day, the
seventeenth, at finding the surface beneath me so suddenly and
wonderfully augmented in volume, as to subtend no less than thirty-nine
degrees in apparent angular diameter! I was thunderstruck! No words can
give any adequate idea of the extreme, the absolute horror and
astonishment, with which I was seized possessed, and altogether
overwhelmed. My knees tottered beneath me-my teeth chattered-my hair
started up on end. "The balloon, then, had actually burst!" The se were
the first tumultuous ideas that hurried through my mind: "The balloon
had positively burst!-I was falling-falling with the most impetuous, the
most unparalleled velocity! To judge by the immense distance already so
quickly passed over, it could not be more than ten minutes, at the
farthest, before I should meet the surface of the earth, and be hurled
into annihilation!" But at length reflection came to my relief. I
paused; I considered; and I began to doubt. The matter was impossible. I
could not in any reason have so rapidly come down. Besides, although I
was evidently approaching the surface below me, it was with a speed by
no means commensurate with the velocity I had at first so horribly
conceived. This consideration served to calm the perturbation of my
mind, and I finally succeeded in regarding the phenomenon in its proper
point of view. In fact, amazement must have fairly deprived me of my
senses, when I could not see the vast difference, in appearance, between
the surfa ce below me, and the surface of my mother earth. The latter
was indeed over my head, and completely hidden by the balloon, while the
moon-the moon itself in all its glory-lay beneath me, and at my feet.

"The stupor and surprise produced in my mind by this extraordinary
change in the posture of affairs was perhaps, after all, that part of
the adventure least susceptible of explanation. For the bouleversement
in itself was not only natural and inevitable, but had been long
actually anticipated as a circumstance to be expected whenever I should
arrive at that exact point of my voyage where the attraction of the
planet should be superseded by the attraction of the satellite-or, more
precisely, where the gravitation of the balloon toward the earth should
be less powerful than its gravitation toward the moon. To be sure I
arose from a sound slumber, with all my senses in confusion, to the
contemplation of a very startling phenomenon, and one which, although
expected, was not expected at the moment. The revolution itself must, of
course, have taken place in an easy and gradual manner, and it is by no
means clear that, had I even been awake at the time of the occurrence, I
should have been ma de aware of it by any internal evidence of an
inversion-that is to say, by any inconvenience or disarrangement, either
about my person or about my apparatus.

"It is almost needless to say that, upon coming to a due sense of my
situation, and emerging from the terror which had absorbed every faculty
of my soul, my attention was, in the first place, wholly directed to the
contemplation of the general physical appearance of the moon. It lay
beneath me like a chart-and although I judged it to be still at no
inconsiderable distance, the indentures of its surface were defined to
my vision with a most striking and altogether unaccountable
distinctness. The entire absence of ocean or sea, and indeed of any lake
or river, or body of water whatsoever, struck me, at first glance, as
the most extraordinary feature in its geological condition. Yet, strange
to say, I beheld vast level regions of a character decidedly alluvial,
although by far the greater portion of the hemisphere in sight was
covered with innumerable volcanic mountains, conical in shape, and
having more the appearance of artificial than of natural protuberance.
The highest among them doe s not exceed three and three-quarter miles in
perpendicular elevation; but a map of the volcanic districts of the
Campi Phlegraei would afford to your Excellencies a better idea of their
general surface than any unworthy description I might think proper to
attempt. The greater part of them were in a state of evident eruption,
and gave me fearfully to understand their fury and their power, by the
repeated thunders of the miscalled meteoric stones, which now rushed
upward by the balloon with a frequency more and more appalling.

