Volume 54 — THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. OCTOBER, 1871. (continued 2)

There is another enemy, however, to encounter, and it is probably to this more than to the attenuation of the air that the painful effects in question are attributable. We allude to the extreme cold of the upper skies. The atmosphere has its polar regions as well as the earth. There frost builds no solid barriers it is true, but his invisible ramparts are a surer defence against intrusion than bulwarks of granite. Even at a height of three or four miles, explorers are apt to find their extremities benumbed, and their faces turning purple or blue. In a night ascent in 1804, Count Zambeccari, who subsequently met his death in consequence of his balloon taking fire, was so severely handled by the frost that he lost the use of his fingers, and was compelled to have some of them amputated. On one occasion, Mr. Coxwell, having laid hold of the grapnel with his naked hand, cried out in pain that he was scalded, which is precisely the punishment inflicted by metallic objects upon all who grasp them incautiously in arctic latitudes, when the temperature is exceedingly low.

Combining, therefore, these two causes, the rarefaction of the upper air, and the crushing influences of frost, we may readily understand why so many bold adventurers have been smitten with asphyxia when pushing their way into such untrodden solitudes. When Andreoli and Brioschi ascended from Padua, in 1808, to a prodigious height, the latter sank into a state of torpor, and shortly afterwards the former found that he had lost the use of his left arm. In the instance already alluded to, when Zambeccari was so mangled by the cold, he and Dr. Grassetti both became insensible, and their companion alone retained the control of his faculties.

On one memorable occasion, Mr. Glaisher and Mr. Coxwell rose to a region which had certainly never been visited before, and most probably will not be speedily visited again. The precise elevation they reached could only be guessed, but it could scarcely be less than 35,000 feet, and might possibly extend to 37,000 feet, or seven miles. This famous ascent was made in 1862 from Wolverhampton. When the aeronauts had soared to a height of some 29,000 feet, about five-and-a-half miles, Mr. Glaisher suddenly discovered that one arm was powerless, and when he tried to move the other, it proved to have been as suddenly stripped of its strength. He then endeavoured to shake himself, but, strange to say, he seemed to possess no limbs. His head fell on his left shoulder, and on his struggling to place it erect, it reeled over to the right. Then his body sank backwards against the side of the car, whilst one arm hung helplessly downwards in the air. In a moment more, he found that all the muscular power which remained in his neck and back had deserted him at a stroke. He tried to speak to his companion, but the power of speech had departed as well. Sight still continued, though dimly; but this, too, speedily vanished, and darkness, black as midnight, drowned his vision in an instant. Whether hearing survived, he could not tell, for there was no sound to break the silence of those lofty solitudes. Consciousness certainly remained; but the mind had ceased to control the body, and the reins of power seemed to have slipped for ever from his grasp. Was this the way men died? And did one faculty after another desert the soul in its extremity, as servile courtiers steal away from the presence of royalty when its last hour has arrived? Soon afterwards consciousness itself disappeared.

Fortunately, this insensibility was not of long duration. He was roused by Mr. Coxwell, but, at first, could only hear a voice exhorting him to 'try.' Not a word could he speak, not an object could he see, not a limb could he move. In a while, however, sight returned; shortly afterwards he rose from his seat, and then found sufficient tongue to exclaim, 'I have been insensible!' 'You have,' was the reply; 'and I too, very nearly!'

At the time Mr. Glaisher was smitten with paralysis, Mr. Coxwell had climbed up to the ring of the balloon, in order to free the valve-rope, which had become entangled. There, his hands were so frozen that he lost the use of them, and was compelled to drop down into the car. His fingers were not simply blue, but positively black with cold, and it became necessary to pour brandy over them to restore the circulation. Observing on his return that Mr. Glaisher's countenance was devoid of animation, he spoke to him, but, receiving no reply, at once drew the conclusion that his companion was in a state of utter unconsciousness. He endeavoured to approach, but found that he himself was lapsing into the same condition. With wonderful presence of mind, however, he attempted to open the valve of the balloon, in order that they might escape from this deadly region, but his hands were too much benumbed to pull the rope. In this fearful extremity, he seized the rope with his teeth, dipped his head downwards two or three times, and found to his relief that the machine was rapidly descending into a more genial sphere. Fortunately, the voyagers reached the ground in safety, without feeling any lasting mischief from their audacious excursion; but it would be difficult to invent a scene better calculated to make the nervous shudder than that of a balloon floating at a height of nearly seven miles, with its occupants awaking from a state of insensibility to discover that their limbs were utterly powerless, that the rope which might enable them to descend was dangling beyond their reach, and that there they must remain until the cold, which had turned every drop of water into ice, should eat away the feeble relics of vitality from their frames.

We proceed. We are now cruising in the full glare of the sun. The rays of that luminary beat upon us with scorching force; but whilst the head seems to be in the Sahara, the feet may be in Spitzbergen. For here, as on the top of a snow-clad mountain, the temperature of the air is one thing, the direct heat of the sun is quite another. The difference may amount to thirty or forty degrees in an ordinary ascent, and of course, becomes more noticeable the higher the flight. The thin air and scanty vapour of the upper regions furnish us with flimsy clothing; whilst in the nether world we wrap the dense medium round us like a mantle, and keep our caloric within our frames.

Is there any law, however, by which the decrease of temperature can be expressed? Seeing that the atmosphere is divided, as it were, into various storeys, these being formed of changing currents, or fugitive strata of clouds, each with its peculiar charge of heat, is it possible that any fixed principle of decline can be detected?

Take a few results. On leaving the ground, where the temperature was 50° (in the afternoon of the 31st of March, 1863), the thermometer indicated 33½° at one mile, 26° at two miles, 14° at three miles, 8° at 3¾ miles, where a bed of air heated to 12° was entered, and then at an elevation of 4½ miles, the instrument had fallen to zero. In descending, the temperature rose to 11° at about three miles in height, it sank to 7° in passing a cold layer, afterwards increased to 18½° at two miles, to 25½° at one mile, and finally settled at 42° on the ground.

Again, on starting (17th July, 1862), the temperature at the surface was 59°, at 4,000 feet, it was 45°, and at 10,000 feet it had sunk to 26°. For the next 3,000 feet it remained stationary, during which time the aeronauts donned additional clothing, in anticipation of a severe interview with the Frost King; but to their great surprise, the thermometer rose to 31° at 15,500 feet, and to 42° at 19,500 feet, by which time they found it necessary to divest themselves of their winter habiliments. Sometimes, indeed, the changes of temperature experienced are startling and unaccountable. At an elevation of 20,000 feet, Barral and Bixio, whilst enveloped in a cloud, found their thermometer at 15° Fahr. Above this cloud, at a height of 23,127 feet, the instrument had sunk to 38° below zero, making a difference of not less than 54° of heat between the two points. Judging from this observation, might we not expect to find all the moisture at those cheerless altitudes curdled into ice? and if our globe is sheathed in an envelope of frozen particles, is the fact wholly without meaning in reference to the aurora and other meteorological phenomena?

From such capricious data, it would seem impossible to extract any definite law; but it has been assumed by many that, taking all things into account, the temperature decreases one degree for every 300 feet of elevation. Putting the matter more exactly, there is, according to Flammarion, a mean abatement of one degree for every 345 feet where the sky is clear, and of one degree for every 354 feet when the heavens are overcast; the decline being quicker when the day is hot than when it is cold, and in the evening than in the morning. Mr. Glaisher, however, feels himself compelled to repudiate this theory of a steady, constant diminution of heat. The results of all his midday experiments amounted to this:—

'The change from the ground to 1,000 feet high was 4° 5´ with a cloudy sky, and 6° 2´ with a clear sky. At 10,000 feet high it was 2° 2´ with a cloudy sky, and 2° with a clear sky. At 20,000 feet high the decline of temperature was 1° 1´ with a cloudy sky, and 1° 2´ with a clear sky. At 30,000 feet the whole decline of temperature was found to be 62°. Within the first 1,000 feet the average space passed through for 1° was 223 feet with a cloudy sky, and 162 feet with a clear sky. At 10,000 feet the space passed through for a like decline was 455 feet for the former, and 417 feet for the latter; and above 20,000 feet high the space with both states of the sky was 1,000 feet nearly for a decline of 1°. As regards the law just indicated, it is far more natural and far more consistent than that of a uniform rate of decrease.'

It should be carefully observed that these conclusions refer to ascents by day; and that by night the temperature augments within certain limits, as Marcet showed, and as numerous experiments have confirmed.

Scarcely less interesting is the question as to the moisture in the atmosphere. Does it decline according to any graduated law? From a large number of observations it has been concluded that the watery vapour increases up to a certain elevation (varying with the season of the year, the hour of the day, and the condition of the sky), and then, having reached this maximum, we find that the air grows continually drier the further we climb. Upon this simple fact much of the physical happiness of our globe depends, for it is the moisture in the lower regions which arrests the efflux of caloric, preserves it for home consumption, and assists the earth in the kindly production of its fruits.

