SIX MILES UP!

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 25 September 1914, Page 8

SIX MILES UP!

-4 (By GARRET P. SERVISS.) The greatest peril for those who ascend to great altitudes above the sarth is not that of falling, but that of being suffocated, like fish taken j out of water. ; It was the climbers of high ] mountains who first discovered the , fact that it is often difVicult for ; men to breathe at a height of j from two and a half to three miles above sea level. I But more receht study has shown that the diiliculty arises mainly from the comparative lack of oxygen in the upper air, and that this j may be overcome by means of appa- ] rat us. supplying extra oxygen to the | lungs. i The two principal constituents of j the atmosphere are oxygen and nitrogen. Mixed, these are near the earth's surface, in the proportion of about four volumes of nitrogen to one of oxygen, the air is respirable, and the inertness of the nitrogen does no harm. But if the | proportion of oxygen is reduced, the air becomes stifling. Now, oxygen is. heavier than nitrogen in ratio of about eight to [ seven, and in obedience to the law that heavier substances sink lower than lighter ones, the oxygen thins i out as the height above the ground j increases, until its proportion to j the nitrogen becomes considerably | reduced. Above three or four j miles the amount of oxygen is so much diminished that breathing becomes very difficult, and at still higher altitudes respiration may cease entirely. A very tragic instance of the effect thus produced is furnished by the story of the famous balloon assent made in April, 1878, by Gas- j ton Tissandier, Groce Spinelli, and ' Signer Sivel. They ascended from ! La Villette- in, Prance, in the balloon i "Zenith," to a height of 28,200 j feet, or a little more than five and i one-third miles. The thinness of i the air, and, as we now know, the relative lack of oxygen, killed j Spinelli and Sivel, and nearly cost \ the life of Tissandier. i To show modern science and inven- j tion have done to avert this peril i of the high atmosphere, let us turn : to the story of a still higher as- i cent, made by the balloon "Icare," I currying Albert Senoque, Jacques ' Srhnieder, and M. Tsienaime. i They start f-cf from Lamotte-Breuil in Franco, and attained an elevation of nearly /53,000 feet, or six and a quarter miles, and yet they did not .suffer nt all, and came down in perffvl condition and exulting in 'their groat feat ! Their success and immunity from .suffocation wore due to the fact that they took with thorn, the breathing apparatus. Thus consists of an air-tight vessel filled with compressed oxygen. A mask which en ha fitted closely over the nose ar>i ■. ■. >i;tl'i is conrieceil by a tube with '■'■■a: ro'orvnir of oxygon. There is a. prcssuro g;ui<_ce which enables the; aeronaut to inea-

, sure the quantity of oxygen reJ maining in the reservoir, and there jis also a device by which to regulate the amount flowing through ' the tubes. Thus they could take I just as much oxygen as they needed ; and no more. The rate of supply : varied from two quarts per minute to ten. The reservoir contained about 1,600 qiiarts. ■ They began to breathe the oxygen ! when at a height of about 11,000 1 feet. j A similar apparatus has recently I been carried by mountain climbers, | and by the pilots of aeroplanes as- '■ cending to great altitudes. With the rapid progress of aerial navigation it will become indispensable in the future.