422 Mr. Meikle's Reply to Mr. Boase [Dec. 



warnings, comes forward with such an enchanted story in your 

 present number, as if he had tried how absurdly a person really 

 can write when so inclined. Indeed it is difficult to conceive 

 how he could have been blessed with such a view of the subject 

 even in a dream. His diagrams * are more like an attempt at 

 caricaturing than any thing else. Is it possible that one who so 

 writes has seen the first book of Euclid ? 



I shall not now encroach on your pages with a formal dissec- 

 tion and refutation of such nonsense ; for I should still entertain 

 hopes of Mr. Boase if he would only give my two former papers 

 a careful perusal. This he seems never to have done, and can- 

 not easily do, so long as prejudice tyrannizes over reason. I 

 should also take it as a particular favour if any of your corres- 

 pondents who are conversant with the subject would be so good 

 as point out any error, if such there be, in these papers. But 

 should they incline to treat the subject in the random way Mr. 

 Boase has been pleased to do, I hope they will excuse me in 

 allotting them a share of something which I may, perhaps, 

 trouble you with inserting in a future number. As the point in 

 dispute is purely geometrical, persons who are eminently 

 endowed with dogmatism will probably find that a little know- 

 ledge of geometry would have been of infinitely more use. 



It is something singular that a man of science like Flaugergues 

 should have fallen into such a silly mistake ; but is it not truly- 

 provoking that the same glaring absurdity should again be 

 obtruded on the public after I had repeatedly refuted it in a way 

 so simple that a child might understand it? Indeed I despair of 

 being able to give a much simpler view of the case, unless I 

 could make it so as Mr. Boase might feel it with his fingers. 



At present 1 shall content myself with giving the following 

 very familiar mode of proving that the horizontal distance of the 

 lines in which the drops fall is not altered by a steady wind : — 

 Suppose the wind to blow from London towards Penzance, and 

 that 1000 rain-drops having all the same altitude are carried a 

 furlong nearer Penzance by the time they reach the ground. 

 Now it is manifest that the relative distances of these drops 

 reckoned horizontally in the direction of Penzance is not altered 

 in any part of their descent, because the wind acts equally on 

 every one of them, however whimsical the curve through which 

 it may descend,t or however difterent the velocity of the wind 

 may be at difterent altitudes, provided only it act equally on 

 very drop at the same instant, ultimately carrying each just one 

 •urlong nearer Penzance than it was before : for Mr. Boase has 



* One of these lit calls " Mr. Meikle's own diagram." This I am disposed to 

 deny : the top indeed resembles my figure, but he has taken care to put hia own 

 comet-like tail to it. Had he used my diagram, he would have been In danger of 

 ■ tumbling on the truth. 



+ Mr. B. informs us that the drops describe " parabolic lines." This I did not 

 know before; nor do I see any reason to beliere Ihcy are restricted to any par- 

 ticular sort of curve whatever. 