Meanwhile, the rays of the sun playing with unchecked fervour upon the balloon, have been heating and expanding the gas. Lightened also by the dissipation of the moisture contracted in the cloudier portion of the ascent, it probably occurs to the voyager, particularly if he is prone to take alarming views of events, that as the machine rises into a rarer atmosphere the envelope may distend until it actually bursts. Nor is this apprehension, however painful to the nerves, wholly without foundation. Looking up at the flimsy globe above his head, he will observe that it is now fully inflated, though purposely left somewhat flaccid when the journey commenced; and, possibly, he may observe signs of the sun's action on its sides, as if it were blistering under the solar beams. Brioschi, the Neapolitan astronomer, wishing to soar higher than Gay-Lussac, who had reached 23,000 feet on his way to the stars, was stopped on his ambitious flight, as Icarus had been before him, by getting too near the sun. He had no wings to melt, it is true, but he had a balloon to rupture, and the swollen tissue accordingly gave way, though, happily, without involving him in the fate of the presumptuous youth. Will it be credited, however, that any aeronaut could deliberately make an ascent with the express intention of bursting his balloon himself? Yet this has been done without pre-engaging a coroner, and without the slightest wish to commit scientific suicide. The individual by whom this perilous experiment was performed was Mr. Wise, the American. He argued that if the explosion were neatly managed, the collapsing envelope would act as a sort of parachute, the lower part retreating into the upper, and forming a concavity which would present sufficient resistance to ensure a safe and steady descent. Nor were his expectations wholly disappointed. Having risen through a thunderstorm to a height of 13,000 feet, he fired his magazine of hydrogen gas. The car rushed down with awful rapidity, supported, however, by the relics, like a torn umbrella, and alighted upon the ground without inflicting any great violence upon the daring navigator. Not many weeks afterwards, he repeated the exploit, if such it may be called, and in exploding the gas tore the silk receptacle from top to bottom; but, with equal good fortune, he arrived at the earth without a broken limb, the machine having taken a spiral course in falling, which enabled him to descend with uniform velocity.

Having now reached the highest point to which our aerostat will mount so long as its weight continues unchanged, we surrender ourselves to the guidance of the current in which we are involved. In rising to a moderate elevation, a balloon will sometimes shoot through more than one of these aerial streams. Mr. Foster detected the existence of four distinct currents in one experiment, namely, from the E.N.E., N., S.W., and S.S.E., and on the following day found there were three, namely, from the E.N.E., S.E., and S.S.W. Sometimes an upper and an under current may move in opposite directions. Had it not been for this fact, M. Tissandier's début in the clouds might have terminated in his death in the ocean. Ascending with M. Duruof from Calais under somewhat rash and defiant circumstances, their balloon was borne out to sea, not towards the English coast, which might, perhaps, have been reached, but right up the North Sea, where they would probably have perished. Fortunately, after proceeding for some distance, they observed a fleet of cumuli steering for Calais at a depth of some 3,000 feet below, and by dropping into this counter stream they were floated back to land.

There is no subject of greater moment to aeronauts than the determination of the atmospheric currents. Upon this question in a great measure depends the utility of ballooning as an art. We should certainly consider that ocean navigation was in a despicable condition if the utmost we could do for a vessel was to commit it, preciously freighted with our own persons, to the wind and waves, without a sail to propel it or a rudder to guide it in any particular direction. Yet this is pretty much the state of aerial seamanship, except for purposes of vertical travelling. If it could be ascertained that streams flowed to different quarters at different elevations—river rolling over river—then it might be easy to book our balloon for some special point of the compass. But the atmosphere is comparatively unexplored in this respect, and it will require long study before any definite conclusions can be formed, even if such should be ever realized.

That there is some degree of certainty in air-currents may be indicated by a curious fact mentioned by Flammarion, namely, that the traces of his various voyages are all represented by lines which had a tendency to curve in one and the same general direction. 'Thus,' says he, 'on the 23rd June, 1867, the balloon started with a north wind directly towards the south-south-west, and, after a while, due south-west, when we descended. A similar result was observed in every excursion, and the fact led me to believe that above the soil of France the currents of the atmosphere are constantly deviated circularly, and in a south-west-north-east-south direction.'

Still more curious is a fact which Mr. Glaisher may be said to have discovered.

We are accustomed to talk much of the Gulf Stream. It is as popular a marine phenomenon as the Great Sea Serpent. For some time it has figured in meteorology as the subtle agent to which all climatic eccentricities, and not a few climatic advantages, are ascribed; but what shall we say to a genuine 'aeria Gulf Stream?' What, to a stream flowing through the atmosphere in kindly correspondence with the beneficent current which sweeps through the Atlantic below?

On the 12th January, 1864, Mr. Glaisher left the earth, where a south-east wind was prevailing. At a height of 1,300 feet he was surprised to enter a warm current, 3,000 feet in thickness, which was flowing from the south-west, that is, in the direction of the Gulf Stream itself. At the elevation in question the temperature, according to the usual calculation, should have been 4° or 5° lower than that at the ground, whereas it was 3½° higher. In the region above, cold reigned, for finely-powdered snow was falling into this atmospheric river. Here, therefore, was a stream of heated air previously unsuspected, which, if its course is steady, as it appears to be during winter, constitutes a prodigious accession to our resources, and adds another to the many meteorological blessings the world enjoys.

'The meeting with this south-west current (writes Mr. Glaisher) is of the highest importance, for it goes far to explain why England possesses a winter temperature so much higher than our northern latitudes. Our high winter temperature has hitherto been mostly referred to the influence of the Gulf Stream. Without doubting the influence of this natural agent, it is necessary to add the effect of a parallel atmospheric current to the oceanic current coming from the same regions—a true aerial Gulf Stream. This great energetic current meets with no obstruction in coming to us, or to Norway, but passes over the level Atlantic without interruption from mountains. It cannot, however, reach France without crossing Spain and the lofty range of the Pyrenees, and the effect of these cold mountains in reducing its temperature is so great that the former country derives but little warmth from it.'

The velocity of these atmospheric streams must, of course, differ considerably; but, however rapid may be their motion, the balloonist will not fail to notice the feeling of personal immobility which gives such a peculiar character to aerial travelling. We can hardly realize the idea of being transported, say, from London to Dover, without experiencing sundry jars of the muscles or tremors of the nerves, even if we escape, as is by no means certain, the chances of a collision; but M. Flammarion remarks in reference to one of his journies, that the distance accomplished was a hundred and twenty miles, 'during the whole of which time we never felt ourselves in motion at all.' No better illustration of this exemption from the jerks and joltings of terrestrial locomotion could be given than a simple experiment. A tumbler was filled with water till the liquid stood bulging over the brim. The balloon was travelling with the velocity of a railway train, and sometimes rising, sometimes falling, through hundreds of feet at a time, yet not a single drop of the fluid was swung out of the glass!

Striking as the fact is, it would be still more surprising if it were otherwise; for, having once entered a current of air, and surrendered our machine to its guidance, we become, as it were, part of the medium in which we are immersed. The balloon has no longer any will of its own, or of its occupants, except for purposes of ascent or descent. It glides along with the stream, and, coming athwart no obstructions, it knows none of the bumpings to which more grovelling vehicles are exposed. Hence results another consequence which will scarcely escape attention, namely, that here, in the very place of winds, we experience no wind whatever. You may sit in the car of a balloon without undergoing much danger from draughts. There are no fierce gales to encounter, and therefore there are no weather-beaten mariners aloft. If we come to a spot where two breezes meet in battle, or, if two currents of differing directions were so sharply defined that the upper part of the machine could emerge into the superior stream whilst the lower part was in the keeping of the inferior, then very unpleasant results might ensue; but these are not events which aerial navigators have frequently to record in the serener regions aloft.

And as all motion seems to have ceased, except what is due to the rotatory action of the balloon, so all sound appears to have expired. On earth we have nothing to compare with the awful stillness of these airy solitudes. Some noise—be it the sighing of the wind, the pattering of the rain, the fall of a crumbling particle of rock—will break the tranquillity of the vale, the loneliest wilderness, the loftiest peak. But here nature appears to be voiceless, and silence, 'the prelude of that which reigns in the interplanetary space,' seems to be a consecrated thing, as if it were destined to remain uninterrupted until the Trumpet of Judgment shall wake the world.