"April 18th. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon's apparent
bulk-and the evidently accelerated velocity of my descent began to fill
me with alarm. It will be remembered, that, in the earliest stage of my
speculations upon the possibility of a passage to the moon, the
existence, in its vicinity, of an atmosphere, dense in proportion to the
bulk of the planet, had entered largely into my calculations; this too
in spite of many theories to the contrary, and, it may be added, in
spite of a general disbelief in the existence of any lunar atmosphere at
all. But, in addition to what I have already urged in regard to Encke's
comet and the zodiacal light, I had been strengthened in my opinion by
certain observations of Mr. Schroeter, of Lilienthal. He observed the
moon when two days and a half old, in the evening soon after sunset,
before the dark part was visible, and continued to watch it until it
became visible. The two cusps appeared tapering in a very sharp faint
prolongation, each exhibiting its farthest extremity faintly illuminated
by the solar rays, before any part of the dark hemisphere was visible.
Soon afterward, the whole dark limb became illuminated. This
prolongation of the cusps beyond the semicircle, I thought, must have
arisen from the refraction of the sun's rays by the moon's atmosphere. I
computed, also, the height of the atmosphere (which could refract light
enough into its dark hemisphere to produce a twilight more luminous than
the light reflected from the earth when the moon is about 32 degrees
from the new) to be 1,356 Paris feet; in this view, I supposed the
greatest height capable of refracting the solar ray, to be 5,376 feet.
My ideas on this topic had also received confirmation by a passage in
the eighty-second volume of the Philosophical Transactions, in which it
is stated that at an occultation of Jupiter's satellites, the third
disappeared after having been about 1" or 2" of time indistinct, and the
fourth became indiscernible nea r the limb.4

"Cassini frequently observed Saturn, Jupiter, and the fixed stars, when
approaching the moon to occultation, to have their circular figure
changed into an oval one; and, in other occultations, he found no
alteration of figure at all. Hence it might be supposed, that at some
times and not at others, there is a dense matter encompassing the moon
wherein the rays of the stars are refracted.

"Upon the resistance or, more properly, upon the support of an
atmosphere, existing in the state of density imagined, I had, of course,
entirely depended for the safety of my ultimate descent. Should I then,
after all, prove to have been mistaken, I had in consequence nothing
better to expect, as a finale to my adventure, than being dashed into
atoms against the rugged surface of the satellite. And, indeed, I had
now every reason to be terrified. My distance from the moon was
comparatively trifling, while the labor required by the condenser was
diminished not at all, and I could discover no indication whatever of a
decreasing rarity in the air.

"April 19th. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o'clock, the
surface of the moon being frightfully near, and my apprehensions excited
to the utmost, the pump of my condenser at length gave evident tokens of
an alteration in the atmosphere. By ten, I had reason to believe its
density considerably increased. By eleven, very little labor was
necessary at the apparatus; and at twelve o'clock, with some hesitation,
I ventured to unscrew the tourniquet, when, finding no inconvenience
from having done so, I finally threw open the gum-elastic chamber, and
unrigged it from around the car. As might have been expected, spasms and
violent headache were the immediate consequences of an experiment so
precipitate and full of danger. But these and other difficulties
attending respiration, as they were by no means so great as to put me in
peril of my life, I determined to endure as I best could, in
consideration of my leaving them behind me momently in my approach to
the denser strata near the m oon. This approach, however, was still
impetuous in the extreme; and it soon became alarmingly certain that,
although I had probably not been deceived in the expectation of an
atmosphere dense in proportion to the mass of the satellite, still I had
been wrong in supposing this density, even at the surface, at all
adequate to the support of the great weight contained in the car of my
balloon. Yet this should have been the case, and in an equal degree as
at the surface of the earth, the actual gravity of bodies at either
planet supposed in the ratio of the atmospheric condensation. That it
was not the case, however, my precipitous downfall gave testimony
enough; why it was not so, can only be explained by a reference to those
possible geological disturbances to which I have formerly alluded. At
all events I was now close upon the planet, and coming down with the
most terrible impetuosity. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in throwing
overboard first my ballast, then my water-kegs, then m y condensing
apparatus and gum-elastic chamber, and finally every article within the
car. But it was all to no purpose. I still fell with horrible rapidity,
and was now not more than half a mile from the surface. As a last
resource, therefore, having got rid of my coat, hat, and boots, I cut
loose from the balloon the car itself, which was of no inconsiderable
weight, and thus, clinging with both hands to the net-work, I had barely
time to observe that the whole country, as far as the eye could reach,
was thickly interspersed with diminutive habitations, ere I tumbled
headlong into the very heart of a fantastical-looking city, and into the
middle of a vast crowd of ugly little people, who none of them uttered a
single syllable, or gave themselves the least trouble to render me
assistance, but stood, like a parcel of idiots, grinning in a ludicrous
manner, and eyeing me and my balloon askant, with their arms set
a-kimbo. I turned from them in contempt, and, gazing upward at the earth
so lately left, and left perhaps for ever, beheld it like a huge, dull,
copper shield, about two degrees in diameter, fixed immovably in the
heavens overhead, and tipped on one of its edges with a crescent border
of the most brilliant gold. No traces of land or water could be
discovered, and the whole was clouded with variable spots, and belted
with tropical and equatorial zones.

