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Title

A Treatise

On

 The Aeropleustic Art

Or Navigation In The Air

By Means Of

Kites or Buoyant Sails:

With a Description Of The

Charvolant or Kite Carriage.

And Containing Numerous Most Amusing And Interesting Anecdotes

Connected With Several Extraordinary Excursions Both By Sea and Land.

With Characteristic Illustrations Drawn On Stone

By Rose Gilbert

From Designs by David Cox Jun.

[Very Scarce Second Edition]

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Second Edition

~

Hardback Binding

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Author

George Pocock

Illustrative Designs By David Cox and

Drawn on Stone By Rose Gilbert

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Year of Publication

1851

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Publisher

London: Longman, Brown and Co.

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For full description see below - after all photographs

Description:

London: Longman, Brown and Co.,1851, Second Edition.

Original hardback binding with illustrated boards, illustrative designs by David Cox and drawn on stone by Rose Gilbert, 6 plates and a plan, the fold out illustration at the front is torn and repaired across the page.

External binding worn with loss to the corners, lacking the paper spine, revealing the linen / cloth binding, binding loose with front hinge cracked and fragile.

54pp with 7 illustrations including the repaired folding plate.

Very scarce publication with only 7 recorded in international libraries.

George Pocock (1774–1843) was an English schoolteacher, the founder of Tent Methodism and an inventor, particularly known for having invented the 'Charvolant,' a kite-drawn carriage.

Pocock was interested in kites from an early age, and experimented with pulling loads using kite power, gradually progressing from small stones to planks and large loads. He taught at a school in Prospect Place, Bristol and continued his experiments with his pupils. By 1820 he had determined that in combination they could support considerable weight and began experimenting with man-lifting kites. In 1824, he used a 30-foot (9 m) kite with a chair rig to lift his daughter, Martha (the future mother of cricketer W.G. Grace) over 270 feet (82 m) into the air. Later the same year and continuing to use his family as subjects, he lifted his son to the top of a cliff outside Bristol; his son briefly dismounted from the chair at the top of the 200-foot (60 m) cliff and then concluded the test by releasing a clip on the kite line which allowed him to slide down the line in the chair and return to earth.

Having concluded that kites were capable of lifting humans, he turned again to experimenting with them as a way of pulling loads, this time as a method of pulling vehicles. Using kites in various arrangements he determined that a small number of large kites were capable of pulling a carriage with passengers.

In 1826, he patented the design of his "Charvolant" buggy. This used two kites on single line 1,500 to 1,800 feet (457–459 m) long to provide enough power to draw along a buggy carrying several passengers at considerable speed, similar to the modern sport of kite buggying.

In his book, The Aeropleustic Art or Navigation in the Air by the use of Kites, or Buoyant Sails, Pocock records that it performed at the rate of 20 miles an hour (32 km/h) over considerable distances and that a mile could frequently be covered even over heavy roads in 2¾ minutes. A group of three Charvolants made a trip of 113 miles (182 km) together, and on a run between Bristol and Marlborough one of the buggies sailed past the mail coach, which at the time was the fastest passenger transport.

Approximately 7 ½ inches tall.

Condition Report

Externally

• Spine – poor condition – paper spine missing, linen spine.
• Joints – poor condition – worn.
• Corners – poor to fair condition – bumped and worn with loss.
• Boards – fair condition – hardback boards, green borders to both, both boards are illustrated with a carriage with decorative borders, worn around the edges, marked.
• Page edges – good condition – all tanned.
• See above and photos.

Internally

• Hinges – poor condition – the front hinge is cracked and the webbing visible, holding, rear hinge intact.
• Paste downs – good condition – plain, there is mark along the top edge of the front paste down.
• End papers – good condition – plain, there is a mark along the top edge of the front end paper there is also a small loss to the top right hand corner of the front end paper, some foxing.
• Title – good condition – tanned with some foxing, large mark along the top edge.
• Pages – good condition – one fold out illustration at the front with has a repaired tear along the centre, there is a mark along the top edge that carries through from the from paste down to page 11 albeit faded on the latter pages, 6 plates which are tanned and foxed some hand coloured, pages in general tanned and foxed throughout.
• Binding – fair condition – loose, fragile, worn with loss.
• See photos

Publisher: see above.
Publication Date: 1851
Binding: Hardback

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Ruler in picture is 6 inches long.

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