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NEW YORK HERALD. 
JAMES GORDON BENNETT,
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.
OFFICE N. W. CORNER Of FULTON AND NASSAU STS.

    We publish in to-day's paper an interesting narrative of the 232d and 233d aerial voyages of Mr. Wise, the well known air navigator. These last ascents of Mr. Wise were made from Lafayette, Indiana, on the 16th and 17th of the present month, and were not, as has been generally supposed, attempted trans-continental trips, but simply brief flights for the purpose of solving certain problems regarding the atmosphere and elucidating matters of importance connected with aerostation. What measure of success attended the observations and experiments of the bold aeronaut may be gathered from the narrative to which we have referred our readers.

SCIENTIFIC BALLOONING. 
Narrative of Professor Wise's 232d and 233d Aerial Voyages, made from Lafayette, Indiana, August 16 and 17, 1859.
    Before giving the details of this aerial log, I will take occasion to say that my experiments in the West with the balloon Jupiter were never intended to be essentially "trans-continental" voyages, and for this reason-the balloon is not big enough to make them, unless the local or surface currents run the right way. A balloon to do these things with, must be large enough to carry her passengers and ballast when only half full of gas. This will enable the air vessel to mount to a height of three and a half miles without discharge of gas, as at that altitude the half filled balloon will be quite full by expansion. The Jupiter has, in all her flights, been filled from four-fifths to her full capacity, and consequently compelled to give out her gas by the safety valve whenever a height above a few thousand feet was attained. Some newspapers have animadverted considerably upon my failing to perform these trans-continental trips, when indeed, I never engaged to perform them, excepting with this proviso, that if the local currents would serve, to do so. My object in these Western experiments was particularly instituted for the purpose of investigating the air currents in the interior, and to make experiments for "the increase of knowledge and its diffusion among men," and under these auspices I was provided with instruments from the very proceeds of the man who bequeathed his substance in accordance with the above quotation.
    On the 16th of August, 1859, the Jupiter was inflated near the gas works, in the city of Lafayette, and at 2 P.M she was moved, under an escort of Captain Fonda's military company, and Sunday school excursionists and visiters generally, in all not less than fifteen thousand persons, towards the Court House square. When we reached Main street it became necessary to cross the telegraph wires. In the midst of this dense crowd of orderly persons and a contracted area of high buildings, the balloon got away from her ropes by an accident not provided for-i. e., extra guy ropes. The ascent was very rapid, and I was without my barometer, compass and chart, and without provisions Knowing, too, that the time for starting had not arrived by nearly an hour, and the balloon not yet photographed in the square, as mentioned in the programme, I pulled a full valve, which checked her after attaining a height of 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Incoming down I discovered that something had happened to the valve. I landed in the middle of a street half a mile from the starting point, and was soon in the hands of the military, under an escort back to the square. Here there were not less than 20,000 people gathered, and in their midst the Jupiter was photographed by three different artists. Finding that the gas was escaping fast, and feeling desirous of getting the balloon out of the midst of this dense mass of people, I requested my son to step into the car and sail her out of town. He ascended several thousand feet, and in half an hour he was on the outskirts of the town. From this point Mr. Carleton had the balloon towed back to the gas works. Here I had the top of her hauled down, and discovered that one of the three India rubber springs had snapped, and flew in under the valve clapper, causing the leakage aforesaid. This we repaired, and with the gas remaining in her--some 8,000 cubic feet--it was left to stand until next day. It was then announced that the voyage and experiments should be made next day, at two o'clock P.M.
    At noon on the 17th the Jupiter was again ready. Inflated about three-fourths full, she carried me with 350 pounds of sand ballast, besides instruments and provisions. With a good Smithsonian barometer, thermometer, and with paper prepared to test the ozone of the upper air, provided by Chas. M. Wetherill, analytical chemist, I started under a very calm atmosphere at 2 P.M. precisely. When I reached the clouds and passed up above them a short distance, I smelled what I inferred was ozone. The barometer stood at twenty-two, and as the thermometer hung in the sun I omitted its notings, though it ranged from ninety-four degrees a: starting to sixty-six degrees for the first two hours. After scanning the country round as well as I could, through the vast defiles in the clouds below, and remaining poised (fixed in space) more than an hour, all the while over the city of Lafayette, I made the following notes in my log-book. As I never followed my log literally heretofore in my narratives, I will in this quote a portion of it as written above, and will designate those portions as quotations:--
    While up in the lonely, heavenly regions of the clouds, feeling pious and gladdened, the thought occurred to me that my friends below wondered why I was not going on my voyage east. I thought so myself, but what can I do--Jupiter as full as a dum--no wind--not a breath--my palm leaf fan puts her slightly in motion--revolving slovenly to and fro. I am hungry--food tastes delicious.
