He
became fascinated with the problem presented to him.
Stated in the language of the craft, it was this:
Given a moving body, with a velocity eight thousand
eight hundred feet in a minute, what should be its
elevation that it may fall eleven hundred feet in the
transit of five-eighths of a mile?" He had not only
to work up the parabola, comparatively simple, but he had
to allow for the resistance of the air, on the
supposition of a calm, according to the really admirable
formulas of Robins and Coulomb, which were the best be
had access to. Joslyn brought me, one day, a letter from
Bill Todhunter, which shows how carefully he went into
this intricate inquiry.
Unfortunately for them all, it took possession of
this spirited and accomplished young man. You see, he
not only had the mathematical ability for the calculation
of the fatal curve, but, as had been ordered without any
effort of his, he was in precisely the situation of the
whole world for trying in practice his own great
experiment. At each of the two X X of Joslyn's map, the
company had, as it happened, switches for repair-trains
or wood-trains. Had it not, Bill Todhunter had ample
power to make them.
For the "experiment," all that was necessary was,
that under the pretext of re-adjusting these switches, he
should lay out that at the upper X so that it should run,
on the exact grade which he required, to the western edge
of the ravine, in a line which should be the direct
continuation of the long, straight run with which the
little map begins.
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