“At six o’clock, I perceived a great portion of the earth’s
      visible area to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which
      continued to advance with great rapidity, until, at five minutes
      before seven, the whole surface in view was enveloped in the
      darkness of night. It was not, however, until long after this
      time that the rays of the setting sun ceased to illumine the
      balloon; and this circumstance, although of course fully
      anticipated, did not fail to give me an infinite deal of
      pleasure. It was evident that, in the morning, I should behold
      the rising luminary many hours at least before the citizens of
      Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther to the
      eastward, and thus, day after day, in proportion to the height
      ascended, would I enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and a
      longer period. I now determined to keep a journal of my passage,
      reckoning the days from one to twenty-four hours continuously,
      without taking into consideration the intervals of darkness. “At ten o’clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the
      rest of the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which,
      obvious as it may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very
      moment of which I am now speaking. If I went to sleep as I
      proposed, how could the atmosphere in the chamber be regenerated
      in the interim? To breathe it for more than an hour, at the
      farthest, would be a matter of impossibility, or, if even this
      term could be extended to an hour and a quarter, the most ruinous
      consequences might ensue. The consideration of this dilemma gave
      me no little disquietude; and it will hardly be believed, that,
      after the dangers I had undergone, I should look upon this
      business in so serious a light, as to give up all hope of
      accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my mind to
      the necessity of a descent. But this hesitation was only
      momentary. I reflected that man is the veriest slave of custom,
      and that many points in the routine of his existence are deemed
      essentially important, which are only so at all by his having
      rendered them habitual. It was very certain that I could not do
      without sleep; but I might easily bring myself to feel no
      inconvenience from being awakened at intervals of an hour during
      the whole period of my repose. It would require but five minutes
      at most to regenerate the atmosphere in the fullest manner, and
      the only real difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing
      myself at the proper moment for so doing. But this was a question
      which, I am willing to confess, occasioned me no little trouble
      in its solution. To be sure, I had heard of the student who, to
      prevent his falling asleep over his books, held in one hand a
      ball of copper, the din of whose descent into a basin of the same
      metal on the floor beside his chair, served effectually to
      startle him up, if, at any moment, he should be overcome with
      drowsiness. My own case, however, was very different indeed, and
      left me no room for any similar idea; for I did not wish to keep
      awake, but to be aroused from slumber at regular intervals of
      time. I at length hit upon the following expedient, which, simple
      as it may seem, was hailed by me, at the moment of discovery, as
      an invention fully equal to that of the telescope, the
      steam-engine, or the art of printing itself. “It is necessary to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation
      now attained, continued its course upward with an even and
      undeviating ascent, and the car consequently followed with a
      steadiness so perfect that it would have been impossible to
      detect in it the slightest vacillation whatever. This
      circumstance favored me greatly in the project I now determined
      to adopt. My supply of water had been put on board in kegs
      containing five gallons each, and ranged very securely around the
      interior of the car. I unfastened one of these, and taking two
      ropes tied them tightly across the rim of the wicker-work from
      one side to the other; placing them about a foot apart and
      parallel so as to form a kind of shelf, upon which I placed the
      keg, and steadied it in a horizontal position. About eight inches
      immediately below these ropes, and four feet from the bottom of
      the car I fastened another shelf—but made of thin plank, being
      the only similar piece of wood I had. Upon this latter shelf, and
      exactly beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small earthern
      pitcher was deposited. I now bored a hole in the end of the keg
      over the pitcher, and fitted in a plug of soft wood, cut in a
      tapering or conical shape. This plug I pushed in or pulled out,
      as might happen, until, after a few experiments, it arrived at
      that exact degree of tightness, at which the water, oozing from
      the hole, and falling into the pitcher below, would fill the
      latter to the brim in the period of sixty minutes. This, of
      course, was a matter briefly and easily ascertained, by noticing
      the proportion of the pitcher filled in any given time. Having
      arranged all this, the rest of the plan is obvious. My bed was so
      contrived upon the floor of the car, as to bring my head, in
      lying down, immediately below the mouth of the pitcher. It was
      evident, that, at the expiration of an hour, the pitcher, getting
      full, would be forced to run over, and to run over at the mouth,
      which was somewhat lower than the rim. It was also evident, that
      the water thus falling from a height of more than four feet,
      could not do otherwise than fall upon my face, and that the sure
      consequences would be, to waken me up instantaneously, even from
      the soundest slumber in the world. “It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these
      arrangements, and I immediately betook myself to bed, with full
      confidence in the efficiency of my invention. Nor in this matter
      was I disappointed. Punctually every sixty minutes was I aroused
      by my trusty chronometer, when, having emptied the pitcher into
      the bung-hole of the keg, and performed the duties of the
      condenser, I retired again to bed. These regular interruptions to
      my slumber caused me even less discomfort than I had anticipated;
      and when I finally arose for the day, it was seven o’clock, and
      the sun had attained many degrees above the line of my horizon. “April 3d. I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and
      the earth’s apparent convexity increased in a material degree. Below me in the ocean lay a cluster of black specks, which
      undoubtedly were islands.