Twenty persons held the cord which was fixed to the ear and conveyed it along, the balloon floating about six yards from the ground. But when they were triumphantly entering the village with their prisoner, he suddenly cut the cord by which the car was restrained, and made his escape into the air, to the utter amazement of his captors. After descending a second time, he rose again, and passed through clouds which emitted vivid flashes of lightning, accompanied by loud peals of thunder. The sun was then setting; and shortly afterwards, he encountered a storm. His balloon was tossed about among clouds, some of them snowy, and others charged with rain. An iron point, fixed to his car, emitted a stream of light from the positive electricity of the atmosphere; and, when negative, it exhibited a luminous spot. His flag bearing the arms of France in gold, sparkled with fire during the darkness of the night, while the thunder rolled, and the lightning flashed around him.The storm lasted for three hours; and during all that time the aeronaut durst not allow any of the gas to escape, lest its communication with the electric matter should have produced an explosion of the balloon. The tempest at length abated, and was succeeded by a perfect calm. From a sublime elevation, he beheld the sun ris ing; and after being twelve hours in the air, descended near the village of Campremi, 75 miles from Paris. His clothes and balloon were impregnated with a strong sulphureous smell; and his flag had been rent by the lightning.

ON the 7th of April, 1806, M. Mosment, an experienced aeronaut, undertook an aerial voyage from Lisle. he ascended at noon, waving a flag decorated with the imperial eagle of France, amid the shouts of the assem bled spectators. The commencement of his career was so rapid as to bear him in a very short time beyond the vision of the crowd. During his ascent be dropped an animal attached to a parachute, which came safely to the ground. About one o'clock, something was observed slowly descending through the atmosphere, which prov ed on its fall to be the flag which M. Mosment had carried along with him. Very soon afterwards a murmur circulated through the crowd, and the body of the unfortunate aeronaut was discovered in one of the fossés

of the city lifeless and covered with blood. The balloon reached the ground on the same day, at the distance of 75 miles from Lisle; the car contained nothing except an unloaded pistol, a little bread, and a piece of flesh.M. Garnerin ascribes this melancholy disaster to the extreme shallowness of the car, and the too great distance between the cords which attached it to the balloon; and is of opinion, that M. Mosment, when leaning over the car to drop the animal, had lost his balance, and was precipitated to the earth.

Of all the voyages which the history of aeronautics presents to our notice, the nocturnal aerial excursions of M. Garnerin must be ranked among the most enterprising and adventurous. At eleven o'clock in the evening of the fourth of August, 1807, he ascended from Tivoli, at Paris, under the Russian flag, as a token of the peace that subsisted between France and Russia. His balloon was illuminated by twenty lamps; and to obviate all danger of communication between these and the hydrogen gas, which it might be necessary to discharge in the course of the voyage, the nearest of the lamps was fourteen feet distant from the balloon, and conductors were provided to carry the gas away in an opposite direction. After his ascent, rockets that had been let off at Tivoli, seemed to him scarcely to rise above the earth, and Paris, with all its lamps, appeared a plain, studded with luminous spots. In forty minutes. he found himself at an elevation of 13.200 feet, when in consequence of the dilatation of the balloon, he was under the necessity of discharging a part of the inflammable air About twelve o'clock, when 3.600 feet from the earth. he heard the barking of two dogs: about two, he saw several meteors flying around him, but none of them so near as to create apprehension. At half past three, he beheld the sun emerging in brilliant majesty, above an ocean of clouds, and the air being thereby expanded, the balloon soon rose 15.000 feet above the earth, where be felt the cold exceedingly intense. In seven hours and a half from his departure. M. Garnerin descended near Loges, 135 miles distant from Paris.

The same intrepid aeronaut undertook a second noeturnal voyage, on the 21st of September, 1807. in the Course of which he was exposed to the most imminent