"Thus, may it please your Excellencies, after a series of great
anxieties, unheard of dangers, and unparalleled escapes, I had, at
length, on the nineteenth day of my departure from Rotterdam, arrived in
safety at the conclusion of a voyage undoubtedly the most extraordinary,
and the most momentous, ever accomplished, undertaken, or conceived by
any denizen of earth. But my adventures yet remain to be related. And
indeed your Excellencies may well imagine that, after a residence of
five years upon a planet not only deeply interesting in its own peculiar
character, but rendered doubly so by its intimate connection, in
capacity of satellite, with the world inhabited by man, I may have
intelligence for the private ear of the States' College of Astronomers
of far more importance than the details, however wonderful, of the mere
voyage which so happily concluded. This is, in fact, the case. I have
much-very much which it would give me the greatest pleasure to
communicate. I have much to say of the climate of the planet; of its
wonderful alternations of heat and cold, of unmitigated and burning
sunshine for one fortnight, and more than polar frigidity for the next;
of a constant transfer of moisture, by distillation like that in vacuo,
from the point beneath the sun to the point the farthest from it; of a
variable zone of running water, of the people themselves; of their
manners, customs, and political institutions; of their peculiar physical
construction; of their ugliness; of their want of ears, those useless
appendages in an atmosphere so peculiarly modified; of their consequent
ignorance of the use and properties of speech; of their substitute for
speech in a singular method of inter-communication; of the
incomprehensible connection between each particular individual in the
moon with some particular individual on the earth-a connection analogous
with, and depending upon, that of the orbs of the planet and the
satellites, and by means of which the lives and destinies of the
inhabitants of the one are interwoven with the lives and destinies of
the inhabitants of the other; and above all, if it so please your
Excellencies-above all, of those dark and hideous mysteries which lie in
the outer regions of the moon-regions which, owing to the almost
miraculous accordance of the satellite's rotation on its own axis with
its sidereal revolution about the earth, have never yet been turned,
and, by God's mercy, never shall be turned, to the scrutiny of the
telescopes of man. All this, and more- much more-would I most willingly
detail. But, to be brief, I must have my reward. I am pining for a
return to my family and to my home, and as the price of any farther
communication on my part-in consideration of the light which I have it
in my power to throw upon many very important branches of physical and
metaphysical science-I must solicit, through the influence of your
honorable body, a pardon for the crime of which I have been guilty in
the death of the creditors u pon my departure from Rotterdam. This,
then, is the object of the present paper. Its bearer, an inhabitant of
the moon, whom I have prevailed upon, and properly instructed, to be my
messenger to the earth, will await your Excellencies' pleasure, and
return to me with the pardon in question, if it can, in any manner, be
obtained.

"I have the honor to be, etc., your Excellencies' very humble servant,

HANS PFAALL."

