Blanchard, another French inventor, about this time constructed a balloon with the intention of being the first to cross the English Channel in the air. He took his balloon to Dover and with Dr. Jeffries, an American, started on January 7, 1785. His balloon was leaky and he had loaded it down with a lot of useless things in the way of oars, provisions, and other things. All of this material and the ballast had to be thrown overboard at the outset, and books and parts of the balloon followed. Even their clothing had to be thrown over to keep the balloon out of the sea, and at last, when Dr. Jeffries had determined to jump out to enable his friend to reach the shore, an upward current of wind caught them and with great difficulty they landed near Calais. The feat was highly lauded and a monument in marble was erected on the spot to perpetuate the record of the achievement. De Rozier lost his life soon after in the effort to duplicate this trip across the Channel with his combination hydrogen and hot-air balloon. His idea seems to have been that he could preserve the buoyancy of his double balloon by heating up the air balloon at intervals. Unfortunately, the exuding of the hydrogen as the balloons rose formed an explosive mixture with the air he was rising through, and it was drawn to his furnace, and an explosion took place which blew the entire apparatus into fragments at an altitude of over 1,000 feet. [Illustration: Car and hoop of the Blanchard balloon, the first to cross the English Channel.] Count Zambeccari, an Italian, attempted to improve the de Rozier method of firing a balloon by substituting a large alcohol lamp for the wood fire. In the first two trial trips he fell into the sea, but was rescued. On the third trip his balloon was swept into a tree, and the overturned lamp set it on fire. To escape being burned, he threw himself from the balloon and was killed by the fall. The year before these feats on the Continent two notable balloon ascensions had taken place in England. On August 27, 1784, an aeronaut by the name of Tytler made the first balloon voyage within the boundaries of Great Britain. His balloon was of linen and varnished, and the record of his ascension indicates that he used hydrogen gas to inflate it. He soared to a great height, and descended safely. A few weeks later, the Italian aeronaut Lunardi made his first ascent from London. The spectacle drew the King and his councillors from their deliberations, and the balloon was watched until it disappeared. He landed in Standon, near Ware, where a stone was set to record the event. On October 12, he made his famous voyage from Edinburgh over the Firth of Forth to Ceres; a distance of 46 miles in 35 minutes, or at the rate of nearly 79 miles per hour; a speed rarely equalled by the swiftest railroad trains.