CAMBRIDGE 61 



Those who have read Whewell's Life, which was 

 written by a loving hand and dwells mainly on his 

 kindly, domestic character, will gather little idea of 

 the rough power of the man and his too frequent 

 overbearing attitude. In after-days he invited me to 

 the Lodge, where I found him most unexpectedly 

 gracious. 



It may be worth mentioning that at the time of 

 which I am writing, brakes to carriages were unknown 

 in England except in the Lake Country, where the 

 many hills made it difficult to travel without restraint, 

 unless by frequently stopping to put on or take off the 

 drag. Their use gradually spread, as the first senti- 

 mental opposition to them subsided. A near relative 

 of my own, who was a devoted whip and drove his 

 own four-horse drag for many years, was at first con- 

 temptuous towards brakes, but soon changed his mind, 

 and ever afterwards used one. 



One of the longer excursions was to Scawfell, where 

 I found a small encampment of ordnance surveyors 

 with theodolite and heliostat. Their immediate 

 object was to obtain by direct observation the bearing 

 of Snowdon, ninety-six miles off (as I think they said), 

 to form the side of one of their principal triangles. A 

 corresponding station was set up on the top of 

 Snowdon, whence after many days' waiting in vain 

 the long-wished-for star of light reflected from the sun 

 by the mirror on Snowdon, became faintly but clearly 

 visible through the telescope at Scawfell. It had been 

 seen on three days altogether, two of which were suc- 

 cessive. The obstruction to light by a few miles of mist, 

 etc., in the lower layers of the atmosphere, contrasts 

 forcibly with the ease with which every detail of the 