    Below--between the white fleecy clouds--true emblems of God's pure works--brilliant drapery of heaven's vast gallery--all of a sudden I hear the roar of artillery. What is it--something like distant thunder--again--it comes from below, one o those peculiar noises that puzzles the discrimination of the aeronaut. Looking over my car I found myself still over the city of Lafayette.
    Here the test paper showed very slight signs of the presence of ozone, and I smelt it sensibly as I grazed a cloud in coming down to a barometer of 24. After I had descended to the lowermost clouds, I here discharged ballast and rose up till the barometer stood 21. The Wabash now presented the appearance of a crooked thread of water, and Jupiter was again stationary in space, Here my log reads thus:--
    If I can't make a trip east I will make one somewhere else I feel rejoiced, invigorated, extremely happy. God is all around me--Astra Castra, Numen Lumen The manifestations around me make me rejoice in exclamation and admiration of God's [[cut-off]]
    Such were the cogitations while standing in space, and permit me to say here, that most of these cogitations break out into involuntary exclamations. There is a physical cause for this. The animal system expands under diminished atmospheric pressure. With me it never fails to produce exhilaration. The brain becomes active, the blood circulates more rapidly, the organs of the five senses become energetic and more acute--and the mind becomes illuminated as it were by something that brings to recollection, with the rapidity of lightning, all the concomitants of the subject passing through it.
    I have frequently heretofore determined, when sailing through these peculiarly formed cloud fields, which never fail to produce these exhilarations in me, to publish the full log of exclamations and adorations that they bring forth with an insuppressible spontaniety, but my judgment always forbade me when I got down. After descending to the earth it is ever followed by a languor that acts the other way.
    To prevent misunderstanding in this connection, I must be explicit in saying that this occurs more particularly when sailing among, and above, those vast galleries of nimbus clouds. The study of these clouds is worthy the particular attention of the meteorologist. Their habitudes and action, connected with the wonderful power they possess of reflecting heat, and their very persistent characteristic of fixedness, throws around them a mystery that requires explanation to the progress and perfection of the science of meteorology.
    After feasting my eyes for a while again the following notes were made:--"I don't care where I go, the view is becoming more grand."
    Here I rose till the barometer told 20.3. "Flies are buzzing around me. They are sharp, clipper-looking animals, more so than the common house fly."
    Here I noticed that the rattling sound of the railroad trains in motion came in vibrations, like the vibratory sounds of a milldam, and it would circulate like the rolling peals of heavy thunder, and with reverberations that resembled thunder so much that I looked all around to see the storm, but there was none. "The beautiful nimbus clouds stood to their places like marble statues--like majestic sentinels around the portals of heaven." "I hear a locomotive whistle just now as plain as though it was by my side, and yet I can't discern the vestige of a train below."
    While standing in the midst of these huge piles of nimbus clouds I felt occasionally an agitation of the atmosphere. The flag would flutter, and Jupiter would sway back and forth upon its vertical axis. They were slight whirlpools, seemingly caused by focal reflection of conjunctive clouds. I could account for it in no other way.
    3 o'clock 55 minutes. --Just got through one of those aerostatic freaks that put all experience at defiance; after shoveling overboard nearly fifty pounds of sand, and the balloon. from a completely filled distension of a few minutes previous, is now quite flaccid in her lower hemisphere and is brought to a stand at a barometer of 25 8.
    Shouts of people discernable--ozone paper tinged brown--breeze fluttering around me--cow bells jingling below--wood chopping plainly heard--my ears begin to ache most violently, and shouts upon shouts proceed from below--moving slightly west of south--I will descend and see what the people are shouting so for.
    Here I came down, sixteen miles below Lafayette, in the midst of the Grand Prairie. The people soon flocked together--men, women and children. I gave them each a slice of bread, and distributed to them newspapers, and pamphlets descriptive of the mineral and medical properties of the Lafayette artesian water. After resting here about twenty minutes, I put the air ship in balanced trim, so that it just glided over the top of the prairie grass, and the people all followed it, as it slowly drifted along at a common pace, until I tipped out a little sack of sand to make it surmount a fence, and then the upsoaring Jupiter made most wonder stricken upturned faces. As the air ship ascended, I waved the American flag, and my prairie audience, of about thirty strong, gave a hearty hurrah.
