observations, and eventually reached the ground in safety, and none the worse for his experience. Gay Lussac’s experiments at least proved that though the air becomes less and less dense as we ascend into it, it remains of the same nature and constitution. His second voyage also showed that the limit to which man could ascend aloft into the sky and yet live had not yet been reached. Almost sixty years later other scientific ascents threw fresh light on this point, and also continued the other investigations that Gay Lussac had commenced. Towards the close of Charles Green’s famous career, scientific men in England woke up to the fact that the use of a balloon as an important means for obtaining observations on meteorology and other matters had of late been very much neglected. The British Association took the matter up, and provided the money for four scientific ascents, which were made by Mr. Welsh of Kew Observatory, a trained observer. Green was the aeronaut chosen to accompany him, and the balloon used was none other than the great Nassau balloon, of whose many and wonderful adventures we have already spoken. Green was then nearly seventy years of age, but his skill as an aeronaut was as great as ever, and Welsh was able to obtain many valuable records. During the last voyage a height was attained almost as great as that reached by Gay Lussac, and both men found much difficulty in breathing. While at this elevation they suddenly noticed they were rapidly approaching the sea, and so were forced to make a very hasty descent, in which many of the instruments were broken. The veteran Green lived to a ripe old age, dying in 1870, aged eighty-five. When a very old man he still delighted in taking visitors to an outhouse where he kept the old Nassau balloon, now worn out and useless, and, handling it affectionately, would talk of its famous adventures and his own thousand ascents, during which he had never once met with serious accident or failure. After his death the old balloon passed into the hands of another equally famous man, who, after Green’s retirement, took his place as the most celebrated English aeronaut of the day. This was Henry Coxwell. He was the son of a naval officer, and was brought up to the profession of a dentist. But when a boy of only nine years old he watched, through his father’s telescope, a balloon ascent by Green, which so fired his imagination that henceforward balloons filled all his thoughts. As he grew older the fascination increased upon him. He would go long distances to see ascents or catch glimpses of balloons in the air, and he was fortunate enough to be present at the first launching of the great Nassau balloon. He did not get the chance of a voyage aloft, however, till he was twenty-five; but after this nothing could restrain his ardour, and, throwing his profession to the winds, he made ascent after ascent on all possible occasions.