A frightful catastrophe happened the other day to three French
aeronauts, M. Tissandier, M. Croce-Spinelli, and M. Sivel, who ascended on Thursday in last week in the balloon called the Zenith, from the gas-works of La Villette. It appears that these three balloonists were bent on making careful experiments as to the point at which the rarefaction of the air injures the lungs and the blood, and on the effect of inhaling oxygen towards counter- acting that danger. It seems that the three aeronauts had previously tried the effect of artificial rarefaction on their lungs in the iron laboratory of the Sorbonne, and had then found that inhalation of oxygen removed all the unpleasant symptoms. But the balloon on this occasion was so rapidly lightened that all three aeronauts became insensible in the act of inhalation, and so dropped out of their hands the only counteract- ing agency, and two of them were dead before the descent of the balloon restored the third, M. Gaston Tissaudier, to conscious- ness. All three would have been saved by the rapid descent of the balloon after the first interval of insensibility, had not one of them, in the delirium of half-consciousness, thrown out the aspirateur, and also too much ballast, so that the balloon again ascended rapidly, and the swooning returned. When next the balloon began to descend, two of the aeronauts were -quite dead. The balloon seems to have reached the height of 8,000 metres, or (say) 26,000 feet, at the very least, probably much higher. Mr. Glaisher, however, seems to think that the suffo- cation arose, not from the rarefaction, but from the escape of the balloon-gas in too close a proximity to the car. On the other hand, it seems that one of the aeronauts had exhibited just the same symptoms in the ratified air of the iron laboratory, when the rarefaction had reached only the point due to a height of 6,000 metres, or less than 20,000 feet. It seems likely that different constitutions show very different degrees of susceptibility to the effect of atmospheric rarefaction.
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