I spun round for a minute or two with such velocity that I almost
lost my senses, and then fell suddenly, left wing foremost, down the
vacuum funnel in the centre. I dropped like a stone, and lost nearly a
thousand feet. It was only my belt that kept me in my seat, and the
shock and breathlessness left me hanging half-insensible over the side
of the fuselage. But I am always capable of a supreme effort--it is my
one great merit as an aviator. I was conscious that the descent was
slower. The whirlpool was a cone rather than a funnel, and I had come
to the apex. With a terrific wrench, throwing my weight all to one
side, I levelled my planes and brought her head away from the wind. In
an instant I had shot out of the eddies and was skimming down the sky. Then, shaken but victorious, I turned her nose up and began once more
my steady grind on the upward spiral. I took a large sweep to avoid
the danger-spot of the whirlpool, and soon I was safely above it. Just
after one o'clock I was twenty-one thousand feet above the sea-level. To my great joy I had topped the gale, and with every hundred feet of
ascent the air grew stiller. On the other hand, it was very cold, and
I was conscious of that peculiar nausea which goes with rarefaction of
the air. For the first time I unscrewed the mouth of my oxygen bag and
took an occasional whiff of the glorious gas. I could feel it running
like a cordial through my veins, and I was exhilarated almost to the
point of drunkenness. I shouted and sang as I soared upwards into the
cold, still outer world. "It is very clear to me that the insensibility which came upon
Glaisher, and in a lesser degree upon Coxwell, when, in 1862, they
ascended in a balloon to the height of thirty thousand feet, was due to
the extreme speed with which a perpendicular ascent is made. Doing it
at an easy gradient and accustoming oneself to the lessened barometric
pressure by slow degrees, there are no such dreadful symptoms. At the
same great height I found that even without my oxygen inhaler I could
breathe without undue distress. It was bitterly cold, however, and my
thermometer was at zero, Fahrenheit. At one-thirty I was nearly seven
miles above the surface of the earth, and still ascending steadily. I
found, however, that the rarefied air was giving markedly less support
to my planes, and that my angle of ascent had to be considerably
lowered in consequence. It was already clear that even with my light
weight and strong engine-power there was a point in front of me where I
should be held. To make matters worse, one of my sparking-plugs was in
trouble again and there was intermittent misfiring in the engine. My
heart was heavy with the fear of failure. "It was about that time that I had a most extraordinary experience. Something whizzed past me in a trail of smoke and exploded with a loud,
hissing sound, sending forth a cloud of steam. For the instant I could
not imagine what had happened. Then I remembered that the earth is for
ever being bombarded by meteor stones, and would be hardly inhabitable
were they not in nearly every case turned to vapour in the outer layers
of the atmosphere. Here is a new danger for the high-altitude man, for
two others passed me when I was nearing the forty-thousand-foot mark. I cannot doubt that at the edge of the earth's envelope the risk would
be a very real one. "My barograph needle marked forty-one thousand three hundred when I
became aware that I could go no farther. Physically, the strain was
not as yet greater than I could bear but my machine had reached its
limit. The attenuated air gave no firm support to the wings, and the
least tilt developed into side-slip, while she seemed sluggish on her
controls. Possibly, had the engine been at its best, another thousand
feet might have been within our capacity, but it was still misfiring,
and two out of the ten cylinders appeared to be out of action. If I
had not already reached the zone for which I was searching then I
should never see it upon this journey. But was it not possible that I
had attained it? Soaring in circles like a monstrous hawk upon the
forty-thousand-foot level I let the monoplane guide herself, and with
my Mannheim glass I made a careful observation of my surroundings. The
heavens were perfectly clear; there was no indication of those dangers
which I had imagined. "I have said that I was soaring in circles. It struck me suddenly that
I would do well to take a wider sweep and open up a new airtract. If
the hunter entered an earth-jungle he would drive through it if he
wished to find his game. My reasoning had led me to believe that the
air-jungle which I had imagined lay somewhere over Wiltshire. This
should be to the south and west of me. I took my bearings from the
sun, for the compass was hopeless and no trace of earth was to be
seen--nothing but the distant, silver cloud-plain. However, I got my
direction as best I might and kept her head straight to the mark. I
reckoned that my petrol supply would not last for more than another
hour or so, but I could afford to use it to the last drop, since a
single magnificent vol-plane could at any time take me to the earth. "Suddenly I was aware of something new. The air in front of me had
lost its crystal clearness. It was full of long, ragged wisps of
something which I can only compare to very fine cigarette smoke. It
hung about in wreaths and coils, turning and twisting slowly in the
sunlight. As the monoplane shot through it, I was aware of a faint
taste of oil upon my lips, and there was a greasy scum upon the
woodwork of the machine. Some infinitely fine organic matter appeared
to be suspended in the atmosphere. There was no life there. It was
inchoate and diffuse, extending for many square acres and then fringing
off into the void. No, it was not life. But might it not be the
remains of life? Above all, might it not be the food of life, of
monstrous life, even as the humble grease of the ocean is the food for
the mighty whale? The thought was in my mind when my eyes looked
upwards and I saw the most wonderful vision that ever man has seen. Can I hope to convey it to you even as I saw it myself last Thursday? "Conceive a jelly-fish such as sails in our summer seas, bell-shaped
and of enormous size--far larger, I should judge, than the dome of St.
Paul's. It was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green,
but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outline
against the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regular
rhythm. From it there depended two long, drooping, green tentacles,
which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision
passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile
as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its stately way. "I had half-turned my monoplane, that I might look after this beautiful
creature, when, in a moment, I found myself amidst a perfect fleet of
them, of all sizes, but none so large as the first.