the precipice, it was dashed to pieces.

'The next day, when I came to look for my machine, intending to try
it upon some planks, which had been laid for it, I found, to my no
small disappointment, that the object of all my labours and my hopes
was lying at the bottom of a chalk-pit, broken into a thousand
pieces. I could not at that time afford to construct another wheel
of that sort, and I cannot therefore determine what might have been
the success of my scheme.'

He goes on to say: 'I shall mention a sailing carriage that I tried
on this common. The carriage was light, steady, and ran with amazing
velocity One day, when I was preparing for a sail in it with my
friend and schoolfellow, Mr. William Foster, my wheel-boat escaped
from its moorings just as we were going to step on board. With the
utmost difficulty we overtook it; and as I saw three or four
stage-coaches on the road, and feared that this sailing chariot
might frighten their horses, I, at the hazard of my life, got into
my carriage while it was under full sail, and then, at a favourable
part of the road, I used the means I had of guiding it easily out of
the way. But the sense of the mischief which must have ensued if I
had not succeeded in getting into the machine at the proper place,
and stopping it at the right moment, was so strong, as to deter me
from trying any more experiments on this carriage in such a
dangerous place.'

I have already given the changed use of the word perambulator. As an
example of the different use of a word in the last century, I may
mention telegraph, by which he means signalling either by moving
wooden arms or by showing lights. This mode of conveying a message