"'
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.
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