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THE PRESS.-
Up in a Balloon.
LECTURE AT THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE ON AERIAL NAVIGATION.
Professor Wise held forth last evening at Franklin Institute on the use of the balloon. His audience was mainly composed of young folks, who were tickled so nearly to death by some things the Professor told that he can be pardoned if, in regarding them as balloonatics, he drew slightly upon his imagination. He had ascended to unheard-of heights on one occasion in a balloon the material of which could not support its own weight, so delicate was the fabric of which it was composed. At another time he had thrown a bag of sand at the Polar star, but missed his aim, and came very near tumbling into space. He at all times sailed in the air at the rate of a mile a minute, and sometimes two, if necessary. Once on a time—it was on the Fourth of July—he and another man ascended in two balloons. The other man's balloon was called the "Young America," while the name of his was "Old America." The young man went up first, and, after skimming around the sun for a while, started out to sea at the rate of a streak of lightning. The people became anxious, and told the Professor to follow and save him. He did so—that is, he followed him. When he had ascended so high that he couldn't go any further, he began to take observations, that he might discover the whereabouts of his friend. He looked among the stars, then out over the sea, and finally at the surface of the water, where, to his horror, he beheld the "Young America." She seemed to be floating on the water; a sloop was after her, and he paused to witness the collision between the balloon and the sloop. He thought it would be a pretty sight. To his astonishment, however, the sloop passed right under the balloon, and when, some long time afterward, he saw his friend in another land, he was informed that the "Young America" hadn't been within five thousand feet of the water, and hadn’t seen any sloop.
The Professor finally became eloquent over the beauty of earth's scenery from far above, and subsided with the declaration that he was about to cross the Atlantic in a balloon.