Upon finishing the perusal of this very extraordinary document,
Professor Rub-a-dub, it is said, dropped his pipe upon the ground in the
extremity of his surprise, and Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk having
taken off his spectacles, wiped them, and deposited them in his pocket,
so far forgot both himself and his dignity, as to turn round three times
upon his heel in the quintessence of astonishment and admiration. There
was no doubt about the matter-the pardon should be obtained. So at least
swore, with a round oath, Professor Rub-a-dub, and so finally thought
the illustrious Von Underduk, as he took the arm of his brother in
science, and without saying a word, began to make the best of his way
home to deliberate upon the measures to be adopted. Having reached the
door, however, of the burgomaster's dwelling, the professor ventured to
suggest that as the messenger had thought proper to disappear-no doubt
frightened to death by the savage appearance of the burghers of
Rotterdam-the pardon would be of little use, as no one but a man of the
moon would undertake a voyage to so vast a distance. To the truth of
this observation the burgomaster assented, and the matter was therefore
at an end. Not so, however, rumors and speculations. The letter, having
been published, gave rise to a variety of gossip and opinion. Some of
the over-wise even made themselves ridiculous by decrying the whole
business; as nothing better than a hoax. But hoax, with these sort of
people, is, I believe, a general term for all matters above their
comprehension. For my part, I cannot conceive upon what data they have
founded such an accusation. Let us see what they say:

Imprimus. That certain wags in Rotterdam have certain especial
antipathies to certain burgomasters and astronomers.

Don't understand at all.

Secondly. That an odd little dwarf and bottle conjurer, both of whose
ears, for some misdemeanor, have been cut off close to his head, has
been missing for several days from the neighboring city of Bruges.

Well-what of that?

Thirdly. That the newspapers which were stuck all over the little
balloon were newspapers of Holland, and therefore could not have been
made in the moon. They were dirty papers-very dirty-and Gluck, the
printer, would take his Bible oath to their having been printed in
Rotterdam.

He was mistaken-undoubtedly-mistaken.

Fourthly, That Hans Pfaall himself, the druken villain, and the three
very idle gentlemen styled his creditors, were all seen, no longer than
two or three days ago, in a tippling house in the suburbs, having just
returned, with money in their pockets, from a trip beyond the sea.

Don't believe it-don't believe a word of it.

Lastly. That it is an opinion very generally received, or which ought to
be generally received, that the College of Astronomers in the city of
Rotterdam, as well as other colleges in all other parts of the
world,-not to mention colleges and astronomers in general,-are, to say
the least of the matter, not a whit better, nor greater, nor wiser than
they ought to be.

[1] NOTE--Strictly speaking, there is but little similarity between the
above sketchy trifle and the celebrated "Moon-Story" of Mr. Locke; but
as both have the character of hoaxes (although the one is in a tone of
banter, the other of downright earnest), and as both hoaxes are on the
same subject, the moon--moreover, as both attempt to give plausibility
by scientific detail--the author of "Hans Pfaall" thinks it necessary to
say, in self-defence, that his own jeu d'esprit was published in the
"Southern Literary Messenger" about three weeks before the commencement
of Mr. L's in the "New York Sun." Fancying a likeness which, perhaps,
does not exist, some of the New York papers copied "Hans Pfaall," and
collated it with the "Moon-Hoax," by way of detecting the writer of the
one in the writer of the other.

As many more persons were actually gulled by the "Moon-Hoax" than would
be willing to acknowledge the fact, it may here afford some little
amusement to show why no one should have been deceived-to point out
those particulars of the story which should have been sufficient to
establish its real character. Indeed, however rich the imagination
displayed in this ingenious fiction, it wanted much of the force which
might have been given it by a more scrupulous attention to facts and to
general analogy. That the public were misled, even for an instant,
merely proves the gross ignorance which is so generally prevalent upon
subjects of an astronomical nature.