    The balloon had now been emptied to half its capacity, which left remaining about 100 pounds of sand ballast, and with this I was determined to feel for the great eastern current above. I made very little headway as the balloon gradually rose. In twenty minutes after I left the prairie the barometer stood at 19. Nothing could surpass the landscape prairie scenery below. A smoothly hollowed plain, interspersed with little patches of woods and full of habitations, and meandering creeks and rivers and painfully straight lines of railroad track. It was a fruitful and glorious looking circle. The clouds soon involved me. Here my log says:--
    Great God! what a grand vision of clouds around and below me. What an exalted feeling--nothing can equal this cloud scene--nature is in grand council, and its majestic representatives are massive nimbus clouds in mantles of snow white drapery, illuminated intensely with a white hot sun.
    The thermometer stood here at 55 degrees, and yet the reflected rays of the sun would strike me like hot tin. Brilliant bands of thread like beams were darting from a portion of this vast circular group of clouds towards the earth. The world below was obscured by a gossamer like mist between the clouds. There was a profound silence. I could hear distinctly the arterial pulsations of my system. It went much like the vibrations of a milldam. The Jupiter appeared to stand still in the midst of this grand heaven-clad council. I was glad of it. The tympans of my ears were flapping like topsails of a ship in a squall. These nimbus clouds appeared to be all setting on a common level, as though they were planted on a great circular rim or plate; a few floating within the open part of this cloud basement. Here I discovered that my vision has become keen. I could read the figured verneers of my instruments without eye glasses. Having a pamphlet with me--"Pouillet Muller's Lehrbach der Physic Und Meteorologic," which had on the cover very fine print, and which I could not read with the naked eye on the surface of the earth, I could here without glasses with facility. My ears were for a while just the reverse, but they, too, became more steady in the course of [[3 words, 
ineligible.]]; the base of my brain suffered a little pain all the while. It must have been caused by the removal of atmospheric pressure; my eyes would thus become more convex. I can account for it in no other way.
    These persistent nimbus clouds, standing apparently in a circular form, without motion of alteration, puzzles my comprehension. Neither increase nor diminution accompanied them. Nature had taken a rest over Grand Prairie and pavilioned it with a garment of the most brilliant costume that reflected and refracted light could invest it with. Behind this great belt of cloud pyramids there appeared an ashen colored ring or outer belt seen between the pyramidical pillars, and to the east only there appeared a sheet of inclined stratus clouds. 
    Could the great prairie have anything to do with this? I never saw its like before in so striking and characteristic a form. I have seen the nimbus often in groups, but they were always changing, both in place and shape, as well as in dissolution and composition, but in this, as stated above, the whole mass was stationary.
    Above here there was not the slightest manifestation of ozone. The paper kept its unaltered white color. My nose suffered very much from its membranes becoming parched, and although the atmosphere was cold, being at 53 degrees in the shade, and the barometer at 18, there appeared to be something, present or absent, that produced in my system the phenomenon of fever. My lips were swollen and parched, my flesh was all unwrinkled, smooth, and filled out under the skin like a youth's.
    There appeared to be a stagnation in the atmosphere, and the impression was inevitably forced upon me that nature had an atmospheric circulation necessary to its proper order, as the animal system had of blood necessary to its healthfulness. Withal, I felt intensely happy--somewhat like under the influence of a dose of nitrous oxide gas.
[[cutoff]]
stability.
    Finding the Jupiter now intensely distended, by a warning that always draws the attention of the aeronaut to an observation of his balloon--that is, the net work suddenly slipping a little from where it is too taut to where it is too loose. This action at so great a height, where all is silence most profound, causes a noise like distant thunder. Looking down to the earth through the vast chasms of the clouds, I discovered by the aid of my compass that I was sailing due east. Thus the upper eastern current was attained at a barometrical height, being my last barometrical observation, of 17.6--being nearly three miles altitude.