danger. M. Garnerin prognosticating an approaching storm, from the state of the atmosphere, refused to be accompanied by M. de Chassenton, who earnestly requested it. He ascended therefore alone from Tivoli, at ten o'clock, and was carried up with unexampled rapidity to an immense height above the clouds. The bal loon was there dilated to an alarming degree, and M. Garnerin, having been prevented by the turbulence of the mob, before his ascent, from regulating those parts of the apparatus which were meant to conduct the gas away from the lamps in its escape, was totally incapa. ble of managing the balloon. He had no alternative left, therefore, but with one hand to make an opening, two feet in diameter, through which the inflammable air was discharged in great quantities; and with the other to extinguish as many of the lamps as he could possibly reach. The aeronaut was now without a regulating valve; and the balloon subject to every caprice of the whirlwind, was tossed about from current to current.— When the storm impelled him downwards, he was forced to throw out his ballast, to restore the ascending tendency; and at last every resource being exhausted, no expedient was left him to provide against future exigencies. In this forlorn condition, the balloon rose through thick clouds, and afterwards sunk; and the car, having struck against the ground, with a violent impulse rebounded from it to a considerable altitude. The fury of the tempest dashed him against the mountains; and after many rude agitations and severe shocks, he was reduced to a state of temporary insensibility. On recovering from his perilous situation, he reached Mont Tonnerre in a storm of thunder A very short time after, his anchor hooked in a tree; and in seven hours and a half, after a voyage that had nearly proved fatal to him, he landed at the distance of 300 miles from Paris."

REFLECTIONS.

When reading the results of human invention and enterprize, it may not be unprofitable to moralize. If men will incur such expense and encounter such hazard, merely to rise a few fathoms above the earth; how we must stand reproved, that such small sacrifices are made

and so few perils encountered, for the purpose of soaring forever above terrestial objects. Truly "the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light."

To rise in any degree from the earth, a measure of an important tendency in matter, the attraction of gravitation, must be overcome. In proportion as a material body is elevated, it finds this tendency diminished. Let this illustrate the moral circumstances of sinful man. He is of the earth and earthy. Renovated affections of love to God and faith in Christ are to the soul, what Hydrogen gas is to the balloon. They elevate it; and the more it rises the less it feels the attraction of this world. The more it is elevated in its moral affections, the more diminutive the interests and pursuits of earth appear.It looks down with peculiar feelings on the littleness of sublunary objects. Now when a credible aeronaut informs us what he has seen and felt, when he has risen in regions which we have never traversed, we believe him. What should prevent our believing the assertions of a eredible person respecting his spiritual elevation? Why should he be branded as a fanatic, who says to his acquaintance, Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul?

Here again we are reminded, that like the power of gravitation with the balloon, the attractions of earth have restrained the flights of the soul on the wings of devotion," and brought it again in contact with beggarly elements. This will continue to be the case while we remain in the body. But when these clay tabernacles shall be dropped, with what astonishing rapidity may the conscious spirit pass beyond the orbit of Herschel, and with the rapidity of thought, dart in the twinkling of an eye beyond the remotest visible fixed star. Of the discoveries it may then make in the creation of God, we can form not the least probable conjectures. With what astonishment we shall then reflect on the supreme or inordinate attachment we have had to the gilded trifles of this speck of dust in the material universe. Now if the soul have in this world, learned the sublime science of soaring towards Heaven in holy affections, when it leaves the body; it will continue to rise with increasing velocity towards God forever and ever. The expanding views it will have of

Jehovah's perfections, as it rises through other worlds and is conversant with other immortal intelligences will be enrapturing.

But if at death it is disqualified for ascending, how dreadful must be its circumstances. Conceive of a man on the roof of a high building, with his feet sliding, and his fall inevitable; what dreadful emotions must he have? What throbs of anxiety must have seized Mosment, when disengaged from his balloon, and feeling that he must inevitably be dashed to atoms. Indescribably more awful will be the circumstances of souls leaving the body without holy affections. What imagination can conceive the horrors of being precipitated from our elevation as prisoners of hope, and dashed on the rocks of eternal perdition. From such a catastrophe Good LORD DELIVER US.

VISIT TO MOUNT VESUVIUS.-AN EXTRACT.

LATE in the afternoon we took two guides, and providing ourselves with torches, set off for the Mountain of Vesuvius, being resolved to see the mouth or crater, during the darkness of the night, that we might view it in all its terror. A continual ascent of two hours and a half brought us to the steepest part of the mountain, where we rested ourselves on a recumbent fig-tree, the only vegetable that ventured to approach so near the top, and which despairing to equal its fellows in height, was content to spread out its length along a bed of lava. Here the labour was doubled; for the ashes gave way at every step, so that we could scarcely make any progress. At length, however, after an hour's exertion and inconceivable fatigue we reached the summit. Almost at that instant of time the volcano began to roar. The noise may be compared to thunder. My courage failed me. I turned as pale as ashes, and trembled from head to foot. This trepidation lasted not long; I soon recoved sufficient fortitude to look down into the gulph below, at the very moment when the flame was bursting out; but I think it scarcely possible that I should ever forget the horrible impression which it excited. I had heard