On Aérostation. 185 
Recollecting the degrees of cold which are destructive to dif- 
ferent vegetables growing in this kingdom, that even turneps on 
the ground in winter are injured by 24° and totally destroyed 
by 30° below the freezing point; we may naturally conclude 
that great devastation must have been committed by the late 
severe weather : but the destruction would have been unparalleled 
in this kingdom, had not the ground been previously covered by 
snow, especially as the sun rose with splendour on the morning 
of the 9th ult., thus greatly augmenting the danger to the living 
principle. Therefore, when we reflect upon these circumstances, 
what a powerful source of gratitude they ought to prove in 
our minds, to that great and beneficent Being, who has spread 
such a protecting mantle over the fertile fields of this highly cul- 
tivated country! 
I remain, sir, 
Yours, &c. 
- Wisbech, March 8, 1816. Wo. SKRIMSHIRE, 
XLIV, On Aérostation. By Richarp Lovu.. Eperwonrrs, 
Esq. F.R.S. Sc. Ge. Se, 
To Mr, Tilloch. 
Sir, — Turre is something apparently selfish and ungracious 
in claiming inventions that are published by others. But in 
philosophy, as well as in law, a fatal error is often committed by 
daches,—or, in plain English, by leaving unclaimed, for a length 
of time, a right that belongs to us. 
The ingenious Sir George Cayley has frequently proposed to 
impel flying bodies, by letting them descend obliquely through 
the air, and forcing them in a contrary obliquity against the air 
by impelling them upwards. He refers to Mr. Evans’s Paper in 
your Magazine for November last. . Now, sir, I did actually ap- 
ply this invention to a small fire-balloon at my own house in 
the year 1786, which confirmed me in the opinion of the prac- 
ticability of this invention. But as there were a great number 
of thatched houses in my neighbourhood, I desisted from making 
further trials. 
In 1802 I became acquainted with M. Montgolfier at Paris, 
when two of my friends who were with me, asked M. Montgolfier 
whether any practicable means of directing balloons had ever 
been communicated to him. He replied, “ Never, but in a let- 
ter from a gentleman in Ireland.” One of my friends imme- 
diately inquired, whether that letter had been communicated to 
- him in the year 1782, by the Marquis de la Povpe, of Bourg en 
Bresse. 
