Viewing page 24 of 182

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

THE MISSING AERONAUTS. 

Editor of The N. Y. Tribune.

From all the information extant upon the as-
on of Messrs. La Mountain and Haddock, my 
y of their fate is this: The day of their ascen-
was one troubled with the equinoctial storm --
up of fitful squalls and portenteus calms. They
mplated but a short trip at the time of starting; 
pon getting up and finding themselves driven
d and over a forest country, they would soon
au effort to land. This maneuver is always a
l one; without much ballast aboard, it is a dan-
one -- because, should you fail in making good
n the first contact with the earth, the balloon
ound into and through the tree-tops, with a fury
ntly incompatible with an air bubble. It is the
ntum of the freight suspended to the balloon that 
t the force and fury while moving at a great ve-
   Assuming this to have taken place in their 
first attempt to land, some fifteen or twenty miles from
town, it is but a reasonable conjecture that acci-
of this kind followed, to wit: The valve-rope
ave snapped in the concussion, some ballast 
ed out, and the aeronauts sent up and adrift with-
e means of control -- and thus they would be 
to sail or drift at the mercy of the winds for sev-
ours, and have finally landed in the midst of the 
ness, where they would abandon the craft, or be
through the trees until the vessel would become
plete wreck. 
ther hypothesis of their first attempt to land may
ified in this. They may have failed in making 
their landing in the woods, and in bounding
h the trees may have been burled from the car
or both of them -- and in falling to the earth may 
been so maimed as to render them helpless, and
s condition would have to perish if not found
eight or ten days, assuming in this that they
prolong existence upon roots and herbs. That
ay be the fate of one or both is more than prob-
   In either case the balloon would mount to a 
hight, and report says that the balloon was seen 
reat altitude, going eastward, some thirty miles
Watertown. If the report is true of the balloon 
seen "over the town of Pitcairn, St. Lawrence nty, fifty miles due north-east of Watertown, at a osed hight of five miles," then it is more than  
ble --  to my own mind morally certain -- that one
h of the unfortunate men will be found in this 
n's track, in the rear of that point. There is
search should be instituted, as it is more than 
ble that they may be disabled from making their
ut of the woods, but still able to subsist on roots
ny days, though they should be somewhat crip-
   From all the circumstances of the case, I do not
e they are killed or totally lost.
rd House, Oct. 2, 1859.               JOHN WISE

Transcription Notes:
A bit of the left side of clipping is cut off just slightly. Here is what is visible.