It was many years after this that fresh experimentalists, introducing parachutes on new lines and faulty in construction, met with death or disaster. Enough, however, has already been said to show that in the early years we are now traversing in this history a perfectly practicable parachute had become an accomplished fact. The early form is well described by Mr. Monck Mason in a letter to the Morning Herald in 1837, written on the eve of an unrehearsed and fatal experiment made by Mr. Cocking, which must receive notice in due course. "The principle," writes Mr. Monck Mason, "upon which all these parachutes were constructed is the same, and consists simply of a flattened dome of silk or linen from 24 feet to 28 feet in diameter. From the outer margin all around at stated intervals proceed a large number of cords, in length about the diameter of the dome itself, which, being collected together in one point and made fast to another of superior dimensions attached to the apex of the machine, serve to maintain it in its form when expanded in the progress of the descent. To this centre cord likewise, at a distance below the point of junction, varying according to the fancy of the aeronaut, is fixed the car or basket in which he is seated, and the whole suspended from the network of the balloon in such a manner as to be capable of being detached in an instant at the will of the individual by cutting the rope by which it is made fast above." It followed almost as a matter of course that so soon as the balloon had been made subject to something like due control, and thus had become recognised as a new machine fairly reduced to the service of man, it began to be regarded as an instrument which should be made capable of being devoted to scientific research. Indeed, it may be claimed that, among the very earliest aeronauts, those who had sailed away into the skies and brought back intelligent observations or impressions of the realm of cloud-land, or who had only described their own sensations at lofty altitudes, had already contributed facts of value to science. It is time then, taking events in their due sequence, that mention should be made of the endeavours of various savants, who began about the commencement of the nineteenth century to gather fresh knowledge from the exploration of the air by balloon ascents organised with fitting equipment. The time had now come for promoting the balloon to higher purposes than those of mere exhibition or amusement. In point of fact, it had already in one way been turned to serious practical account. It had been used by the French during military operations in the revolutionary war as a mode of reconnoitring, and not without success, so that when after due trial the war balloon was judged of value a number of similar balloons were constructed for the use of the various divisions of the French army, and, as will be told in its proper place, one, at least, of these was put to a positive test before the battle of