The moon's distance from the earth is, in round numbers, 240,000 miles.
If we desire to ascertain how near, apparently, a lens would bring the
satellite (or any distant object), we, of course, have but to divide the
distance by the magnifying or, more strictly, by the space-penetrating
power of the glass. Mr. L. makes his lens have a power of 42,000 times.
By this divide 240,000 (the moon's real distance), and we have five
miles and five sevenths, as the apparent distance. No animal at all
could be seen so far; much less the minute points particularized in the
story. Mr. L. speaks about Sir John Herschel's perceiving flowers (the
Papaver rheas, etc.), and even detecting the color and the shape of the
eyes of small birds. Shortly before, too, he has himself observed that
the lens would not render perceptible objects of less than eighteen
inches in diameter; but even this, as I have said, is giving the glass
by far too great power. It may be observed, in passing, that this
prodigious gla ss is said to have been molded at the glasshouse of
Messrs. Hartley and Grant, in Dumbarton; but Messrs. H. and G.'s
establishment had ceased operations for many years previous to the
publication of the hoax.

On page 13, pamphlet edition, speaking of "a hairy veil" over the eyes
of a species of bison, the author says: "It immediately occurred to the
acute mind of Dr. Herschel that this was a providential contrivance to
protect the eyes of the animal from the great extremes of light and
darkness to which all the inhabitants of our side of the moon are
periodically subjected." But this cannot be thought a very "acute"
observation of the Doctor's. The inhabitants of our side of the moon
have, evidently, no darkness at all, so there can be nothing of the
"extremes" mentioned. In the absence of the sun they have a light from
the earth equal to that of thirteen full unclouded moons.

The topography throughout, even when professing to accord with Blunt's
Lunar Chart, is entirely at variance with that or any other lunar chart,
and even grossly at variance with itself. The points of the compass,
too, are in inextricable confusion; the writer appearing to be ignorant
that, on a lunar map, these are not in accordance with terrestrial
points; the east being to the left, etc.

Deceived, perhaps, by the vague titles, Mare Nubium, Mare
Tranquillitatis, Mare Faecunditatis, etc., given to the dark spots by
former astronomers, Mr. L. has entered into details regarding oceans and
other large bodies of water in the moon; whereas there is no
astronomical point more positively ascertained than that no such bodies
exist there. In examining the boundary between light and darkness (in
the crescent or gibbous moon) where this boundary crosses any of the
dark places, the line of division is found to be rough and jagged; but,
were these dark places liquid, it would evidently be even.

The description of the wings of the man-bat, on page 21, is but a
literal copy of Peter Wilkins' account of the wings of his flying
islanders. This simple fact should have induced suspicion, at least, it
might be thought.

On page 23, we have the following: "What a prodigious influence must our
thirteen times larger globe have exercised upon this satellite when an
embryo in the womb of time, the passive subject of chemical affinity!"
This is very fine; but it should be observed that no astronomer would
have made such remark, especially to any journal of Science; for the
earth, in the sense intended, is not only thirteen, but forty-nine times
larger than the moon. A similar objection applies to the whole of the
concluding pages, where, by way of introduction to some discoveries in
Saturn, the philosophical correspondent enters into a minute schoolboy
account of that planet-this to the "Edinburgh journal of Science!"

But there is one point, in particular, which should have betrayed the
fiction. Let us imagine the power actually possessed of seeing animals
upon the moon's surface-what would first arrest the attention of an
observer from the earth? Certainly neither their shape, size, nor any
other such peculiarity, so soon as their remarkable situation. They
would appear to be walking, with heels up and head down, in the manner
of flies on a ceiling. The real observer would have uttered an instant
ejaculation of surprise (however prepared by previous knowledge) at the
singularity of their position; the fictitious observer has not even
mentioned the subject, but speaks of seeing the entire bodies of such
creatures, when it is demonstrable that he could have seen only the
diameter of their heads!

It might as well be remarked, in conclusion, that the size, and
particularly the powers of the man-bats (for example, their ability to
fly in so rare an atmosphere--if, indeed, the moon have any), with most
of the other fancies in regard to animal and vegetable existence, are at
variance, generally, with all analogical reasoning on these themes; and
that analogy here will often amount to conclusive demonstration. It is,
perhaps, scarcely necessary to add, that all the suggestions attributed
to Brewster and Herschel, in the beginning of the article, about "a
transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of vision,"
etc., etc., belong to that species of figurative writing which comes,
most properly, under the denomination of rigmarole.

