Note 4 — Chapter I

Sir Isaac Newton is said to have been much attached to Philosophical sports when a boy; he was the first to introduce paper kites at Grantham, where he was at school. He took pains to find out their proper proportions and figure, and the proper place for fixing the string to them. He made lanterns of paper crimpled, which he used to go to school by in winter mornings with a candle, and he tied them to the tail of his kites in a dark night, which at first frightened the country people exceedingly, who took his candles for comets.--Thomson’s Hist. of R.S.