Show to fall a mile alie air A sculptor and in paris who went above the blonds in a balloon that there is a man in paris who knows bow it feels to fall more than a mile through the air he ia a fernando mi randa an artist and sculptor mr miranda went up in a balloon that col lapsed he luckily escaped with his life the balloon ascent in which mr miranda took part was made by a party of french lets from mr miranda tells something of his own sensations in the new york world in the following language when I 1 accepted an invitation to be the artist ot mr wilfrid de party in the william tell I 1 little thought I 1 was being invited to fall over feet but neither did M de fonvielle it was to me only an unexpected opportunity to make a baloon ascension under the most favorable auspices and in the very baloon that carried gambetta out of paris during the siege in 1871 to him it was common place besides captain de fonvielle and bis assistant aeronaut M thare was a M bernard inventor of device for measuring the speed of ascent and descent and myself our purpose waa to take certain observations and conduct some experiments in electric conditions at various altitudes the abent was made on a beautiful may forenoon at la fillette M do fonvielle had formally invited the special of annam with his enate who were at that time at the french capital on a diplomatic mission attended in their bright national and contributed a picturesque effect to the occasion when all was ready the loud stern voice of captain de fonvielle cried all on board then I 1 jumped into the willow basket trying to forget in that moment all my connections on earth aa was in order alie captains boico was again heard with the word Lac bez or let it go and the balloon was free the monster balloon called majestic ally up the silence around us crew absolute the place we lefond oar te tea 1 friends became even smaller and the sweep of our vision enlarged proportionately tiona tely shortly in deathlike death like silence we reached the lower ends of the clouds at the height of feet above the delta formed by the conjunction of the rivers seine and marne these floating maesas of imposing grandeur were separated and independent but moving in the bame direction sometimes separating more or lees and sometimes closing up and uniting delves immense chips of a vast block this formation impressed me because we are accustomed to see tho clouds from below and in consequence we only see the end behind which is hiding the whole length of the cloud to explain more clearly the cloud is like a long stick the length of which when pointed at us we cannot see As we were ascending between those gigantic chimneys of vapor and approaching pro aching their tens it waa interesting inte to observe how the vapor became thicker soon we reached the general level on which they were swimming this was at the heiart of feet or aa high again as when we entered their lower ends which would show that the vapory stalactites were feet long the elsy was of a deep blue the air was pure and sharp and the sun burned more that usual enormous dark openings like tremendous abys sess below were often seen on tho vast field pro decd by the disintegration of the clouds or masses of them in their course of floating almost immediately I 1 felt in my ears a kind of persistent little pain and I 1 incidentally ci remarked it to 31 de fou vielle he said that he could not venture to eo higher without risk as that was a agn of extreme of the atmosphere and with that view he opened the valve and we commenced our descent while in the fos on the descent I 1 happened to notice that the carew of M bernards device was rotating so fast that I 1 thought that it was out of order I 1 called the attention of the inventor and captain de fonvielle to it the captain ordered us to throw out ballast and we emptied beveral sandbars sandbags sand bags but the flying band went up and fell again upon us and inside our willow basket we threw out some cigarette papers and up they went like lightning I 1 thought that we were lost and as I 1 was looking below and observing the hills and the other objects growing rapidly larger I 1 had a queer sickly feeling I 1 felt I 1 was going to certain death and was surprised at my own calmness fonvielle was equal to the emergency emere ency and with perfect coolness ordered all the ballast we had thrown out bags instruments and all and us to at once climb up and suspend ou nelves from the hoop of the balloon we managed to keep banging from our hoop until after captain de fonville threw the anchor which fortunately did not take long to catch the country people who had seen us fall came to our assistance the rope was pulled by them until the balloon was drawn down so anat we could jump out but in the arong wind the balloon was plunging like an imprisoned bull and the process of landing was not at all comfortable at last we succeeded in getting upon alie solid earth and I 1 am sure that I 1 was not the last to leave the basket we were all sound except for a few bruises ana we held a consultation on the probable oro bable cause of our fall it appeared that we bad neglected ane rope which boes through the balloon for the purpose of opening the valve and that it had become entangled with the other ropes of the basket thankful to have escaped we took the train back to paris leaving M chansu tier in charge of the balloon |