A FALL BEFORE A RISE
and causing all this extra danger? How was it that the rotary ventilator was not fulfilling its purpose in feeding the interior air balloon and in this manner swelling out the gas balloon around it? The answer must be looked for in the nature of the accident. The rotary ventilator stopped working when the motor itself stopped, and I had been obliged to stop the motor to prevent the propeller from tearing the suspension wires near it when the balloon first began to sag from loss of gas. It is true that the ventilator, which was working at that moment, had not proved sufficient to prevent the first sagging. It may have been that the interior air balloon refused to fill out properly. The day after the accident, when my balloon constructor's man came to me for the plans of a "No. 6" balloon envelope, I gathered from something he said that the interior air balloon of the "No. 5," not having been given time for its varnish to dry before being adjusted, might have stuck together or stuck to the sides or bottom of the outer balloon. Such are the rewards of haste.
I was falling. At the same time the wind was carrying me toward the Eiffel Tower. It had already carried me so far that I was expecting to
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