But did we say we were in absolute solitude? If so, imagine the startled look of an aeronaut when, on issuing from a cloud, he sees before him, at the distance of some thirty or forty yards, the figure of another balloon! If a feeling of horror creeps over him at the sight, he might well be pardoned, for his first thought would doubtless be that it was some phantom of the air sent to lure him to destruction, as the Flying Dutchman is reported to do with mariners at sea. One remarkable feature, however, instantly attracts his attention. The car of the stranger is placed in the centre of a huge disc, consisting of several concentric circles—the interior one being of yellowish white, the next pale blue, the third yellow, followed by a ring of greyish red, and, finally, by one of light violet. That car, too, is occupied. Its tenants are engaged in returning the scrutiny, and their attitudes express equal surprise. By-and-bye, one of them lifts his hand; but that is just what one of the aeronauts has done. Another motion is made, and this is imitated to the letter. A laugh from the living voyagers follows. They have discovered that the stranger is an optical apparition, for on examination it is found to correspond with their own machine, line for line, rope for rope, and man for man, except that they, the living ones, are not surrounded by a glory as if they were resplendent saints.

This beautiful phenomenon is due to the reflection or diffraction of light from the little vesicles of vapour, and must not be confounded with the ordinary shadow of the balloon which, under fitting conditions, and in a more or less elongated form, generally appears to accompany us like some spectral shark in pitiless pursuit of an infected ship.

It is now time, however, to commence our homeward voyage. In other words, we must tumble perpendicularly to the earth, but so regulate our fall that no bones shall be broken, and no concussion, if possible, sustained. To do this from an elevation of three or four miles must strike us as a vastly more dangerous problem than the ascent to a similar height. The valve at the top of the balloon affords us the means of diminishing its relative levity by a gradual discharge of the gas. But this process must be cautiously performed, otherwise the machine may start off like a steed which is suddenly inspired with a new life when its face is turned towards its home. Hence the necessity of retaining a proper amount of ballast to control its impatient descent. If it should sink too rapidly, the emptying of a bag or two will check its pace, and even give it an upward turn for the time, so that the aeronauts, in rising again, will sometimes hear a pattering upon the balloon, which proves to be the very shower of sand they have just ejected.

So delicately, indeed, does the machine respond to any alteration in its weight, that once, when M. Tissandier threw out the bone of a chicken he had been assisting to consume, his companion gravely reproved him, and, on consulting the barometer, he was compelled to admit that this small act of imprudence had caused them to 'rise from twenty to thirty yards!'

Not unfrequently it happens that a balloon has to dive through such heavy clouds, or through such a rainy region, that its weight is considerably increased by the deposited moisture. In passing through a dense stratum, 8,000 feet in thickness, Mr. Coxwell's aerostat, on one occasion, became so loaded that, though he had reserved a large amount of ballast, which was hurled overboard as fast as possible, the machine sped to the earth with a shock which fractured nearly all the instruments.

Lunardi, having ascended from Liverpool in July, 1785, found himself without ballast, and in a balloon insufficiently inflated. He was carried out to sea, retaining of course the power of sinking, which, however, he did not wish to exercise, as he was almost without the means of rising. To lighten the machine, he tossed off his hat, and even this insignificant article afforded him some relief. Soon afterwards, he removed his coat, and this enabled him to mount a little higher, and bear away towards the land. To escape a thunder-cloud, he subsequently divested himself of his waistcoat, and finally succeeded in grappling the earth in a cornfield near Liverpool, spite of his improvidence in the matter of ballast.

It is under such circumstances, however, that we discover the value of the long rope suspended from the car, and which may be let out to the depth of some hundreds of feet. It is a clever substitute for ballast, with this great-advantage, that it is retained, not lost; and that it may also be used as a kind of flexible buffer to break the force of the descent. When the balloon is sinking, every inch of the rope which rests upon the ground relieves it of an equivalent portion of its weight: the process is tantamount to the discharge of so much ballast, and, therefore, the rapidity of the descent is not only lessened, but possibly the downward course of the machine may be arrested some time before it reaches the soil; should it mount again, every coil of the cable lifted from the earth adds to its gravity. In cases where the aeronaut has from any cause lost the mastery of his vessel, this self-manipulating agency may preserve him from a fatal reception, whilst, on the other hand, he has it in his power, by letting out gas when the balloon is balanced in the air, to lower himself (other conditions being favourable) as peaceably as he chooses.

The Géant of Nadar, with a weight of 7,000 to 8,000 lbs., in descending on one occasion, after all the ballast had been exhausted, rushed down towards the earth with the speed of an ordinary railway train, and yet, thanks to the guide-rope, no serious accident occurred, though the instruments were all broken, and a few contusions were sustained. This admirable contrivance was introduced by that 'ancient mariner' of the air, Mr. Green.

In returning to our native soil, however, one of the most dangerous conditions which can arise is the prevalence of a thick fog, or the necessity for ploughing our way through a dense cloud. Under such circumstances, how do we know where the earth lies? Not that we are likely to miss it—the great fear is that we may hit it too soon, and too forcibly. It is then that the value of the barometer is most fully appreciated. This instrument does for the aeronaut what the compass does for the sailor. But the observer must be prompt and careful in his reading, for if the descent is rapid, the least inattention may result in a fractured collarbone, or a couple of shattered bodies.

Presuming, however, that, as we sink through the cloudy trap-door by which we entered the upper sky, we find all clear below, the old familiar earth again bursts upon our view. For a few moments the planet appears to be shooting upwards with considerable velocity. It is like a huge rock which has been aimed at our little balloon, or a star which has shot madly from its sphere, and is hastening to crush us on our return from our sacrilegious voyage. By throwing out a quantity of ballast, however, as if in defiance, we seem to check it in its course, and if it continues to approach, it does so with moderate speed. But we soon discover the deceit, and learn (probably to our chagrin) that it is not the world which is troubling itself to meet us, but we who are doing obeisance in our own puniness to its irresistible will.

In one sense, indeed, the appearance of a balloon in the sky is always the signal for a certain amount of commotion. Dogs begin to bark furiously, poultry begin to run to and fro in evident alarm, whilst cattle stand gazing in astonishment or scamper off in terror, as people used to do—so we suppose—when hippogriffs were in the habit of alighting at their doors. One French aeronaut remarks very drily that the best mode of obtaining a correct estimate of the population of any given district is to approach it in a balloon, for then every individual rushes out of doors to look at the visitor, and so 'the people can be counted like marbles.' Another states that in passing over Calais the only figure that did not lift its head to gaze at the travellers was the Duc de Guise, whose bust in the Place d'Armes was incapable, for good reasons, of paying them that act of homage.

Other things being duly considered, the chief business of a balloonist in descending is to select an open and unincumbered locality. To plump down upon a cathedral, or impale his car upon the top of a spire; to allow it to alight amongst the clashing trees of a forest, or to attempt to ground it amongst the chimneys and gables of a crowded town, would be pretty much the same as for a sailor to run his vessel amongst the breakers, or to drive it full tilt against the nearest lighthouse. The experienced navigator knows where to throw out his grapnel, and this, digging into the soil or catching in the rocks, or laying hold of any object from a tree to a tombstone, will bring the big airship to anchor, and enable the crew, with a little management, to disembark.

But having landed, what kind of a reception shall we encounter? That is a question of some little consequence. There are two ways of dealing with aeronauts: the first is to invite them to dinner and offer them beds for the night; the other is to make an extortionate claim for damages, or carry them before the magistrates as trespassers. The latter practice is much in vogue in rustic regions. You have scarcely leaped out of the car than up there comes an angry farmer, vociferating loudly, gesticulating frantically, and when he sees his fences broken down, and his crops trampled under foot by a crowd of villagers who rush to the spot to inspect the stranger from the clouds, his wrath rises to the boiling point (far below 212° Fah.), and the brute threatens immediate arrest, or appears to be on the eve of inflicting personal chastisement. In some instances, attempts have been made to distrain upon the balloon, damage feasant, as lawyers would say, though it would have puzzled the bumpkins to determine how such an unmanageable object could be safely lodged in the village pound.

When the first hydrogen balloon fell at Gonesse, near Paris (1783), a most extraordinary scene was witnessed. The inhabitants of the village were struck with terror upon seeing an unknown monster descending from the sky. A genuine dragon could not have excited more consternation. Was it some fabulous animal realized in the flesh, or was it the great fiend in proper (or improper) person? On all sides they fled. Many sought an asylum at the house of the curé, who thought that the wisest mode of dealing with the intruder was to subject it to exorcism. Under his guidance they proceeded falteringly to the spot where it lay, heaving with strange contortion. They waited to see what effect the good man's presence would produce, but the creature seemed to be utterly insensible to his fulminations. At length one of the crowd, more intrepid than the rest, took aim with his fowling-piece, and tore it so severely with the shot that it began to collapse rapidly; whereupon the rest, summoning up courage, darted forward and battered it with flails or gashed it with pitchforks. The outrush of gas was so great that they were driven back for the time, but when the dying monster appeared exhausted, the peasants fastened it to the tail of a horse and drove it along until the carcase was utterly dismembered.

