When I had nothing more urgent on hand, I listened at the wireless receiver but I heard no message for us from beginning to end of the flight. Any kind of communication with ship or shore would have been welcome, as a reminder that we were not altogether out of touch with the world below. The complete absence of such contact made it seem that nobody cared a darn about us. The entry that I scribbled in my log at 6:20 A. M. was that we had reached a height of nine thousand four hundred feet, and were still in drifting cloud, which was sometimes so thick that it cut off from view parts of the Vickers-Vimy. Snow was still falling, and the top sides of the plane were covered completely by a crusting of frozen sleet. The sleet imbedded itself in the hinges of the ailerons and jammed them, so that for about an hour the machine had scarcely any lateral control. Fortunately the Vickers-Vimy has plenty of inherent lateral stability; and, as the rudder controls were never clogged by sleet, we were able to carry on with caution. Alcock continued to climb steadily, so as to get above the seemingly interminable clouds and let me have a clear sky for purposes of navigation. At five o'clock, when we were in the levels round about eleven thousand feet, I caught the sun for a moment--just a pin-point glimmer through a cloud-gap. There was no horizon; but I was able to obtain a reading with the help of my Abney spirit level. This observation gave us a position close to the Irish coast. Yet I could not be sure of just where we were on the line indicated by it. We therefore remained at eleven thousand feet until, at 7:20 A. M., I had definitely fixed the position line. This accomplished, I scribbled the following message and handed it across to the pilot: "_We had better go lower down, where the air is warmer, and where we might pick up a steamer._" Just as we had started to nose downward, the starboard motor began to pop ominously, as if it were backfiring through one of its carburetors. Alcock throttled back while keeping the machine on a slow glide. The popping thereupon ceased. By eight o'clock we had descended from eleven thousand to one thousand feet, where the machine was still surrounded by cloudy vapor. Here, however, the atmosphere was much warmer, and the ailerons were again operating. Alcock was feeling his way down gently and alertly, not knowing whether the cloud extended to the ocean, nor at what moment the machine's undercarriage might touch the waves. He had loosened his safety belt, and was ready to abandon ship if we hit the water. I myself felt uncomfortable about the danger of sudden immersion, for it was very possible that a change in barometric conditions could have made the aneroid show a false reading. [Illustration: A SPECIAL KIND OF GASOLINE HAD TO BE USED] [Illustration: ALL ABOARD FOR THE FIRST TRIAL FLIGHT]