Up where the mercury solidifies after 39° below Zero; up where the air is so thin that one's body feels as puffy as a cloud—sat Capt. Hawthorne C. Gray in the basket of a free balloon. Except for the glass of his goggles he was covered with fur and leather. A machine pumped electrically-warmed oxygen into his lungs. His instruments, he' said, indicated an altitude of 41,000 feet (almost eight miles). This was higher than any man had ever been,* either by free balloon or airplane. The...
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