CHAPTER 11
Instead of returning at once to Ireland, the Edgeworths went to Edinburgh to visit Henry Edgeworth, whose declining health caused his father much anxiety. Maria writes:—'He mended rapidly while we were at Edinburgh; and this improvement in his health added to the pleasure his father felt in seeing the interest his son had excited among the friends he had made for himself in Edinburgh—men of the first abilities and highest characters, both in literature and science—whom we knew by their works, as did all the world; with some of whom my father had had the honour of corresponding, but to whom he was personally unknown. Imagine the pleasure he felt at being introduced to them by his son, and in hearing Gregory, Alison, Playfair, Dugald Stewart, speak of Henry as if he actually belonged to themselves, and with the most affectionate regard. . . .
'On our journey homewards, in passing through Scotland, we met with much hospitality and kindness, and much that was interesting in the country and in its inhabitants. But the circumstance that remains the most fixed in my recollection, and that which afterwards influenced my father's life the most, happened to be the books we read during our last day's journey. These were the lives of Robertson the historian, and of Reid, which had been just given to us by Mr. Stewart. In the life of Reid there are some passages which struck my father particularly. I recollect at the moment when I was reading to him, his stretching eagerly across from his side of the carriage to mine, and marking the book with his pencil with strong and reiterated marks of approbation. The passages relate to the means which Dr. Reid employed to prevent the decay of his faculties as he advanced in years; to remedy the errors and deficiencies of one failing sense by the increased activity of another, and by the resources of reasoning and ingenuity to resist, as far as possible, or to render supportable, the infirmities of age . . . My father never forgot this passage, and acted on it years afterwards.'
It was not Henry who was taken first, but Charlotte, who was 'fresh as a rose' on her first tour abroad. In April 1807 she died of the same disease as her sisters, and about two years after her brother Henry followed her to the grave.
It needed a brave heart to bear up under such sorrows, but Edgeworth, though he felt them keenly, would not sink into the lethargy of grief, but roused himself to work for the public good. He was on the board appointed to inquire into the education of the people of Ireland, and two of his papers on the subject were printed in the reports of the Commissioners; he also drew up the plan of a school for Edgeworth Town, which was afterwards carried into execution by his son, Lovell; and at this time he was writing his Memoirs, a task which was interrupted by a severe illness in 1809. He had hardly recovered from this before he was engaged in the Government survey of bogs, and Maria writes:—'It was late in the year, and the weather unfavourable. In laying out and verifying the work of the surveyors employed, he was usually out from daybreak to sunset, often fifteen hours without food, traversing on foot, with great bodily exertion, wastes and deserts of bog, so wet and dangerous as to be scarcely passable at that season, even by the common Irish best used to them. In these bogs there frequently occur great holes, filled with water of the same colour as the bog, or sometimes covered over with a slight surface of the peat heath or grass, called by the common people a shakingscraw. 'In traversing these bogs a man must pick his way carefully, sometimes wading, sometimes leaping from one landing place to another, choosing these cautiously, lest they should not sustain his weight: avoiding certain treacherous green spots on which the unwary might be tempted to set foot, and would sink, never to rise again.'
The work was fatiguing, but the open air life seemed to give him new vigour, and his health was reestablished.
The work had interested him much, and he believed that an immense tract of bog might be reclaimed. The obstacles he foresaw were want of capital and the danger of litigation. As long as the bogs were unprofitable there was no incitement to a strict definition of boundaries, but if the land was reclaimed many lawsuits would follow. Maria thus describes the difficulties encountered by her father:—'He wished to undertake the improvement of a large tract of bog in his neighbourhood, and for this purpose desired to purchase it from the proprietor; but the proprietor had not the power or the inclination to sell it. My father, anxious to try a decisive experiment on a large scale, proposed to rent it from him, and offered a rent, till then unheard of, for bogland. The proprietor professed himself satisfied to accept the proposal, provided my father would undertake to indemnify him for any expense to which he might be put by future lawsuits concerning the property or boundaries of this bog. He was aware that if he were to give a lease for a long term, even for sixty years, this would raise the idea that the bog would become profitable; and still further, if ever it should be really improved and profitable, it would become an object of contention and litigation to many who might fancy they had claims, which, as long as the bog was nearly without value, they found it not worth while to urge. It was impossible to enter into the insurance proposed, and, consequently, he could not obtain this tract of bog, or further prosecute his plan. The same sort of difficulty must frequently recur. Parts of different estates pass through extensive tracts of bog, of which the boundaries are uncertain. The right to cut the turf is usually vested in the occupiers of adjoining farms; but they are at constant war with each other about boundaries, and these disputes, involving the original grants of the lands, hundreds of years ago, with all subsequent deeds and settlements, appear absolutely interminable. . . .
'It may not be at present a question of much interest to the British public, because no such large decisive experiment as was proposed has yet been tried as to the value and attainableness of the object; but its magnitude and importance are incontestable, the whole extent of peat soil in Ireland exceeding, as it is confidently pronounced, 2,830,000 acres, of which about half might be converted to the general purposes of agriculture.'
