Messrs. Coxwell and Glaisher are said to have ascended in 1862 to a height of seven and a half miles. One of these gentlemen became entirely insensible from cold and want of oxygen, and the other very nearly so, being obliged to open the valve of the balloon with his teeth for want of the use of his hands.
Nature provides a partial remedy for the difficulty of breathing in the upper regions of the atmosphere. In the effort to breathe, the lungs are found to expand and to develop air cells not ordinarily used, so as to bring a larger quantity of the rarefied air into contact with the blood. It has been proposed to assist this effort of nature, and, in order to enable the aëronaut to reach a greater altitude with safety, to carry up in bags a supply of oxygen for breathing. As air is carried or forced down into the water to enable the diver to breathe, so it may be conveyed upward for the benefit of the aërial adventurer.
But with all possible expedients, it is not probable that man will ever be able to get far away from the surface of the earth which is his natural place of abode. If he can explore the lower strata immediately adjoining his own theatre of action--the strata in which all the great and important phenomena of meteorology take place--and if he can succeed in traversing it at his pleasure with safety and some degree of celerity, as we doubt not he will eventually, this great achievement will subserve all the useful purposes possible to be derived from such skill and knowledge.
The atmosphere will still be the vast reservoir of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, from winch all living things in the air, on the earth, or in the depths of the boundless ocean, whether animal or vegetable, draw far the greater part of their nutriment. We can never reach the surface of this atmospheric ocean, for that would be for us a region of inanity and death; but there is scarcely a doubt that we shall freely use it in the future for purposes of locomotion, at the same time that we breathe and assimilate it as the very pabulum and substance of our mortal bodies.
Far in the wood he lieth, Sleeping alone Where the wind of autumn sigheth, Making its moan, Where the golden beams are leaping Bright overhead, And the autumn leaves lie sleeping Over the dead, By the stream that runs forever, Hurrying past, 'Neath the trees that bend and quiver Wild in the blast;-- Deep in the wood he lieth, Under the sod, Where the wind of autumn sigheth, Alone--with his God.