There is a real and very definite limit to optical discovery among the
stars--a limit whose nature need only be stated to be understood. If,
indeed, the casting of large lenses were all that is required, man's
ingenuity would ultimately prove equal to the task, and we might have
them of any size demanded. But, unhappily, in proportion to the increase
of size in the lens, and consequently of space-penetrating power, is the
diminution of light from the object, by diffusion of its rays. And for
this evil there is no remedy within human ability; for an object is seen
by means of that light alone which proceeds from itself, whether direct
or reflected. Thus the only "artificial" light which could avail Mr.
Locke, would be some artificial light which he should be able to
throw-not upon the "focal object of vision," but upon the real object to
be viewed-to wit: upon the moon. It has been easily calculated that,
when the light proceeding from a star becomes so diffused as to be as
weak as the natural light proceeding from the whole of the stars, in a
clear and moonless night, then the star is no longer visible for any
practical purpose.

The Earl of Ross's telescope, lately constructed in England, has a
speculum with a reflecting surface of 4,071 square inches; the Herschel
telescope having one of only 1,811. The metal of the Earl of Ross's is 6
feet diameter; it is 5 1/2 inches thick at the edges, and 5 at the
centre. The weight is 3 tons. The focal length is 50 feet.

I have lately read a singular and somewhat ingenious little book, whose
title-page runs thus: "L'Homme dans la lvne ou le Voyage Chimerique fait
au Monde de la Lvne, nouuellement decouuert par Dominique Gonzales,
Aduanturier Espagnol, autrem‚t dit le Courier volant. Mis en notre
langve par J. B. D. A. Paris, chez Francois Piot, pres la Fontaine de
Saint Benoist. Et chez J. Goignard, au premier pilier de la grand'salle
du Palais, proche les Consultations, MDCXLVII." Pp. 76.

The writer professes to have translated his work from the English of one
Mr. D'Avisson (Davidson?) although there is a terrible ambiguity in the
statement. "J' en ai eu," says he "l'original de Monsieur D'Avisson,
medecin des mieux versez qui soient aujourd'huy dans la c•noissance des
Belles Lettres, et sur tout de la Philosophic Naturelle. Je lui ai cette
obligation entre les autres, de m' auoir non seulement mis en main cc
Livre en anglois, mais encore le Manuscrit du Sieur Thomas D'Anan,
gentilhomme Eccossois, recommandable pour sa vertu, sur la version
duquel j' advoue que j' ay tir‚ le plan de la mienne."

After some irrelevant adventures, much in the manner of Gil Blas, and
which occupy the first thirty pages, the author relates that, being ill
during a sea voyage, the crew abandoned him, together with a negro
servant, on the island of St. Helena. To increase the chances of
obtaining food, the two separate, and live as far apart as possible.
This brings about a training of birds, to serve the purpose of
carrier-pigeons between them. By and by these are taught to carry
parcels of some weight-and this weight is gradually increased. At length
the idea is entertained of uniting the force of a great number of the
birds, with a view to raising the author himself. A machine is contrived
for the purpose, and we have a minute description of it, which is
materially helped out by a steel engraving. Here we perceive the Signor
Gonzales, with point ruffles and a huge periwig, seated astride
something which resembles very closely a broomstick, and borne aloft by
a multitude of wild swans (ganzas) who had strings reaching from their
tails to the machine.

The main event detailed in the Signor's narrative depends upon a very
important fact, of which the reader is kept in ignorance until near the
end of the book. The ganzas, with whom he had become so familiar, were
not really denizens of St. Helena, but of the moon. Thence it had been
their custom, time out of mind, to migrate annually to some portion of
the earth. In proper season, of course, they would return home; and the
author, happening, one day, to require their services for a short
voyage, is unexpectedly carried straight tip, and in a very brief period
arrives at the satellite. Here he finds, among other odd things, that
the people enjoy extreme happiness; that they have no law; that they die
without pain; that they are from ten to thirty feet in height; that they
live five thousand years; that they have an emperor called Irdonozur;
and that they can jump sixty feet high, when, being out of the
gravitating influence, they fly about with fans.

