"
"Ah!" replied the doctor, "if I am master of my
balloon--if I can ascend and descend at will, I shall stop
when I please, especially when too violent currents of air
threaten to carry me out of my way with them."
"And you will encounter such," said Captain Bennet.
"There are tornadoes that sweep at the rate of more than
two hundred and forty miles per hour."
"You see, then, that with such speed as that, we could
cross Africa in twelve hours. One would rise at Zanzibar,
and go to bed at St. Louis!"
"But," rejoined the officer, "could any balloon withstand
the wear and tear of such velocity?"
"It has happened before," replied Ferguson.
"And the balloon withstood it?"
"Perfectly well. It was at the time of the coronation
of Napoleon, in 1804. The aeronaut, Gernerin, sent up a
balloon at Paris, about eleven o'clock in the evening. It
bore the following inscription, in letters of gold: 'Paris,
25 Frimaire; year XIII; Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon
by his Holiness, Pius VII.' On the next morning,
the inhabitants of Rome saw the same balloon soaring
above the Vatican, whence it crossed the Campagna, and
finally fluttered down into the lake of Bracciano. So you
see, gentlemen, that a balloon can resist such velocities.
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