The rustics who witnessed the first descent in England—Lunardi's, in Hertfordshire—shrank from the aeronaut as a very equivocal personage, because he had arrived on what they called the 'devil's horse.' Nor are these terrors wholly extinct in the present day, for Flammarion gives a description (with the pencil as well as the pen) of a descent in which men appear to be flying, children screaming, and animals scampering, whilst the balloon with its flags and streamers, waving fantastically on each side like long arms or tentaculæ, is regarded by them as some formidable being coming from the clouds. 'It is the devil himself!' they exclaim.

But having anchored, and escaped all the perils due to chimney-tops or infuriated farmers, the first question we put will doubtless be—Where are we? A more unfortunate query could scarcely be propounded. It expresses the greatest of all the infirmities under which the balloon labours—namely, that no mortal can tell us beforehand where we shall alight. Would it not be rather inconvenient if a traveller, on setting out from Derby, were unable to say whether he should land at Liverpool or at Hull, at Brighton or at Berwick-upon-Tweed? For aught we know, we might find ourselves, after ascending from the most central part of England, hovering over the Irish Sea or the English Channel, with simple power to rise into the clouds or plunge into the waves, but with none to choose any horizontal path or enter any particular port. Whilst drifting tranquilly along in a current, we could hardly fail to ask whether no means could be adopted for propelling balloons in the air as is the case with vessels on the water. Put out our oars? Unhappily they would do little to assist our progress, for, however broad their blades, they would meet with small resistance from the thin medium into which they were dipped. Rely upon paddle-wheels? Just as bad! There is no dense fluid like water to grip, and the floats would spin around almost as vainly as if they were worked in the receiver of an air-pump. Besides, the inflated globe with its suspended car does not constitute a rigid and inflexible whole, and if it did, the attempt to drive it against or athwart a current, in its present form, would be like rowing a man-of-war, with all its canvas stretched, right in the teeth of a gale.

It would be impossible in an article like this to glance at the innumerable schemes which have been propounded for the guidance and propulsion of balloons. Wonderful ingenuity has been expended upon the subject. In one project, for example, the waste gas, instead of being idly discharged, was to be conveyed into an apparatus from which it would issue with a centrifugal force capable—so it was fondly supposed—of urging the aerostat in any given direction. In another, the balloon itself was to be converted into a kind of screw, so that when turned by means of a small engine, it should advance at each motion through a space proportioned to the distance between the threads of this monster spiral. M. Farcot gives us a description, in a little treatise on Atmospheric Navigation,[48] of a petit navire aèrien de plaisance, framed like a flying whale, 100 yards in length, with an extensive gallery slung below, and fitted up with fins or wings, by means of which it is to be propelled. The picture of this marvellous structure is so enchanting, that we feel an irrepressible desire to mingle with the passengers who seem to be lounging luxuriously over the balcony, and who are evidently as much at home as if they were taking a pleasure excursion in a steamer on Windermere or the Lake of Geneva. M. Dupuy de Dôme not long since received a grant from the French Government to enable him to construct a fish-like machine to be worked by a screw, and assisted by a sort of swimming bladder. Indeed, a large number of persons, either doubting or despairing of man's power to master the balloon in its ordinary form, rest their hopes upon the construction of machines which, whether lighter or heavier than the air, shall be driven through the atmosphere by brute force, if it may be so called. Mr. Glaisher does not, of course, share in these views. He tells us that he has attempted no improvement in the management of the balloon, that he found it was wholly at the mercy of the winds, and that he saw no probability of any method of steering it being ever discovered. Fonvielle and Tissandier, on the other hand, whilst admitting that the machine is still in its infantile stage, complain that the engineers have not yet brought all their resources to bear upon the subject, and entertain some vague notion that what has been done for locomotives, for steamboats, and ordinary sailing vessels, will surely be done for the ships of the air, forgetting that the problem to be solved is not exactly how you shall skim the surface of the water in a boat, but rather how you could drive a frigate through the fluid with its sails set when sunk to a depth of many feet, and this with the whole body of water in motion in a different direction. M. Flammarion remarks that a bird is much heavier than its bulk of air, yet the eagle and the condor, massive as they are, soar with ease to the tops of the tallest rocks; and shall man, he inquires (especially a Frenchman, to whom the empire of the air properly belongs[49]), be beaten by a bird? M. Flammarion declines. M. Farcot positively refuses.

For all purposes of aerial travelling, however, the painful fact remains, which may, perhaps, be most summarily expressed by saying that there is no Bradshaw for balloons. When the day comes in which it can be announced that 'highflyers' or 'great aerials' will leave Trafalgar-square for Paris or Dublin, weather permitting, at a certain hour; or that balloon trains will regularly ply between Hull and Hamburg, or, better still, that a Cunard or Collins line of atmospheric steamers has been established between London and New York, then the apparatus will be admitted into the noble army of machines which, like the ship, the locomotive, the steam-engine, the spinning jenny, the telescope, the mariner's compass, the electric telegraph, and many others, have rendered such splendid service to mankind.

Some dozen years ago, indeed, an aerial ship, intended to traverse the Atlantic, was announced as in course of construction in America, by Mr. Lowe. Weighing from three to four tons in itself, it was to possess an ascending power equal to twenty-two tons. Its capacity was to be five times larger than that of any previous machine. Fifteen miles of cord were to be employed in the network alone. Beneath the car a boat thirty feet in length was to be slung, and this skiff was to be fitted up with masts, sails, and paddle-wheels, in order that the crew might take to the water in case their balloon failed them at sea. Copper condensers were to be attached, in order that additional gas might be driven into the globe, or surplus gas abstracted, as occasion demanded, the object of this contrivance being to enable the navigators to raise or lower themselves without wasting any precious material. The ship was to be directed by an apparatus containing a fan like that of a winnowing machine, and this was to be worked by an Ericsson's caloric engine of four-horse power. Various ingenious appliances, amongst others a sounding line one mile in length to show the course of the atmospheric currents, were to be adopted, and it was confidently hoped that this Great Eastern of the atmosphere, which was to be styled the City of New York, would cross the Atlantic in not less than three days, and possibly in two! We regret to say that it has not yet put into any European port, though its arrival would be hailed with more satisfaction than the first steamship, the Sirius, was in America.

Let it not be supposed, however, that the balloon, even in its present rudimentary condition, is available for frivolous or exceptional purposes alone—for the former, when it is used as a brilliant supplement to some display of fireworks; for the latter, when we happen to be locked up in some steel-begirded city. For scientific objects it may be difficult to overrate its value as a 'floating observatory,' and we cannot refrain from sharing in M. Fonvielle's chagrin when he tells us how, on one occasion, after preparing to view an eclipse from a lofty elevation, he found that his aeronaut was not ready to set out until the eclipse was over; or how on another, when all had been arranged to make a sally amongst the November meteors on one of their grand gala nights, he found, on arriving at the spot, that the workmen had taken to flight in consequence of the escape of the gas, and that his only chance was to go up the 'day after the fair.' Many uses also may be found for captive balloons. Half in jest, M. Flammarion inquires, whether these might not be pleasantly employed in traversing the deserts where camels or dromedaries constitute the ordinary means of conveyance. How uncomfortable is a seat upon the back of one of these brutes—what patience it requires to endure the tearing, jerking motions of these ships of the wilderness—most wanderers in the East well know, and perhaps painfully remember. Suppose, then, that an aerostat were harnessed to a dromedary and drawn peacefully along, whilst the traveller sat softly in the car—reading, smoking, sleeping, dreaming—without a single jolt to mar his enjoyment, would not this be a blessed improvement in locomotion? Half in jest, too, we might carry the idea a little further, and ask whether, if balloons occupied by delicate voyagers were attached to steamers, and allowed to float at a sufficient height, so as to reduce the see-saw motion of the vessels to an imperceptible quantity, the pains of that abhorrent malady, sea-sickness, might not be avoided in crossing the Channel, or making small marine excursions?

So, many homely uses for captive balloons might be imagined. A traveller in Russia gives an account of a church at St. Petersburg with a lofty spire crowned with a large globe, upon which stood an angel supporting a cross. The figure began to bend, and great fears were entertained lest it should come down with a terrible crash. How could it be repaired was the question? To erect a proper scaffold would involve a formidable expense, and yet to reach the object without it seemed utterly impracticable, for the spire was covered with gilded copper, and looked more unscaleable than the Matterhorn. A workman, however, undertook the task. The plates of metal had been attached by nails which were left projecting. Furnished with short pieces of cord, looped at both extremities, he slung one end over a nail, and placing his feet in the other, raised himself a short distance: this enabled him to reach a little higher and fasten another loop over another nail, and so by repeating the process, and mounting from stirrup to stirrup, he crawled up, until by a still more daring manœuvre he threw a cord over the globe, and then finally clambered to the side of the figure. A ladder of ropes was next drawn up, and the rest of the work became comparatively easy of execution; but with a captive balloon the needful materials might have been sent up, and the angel put in repair, without costing an anxious thought, or jeopardising either life or limb.

