Sentence Examples

1. This manoeuvre was totally unperceived on the part of the three duns and, jumping into the car, I immediately cut the single cord which held me to the earth, and was pleased to find that I shot upward, carrying with all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of leaden ballast, and able to have carried up as many more.
2. At this juncture, very imprudently, and without consideration, I threw out from the car three five-pound pieces of ballast.
3. I thought it best, however, to throw out two five-pound pieces of ballast, reserving still a weight of one hundred and sixty-five pounds.
4. My implements were all safe, and, fortunately, I had lost neither ballast nor provisions.
5. I now too late discovered the great rashness of which I had been guilty in discharging the ballast, and my agitation was excessive.
6. All these articles, with the exception of the ballast, and a few trifles, were suspended from the hoop overhead.
7. Thus it seemed to me evident that my rate of ascent was not only on the increase, but that the progression would have been apparent in a slight degree even had I not discharged the ballast which I did.
8. But the aeronaut, still greatly discomposed, and having apparently no farther business to detain him in Rotterdam, began at this moment to make busy preparations for departure and it being necessary to discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to reascend, the half dozen bags which he threw out, one after another, without taking the trouble to empty their contents, tumbled, every one of them, most unfortunately upon the back of the burgomaster, and rolled him over and over no less than one-and-twenty times, in the face of every man in Rotterdam.
9. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in throwing overboard first my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my condensing apparatus and gum-elastic chamber, and finally every article within the car.
10. It would contain more than forty thousand cubic feet of gas would take me up easily, I calculated, with all my implements, and, if I managed rightly, with one hundred and seventy-five pounds of ballast into the bargain.