The fatal accidents to which the æronaut might sometimes be exposed, induced philosophers to devise expedients for diminishing the danger. So early as the year 1783, M. le Normand made the experiment of leaping from the height of a first story with a parachute, thirty inches in diameter, in his hand; and so much did it break the force of the fall, that he was hardly sensible of any shock upon reaching the ground. He thence calculated that a parachute, fourteen feet in diameter, attached to a man, might protect him against all possible injury, though falling from the regions of the clouds. During M. Blanchard’s ascent from Strasburg, 26th August, 1787, he dropped a dog, connected with a parachute, from the height of six thousand feet. A whirlwind, however, interrupted its descent, and bore it above the clouds. M. Blanchard afterwards met the parachute, when the dog, recognising his master, began to bark; and just as M. Blanchard was going to seize it, another whirlwind suddenly carried it beyond his reach. Having passed vertically over Zell, he terminated his voyage; the parachute, still waving in the air, came down twelve minutes afterwards. He also sent up several small balloons, containing parachutes to which dogs were attached, and constructed them in such a manner as to burst on arriving to any great height. When the balloons were burst, the parachutes were necessarily set at liberty, and conveyed the animals in perfect security to the ground. In a daring experiment, however, which he had the courage to make on himself, he was less successful; for on hazarding a descent by a parachute at Basle, he unfortunately broke his leg. On the 7th April, 1806, M. Mosment, an experienced æronaut, undertook an ærial voyage from Lisle. He ascended at noon, waving a flag decorated with the imperial eagle of France, amidst the shouts of the assembled spectators. The commencement of his career was so rapid, as to bear him in a very short time beyond the vision of the crowd. During his ascent he dropped an animal attached to a parachute, which came safely to the ground. About one o’clock something was observed slowly descending through the atmosphere, which proved on its fall to be the flag which M. Mosment had carried along with him. Very soon afterwards, a murmur circulated through the crowd, and the body of the unfortunate æronaut was discovered in one of the fosses of the city, lifeless, and covered with blood. The balloon reached the ground on the same day, at the distance of twenty-five leagues from Lisle; the car containing nothing except an unloaded pistol, a little bread, and a piece of flesh. M. Garnerin ascribes this melancholy disaster to the extreme shallowness of the car, and the too great distance between the cords which attached it to the balloon; and is of opinion that M. Mosment, when leaning over the car to drop the animal, had lost his balance, and was precipitated to the earth.