How far it is possible to employ a balloon for purposes of exploration in quarters which are naturally inaccessible, or at any rate difficult of approach, must be a question dependent in no small degree upon the power of replenishing the machine with gas or heated air. It would, doubtless, be a fine thing if men could thus sail over all the obstructions which fence in the two poles, and pry into the Antarctic continent, or solve the problem of a hidden Arctic sea. Many years ago Mr. Hampton designed, and we believe completed, a big Montgolfier, which was to be employed in the search after Sir John Franklin. The machine was to be inflated by means of hot air produced by the agency of a great stove; but, if the necessity for a supply of the ordinary gas was thus avoided, the demand for fuel in regions where neither timber nor coal could be had (blubber, indeed, might perhaps have been procured), must have proved an insuperable difficulty, and the enterprise would probably have terminated in leaving the aeronauts stranded on some icy waste, without any better means of return than were possessed by the poor lost ones themselves.

Let us not part from this subject, however, without informing the reader that if M. Flammarion's views are correct, it is the most important topic under the sun. 'For,' says he, with the look of a prophet and the tone of a poet, 'when the conquest of the air shall have been achieved, universal fraternity will be established upon the earth, everlasting peace will descend to us from heaven, and the last links which divide men and nations will be severed.' Without laying any stress upon the oracular form of this prediction—and the indefinite 'when' may conceal some sly reference to the Greek Kalends—we regret to say that we cannot join in his jubilant conclusion. Our firm persuasion is, that in the present state of affairs, seeing that so large a portion of the world's revenue is squandered upon fighting purposes, one of the first steps which would be taken in case the 'conquest of the air' were perfected to-morrow, would be to fit out a fleet of war-balloons, to raise a standing army of aeronauts, to add a new and afflictive department to our annual estimates, and to encourage the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make another assault upon the match-sellers, and probably to double our income-tax without compunction.

Art. III.—Early Sufferings of the Free Church of Scotland.

(1.) Illustrations of the Principles of Toleration in Scotland. Edinburgh. 1846.

(2.) The Headship of Christ and the Rights of the Christian People. By the late Hugh Miller. Nimmo, Edinburgh.

(3.) The Cruise of the Betsy. By Hugh Miller. Nimmo.

(4.) Evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons on the Refusal of Sites for Churches in Scotland, 1847.

(5.) Statement on the Law of Church Patronage, prepared by a Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in compliance with a suggestion of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. William Blackwood and Sons. 1870.

We were enabled to present our readers last year with what we believe to be the only full sketch in existence, drawn from authentic and official documents, of the rise and progress during a quarter of a century, of the Free Church of Scotland. From the figures there quoted it was made clear that at the very time when the Archbishop of Canterbury was proclaiming that this voluntary church was 'a failure' financially, its yearly income, steadily increasing from £275,000 of its earliest lustrum, had at last reached the highest point of £400,000; and that just when his Grace was asserting that 'whereas for a time it went forth triumphantly, now the ministers in all remote places are utterly destitute,' these remote ministers had, for the first time (although their number was doubled) attained the minimum stipend proposed by Dr. Chalmers of £150 each. The organization and machinery by which such a striking success has been achieved, as well as the principles which gave the original impulse to the body, were worthy of careful statement and study. Yet while devoting exclusive attention to these, we became gradually conscious that we were treading coldly upon the ashes of what history will describe as a marvellous outburst of self-sacrifice. The pathos and the suffering of that sad but noble year of 1843 have never yet been brought before English readers, but there is not so much heroism among us that we can afford to lose from the annals of this easy-going modern time so startling a narrative.

'Ah! that was something like disestablishment,' said a minister of the Free Kirk to us in the spring when the precedents of the Irish Church Bill were being discussed. He had been arguing that besides assuring their life-interests to the Irish clergy, it would be only fair to make a present to them of their glebes and parsonages. 'You should let a working-man take his working tools with him,' said our friend, and he was not sorry when the House of Lords gave a million or so of money to the new body. We were rash enough in reply to ask whether he got any equivalent for a glebe when a quarter of a century ago he and his two boys left the pleasant manse of B—— overlooking the Great Strath. But we had touched too deep a sore. The old man cheerfully turned it off with the words we have quoted above, but we could not forgive ourselves; and the thing led us back to enquire into some extraordinary scenes which took place in Scotland when many of the present generation were too young to observe them.

For this chapter of forgotten heroism, in which men of kindred blood and almost of our own generation took part, there are fortunately authentic as well as vividly descriptive materials. The reports presented year by year to the Scotch General Assemblies are the most public of all documents, and are intended to invite challenge and scrutiny. The evidence presented to the House of Commons Committee in 1848 is of great importance and of unquestioned authority. The writings of a man of genius like Hugh Miller will carry part of the truth down to other generations of readers. And yet, while much is known, much must ever remain untold. Scotchmen, who are men of education, and in a sacred office, are precisely the men to cover the sharpest pangs of poverty, and dread of poverty, with an impenetrable covering of reserve; and now that twenty-six years have passed, most of those grave, suffering faces have gone down into a deeper silence. Besides, the Free Kirk has come to be so proud of its extraordinary success in reconstruction, that it has rather attempted (notably in the recent debates in the House of Commons) to throw into the background the anguish of its birth, and to dwell rather on the achievements of the whole than on the sufferings of individuals. Our business is now rather with the latter, and fortunately there is one additional source whence this information can be derived. Dr. Thomas Guthrie, of Edinburgh, is known chiefly by his philanthropic efforts, after the example of Dr. Chalmers, to provide churches and schools and ragged schools for the masses in the large towns of Scotland; but the great achievement of his life, and one, too, for which men of all parties can now join in his praise, was that marvellous tour through Scotland in the year 1845, as the result of which parsonages, or 'manses' as they are called in Scotland, were actually provided for the seven hundred ministers, most of whom had been left homeless a year or two before, and whose places in the Establishment had all now been filled up. In the course of this great 'circumnavigation of charity,' he naturally became acquainted with facts and details, some of which found their way into speeches published at the time, and it is fortunate that we can still quote, from one of the greatest platform orators whether of England or Scotland, some of the fresh facts of that suffering time.

Until we recently came to the knowledge of these documents, we had the feeling that this suffering must have consisted more in apprehension or imagination than in actual privations—that the terrible dread which haunted men who were giving up their whole livings had scarcely any actual realization. And even though this turns out not to be the case, it is plain from Dr. Guthrie's own statements, that all over Scotland the approaching trial struck a chill to the hearts even of those who were determined to face it:—

'I remember,' he says, 'in a certain district of country, a minister said to me, "You think there is no chance of a settlement?" I said, "We are as certain of being out as that the sun shall rise to-morrow." I was struck by something like a groan, which came from the very heart of the mother of the family; they had had many trials in their day: there had been cradles and coffins in their home, and the place was endeared by many associations to the mother; there was not a flower or shrub or a tree but what was dear to her—some of them were planted by the hands of those who were in their graves,—and that woman's heart was like to break. I remember another instance, where there was a venerable mother who had gone to the place when it was a wilderness, but who, with her husband, had turned it into an Eden. Her husband had died there. Her son was now the minister. This venerable woman was above eighty years of age; yes, and I never felt more disposed to give up my work than in that house. I could contemplate the children being driven from their home; but when I looked on that venerable widow and mother, with the snows and sorrows of eighty years upon her head, and saw her anxiety about two things, namely, that Lord Aberdeen should bring in a bill to settle the question, but her anxiety, at the same time, that if Lord Aberdeen did not bring in a satisfactory measure, her son should do his duty,—I could not but feel that it was something like a cruel work to tear out such a venerable tree—to tear her away from the house that was dearest to her on earth.'

