2026-10-06 Wallace Online, Parallax

Ed. John van Wyhe. URLs: https://wallace-online.org/content/frameset?itemID=S179aa&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 (and record S179aa; S202, Wallace's own account, not opened). Query: site:wallace-online.org Hampden "Bedford" canal 1870 (Google). Result: positive / partial. Only the title page and pp.3-4 were readable; the text frame would not scroll in Chrome and the PDF link did not open within the time cap.

Hampden, John (1870). Is Water Level or Convex After All? The Bedford Canal Swindle Detected & Exposed. Swindon: Alfred Bull. 16 pp. [web: URL above]

• A pamphlet from an interested party (Hampden, the losing party to the wager). It includes Wallace's letters and the Memorandum of Agreement (Wallace Online item S179aa, "Letters and a Memorandum of Agreement concerning the Bedford Canal experiment").
• Pp.3-4 as read: Hampden issued a challenge in Jan 1870, staking £500 that the surface of water is not convex. He calls the trial "the notorious rascality of the scientific world". He names Wallace's referee (a Downham Market surgeon) and the umpire, the Editor of The Field. The survey was made on 5 Mar 1870.
• A Google snippet from the same PDF quotes the umpire's verdict: Wallace's experiment had "proved to my satisfaction the curvature, to and fro, of the Bedford Level Canal between Welney Bridge" [web snippet].
• A Wallace Online search snippet names a separate tract "Written and published by William Carpenter" about the experiment "on the 5th of March, 1870, by the old Bedford canal, near Downham Market, Norfolk". This is Carpenter's own report as Hampden's referee (priority 2, the movement's side).

Bearing

Claim 2. This is the first test on Rowbotham's own canal under a written agreement, with both sides' referees named. The inventor's camp disputed the result in print (Hampden, Carpenter), and the umpire found for curvature. Both sides' documents exist and should be read in full in the next run (S179aa pp.5-16, S202, and Carpenter's tract).