The cattle-woman went to the well after water. The well was in the yard itself. She was drawing up the bucket, but failed to hold it. The bucket slipped from her, struck against the side of the well, and broke the rope.
The cattle-woman returned to her cottage, and said to the elder :
“ Aleksandr, come, little father, to the well; I have dropped the bucket”
Aleksandr replied :
“ You dropped it, and you must get it out.”
The cattle-woman replied that she was going to climb down into the well, only she wanted him to hold her.
The elder said :
“Very well, then; let us go; you have been fasting lately, so I can hold you; but if you had had dinner, it would be impossible.”
The elder fastened a stake to the rope, and the woman sat astride of it, clinging to the rope, and she began to descend into the well, and the elder unwound the rope by means of the windlass. The well was about fourteen feet 1 deep, and there was a third of a fathom of water in it.
The elder kept turning back the windlass slowly, and shouting to the woman :
“ Is that enough ? “
And the cattle-woman kept crying :
“Just a little more.”
Suddenly the elder felt the rope slacken; he shouted to the woman, but she gave no answer. The elder looked down into the well, and saw that the woman was lying with her head in the water and her feet in the air.
The elder began to shout and call the people, but there was no one to come. Only the hostler came running.
The elder bade him hold the windlass, and he himself pulled up the rope, got astride of the stake, and de-scended into the well.
As soon as the hostler let the elder down to the water’s edge, the same thing happened. He let go of the rope, and fell head-first down on the cattle-woman.
The hostler began to cry for help; then he ran to the church for the people. Mass was over, and the people were returning from church. All the peasant men and women hastened to the well. They all stood around the curb, and each offered advice, but no one knew what to do.
A young carpenter forced his way through the throng, up to the well, seized the rope, sat on the stake, and told them to let him down. But Ivan took the precaution to fasten the rope to his waist. Two men let him down, and all the rest looked into the well to see what would happen to Ivan.
As soon as he reached the level of the water, he let go of the rope with his hands, and would have fallen in head-first, but for the fact of the girdle holding him.
All cried :
“Pull him back!”
And they lifted Ivan to the top.
He hung on the rope like a dead weight. His head hung down and thumped against the edge of the well.
His face was bluish purple. They seized him, un-fastened the rope, and laid him on the ground. They thought that he was dead; but he suddenly drew a deep sigh, began to clear his throat, and came to.
Then still others proposed to go down; but an old peasant said that it was impossible to go down into the well, for there was bad air in it, and this bad air was death to men.
Then the men ran to get gaffs, and they attempted to hook up the elder and the woman. The elder’s wife and mother were shrieking near the well; the others were trying to calm them.
Then the peasants brought the gaffs to the well, and began to grapple for the two victims. Twice they lifted the elder, by means of his clothes, halfway up the well, to the well-curb; but he was heavy, his clothes tore, and he fell back. At last they hooked him with two gaffs and brought him to the surface. Then they brought up the cattle-woman in the same way.
Both were stone dead, and could not be brought to life.
Then, when an investigation of the well was made, they found that the bottom of the well was full of bad air.
This sort of air is so heavy, that no man can live in it nor any living thing exist in it.
They let a cat down into the well, and as soon as it reached the place where the bad air was, it immediately died.
Not only can no living thing live in it, but a candle cannot burn in it.
They let down a candle, and as soon as it reached the same place, it was immediately extinguished.
There are places under the earth where this bad air accumulates; and if you should go into them, you would immediately perish. Hence in mines they have lamps, and before a man goes into such a place they let a lamp down first.
If the lamp goes out, then it is impossible for a man to enter. So they send down a supply of fresh air until the lamp will burn. Near the city of Naples there is such a grotto. In it the bad air always stands to a height of an arshin l above the ground, and above that the air is pure. A man can walk through this grotto and receive no harm; but as soon as a dog enters, he chokes to death.
Whence comes this bad air ?
It is made out of the same good air which we breathe. If many people are collected in one room, and all the doors and windows are shut so that no fresh air can get in, then the atmosphere becomes the same as in the well, and the people perish.
A hundred years ago the Hindus shut one hundred and forty-six Englishmen into a dungeon, and locked them up in an underground hole, where the air could not get to them.
The imprisoned Englishmen, after they had been there a few hours, began to choke, and at the end of the night one hundred and twenty-three of them were dead, and the rest were taken out barely alive, and ill.
At first the air had been pure in the dungeon; but when the prisoners had breathed up all the good air, and it was impossible to get any fresh supply, it became bad, like that in the well, and they died.
How is it that bad air is made out of good air, when many people are together ?
Because when people breathe, the good air is taken into the lungs, and breathed out as bad air.
Chapter VI
HOW AIR BALLOONS ARE MADE
IF you take an inflated bladder and immerse it in water and then let go of it, the bladder rises to the top and begins to float. In exactly the same way if you boil water in a kettle, you will see on the bottom, over the fire, how the water becomes volatile, becomes a gas; and when a little of this aqueous gas collects it immedi-ately rises to the top in the form of bubbles. First, one bubble flies up, then another, and when the water is thoroughly heated, then the bubbles rise unceasingly; then the water boils.
Just exactly as the bubbles filled with steam fly up to the top because they are lighter than water so up through the atmosphere will rise a balloon inflated with hydrogen gas or with heated air, because heated air is lighter than cold air, and hydrogen is the lightest of all gases.
Air balloons are made of hydrogen or of heated air. This is the way they are made of hydrogen. A large bag is made and attached by ropes to stakes, and then it is rilled with hydrogen gas. As soon as the ropes are cut, the balloon rises and floats until it escapes from the atmosphere that is heavier than hydrogen. But when it reaches a rarer Part of the atmosphere, the balloon stops rising and then it floats along like a bubble on the top of the water.
Balloons are made of heated air in this manner: a large empty bag is made with a wide mouth below like a pitcher upside down, and in the mouth is placed a bunch of cotton which is soaked with ether and then set on fire. The air in the balloon is heated by the fire and becomes lighter than the cold air outside, and the balloon rises like a bubble in water, and it floats up in the air until it reaches atmosphere so rare as to be lighter than the heated air.
Almost a century ago some Frenchmen the Mont-golfier brothers 1 invented the hot air balloon. They made a bag of cloth and paper and filled it with hot air; it floated. Then they made another still larger, attached a ram, a cock, and a duck to it and sent it up. The balloon ascended and returned successfully. Then they attached a small boat to it, and a man took his place in the boat. The balloon went up so high that it was lost to sight; it floated off and then came down without injury. Then they invented the method of inflating balloons with hydrogen, and they kept going higher and more rapidly.
In order to make a balloon ascension a basket is attached to the bag, and two, three, and even as many as eight men accommodate themselves in it, taking with them food and drink.
In order to regulate the movements of the balloon up and down at