For, as we formerly said, compared with this blow, the disestablishment of the Irish Church was a fall into the lap of luxury. Every minister in Scotland who adhered to the Church lost his income in one day—Whit-sunday of 1843. On the same day they lost their dwellings. The professors of divinity, with Chalmers at their head; the missionaries, with Dr. Duff at their head; the humble schoolmasters, with no great name to sustain them—were all turned out at the same moment. And the great strain and crisis of conscience must have been in the spring of that year, when those who in 1842 had pledged themselves, with two-thirds of the Assembly, 'to endure resignedly the loss of the temporal blessings of the Establishment,' saw that there was to be no escape from the sacrifice. The dread and depression must often have been extreme; yet it was not unmixed with a sustaining joy, as in the case of the following story, with reference to Dr. Charles Mackintosh (a venerated minister in the North, whose memorials have recently been published), for which we are indebted to a correspondent who is a native of the Highlands:—

'One morning in the spring of 1843, I jumped early out of bed, for my head was full of marbles and peg-tops, and a dozen or so of games before breakfast has its attractions for a schoolboy. To my astonishment, I found my father down before me; nay, he had evidently been there for some time, for the moment I appeared he folded up the newspaper in which he had been so unseasonably engaged, and—with a break in his voice indicating an emotion that was quite unaccountable to me—he asked me to take it at once over to the manse, with his compliments to the minister. I went very readily, for, besides the comfort of fingering the marbles in my pocket, the hedge-rows were full of young birds upon whom legitimate hostilities could be waged in passing. But as I went I reflected on the austere and stately image of the minister—a man everywhere respected, but whose face inspired awe rather than love in the beholder—(Had I not seen the town-boys break and scatter round one corner of the street as soon as he appeared at the other?)—and I resolved that my interview with him should be short. And it was shorter than I expected, for I had scarcely got out of the sunshine into the manse evergreens, when I found him in the porch; and when I offered him the newspaper, he showed me that he had already got the Times, by some unusual express, and as he spoke he patted my head and smiled—but such a smile, so full of radiant kindliness! I was confounded; and as I went back between the edges the birds sang unheeded while I thought what could be up with the minister. Had anybody left him a fortune? or had he met one of the shining ones walking among the hollies in that early dawn? And it was not for some weeks that I found out that this was what had happened—the newspaper that morning had brought him the vote of the House of Commons, finally refusing an inquiry into the affairs of the Scotch Church, and so making it certain that within a few weeks he and his aged mother would leave for ever the home, at the door of which I saw him; in which his father, the previous minister, had dwelt peacefully before him, but which the son would now have to quit without retaining a farthing of his income for the future. Of course he came out, and 470 ministers with him.'

For the crisis followed in May. The disruption itself (as the actual and final wrench given to the Church came to be called) concentrated the anguish of the general sacrifice in a very painful, but, at the same time, a more poetical form. Sir George Harvey, the present President of the Scottish Academy, has painted the 'Leaving of the Manse' with much dignity and power: the grey-haired pastor moving with feeble steps from the well-known door; his wife's quiet tears, as she guides the child whose pet lamb refuses to accompany it in its early exile; the awe-struck respect of the rustics around, while the men take off their caps, and the women throw their aprons over their faces and sob. Yet the words which immediately follow what we have already quoted from Dr. Guthrie, are, perhaps, the most memorable record of the feelings which accompanied the final step:—

'I remember passing a manse on a moonlight night, with the minister who had left it,—for the cause of truth, his brother Scotchman earnestly adds—'No light shone from the house, and no smoke arose. Pointing to it in the moonlight, I said, "Oh, my friend, it was a noble thing to leave that house." "Ah, yes," he replied; "it was a noble thing, but for all that it was a bitter thing. I shall never forget the night I left that house till I am laid in my grave. When I saw my wife and children go forth in the gloaming, when I saw them for the last time leave our own door; and when in the dark I was left alone, with none but my God in the house; and when I had to take water and quench the fire on my own hearth, and put out the candle in my own house, and turn the key against myself, and my wife, and my little ones that night—God in His mercy grant that such a night I may never again see! It was a noble thing to leave the manse, and I bless God for the grace that was given to me; but, for all that, it was a cruel and bitter night to me."'

The actual circumstances of departure must have been very various: 'One minister writes to us that he left the manse with his family in a snow-storm, when the mountain was white with snow, and the sky was black with drift; but that he never knew so much of the peace of God as he did that night, when following his wife and children as they were carted over the mountain, without knowing where they were to find a place to dwell in.'

And in many places over Scotland, this was the beginning of sorrows. In some parts, and especially in the large towns, the actual hardships were nothing worse than diminution of income and straitened circumstances; while in not a few cases even that was not felt. But in the country, and especially in the Highlands, it was different. It was some years before the manses were built, and homelessness added to poverty pressed heavily on the outed ministers.

'I remember well,' writes the Highland correspondent we have already quoted from, and for whose accuracy and good faith we can vouch, 'how I used to watch one man, the minister of the neighbouring parish of E——, who, like many others, was unable to find a place to dwell in among his own people, and had to come into the neighbouring town. He was a scholarly and cultivated man, who in his early days had attained much academical distinction at a Northern University, but a weak chest and a threatening of heart complaint now bore heavily upon him. Yet week after week, as every Sabbath morning came round, he persisted in driving away for miles through that first inclement winter, to meet his congregation; and I can remember to this day his keen, delicate face set to meet a heavy snow-storm from the north-west, while a hacking cough shook his whole frame as he set out on his journey, four miles of which must pass ere he caught sight of the well-sheltered manse, which the year before he had left for ever.'

But those who, like him, found shelter in a town dwelling, however humble, were not worst off. The great difficulty was in the country; even where harbouring the minister was not forbidden (as in some cases, from a desire to crush out the movement, it was) by the great landlords. And of course it was with this that Dr. Guthrie's facts chiefly dealt.

'I have a letter here from a man who has suffered more for gospel truth than any other I know. He says that he has been obliged to pack two nurses and eight children into two beds, in the small house to which they have removed. His wife took a cold in October, which there was some apprehension might end in consumption; and at my own table he told me, what was enough to melt a heart of stone, that when he and his family gather together at the family altar, they have not room to kneel before Almighty God, and some of them require to kneel on the floor of the passage before they can unite together in their family devotions. Some of our ministers write that they live in crofter's houses; some in places as damp as cellars, where a candle will not burn. One says he sits with his great coat on; another that the curtains of his bed shake at night like the sails of a ship in a storm. One minister, a friend of mine, lives in a house which every wind of heaven blows through. On getting up one morning he found the house all comparatively comfortable, and wondered what good genius had been putting it in order, when he discovered that a heavy shower of snow had fallen, and stopped up the crevices of the roof.'

Narrating this to a vast meeting in Glasgow, at the close of which he announced that upwards of £10,000 had been subscribed during that one day for his scheme, Dr. Guthrie added, with Scotch shrewdness, 'I said to my friend, that I was glad he had told me that story, for if that shower of snow did not produce a shower of notes, I would be very much disappointed.' The story of the shower of snow was hearsay; but we must make room for what the speaker testifies to having seen with his own eyes.

'Some of you may have read of the death of Mr. Baird, the minister of Cockburnspath, a man of piety, a man of science, a man of amiable disposition, and of the kindest heart, but a man dealt most unkindly by; although he would not have done a cruel or unjust thing to the meanest of God's creatures. I was asked to go and preach for a collection to his manse, last winter. He left one of the loveliest manses in Scotland. He might have lived in comfort in Dunbar, seven or eight miles away, but what was to become of his people? They were smiting the shepherd, that they might scatter the sheep. No, said Mr. Baird, be the consequences what they may, I shall stand by my own people. I went out last winter, and found him in a mean cottage, consisting of two rooms, a but and a ben, with a cellar-like closet below, and a garret above; and I honestly declare, that the house was so small and so cold that, when sitting by the fire, the one part of the body was almost frozen, while the other was scorched by the heat. Night came, and I asked where I was to sleep. He showed me a closet; there was a fire-place in it, but it was a mockery, for no fire could be put in it; the walls were damp. I looked horrified at the place; but there was no better. Now, said I to Mr. Baird, where are you to sleep? Come, said he, and I will show you. So he climbed a sort of trap stair, and got up to the garret, and there was the minister's study, with a chair, a table, and a flock bed. His health was evidently sinking under his sufferings; and, but that I was not well myself, I never would have permitted him to lie on such a bed. A few inches above were the slates of the roof, without any covering, and as white with hoar frost within, as they were white with snow without. When he came down next morning, after a sleepless night, I asked him how he had been, and he told me that he had never closed an eye, from the cold. His very breath on the blankets was frozen as hard as the ice outside. I say, that man lies in a martyr's grave ... and I would rather, like him this day, be laid in the grave, with a grateful Church to raise my honored monument, than dwell in the proudest palaces of those that sent him there.'

