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.'