    Having only about fifty pounds of sand ballast left, and knowing that this would not suffice for a whole night's sail, as the coolness of the air upon the setting of the sun would alone require nearly all to compensate the condensation of the gas in consequence, I concluded to make a landing. In looking down through the clouds I noticed a town a little to the east of me. By reference to my chart it proved to be Crawfordsville. Knowing that if there were no currents below I could easily and safely land in the town, and in order to make the arrival more interesting I concluded to sent my letter mail ahead, and to effect this in a systematic form the following expedient was adopted:- Having with me a muslin sheet, nine feet square, I attached to each of its corners strings of about five yards in length. These were tied together in a knot at their lower extremities, and to this knot was attached the mail bag, and then I dropped it overboard. It made an admirable parachute. A few minutes travel informed me that it would drift a considerable distance to the south of Crawfordsville, as there was a slight breeze below drifting it in that direction. I pulled the valve of Jupiter and followed, and soon overtook the mail. We kept near together all the way down, as I could regulate the descent of the balloon to the descent of the parachute, and both the aerial machines landed within fifty feet of each other on the public road six miles south of Crawfordsville, their descents being very slow. 
JOHN WISE.
Lancaster, August 22, 1859.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17,
AERIAL NAVIGATION-LETER FROM JOHN WISE.
To the Editor of The N.Y.Tribune.
    SIR: In your report of Mr.Lowe's aerial machinery in THE TRIBUNE of this morning, my name is used in connection with the account in such a manner as to do me a serious injury, if not corrected. The account says I have, for satisfactory reasons, abandoned the project OF constructing my transatlantic balloon. So far from that being the case, my present sojourn in this city is on account of that very business. I have ordered 7,000 yards of stout Suchan Pongee silk from Europe, through the house of Jaffray & Sons, for the construction of my air-ship.
    I have never for a moment abandoned that project. My late experiments in the eastern current wers specifically made with the view of aiding me in its simplification. In all this I am sure I have lost no ground; but, on the other hand, have saved time, and money, necessary to provide for the outfit, as well as having learned the avoidance of contingencies that might otherwise have rendered the experiment uncertain and disastrous. When I get ready I am certain of success, but until then I had determined to publish nothing about the merits or difficulties of the enterprise. I should have nothing to complain in the error of your reporter, where he makes reference to the abandonment of my enterprise, were it not that many of my distant friends, who read The Tribune, would be very much surprised to find that report verified by my silence to it.
    There is plenty of room in the atmosphere for experimentalists in this unexplored art. I wish them all success, and expect much information and improvement to spring from their trials, but I object to being ruled out of the field of aeronautic progress without my knowledge or consent.
    My own scheme is one of plain sailing--nothing but the balloon and water-car. These, properly constructed, will serve the purpose of transatlantic, transpacific, and circummundane voyages.
Girard House, Sept. 16, 1859.
JOHN WISE.

SYSTEMATIC BALLOONING.
To the Editor of the N.Y.Tribune.
    SIR: When we want to move along upon the surface of the earth faster and easier than we can with the pedestrian apparatus which animated nature supplies us, we must study the laws of motion, traction, and propulsion, and we must devise and adapt machinery to these laws.
    When we want to move over the face of the waters, to bring us into contact with men of other lands, and do it with ease and comfort, we must study the laws of relative gravities, kedging, and sailing, with the above-mentioned laws combined.
    When we want to float through the atmosphere with rapidity, system, and transcendent comfort, we must at once rise higher in the understanding and conception of machinery than is dominant in the other two departments, because aerial navigation is necessarily a fine art, and we must study well the nature of the element which is to buoy us up, and serve us as the highway in which we are to be carried along to the points and places which we aim to reach. Of all the arts of locomotion, this will be the most refined, as it will be the most refining one in its mechanical conceptions, and in its exalting means of civilization. A full and comprehensive understanding of all its merits, elements, and resources, requires patience and earnest pursuit, although the time for its rudimentary practice is ripe. We possess the means of crossing the seas, and the continents from west to east, with considerable deviation from that line, with precision and safety; and, for our day and generation, that is a sufficient guaranty to its earnest prosecution.
    God has wisely so constituted man as that he shall not be able to learn everything in one generation, and thus we may leave the more complex details of the art to our more refined posterity, should we not be enabled to learn the means of hedging off by quick curves and acute angles, or wheel round about in our day. When
    

Transcription Notes:
there seems to be missing lines between column 1 and 2 that has been cut off - same thing between column 2 and 3. For the part of the book title in lower column 2 that was ineligible, I simply goggled the book and found its full title.