Historians and students of literature were tremendously excited by the recent announcement by Oxford University that several volumes of unpublished notes by Lemuel Gulliver had been found in the Bodleian Library.
Dr. Gulliver was a little-known 18th-century explorer, the first European to visit Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and other lands of the Pacific. His accounts of those voyages were edited and published by the Irish satirist Jonathan Swift, and for many years were considered to be purely fictional, until those islands became important battlegrounds during the Second World War.
The notebooks discovered in the Bodelian Library contain much material which Swift elected to leave out of the popular edition of Gulliver's works. Evidently Swift, no scientist himself, thought the public would be bored by Dr. Gulliver's observations and theories on the biology of the peoples he encountered. These new discoveries restore Dr. Lemuel Gulliver to his proper place as a naturalist and early investigator of the field of biomechanics.
Here's the first deleted section, from his manuscript on Lilliput:
During my stay in Lilliput, I was continually astonished by a singular feature of the Architecture in that Kingdom, namely the utter Absence of stairs or other means of climbing from one floor to another within a dwelling. Remarkably, this Absence did not discommode the Lilliputians in the slightest degree. To ascend, they simply leapt from one story to the next, without any sign of undue Exertion or loss of dignity. I even witnessed an elderly Lilliputian, his hair whitened and his back bent with age, vault up to his Chamber on the third floor of his house in a single bound!
In a like manner, the Lilliputians I observed did not trouble to climb downstairs — indeed, there were none to climb — but simply flung themselves out the nearest Window if they wished to alight upon the Ground. Several times I witnessed Lilliputians in the Towns leaping across the Streets from one upper-storey window to another, showing no fear of falling, and if they did chance to miss their Aim and tumble to the ground, they showed no ill Effect of their misadventure.
Several Learned Gentlemen among the Lilliputians and Blefuscudians reported to me that none of their Race has any fear of a fall, as they can alight safely, no matter the height from which they have fallen. Indeed, they thought my natural Caution in going up and down to be unmanly, and I was occasionally the object of Ridicule for it.
Upon my return to England, I had the occasion to mention this remarkable Circumstance to my neighbor Dr. Erasmus Darwin. He informed me that this Conduct of the Lilliputians is perfectly natural, and is a necessary Consequence of their extraordinary Diminution.
"Consider, Dr. Gulliver," (said Dr. Darwin to me) "that the weight of a man is in proportion to his volume, if we assume that there be no material difference between the Lilliputians and ourselves but only one of scale. Therefore a Gentleman of Lilliput, proportioned like yourself but having a height of only six inches, would weigh but 1/1728 of what you do, or slightly less than two Ounces, that being the cubic power of 1/12."
I replied that this Weight was precisely that of such Gentlemen of Lilliput as I had occasion to place upon the Scales.
"But consider, Dr. Gulliver: the active Power of the Muscles is in proportion to their Area in cross-section. Our Lilliputian Gentleman's leg muscles would be 1/144th the size of yours in Area, and thus in Strength, as that is the square of 1/12." As he spoke he made some rapid calculations with a lead pencil upon a sheet of foolscap.
"Surely that cannot be right," I interjected. "For that would mean he would be twelve times as strong as I, in proportion to his size."
"That is exactly right, Dr. Gulliver. He would indeed be stronger — in proportion. If you yourself are able to leap to a height of (let us say) three feet, that is, a height equal to one-half your own, then a Lilliputian would be capable of leaping twelve times as far in proportion, or six times his own height. In fact, the proportions cancel themselves out, so we are faced with the startling conclusion that a Lilliputian can leap as high as you yourself, Dr. Gulliver! The people of Lilliput have no need of stairs, for to jump up a Storey requires no greater effort for them than for you to ascend a single step."
Nice, and now I want the WW2 story set in the lands of his travels.
Posted by: Chuk | 12/14/2020 at 06:40 PM