I cannot forbear giving a specimen of the general philosophy of the
volume.

"I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of
the globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it
the larger they seemed. I have also me and the earth. As to the stars,
since there was no night where I was, they always had the same
appearance; not brilliant, as usual, but pale, and very nearly like the
moon of a morning. But few of them were visible, and these ten times
larger (as well as I could judge) than they seem to the inhabitants of
the earth. The moon, which wanted two days of being full, was of a
terrible bigness.

"I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of
the globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it
the larger they seemed. I have also to inform you that, whether it was
calm weather or stormy, I found myself always immediately between the
moon and the earth. I was convinced of this for two reasons-because my
birds always flew in a straight line; and because whenever we attempted
to rest, we were carried insensibly around the globe of the earth. For I
admit the opinion of Copernicus, who maintains that it never ceases to
revolve from the east to the west, not upon the poles of the
Equinoctial, commonly called the poles of the world, but upon those of
the Zodiac, a question of which I propose to speak more at length
here-after, when I shall have leisure to refresh my memory in regard to
the astrology which I learned at Salamanca when young, and have since
forgotten."

Notwithstanding the blunders italicized, the book is not without some
claim to attention, as affording a naive specimen of the current
astronomical notions of the time. One of these assumed, that the
"gravitating power" extended but a short distance from the earth's
surface, and, accordingly, we find our voyager "carried insensibly
around the globe," etc.

There have been other "voyages to the moon," but none of higher merit
than the one just mentioned. That of Bergerac is utterly meaningless. In
the third volume of the "American Quarterly Review" will be found quite
an elaborate criticism upon a certain "journey" of the kind in
question--a criticism in which it is difficult to say whether the critic
most exposes the stupidity of the book, or his own absurd ignorance of
astronomy. I forget the title of the work; but the means of the voyage
are more deplorably ill conceived than are even the ganzas of our friend
the Signor Gonzales. The adventurer, in digging the earth, happens to
discover a peculiar metal for which the moon has a strong attraction,
and straightway constructs of it a box, which, when cast loose from its
terrestrial fastenings, flies with him, forthwith, to the satellite. The
"Flight of Thomas O'Rourke," is a jeu d' esprit not altogether
contemptible, and has been translated into German. Thomas, the hero,
was, in fact, the gamekeeper of an Irish peer, whose eccentricities gave
rise to the tale. The "flight" is made on an eagle's back, from Hungry
Hill, a lofty mountain at the end of Bantry Bay.

In these various brochures the aim is always satirical; the theme being
a description of Lunarian customs as compared with ours. In none is
there any effort at plausibility in the details of the voyage itself.
The writers seem, in each instance, to be utterly uninformed in respect
to astronomy. In "Hans Pfaall" the design is original, inasmuch as
regards an attempt at verisimilitude, in the application of scientific
principles (so far as the whimsical nature of the subject would permit),
to the actual passage between the earth and the moon.

[2] The zodiacal light is probably what the ancients called Trabes.
Emicant Trabes quos docos vocant.-Pliny, lib. 2, p. 26.

[3] Since the original publication of Hans Pfaall, I find that Mr.
Green, of Nassau balloon notoriety, and other late aeronauts, deny the
assertions of Humboldt, in this respect, and speak of a decreasing
inconvenience,-precisely in accordance with the theory here urged in a
mere spirit of banter.

[4] Havelius writes that he has several times found, in skies perfectly
clear, when even stars of the sixth and seventh magnitude were
conspicuous, that, at the same altitude of the moon, at the same
elongation from the earth, and with one and the same excellent
telescope, the moon and its maculae did not appear equally lucid at all
times. From the circumstances of the observation, it is evident that the
cause of this phenomenon is not either in our air, in the tube, in the
moon, or in the eye of the spectator, but must be looked for in
something (an atmosphere?) existing about the moon.