The honour of the longest aerial voyage ever made rests with the unfortunate Andrée, who, if his dates are to be relied upon, had been forty-eight hours aloft in his balloon when he despatched his last found message. Not far behind in point of time, however, was Count de la Vaulx, who in the summer of 1901 attempted to cross the Mediterranean by balloon. Contrary winds in the end baffled his venture, and he was forced to descend on the deck of a steamer which was following his course, but not before he had spent forty-one hours in the sky. The year previous the Count had also achieved a record long-distance voyage in connection with some balloon competitions held during the French “Exposition” of 1900. Starting from Paris, he descended in Russia, 1193 miles away, having been aloft thirty-six hours all but fifteen minutes. For lofty ascents the palm still rests with Glaisher and Coxwell, whose famous voyage of 1862, when, as related, a height of 37,000 feet (or seven miles) is said to have been reached, has never been equalled. The exact altitude attained on this occasion is, however, as we have explained, only conjectural, neither being capable at the last of taking observations, and no height being _registered_ over 29,000 feet. On July 31st, 1901, two German scientists, Dr. Berson and Dr. Suring, ascended from Berlin to a _registered_ altitude of 34,400 feet, or well over six miles. They were provided with compressed oxygen to breathe, but even then became unconscious during the last 800 feet of the ascent. Three years before Dr. Berson had made a very lofty ascent in England, accompanied by Mr. Stanley Spencer, when a height of 27,500 feet was reached. A terrible accident occurred in connection with a lofty scientific ascent made from Paris in 1875 by Tissandier, inventor of the airship already mentioned, and two companions. Their object was to attain a record height, in which they indeed succeeded, reaching 28,000 feet. But despite the artificial air they took with them to breathe, they all three became unconscious in the extreme upper regions, and when, after one of the most awful voyages in the whole history of ballooning, Tissandier came to himself, it was to find the bodies of his two friends stiff and cold beside him in the car.