When the astronomers next announce an exceptionally brilliant display of the Leonids, for the sake of the balloonists who make elaborate and costly preparations, it is to be hoped they will be more accurate in their calculations. The spectacle of seven shooting stars is in itself scarcely worth such a risk to life and limb as the Eev. J. M. Bacon experienced in his ascent in search of the meteors. But the scientific observer gains fresh experience from every journey he makes into the upper strata of the atmosphere, and probably Mr. Bacon has accumulated a sufficient number of facts to repay him for the suspense and discomfort endured.

The ascent was made under exceptional circumstances. Mr. Bacon, his courageous daughter, and Mr. Stanley Spencer, entrusted themselves to a valveless balloon; for if we accept the term valve in its legitimate sense, the arrangement provided for ripping open the top of the balloon and letting the gas out once and for all cannot be called a valve.

The bearing of pure scientific research on practical scientific developments has been demonstrated again and again ; and interesting and valuable as are all aeronautical attempts, it is more than probable that the solution of flight and aerial navigation may be achieved after all by the physicist or the meteorologist. Just now, this thought is borne in on us by the physical experiments to determine the resistance of the air of M. L'Abbé Le Dantic and M. Canovetti, and by the publication of the annual bulletin of the Meteorological Commission of the Bouches du Rhône. There are some observations in this of the direction, frequency, and force of the wind made at the Marseilles Observatory at the height of 75 m. Such observations are preliminary steps to a meteorological knowledge of the conditions of the lower and upper atmospheres essential to the making of any seasonal maps of the winds; without such maps many practical aeronauts who look to utilising the wind forces for the purposes of motion consider aerial navigation doomed to remain empirical.