It was in 1811 that Edgeworth constructed, 'upon a plan of his own invention, a spire for the church of Edgeworth Town. This spire was formed of a skeleton of iron, covered with slates, painted and sanded to resemble Portland stone. It was put together on the ground within the tower of the church, and when finished it was drawn up at once, with the assistance of counterbalancing weights, to the top of the tower, and there to be fixed in its place.
'The novelty of the construction of this spire, even in this its first skeleton state, excited attention, and as it drew towards its completion, and near the moment when, with its covering of slates, altogether amounting to many tons weight, it was to move, or not to move, fifty feet from the ground to the top of the tower, everybody in the neighbourhood, forming different opinions of the probability of its success or failure, became interested in the event.
'Several of my father's friends and acquaintances, in our own and from adjoining counties, came to see it drawn up. Fortunately, it happened to be a very fine autumn day, and the groups of spectators of different ranks and ages, assembled and waiting in silent expectation, gave a picturesque effect to the whole. A bugle sounded as the signal for ascent. The top of the spire appearing through the tower of the church, began to move upwards; its gilt ball and arrow glittered in the sun, while with motion that was scarcely perceptible it rose majestically. Not one word or interjection was uttered by any of the men who worked the windlasses at the top of the tower.
'It reached its destined station in eighteen minutes, and then a flag streamed from its summit and gave notice that all was safe. Not the slightest accident or difficulty occurred.' Maria adds:—'The conduct of the whole had been trusted to my brother William (the civil engineer), and the first words my father said, when he was congratulated upon the success of the work, were that his son's steadiness in conducting business and commanding men gave him infinitely more satisfaction than he could feel from the success of any invention of his own.'
Towards the close of 1811 Edgeworth was requested, as he understood, by a committee of the House of Commons on Broad Wheels, to look over and report on a mass of evidence on the subject. This he did, but then found that it was a private request of the chairman, Sir John Sinclair, who begged that the report might be given to the Board of Agriculture. This Edgeworth declined, but wrote instead and presented An Essay on Springs applied to Carts; and in 1813 he published an essay on Roads, and Wheel Carriages. His daughter writes:—'In the course of the drudgery which he went through he received a great counterbalancing pleasure from the following passage, which he chanced to meet with in a letter to the committee, written by a gentleman to whom he was personally a stranger:
'"Mr. Edgeworth was the first who pointed out the great benefit of springs in aiding the draught of horses. The subject deserves more attention than it has hitherto met with. No discovery relative to carriages has been made in our time of equal importance; and the ingenious author of it deserves highly of some mark of public gratitude."'
Maria adds:—'Those ingenious ideas, which had been but the amusement of youth, as he advanced in life, he turned to public utility: for instance, the mode of conveying secret and swift intelligence, which he had suggested at first only to decide a trifling wager between him and some young nobleman, he afterwards improved into a national telegraph, and through all difficulties and disappointments persevered till it was established. In the same manner, his juvenile amusements with the sailing chariot led to experiments on the resistance of the air, which in more mature years he pursued in the patient spirit of philosophical investigation, and turned to good account for the real business of life, and for the advancement of science.
'On this subject, in the year 1783, he published in the Transactions of the Royal Society (vol. 73) "An Essay on the Resistance of the Air," of which the object, as he states, is to determine the force of the wind upon surfaces of different size and figure, or upon the same surface, when placed in different directions, inclined at different angles, or curved in different arches. . . . After trying several experiments on surfaces of various shapes, he ascertained the difference of resistance in different cases, suggested the probable cause of these variations, and opened a large field for future curious and useful speculation; useful it may be called, as well as curious, because such knowledge applies immediately to the wants and active business of life, to the construction of wind- and water-mills, and to the extensive purposes of navigation. The theory of philosophers and the practice of mechanics and seamen were, and perhaps are still, at variance as to the manner in which sails of wind-mills and of ships should be set. Dr. Hooke, in his day, expressed "his surprise at the obstinacy of seamen in continuing, after what appeared the clearest demonstration to the contrary, to prefer what are called bellying or bunting sails, to such as are hauled tight." The doctor said that he would, at some future time, add the test of experiment to mathematical investigation in support of his theory.
'It is remarkable that this test of experiment, when at length it was applied, confirmed the truth of what the philosopher had reprobated as an obstinate vulgar error. My father, in his Essay on the Resistance of the Air, gives the result of his experiments on a flat and curved surface of the same dimensions, and explains the cause of the error into which Dr. Hooke, M. Parent, and other mathematicians had fallen in their theoretic reasonings. . . .
'It is remarkable that a man of naturally lively imagination and of inventive genius should not, in science, have ever followed any fanciful theory of his own, but that all he did should have been characterised by patient investigation and prudent experiment. . . .
'In science, it is not given to man to finish; to persevere, to advance a step or two, is all that can be accomplished, and all that will be expected by the real philosopher.
'"We will endeavour" is the humble and becoming motto of our philosophical society.'