Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/282

 land carriage he had lately contrived, which drawn by an ordinary horse of about ten pound price, carries one that sits in it at ease, and a driver on the coach box with a Portmantle of 20 or 30 pounds weight, 25 or 30 miles Irish a day. This carriage is likewise very easy for the traveller, and far more so than any coach, not being overturnable by any height on which the wheels can possibly move. It is likewise contrived to be drawn about the streets by one man, with one in it, and that with less pains than one of the Sedan bearers do undergo. It is likewise very cheap, an ordinary one not costing over 6 or 7 pounds, the 4 wheels being over ½ the money.

' Nov. 1.—Sir Wm Petty was chosen President: Wm Molyneux, Esq., Secretary, and Wm Pleydel, Esq., Treasurer.

' Nov. 3.—Sir Wm Petty, our new President, brought in a paper of Advertisements to the Dublin Society, containing some proposals for modelling our future progress. These were so well approved of that they were readily submitted to by the whole Company.

' Dec. 1.—Our President, Sir Wm Petty, brought in a paper, "Supellex Philosophica," containing 40 instruments requisite to carry on the designs of this society. He likewise ordered that hereafter at every meeting an experiment in natural Philosophy should be tried here before the Company, and that the President should appoint on the foregoing Monday what should be tryed on the Monday following and the persons to try it, that accordingly a fit apparatus may be made.'

But even the construction of his land carriage was not sufficient to distract Sir William's attention from his favourite experiments with the sluice boat. 'The fitte of the double bottom,' he writes to Southwell, 'do return very fiercely upon me. I cannot be dissuaded but that it contains most glorious, pleasant and useful things. My happiness lies in being mad. I wish I were grown mad up to that degree as to believe I am honestly dealt with.' 'I work every day upon the Ship