1827.] Notes for the Month. 405 



such as building them jointed, in order that when of a large size they 

 should be more portable ; covering them with linen instead of paper, that 

 they might be proof against the weather; and, particularly, furnishing 

 them with three cords (independent of the main, or drawing string) called 

 brace lines, the effect of which was to regulate their power when elevated, 

 and to direct their course, without being left entirely at the discretion of 

 the wind, through the atmosphere : until, at length, having further con- 

 structed a carriage peculiarly adapted to the application of his new im- 

 pulse, he arrived so far at success as to be able upon ordinary roads to 

 perform journies at the rate of twenty miles an hour; and to outstrip, as 

 has already been stated, on one occasion, the carriage of the Duke of 

 Gloucester, with his Royal Highness's postilions (as he says) putting their 

 horses to the gallop. 



For a full account of several strange matters that occurred in the course 

 of the inventor's experiments, our readers must consult the book itself i 

 but the practicability of impelling a carriage along a common road by the 

 aid of kites certainly seems established beyond all doubt. On one trial (on 

 the 8th of January in the present year), the projector performed a mile of 

 ground over a very heavy road, in two minutes and three quarters ; and 

 on the same day several other miles in three minutes each. This was 

 done between Bristol and Marlborough. At another time, he says he beat 

 a London stage-coach, in a distance of ten miles, by no less than twenty* 

 five minutes. Moreover, as, although by the assistance of the brace lines, 

 his kites work perfectly well with a side wind, it is yet impossible for them 

 to work against the wind, and consequently not easy for a traveller to go 

 a journey with them, and come back (the wind remaining in the same 

 quarter) in the same day to obviate every difficulty, the inventor has 

 added a platform to the back of his Kite-carriage, upon which a pair of 

 horses are carried along with the traveller ! remaining at all times fresh 

 and in order, ready to be harnessed and set to work, in case the wind 

 should fall, or veer round, or any other accident should make the ministry 

 of such animals necessary ! These are the sort of speculations that every 

 now and then make Mr. Pocock's narrative a little staggering. 



The power of a kite twelve feet high, with a wind blowing at the rate 

 of twenty miles an hour, is as much, our author says, as a man of mo- 

 derate strength can stand against. Larger kites of course would have their 

 power in proportion. 



Beyond drawing carriages [By the way, how admirably these engines 

 would do to tow canal boats ?], Mr. Pocock, as we have already observed, 

 looks that his kites shall be useful in propelling ships in calm weather. This 

 expectation is founded upon the folio wing fact: Experiments have shewn, 

 he says, that when a dead calm exists upon the level or surface of the sea- 

 at the height of 150 feet in the air, a current of wind is often running at 

 the rate of sixteen miles an hour. By elevating his kite in due time, the 

 voyager would have the advantage of this breeze, while those ships un- 

 provided would lie like logs upon the water, with their sails flapping. 



In cases of shipwreck, upon a lee-shore, nothing of course would be 

 more easy than to send a rope or a grappling iron to the top of a cliff by 

 the same sort of conveyance : but " should it be deemed more expedient 

 at once to send a person on shore, he may be borne" (the author says) 

 " above the bursting billows, and alight, like a messenger of good from the 

 flood," upon the cliff or beach, as the case may be! In fact, he adds, if it 

 so happened that female passengers or children were in the vessel so situated 



