About the same period when M. Flammarion was conducting his early ascents, MM. de Fonvielle and Tissandier embarked on experimental voyages, which deserve some particular notice. Interest in the new revival of the art of aeronautics was manifestly be coming reestablished in France, and though we find enthusiasts more than once bitterly complaining of the lack of financial assistance, still ballooning exhibitions, wherever accomplished, never failed to arouse popular appreciation. But enthusiasm was by no means the universal attitude with which the world regarded aerial enterprise. A remarkable and instructive instance is given to the contrary by M. W. de Fonvielle himself. He records an original ballooning exploit, organised at Algiers, which one might have supposed would have caused a great sensation, and to which he himself had called public attention in the local journals. The brothers Braguet were to make an ascent from the Mustapha Plain in a small fire balloon heated with burning straw, and this risky performance was successfully carried out by the enterprising aeronauts. But, to the onlooker, the most striking feature of the proceeding was the fact that while the Europeans present regarded the spectacle with curiosity and pleasure, the native Mussulmans did not appear to take the slightest interest in it; "And this," remarked de Fonvielle, "was not the first time that ignorant and fanatic people have been noted as manifesting complete indifference to balloon ascents. After the taking of Cairo, when General Buonaparte wished to produce an effect upon the inhabitants, he not only made them a speech, but supplemented it with the ascent of a fire balloon. The attempt was a complete failure, for the French alone looked up to the clouds to see what became of the balloon." In the summer of 1867 an attempt was made to revive the long extinct Aeronautic Company of France, established by De Guyton. The undertaking was worked with considerable energy. Some forty or fifty active recruits were pressed into the service, a suitable captive balloon was obtained, thousands of spectators came to watch the evolutions; and many were found to pay the handsome fee of 100 francs for a short excursion in the air. For all this, the effort was entirely abortive, and the ballooning corps, as such, dropped out of existence.