Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/46

 3 o HISTORY OF THE [1820-30 the late Francis Baily, F.R.S., P.R.A.S. (London, Baily Brothers, Royal Exchange Buildings, 1856), but he did not put a copy in the R.A.S. library, and we owe the copy we now possess to the kindness of his son, William (on the occasion of his dining with the R.A.S. Club, 1911 Nov. 10). It is rendered the more valuable by having inserted in it various maps found with the journal, some pamphlets by Baily, some letters, and Baily's attendance card for the Cam- bridge meeting of the British Association in 1833. The maps, so innocent of detail, fully bear out the modest remarks of the traveller just quoted. But a more concrete illustration of what travel meant in those days may be quoted from the book. On 1796 December 10, the boat in which Baily and his companions were going down the river Ohio got frozen in near the bank a situation they accepted with tolerable equanimity. They prepared to pass the winter there and proceeded to lay in a good stock of provisions. One or two other boats were with them, so that there were fourteen or fifteen in all, and there was a daily expedition to shoot " deer, turkeys, bears, or any other animals fit for food." The temperature was about 17 below zero. On December 20 they thought there seemed some promise of the ice breaking and allowing them to proceed on their journey, and accordingly went to bed in fairly good spirits. Suddenly they were awakened by a. noise like thunder, and found that the ice was indeed breaking up, but because the river was rising rapidly. We have seen that Baily was not a man to make too much of any experiences of his own, yet this is how he writes about the matter : All attempts would be feeble to describe the horrid crushing and tremendous destruction which this event occasioned on the river. Only conceive a river near 1500 miles long, frozen to a prodigious depth (capable of bearing loaded wagons) from its source to its mouth, and this river by a sudden torrent of water breaking those bands by which it had been so long fettered ! Conceive this vast body of ice put in motion at the same instant, and carried along with an astonishing rapidity, grating with a most tremendous noise against the sides of the river, and bearing down everything which opposed its progress ! the tallest and the stoutest trees obliged to submit to its destructive fury, and hurried along with the general wreck ! In this scene of confusion, what was to be done ? The practical answer was to unload the boat and get the things ashore as quickly as possible ; and this, in the middle of this bitter night, they set about ; but suddenly a large sheet of ice stove in one side of the boat so that she filled and sank, but as she was near the shore and almost touched the bottom (the water being very low) she was not immediately covered. The river was