We have exscinded from these quotations, not only all polemics, but such not unnatural expressions of indignation as the brethren of the more unfortunate ministers slipped into. There is no injustice in omitting these now, for the time has come when all parties, and in particular most of the members of the Scotch Established Church, are earnest in expressing their admiration of the heroism of those who suffered. But, in order to bring out the story completely, and, in particular, to do justice to the difficulties in the face of which the enormous task of covering the land with voluntary churches and manses and ministers was accomplished, it is necessary to go farther down, and refer to another historical chapter. We allude to the facts which came out in the Committee of the House of Commons on 'Sites for Churches (Scotland),' in 1847. No doubt these hardships have nearly all now passed away, and the great landowners, themselves chiefly members of the Church of England, have, almost in every case, consented to sell to the poorer congregations of the Church ground on which to erect churches. But at first it was perhaps natural that men, most of them imperfectly acquainted with their countrymen, should have conceived it possible to stamp out, or starve out, the new church. And, accordingly, some very strong things were done. The writer happened to be acquainted with one district, where a gentleman of large property, a man, too, of immense energy and public spirit, entertained a passionate opposition to the popular movement, and had been heard to declare, shortly before the disruption, that he would 'give five hundred trees from his woods, to hang the seceding ministers upon.' Those innocent vegetables were, fortunately, not called upon to bear the novos fructus et non sua poma, thus destined for them; but Mr. R—— soon tried another course, which was practically of not much more use. He suddenly issued a notice, that every labourer on his estates, who did not go to the parish church, should cease, after next Monday, to work on his land. Now, in that part of the Highlands, as in most others, the people had gone out en masse with their ministers, and no one would go to the Established Church for the heaviest bribe. What was the result of the attempt at coercion? The result was simply this, that on that Monday no plough or spade was touched on all his estates; and Mr. R——, proud and passionate as he was, had simply and unconditionally to surrender—knowing, too, that he had consolidated the whole country-side in a bond of mutual allegiance, which would long survive the living generation of men. The same sort of oppression was attempted in particular cases for years afterwards. So late as 1847, we find, in the evidence before Parliament, many cases, e.g., a witness, whose family had been tenants of a farm, in Strathspey, for many generations, 'probably since 1630,' saying, that 'there is a general rumour prevalent in the district, and among the adherents of the Free Church, that certain of their number may be made examples of at the earliest opportunity, in the way of being evicted from their farms, possessions, or holdings', and expressing his own lively apprehensions in consequence. Nor was this general belief unfounded. A poor woman, who had offered a shed on her holding, where the congregation might meet, 'got a message from his lordship's factor, through another person, that, in the event of her granting such a site, he would withdraw her lease.' One Donald Cameron, in the same place, who, being an elder in the church, had come out with his brethren, was urged by the same middleman with the sensible argument, 'Why, I conceive you to be the greatest fool in the nation; might not a minister who remained within the walls of a church, be as instrumental in saving your soul, as those who preach in woods or fields?' but, on this very fair reasoning failing to make him abandon his own pastor and principles, he was summarily turned out of his situation as the great man's overseer. But the most curious instance of this sort of thing being carried out systematically is given in the evidence of Mr. M——, of Skye, who was factor for Lord Macdonald, in that island. In this case, not only was the minister refused a holding, but a list was made out of all the collectors who ventured to go round and gather up the small contributions of their brethren, and all of them received summary notice to quit, some under circumstances of the greatest hardship. The factor, who seemed, at last, to be somewhat ashamed of the transaction, told the Committee that 'It was Lord Macdonald himself who gave me the list of such as he wished to be served with notices, on account of their being collectors. The day he was leaving the country he gave me a list, and said, "Here is a list of fellows that must have notice to quit."' One of the poor men travelled all the way up to London to try to persuade his landlord to be merciful; but, as the factor told the Committee, 'I rather think his lordship did not look at his petition.' Nor was it merely the officials connected with the Free Church who were turned out: the innkeeper and the miller of the district were both ejected on account of their being members, or, as the factor put it, partisans, of that body. 'Being, as we considered, public servants, we thought it better to remove them.' The Committee was very severe in dealing with the allegations of partisanship made ex post facto against these unfortunate people, the factor not being able to say that he had ever hinted such a reason to themselves. Mr. Bouverie's question to the factor, 'Was any locus penitentiæ allowed to the miller?' was met by the curious reply, 'That would be interfering with the man's conscience, if he thought he was acting rightly,' and Mr. Fox Maule's rejoinder, 'And you think it was no interference with his conscience, turning him out of his farm?' received the placid answer, 'No.' Niel Nicholson, one of the unfortunate Free Churchmen removed at this time to make way for a teacher of the Established Church, at the time he received notice to quit, had a bedridden wife, and his son the eldest of eight or ten children, laid up with a broken leg. Another man, removed by a brother of the Established minister, after being ejected from his land had nowhere to go, and lived for a considerable time in a kind of tent by the roadside, at last receiving shelter from the very factor of Lord Macdonald whose general conduct seems to have been so harsh. The correspondence brought in evidence before the Committee on this occasion was very instructive, as in the case of the following laconic missive:—

'Armadale, 16th November, 1846.

Sir,—I refuse a site for a Free Church for your people.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Macdonald.'

But the same minister who was thus addressed as to his church, wrote a very respectful letter to his landlord, as to his house, trusting 'that your Lordship does not really intend to drive me, with my young and helpless family, out of my present dwelling-house.'

'I am willing to give any rents for the same which another will offer; and should your Lordship not choose to give the farm on any terms, I would be satisfied with the house, and grass for two cows and a horse. The building of this house cost me £150, and I have been at considerable expense in improving the farm, for which, from the shortness of the lease, I have had as yet little or no returns. Will your Lordship allow me to observe without offence, that at a time[50] when we are all suffering under the chastening hand of our heavenly Father, it looks somewhat unseemly that we should be the occasion of suffering to one another. I have already taken the principal part in distributing food supplied by the Free Church among your Lordship's cotters and crofters in this country. I am at this moment in receipt of nearly £40 (I may now say £100) from respectable private parties in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, with which I am helping to relieve much of the present distress, besides lessening the burden of supporting many of the people to your Lordship and tenants. From all these considerations, I might naturally expect some favour at your Lordship's hands.'

The answer to this letter came through, another factor, to the effect that 'Lord Macdonald instructs me to inform you that he has received your letter, and that it is not his intention either to grant you a site or give you any lands;' adding that the landlord would not give him any compensation for his improvements, and that 'he had brought it all on himself' by persisting in staying with his present congregation.

But with the House of Commons Blue-book before us, let us leave cases of individual suffering for a time, and look at the case of whole congregations. Throughout Scotland the Free Church was, with labour and difficulty, erecting places in which to worship God. But in many places the landlords refused a foot of soil on which to do it. The congregations who met in the open air were not much to be pitied at their starting, for it was summer, and a thorough soaking with rain was the worst that befel them. But as the first winter of 1843 darkened down upon them, it was no wonder that men and women gathering weekly under a canvas tent, and in some cases without even that, but in the open air, under the bitter inclemency of the northern sky, began to set up piteous requests to be permitted to meet under some roof, or at least to be allowed land on which to erect a roof to cover them. But in many instances this was refused; and during that winter, in different districts of Scotland whole congregations of not men only, but delicate women and children (after coming, as the Scotch manner is, many miles to worship or to sacrament), remained through each Sunday of December, January, and February, under whatever variety of snow, sleet, slush, frost, rain, and ice, their native sky, rich in such alternations, chose to pour upon them. Another year came round, and though by this time a number of the proprietors had relented, a great many stood firm, and the second winter showed the same kind of suffering as the first. The following circumstances in which one of the ordinary services in a congregation in the South of Scotland, in February of the year 1844, was held, must have had parallels during the same months, especially in Skye, and the Western Isles, and the Highlands of Inverness and other counties. But it is given by the Edinburgh minister who conducted the meeting, and whose evidence on matters of which he was eye-witness we have already found so graphic. In this case the congregation had met for some time in a canvas tent on a piece of moor or waste ground by the permission of the tenant; but the landlord, who had already refused a site, checkmated this evasion of his will by procuring an interdict, or order of Court, and the congregation were driven in the beginning of winter to meet on the public road, and to try to erect their tent there. But the tent could not be erected without digging holes for the poles, and making holes in the public road was an illegal proceeding, which they were afraid to attempt so soon after being driven off a waste moor. Consequently, they met all that winter without shelter, as described in the following private letter, written at the time, but afterwards read publicly to the Committee of the House of Commons:—

'Well wrapped up, I drove out yesterday morning to Canobie, the hills white with snow, the roads covered ankle deep in many places with slush, the wind high and cold, thick rain lashing on, and the Esk by our side all the way, roaring in the snow-flood between bank and brae. We passed Johnnie Armstrong's tower, yet strong even in its ruins, and after a drive of four miles a turn of the road brought me in view of a sight which was overpowering, and would have brought the salt tears into the eyes of any man of common humanity. There, under the naked boughs of some spreading oak trees, at the point where a country road joined the turnpike, stood a tent, around, or rather in front of which was gathered a large group of muffled men and women, with some little children, a few sitting, most of them standing, and some old venerable widows cowering under the shelter of an umbrella. On all sides each road was adding a stream of plaided men and muffled women to the group, till the congregation had increased to between 500 or 600, gathering on the very road, and waiting my forthcoming from a mean inn, where I found shelter till the hour of worship had come. During the psalm-singing and first prayer I was in the tent, but finding that I would be uncomfortably confined, I took up my position on a chair in front, having my hat on my head, my Codrington close buttoned up to my throat, and a pair of bands, which were wet enough with rain ere the service was over. The rain lashed on heavily during the latter part of the sermon, but none budged; and when my hat was off during the last prayer, some man kindly extended an umbrella over my head. I was so interested, and so were the people, that our forenoon service continued for about two hours. At the close I felt so much for the people; it was such a sad sight to see old men and women, some children, and one or two people pale and sickly, and apparently near the grave, all wet and benumbed with the keen wind and cold rain, that I proposed to have no afternoon service; but this met with universal dissent—one and all declared that if I would hold on they would stay on the road till midnight. So we met again at three o'clock, and it poured on almost without intermission during the whole service; and that over, shaken cordially by many a man and many a woman's hand, I got into the gig and drove here in time for an evening service, followed through rain in heaven and the wet snow on the road by a number of the people.'

