Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy - George Biddell Airy (best novel books to read TXT) 📗

third daughter Christabel was born. In March I paid a short visit to Sir John Herschel at Hawkhurst. From June 12th to Aug. 11th I was travelling with my wife on the Continent, being partly occupied with the observation of the Total Eclipse of the Sun on July 7th. The journey was in Switzerland and North Italy. In December I went to Cambridge and Ely, visiting Dr Peacock at the latter place."

From Feb. 23rd to 28th Airy was engaged on Observations of Tides at Southampton, Christchurch, Poole, and Weymouth. During this expedition he wrote frequently (as he always did) to his wife on the incidents of his journey, and the following letters appear characteristic:


KING'S ARMS, CHRISTCHURCH,
OR XCHURCH,
1842, Feb. 24 .

The lower of the above descriptions of my present place of abode is the correct one, as I fearlessly assert on the authority of divers direction-posts on the roads leading to it (by the bye this supports my doctrine that x in Latin was not pronounced eks but khi, because the latter is the first letter of Christ, for which x is here traditionally put). Finding this morning that Yolland (who called on me as soon as I had closed the letter to you) was perfectly inclined to go on with the tide observations at Southampton, and that his corporals of sappers were conducting them in the most exemplary manner, I determined on starting at once. However we first went to look at the New Docks (mud up to the knees) and truly it is a very great work. There is to be enclosed a good number of acres of water 22 feet deep: one dock locked in, the other a tidal dock or basin with that depth at low water. They are surrounded by brick walls eight feet thick at top, 10 or more at bottom; and all the parts that ever can be exposed are faced with granite. The people reckon that this work when finished will attract a good deal of the London commerce, and I should not be surprised at it. For it is very much easier for ships to get into Southampton than into London, and the railway carriage will make them almost one. A very large steamer is lying in Southampton Water: the Oriental, which goes to Alexandria. The Lady Mary Wood, a large steamer for Lisbon and Gibraltar, was lying at the pier. The said pier is a very pleasant place of promenade, the water and banks are so pretty, and there is so much liveliness of ships about it. Well I started in a gig, in a swashing rain, which continued off and on for a good while. Of the 21 miles, I should think that 15 were across the New Forest. I do not much admire it. As for Norman William's destruction of houses and churches to make it hunting ground, that is utter nonsense which never could have been written by anybody that ever saw it: but as to hunting, except his horses wore something like mud-pattens or snow-shoes, it is difficult to conceive it. Almost the whole Forest is like a great sponge, water standing in every part. In the part nearer to Xchurch forest trees, especially beeches, seem to grow well. We stopped to bait at Lyndhurst, a small place high up in the Forest: a good view, such as it is, from the churchyard. The hills of the Isle of Wight occasionally in sight. On approaching Xchurch the chalk cliffs of the west end of the Isle of Wight (leading to the Needles) were partly visible; and, as the sun was shining on them, they fairly blazed. Xchurch is a small place with a magnificent-looking church (with lofty clerestory, double transept, &c., but with much irregularity) which I propose to visit to-morrow. Also a ruin which looks like an abbey, but the people call it a castle. There is a good deal of low land about it, and the part between the town and the sea reminded me a good deal of the estuary above Cardigan, flat ill-looking bogs (generally islands) among the water. I walked to the mouth of the river (more than two miles) passing a nice little place called Sandford, with a hotel and a lot of lodgings for summer sea-people. At the entrance of the river is a coastguard station, and this I find is the place to which I must go in the morning to observe the tide. I had some talk with the coastguard people, and they assure me that the tide is really double as reported. As I came away the great full moon was rising, and I could read in her unusually broad face (indicating her nearness to the earth) that there will be a powerful tide. I came in and have had dinner and tea, and am now going to bed, endeavouring to negociate for a breakfast at six o'clock to-morrow morning. It is raining cats and dogs.

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LUCE'S HOTEL, WEYMOUTH,
1842, Feb. 27 .

This morning when I got up I found that it was blowing fresh from S.W. and the sea was bursting over the wall of the eastern extremity of the Esplanade very magnanimously. So (the swell not being favourable for tide-observations) I gave them up and determined to go to see the surf on the Chesil Bank. I started with my great-coat on, more for defence against the wind than against rain; but in a short time it began to rain, and just when I was approaching the bridge which connects the mainland with the point where the Chesil Bank ends at Portland (there being an arm of the sea behind the Chesil Bank) it rained and blew most dreadfully. However I kept on and mounted the bank and descended a little way towards the sea, and there was the surf in all its glory. I cannot give you an idea of its majestic appearance. It was evidently very high, but that was not the most striking part of it, for there was no such thing as going within a considerable distance of it (the occasional outbreaks of the water advancing so far) so that its magnitude could not be well seen. My impression is that the height of the surf was from 10 to 20 feet. But the striking part was the clouds of solid spray which formed immediately and which completely concealed all the other operations of the water. They rose a good deal higher than the top of the surf, so the state of things was this. A great swell is seen coming, growing steeper and steeper; then it all turns over and you see a face just like the pictures of falls of Niagara; but in a little more than one second this is totally lost and there is nothing before you but an enormous impenetrable cloud of white spray. In about another second there comes from the bottom of this cloud the foaming current of water up the bank, and it returns grating the pebbles together till their jar penetrates the very brain. I stood in the face of the wind and rain watching this a good while, and should have stood longer but that I was so miserably wet. It appeared to me that the surf was higher farther along the bank, but the air was so thickened by the rain and the spray that I could not tell. When I returned the bad weather abated. I have now borrowed somebody else's trowsers while mine are drying (having got little wet in other parts, thanks to my great-coat, which successfully brought home a hundredweight of water), and do not intend to stir out again except perhaps to post this letter.

* * * * *

FLAMSTEED HOUSE,
1842, May 15 .

Yesterday after posting the letter for you I went per steamboat to Hungerford. I then found Mr Vignoles, and we trundled off together, with another engineer named Smith, picking up Stratford by the way, to Wormwood Scrubs. There was a party to see the Atmospheric Railway in action: including (among others) Sir John Burgoyne, whom I met in Ireland several years ago, and Mr Pym, the Engineer of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, whom I have seen several times, and who is very sanguine about this construction; and Mr Clegg, the proposer of the scheme (the man that invented gas in its present arrangements), and Messrs Samuda, two Jews who are the owners of the experiment now going on; and Sir James South! With the latter hero and mechanician we did not come in contact. Unfortunately the stationary engine (for working the air-pump which draws the air out of the pipes and thus sucks the carriages along) broke down during the experiment, but not till we had seen the carriage have one right good run. And to be sure it is very funny to see a carriage running all alone "as if the Devil drove it" without any visible cause whatever. The mechanical arrangements we were able to examine as well after the engine had broken down as at any time. And they are very simple and apparently very satisfactory, and there is no doubt of the mechanical practicability of the thing even in places where locomotives can hardly be used: whether it will pay or not is doubtful.