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

with my sister and my wife's sister, Georgiana Smith. I was well introduced, and the journey was interesting.--On Oct. 29th my son Osmund was born.--Mr F. Baily bequeathed to me L500 , which realized L450 ."

Here are some extracts from letters written to his wife relating to the visit to the Cornish mines, &c.--


PEARCE'S HOTEL, FALMOUTH,
1845, June 12th, Thursday .

Then we walked to the United Mines in Gwennap. The day was very fine and now it was perfectly broiling: and the hills here are long and steep. At the United Mines we found the Captain, and he invited us to join in a rough dinner, to which he and the other captains were going to sit down. Then we examined one of the great pumping engines, which is considered the best in the country: and some other engines. Between 3 and 4 there was to be a setting out of some work to the men by a sort of Dutch Auction (the usual way of setting out the work here): some refuse ores were to be broken up and made marketable, and the subject of competition was, for how little in the pound on the gross produce the men would work them up. While we were here a man was brought up who was hurt in blasting: a piece of rock had fallen on him. At this mine besides the ladder ways, they have buckets sliding in guides by which the men are brought up: and they are just preparing for work another apparatus which they say is tried successfully at another mine (Tresavean): there are two wooden rods A and B reaching from the top to the bottom, moved by cranks from the same wheel, so that one goes up when the other goes down, and vice versa: each of these rods has small stages, at such a distance that when the rod A is down and the rod B is up, the first stage of A is level with the first stage of B : but when the rod A is up and the rod
B is down, the second stage of A is level with the first stage of
B : so a man who wants to descend steps on the first stage of A and waits till it goes down: then he steps sideways on the first stage of
B and waits till it goes down: then he steps sideways to the second stage of A and waits till it goes down, and so on: or if a man is coming up he does just the same. While we were here Mr R. Taylor came. We walked home (a long step, perhaps seven miles) in a very hot sun. Went to tea to Mr Alfred Fox, who has a house in a beautiful position looking to the outside of Falmouth Harbour.

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PENZANCE,
1845, June 14, Saturday .

Yesterday morning we breakfasted early at Falmouth, and before 9 started towards Gwennap. I had ascertained on Thursday that John Williams (the senior of a very wealthy and influential family in this country) was probably returned from London. So we drove first to his house Burntcoose or Barncoose, and found him and his wife at home. (They are Quakers, the rest of the family are not.) Sedgwick, and Whewell, and I, or some of our party including me, had slept once at their house. They received George and me most cordially, and pressed us to come and dine with them after our visit to Tresavean mine, of which intention I spoke in my last letter: so I named 4 o'clock as hour for dinner. After a little stay we drove to Tresavean, where I found the Captain of the mine prepared to send an Underground Captain and a Pit-man to descend with us. So we changed our clothes and descended by the ladders in the pumpshaft. Pretty work to descend with the huge pump-rods (garnished with large iron bolts) working violently, making strokes of 12 feet, close to our elbows; and with a nearly bottomless pit at the foot of every ladder, where we had to turn round the foot of the ladder walking on only a narrow board. However we got down to the bottom of the mine with great safety and credit, seeing all the mighty machinery on the way, to a greater depth than I ever reached before, namely 1900 feet. From the bottom of the pump we went aside a short distance into the lowest workings where two men nearly naked were driving a level towards the lode or vein of ore. Here I felt a most intolerable heat: and upon moving to get out of the place, I had a dreadful feeling of feebleness and fainting, such as I never had in my life before. The men urged me to climb the ladders to a level where the air was better, but they might as well have urged me to lift up the rock. I could do nothing but sit down and lean fainting against the rocks. This arose entirely from the badness of the air. After a time I felt a trifle better, and then I climbed one short ladder, and sat down very faint again. When I recovered, two men tied a rope round me, and went up the ladder before me, supporting a part of my weight, and in this way I ascended four or five ladders (with long rests between) till we came to a level, 260 fathoms below the adit or nearly 300 fathoms below the surface, where there was a tolerable current of pretty good air. Here I speedily recovered, though I was a little weak for a short time afterwards. George also felt the bad air a good deal, but not so much as I. He descended to some workings equally low in another place (towards which the party that I spoke of were directing their works), but said that the air there was by no means so bad. We all met at the bottom of the man-engine 260 fathoms below the adit. We sat still a little while, and I acquired sufficient strength and nerve, so that I did not feel the slightest alarm in the operation of ascending by the man-engine. This is the funniest operation that I ever saw: it is the only absolute novelty that I have seen since I was in the country before: it has been introduced 2-1/2 years in Tresavean, and one day in the United Mines. In my last letter I described the principle. In the actual use there is no other motion to be made by the person who is ascending or descending than that of stepping sideways each time (there being proper hand-holds) with no exertion at all, except that of stepping exactly at the proper instant: and not the shadow of unpleasant feeling in the motion. Any woman may go with the most perfect comfort, if she will but attend to the rules of stepping, and forget that there is an open pit down to the very bottom of the mine. In this way we were pumped up to the surface, and came up as cool as cucumbers, instead of being drenched with perspiration. In my description in last letter I forgot to mention that between the stages on the moving rods which I have there described there are intermediate stages on the moving rods (for which there is ample room, inasmuch as the interval between the stages on each rod used by one person is 24 feet), and these intermediate stages are used by persons descending : so that there are persons ascending and persons descending at the same time, who never interfere with each other and never step on the same stages, but merely see each other passing on the other rods--It is a most valuable invention. We then changed our clothes and washed, and drove to Barncoose, arriving in good time for the dinner. I found myself much restored by some superb Sauterne with water. When we were proposing to go on to Camborne, Mr and Mrs Williams pressed us so affectionately to stop that we at length decided on stopping for the night, only bargaining for an early breakfast this morning. This morning after breakfast, we started for Redruth and Camborne. The population between them has increased immensely since I was here before. &c. &c.

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Here is a letter written to his wife while he was engaged on the business of the Railway Gauge Commission. It contains reminiscences of some people who made a great figure in the railway world at that time, and was preceded by a letter which was playfully addressed "From the Palace of King Hudson, York."


GEORGE INN, YORK,
1845, Dec. 30 .

I wrote yesterday from Mr Hudson's in time for the late post, and hope that my letter might be posted by the servant to whom it was given. Our affairs yesterday were simple: we reached Euston Station properly, found Watson there, found a carriage reserved for us, eat pork-pie at Wolverton (not so good as formerly), dined at Derby, and arrived in York at 5.20. On the way Watson informed me that the Government have awarded us L500 each. Sir F. Smith had talked over the matter with us, and I laid it down as a principle that we considered the business as an important one and one of very great responsibility, and that we wished either that the