As Experience proves you are not to be led by chimerical Notions, and that your Capacity and Fidelity render you fit to undertake the most difficult and secret Affairs, his Imperial Majesty thought none so fit as yourself to be entrusted in the Management of the present Scheme; which that you may do to his Majesty’s Satisfaction, and your own Interest and Credit, you are to observe the following Instructions.

“You are to order Volatilio, the first Proposer of the Journey now undertaken, to go to the Top of the Hill a Day before you, and from thence to acquaint you with the Nature of the Air; and if you find it practicable, you are to follow him.  If you gain the Summit, and that the Air is too thin for Respiration, you are to descend again, dispatch an Express to his Majesty, and clap Volatilio in Irons, then dispatch away one of the six Messengers whom I ordered to attend you:  They, Volatilio, and the whole Caravan, are to obey you, till you have pass’d the Atmosphere, when you and they are to follow the Directions of Volatilio, in what regards the Way only; but, in Case that you can respire on the Top of the Mountain, order Volatilio to precede you a Day’s Ascent, return the next, and immediately dispatch a second Messenger with the Account he gives, and continue on the Mountain for farther Instructions, before you proceed, should it prove practicable.  I need not tell you the Publick must be amused with Hopes of Success, tho’ you have Reason to despair of it; nor need I even hint to you what Method you ought to take.  I wish you Health, and that your Conduct may answer my Expectations.”

I acted pursuant to these Instructions, and sent Volatilio forward, who reach’d the Top of the Hill; but finding the Air too thin to continue there, without the Help of humected Spunges, he therefore sent those back he carried with him to the mid Space of the Mountain, and an Express to me, by which he informed me what he had done; that he resolved to continue there a natural Day, and then join me where he had sent his Followers, to which Place he desired I would ascend, and defer the dispatching any Express to his Majesty, till he saw me again.

I ascended to the Mid-space, and found a vast Alteration in the Air, which even here was very sensibly rarified.

My Projector came to me at his appointed Time, and told me he did not question the Success of our Enterprize, since he imagined the Air above the second Region rather denser than that near the Earth, and hoped the Cold was not more intense than on the Mountain’s Top; and that if this prov’d so, we cou’d breathe and support the Cold with little Difficulty.  I answer’d, that it was natural to conclude the Air next the Earth more dense than that above it, as the weightiest always descends the first.