of iron and partly of lunarium, to take off its weight.  On my return, I gave Mr. Jacob Perkins, who is now in England, a hint of this plan of condensation, and it has there obtained him great celebrity.  This fact I should not have thought it worth while to mention, had he not taken the sole merit of the invention to himself, at least I cannot hear that in his numerous public notices he has ever mentioned my name.

“But to return.  A small circular window, made of a single piece of thick clear glass, was neatly fitted on each of the six sides.  Several pieces of lead were securely fastened to screws which passed through the bottom of the machine as well as a thick plank.  The screws were so contrived, that by turning them in one direction, the pieces of lead attached to them were immediately disengaged from the hooks with which they were connected.  The pieces of lunarium were fastened in like manner to screws, which passed through the top of the machine; so that by turning them in one direction, those metallic pieces would fly into the air with the velocity of a rocket.  The Brahmin took with him a thermometer, two telescopes, one of which projected through the top of the machine, and the other through the bottom; a phosphoric lamp, pen, ink, and paper, and some light refreshments sufficient to supply us for some days.

“The moon was then in her third quarter, and near the zenith:  it was, of course, a little after midnight, and when the coppersmith and his family were in their soundest sleep, that we entered the machine.  In about an hour more we had the doors secured, and every thing arranged in its place, when, cutting the cords which fastened us to the ground, by means of small steel blades which worked in the ends of other screws, we rose from the earth with a whizzing sound, and a sensation at first of very rapid ascent, but after a short time, we were scarcely sensible of any motion in the machine, except when we changed our places.”

After the apprehensions of Atterley, occasioned by the novelty and danger of his situation, had partly subsided, he was enabled, with mingled awe and admiration, to contemplate the magnificent spectacle beneath him.  As the earth turned round its axis, during their ascent, every part of its surface came successively under view.  At nine o’clock, the whole of India was to the west of them; its rivers resembling small filaments of silver, and the Red Sea a narrow plate of the same metal.  The peninsula of India was of a dark, and Arabia of a light, grayer green, and the sun’s rays striking on the Atlantic, emitted an effulgence dazzling to the eyes.  On looking, some time afterwards, through the telescope, they observed the African Continent, at its northern edge; fringed, as it were, with green; “then a dull white belt marked the great Sahara or Desert, and then it exhibited a deep green to its most southern extremity.”  The Morea and Grecian Archipelago now fell under their telescope,