When this letter was produced to the House it was taken advantage of by Sir James Graham, with the view of bringing out that so sad a sight must have had the effect of driving the minister who witnessed it into some bitterness of expression in the pulpit, such as might perhaps justify or excuse the Duke of Buccleuch. Said Sir James—

'May I ask whether your own feeling was not that some oppression had been exercised towards those people? Ans. Certainly; I felt that the people were in most grievous circumstances, being necessitated to meet on the turnpike road; and not only I, but I may mention in addition that the person who drove me in the gig from Langholm to Canobie, when we came in sight of that congregation standing in the open air upon such a day, and in such a place, burst into tears, and asked me, Was there ever a sight seen like that?

'You have mentioned that "oppression makes a wise man mad;" the feelings of the driver might be one thing, but you, a minister of the gospel, would be very considerably excited by seeing what you have described; you thinking it an act of oppression upon the people? Ans. Deep feeling would be excited—if you mean by excitement that I was ready to break forth into unsuitable expressions, I say certainly not; I felt when I saw it as if I could not preach, I was so overpowered by the sight—to see my fellow-creatures, honest, respectable, religious people, worshipping the God of their fathers upon the turnpike road was enough to melt any man's heart.'

Sir James was disappointed in the object of his examination, for it turned out that Dr. Guthrie on this occasion had with some deliberation avoided making any reference to the circumstances of the congregation, and had turned all the feeling roused within him into the channel of more fervid preaching of the common gospel.

This was in 1844; the following year the ministers, even in the bleakest Highlands, began to have some comfort, for now the manse scheme was set on foot, and was being pressed by Dr. Guthrie; but the position of these unfortunate and exceptional congregations remained the same. A minister in Skye, whom the Highlanders there regarded with boundless veneration, but who was little fitted to face hardships (he saw his family of eleven delicate children melt into the grave before him), used to preach at Uig in the open air, with a covering over himself, but none for the people. 'I have preached,' he says, 'when the snow has been falling so heavily upon them, that when it was over I could scarcely distinguish the congregation from the ground, except by their faces.' Two years more passed on; and even then, in 1847, there were still thirty-one cases in Scotland in which sites were absolutely refused, besides many others in which very inconvenient and humiliating places were alone offered, and in many cases had been accepted. The House of Commons now took up the matter, and perhaps the most curious thing in their investigation was the careful cross-examination of medical men on the question whether it could be proved that the members of the congregation who met winter after winter in the open air had actually suffered, or at least had suffered seriously and fatally from their compulsory exposure. No doubt they were drenched with rain and chilled with sleet, and then they caught cold and died; but were the medical men prepared to prove (so argued the apologists of oppression in the committee)—could the medical men say that their taking cold was the necessary consequence of the drench and chill, or that the fatal result was due to this original cause, and not to subsequent carelessness or blunders in the treatment? For example, when 'Miss Stewart, Grantown, about eighty years of age, but strong for her years, and of sound constitution, after attending public worship of the Free Church in the open air, was attacked by sub-acute rheumatism,' and died exhausted after four months of the disease, no one could certainly say that the old lady might not have taken rheumatism even if she had separated from her neighbours, and gone peaceably back to the Established Church!

We shall quote no more, however, from the details of this Blue-book, but it will be remembered that, after taking evidence extending to nearly five hundred pages of print, the committee unanimously concurred in expressing an 'earnest hope that the sites which have hitherto been refused may no longer be withheld.' They held, and all Englishmen will echo the opinion, that 'the compulsion to worship in the open air, without a church, is a grievous hardship inflicted on innocent parties;' while they found that even at that late date of 1847, about 16,000 people were still compelled so to worship, or at least were 'deprived of church accommodation,' and were without 'a convenient shelter from the severity of a northern climate.'

But though the site-refusing caused much distress to the people, still the edge even of this fell chiefly upon the ministers. Driven out of their old homes in one day, they were often refused new ones, and in the great Highland counties denied even temporary shelter. Lodging there was hardly to be got, and in many places the tenantry were haunted with fears of what the consequences might be to themselves if they gave house-room where their landlords had already refused a site. 'Many of these ministers' families,' said Dr. Guthrie in 1845, when the facts were recent,—'some of them motherless families—are thirty, and fifty, and sixty, and seventy miles separated from them. I think of the hardship of many of these men going to see their own children; and of children who see their father so seldom that they do not know him when he visits them.' One of the most curious cases thus produced was that of the parish of Small Isles—so called because it consists of four little islands clustered together in the Atlantic. The minister, Mr. Swanson, well known now as the friend from youth of Hugh Miller—famous as a geologist, and much more famous as a Scottish stonemason, gave up his home, 'placed far amid the melancholy main,' and came out with the others in 1843; and a site both for manse and Church being refused on the central island, where the whole congregation adhered to him, he betook himself to what his friend, the gifted editor of the Witness, dubbed the 'Floating Manse.' It was a little yacht, 30 feet by 11 feet, in which he lived when visiting his parish, his family, however, residing in Skye.

In 1844, Hugh Miller set out to visit his friend on a geological excursion, the scientific record of which he has preserved in his volume 'The Cruise of the Betsy,' where he also gives a most curious account of the relations of Mr. Swanson, the minister, to the people to whom he so clung. On one Sunday morning the geologist and his host got ashore on their way to a low dingy cottage of turf and stone (just opposite the windows of the deserted manse), which its former occupant had built with his own money as a Gaelic school for the people, and which they were obliged to use as a place of worship—'the minister encased in his ample-skirted storm-jacket of oiled canvas protected atop by a genuine sou'-wester, of which the broad posterior rim sloped half-a-yard down his back; and I closely wrapped up in my grey maud, which proved, however, a rather indifferent protection against the penetrating powers of a true Hebridean drizzle.' When they got in, the minister took off his sou'-wester, and preached on 'God so loved the world,' and the visitor remarks how the attention of his hearers to him who was not only their pastor, but the sole physician, and that without fee or reward, in the island, was increased by his new life of hardship and danger undertaken for their sakes; for they had seen his little vessel driven from her anchorage just as the evening had fallen, and always feared for his safety when stormy nights closed over the sea. Next year Miller had himself an opportunity of judging of this, for while he was on board the Betsy 'the water, pouring in through a hundred opening chinks in her upper works, rose, despite of our exertions, high over plank, and beam, and cabin door, and went dashing against beds and lockers. She was evidently fast filling, and bade fair to terminate all her voyagings by a short trip to the bottom.' They barely saved themselves by the Point of Sleat interposing between them and the roll of the sea. The 'Floating Manse' will not be forgotten while the works of this charming writer survive; but very much later than this, on Loch Sunart, also in the West, a 'floating church' also had to be provided in consequence of the refusal of a site; and the Sheriff of Edinburghshire, himself a naval officer in his youth, testified to the Committee of the House that in the winter of 1846 it answered very well. It was moored about a hundred yards from the shore, and although there was a little difficulty in the people going out in boats, still it was possible to manage it. Many English pedestrians in Sutherland have seen the famous Cave of Smoo, a vast cavern protected by a natural gateway of rock, and with an interior chamber where a black stream flows in perpetual darkness. It was here that the Free Church congregation of Durness met.

'One minister has preached for two years in a deep sea pit, which I saw in Sutherlandshire; God's sea is their protection. No man can say he is ruler of the sea, though he boasts himself possessor of the land. In a deep gully, where the rocks are some hundred feet high, a hollow has been closed in from the sea by a barrier of rocks, which protects them from the Western Ocean, behind this they meet; and there, some hundred feet down, where no man can see them till he stands on the verge of the precipice, and where they might have been safe from Claverhouse in the days of old, that minister with his congregation, while the waves of the Atlantic Ocean were roaring beside them, and protected by that barrier of rock, met two winters and two summers; and I know, from the determination of that man and his people, that there they would have met till their dying day if the Duke of Sutherland had not granted them redress.'

But we were treating of the hardships rather of the ministers than of the congregations, and Dr. Guthrie's question is pertinent,

'Where does the minister go after having preached in such circumstances? Not in the case I have just mentioned, but in another, the minister, after preaching to his hearers in the winter snow, where there was no barrier or creek sheltering them from the salt sea spray, had to go back, not to a comfortable home, like you and me, but to a miserable dwelling, where he had to climb to a lonely and miserable garret, and in a place where there was little ventilation, and in a room where he could have no fire, the minister had to sit from week's end to week's end, till his health was broken down, and he was obliged to retire from the battle-field, forced away from it to save himself from an early, and, I say, a martyr's grave.'