He was in the 78th year of his age, when, in the sight of fifty thousand people, one of the balloons recently invented by the Montgolfiers, and inflated with gas, produced by pouring oil of vitriol on iron filings, ascended from the Champs de Mars, shining brightly in the sun during the first stages of its ascent, then dwindling until it appeared scarcely larger than an orange, and then melting away in the clouds that had never before been invaded by such a visitant. But so fresh still was his interest in every triumph of human ingenuity, that it required a long letter to Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, supplemented by two postscripts, to disburthen his mind of the sensations and thoughts excited by the thrilling spectacle. Mingled in this letter with many precise details of size, weight and distance are the speculations of the Parisians with respect to the practical uses to which the toy might be put. Some believed that, now that men might be supported in the air, nothing was wanted but some light handy instruments to give and direct motion. Others believed that a running footman, or a horse, slung and suspended under such a globe, so as to diminish the weight of their feet on the ground to perhaps eight or ten pounds, might, with a fair wind, run in a straight line across country as fast as that wind, and over hedges, ditches and even waters. Still other fantasies were that in time such globes might be kept anchored in the air for the purpose of preserving game, or converting water into ice; or might be turned to pecuniary profit as a means of giving recreation-seekers a chance, at an altitude of a mile, to see far below them a vast stretch of the terrestrial surface. Already, said Franklin, one philosopher, M. Pilâtre de Rozier, had applied to the Academy for the privilege of ascending in a larger Montgolfier in order to make certain scientific experiments. The peasants at Gonesse, however, who had seen the balloon, cut adrift on the Champs de Mars, fall to the earth, had regarded it with very different feelings from the citizens of Paris. Frightened, and conceiving from its bounding a little, when it touched the ground, that there was some living animal in it, they had attacked it with stones and knives, so that it was much mangled.