The Daily Cincinnati Republican, And Commercial Register

NEWSPAPER NOTICES OF MR. CLAYTON'S ASCENSION.

From the New York American.

Extraordinary Balloon Voyage.—The Cincinnati Gazette of the 18th inst. furnishes the following statement by the Aeronaut, Mr. Clayton, of by far the longest voyage on record we believe, in a ship of the air. In Jan. 1785, Blanchard, and Dr. Jeffries an American, crossed the channel from England to France in a balloon, a distance of not more than 23 miles. Here the distance gone over is more than 400 miles.

We happened to be in Cincinnati when Clayton made his ascent on Wednesday, 8th inst., and though we have seen many such performances, never saw one better conducted, or undertaken with more sang froid. The voyager stood on the top of his car, supporting himself by the hoop through which the ropes passed from the netting of the balloon to it, and waved his flag, as long as he was visible, with as much confidence as though he was on terra firma. He told every one that he had with him provisions and clothing, and meant to do something that had never been accomplished before. He has fulfilled his promise amply.

Clayton is an American—a mechanic we believe, of Cincinnati and both constructed his own balloon and superintended the preparation of the gas, and the filling of the balloon. It is, too, his first experiment.

From the New York Evening Star.

The Cincinnati Aeronaut.—The aeronaut who set sail from Cincinnati in a balloon of colossal dimensions, 50,000 cubic feet we believe, has not yet been heard from. It was the experimenter's intention to make a protracted voyage through the upper regions of the atmosphere. What his provisions were, we do not know, nor his means of obtaining caloric where he would be so much in want of it. But we presume he carried along with him a plentiful supply of bottled "moonshine," and "gossamer" Benjamins. Badinage aside, he has probably died a martyr to his fool hardiness, and is now floating over the boundless regions of space confined in his own balloon, or some bolt of Jove has cleft his fragile bark asunder, and plunged him headlong into an unknown grave, 'midst untrodden forests, dismal swamps, and herds of ferocious beasts.

P. S. Extraordinary Balloon Ascension.—Since writing the above, we have received the Cincinnati Daily Gazette of the 18th inst. by which we rejoice to see Mr. Clayton returned the day before to that city, after having performed in nine hours and a half, a voyage of 400 miles, being out all night, and landing on the top of a mountain in Virginia. This is the most extraordinary feat on record in aeronautics, and we were convinced and predicted, when us Yankees caught the balloon mania, we should "go ahead," as Crockett says, beyond the slow creeping pace of the old world, as we do in all other things, railroads, steamboats, ship building, printing, and whatever else we apply our minds to. The long description of Mr. Clayton, over a column, is the most romantic story we have read of navigation in the heavens. He went in an easterly direction, taking the course of the Ohio. When he had reached about two miles high human beings appeared like Lilliputians, and their houses and carriages like the toys of children. His running foul of a snag in a forest, anchoring in a gale of wind, and then letting loose the cable and "putting to sea" again, are most graphically given.