But he came down too far away from them, and one and all continued their course and took no notice. He was obliged, therefore, to throw out ballast and to rise into the air once more. The sun was now set upon the level of the water, but as the brave aeronaut rose he beheld it once more above the horizon, and was cheered by its beams. Presently he saw beneath him three more vessels, which signalled their willingness to help him, and he immediately came down on the sea again as close to them as he could. But the wind, now rising fast, caught the half empty silk of the balloon as it touched the waves, and bore it along over the surface of the water at a terrific pace; and although the vessels came after in full pursuit, they were unable to overtake it. Mr. Sadler then dropped his grappling-iron to act as a drag, and this not proving sufficient, took off his clothes and tied them to the iron as a further expedient. Still the vessels failed to overhaul him as he sped over the waves, and he was at length forced to let out a quantity of the gas still remaining, and so cripple the balloon. But this was a dangerous move, for the car now instantly sank; and the unfortunate man had to clutch the hoop and then the netting, to keep himself above water. Chilled and exhausted, and frequently plunged beneath the waves, he was soon at the point of death; for the nearest ship, though now close at hand, fearful of becoming entangled in the netting, still held off. Fainting as he was, Mr. Sadler yet managed to summon strength to call to the sailors to run their bowsprit through the balloon to stop its course, and this being done, he was hauled on board more dead than alive. Five years passed, and no more attempts were made to cross the treacherous Irish Sea, until Mr. Sadler’s own son, Mr. Windham Sadler, determined himself to make the attempt which had so nearly cost his father his life. Choosing the same starting-ground for his venture, he left Dublin on the longest day of 1817, and, fortune favouring him, reached the Welsh coast not far from Holyhead, after a voyage of 70 miles, lasting five hours. This was the last attempt to cross the Irish Channel, until November 1902, when the Rev. J. M. Bacon and Mr. Percival Spencer, starting from Douglas, in the Isle of Man, landed in a rocky glen 15 miles beyond Dumfries, after a journey of 80 miles, accomplished in three hours. Brave Mr. Windham Sadler unhappily lost his life in a terrible balloon accident in 1824. But a more celebrated balloonist, perhaps the most famous of all, had by this time come to the fore--Charles Green, fitly called “The Father of English Aeronautics.” It was he who first introduced a new method of balloon-filling, which quickly revolutionised the whole art and practice. This was nothing more or less than the employment of ordinary household or coal gas for inflation, in place of the costly and dangerous hydrogen.