initial commit of ebook 36768HEADmain

72 files changed, 25662 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/36768-8.txt b/36768-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6ef7bba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7604 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art
+and Science, by J. Hamilton Fyfe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science
+
+Author: J. Hamilton Fyfe
+
+Release Date: July 17, 2011 [EBook #36768]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIUMPHS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sharon Joiner, Jana Srna, Bill Keir, Erica
+Pfister-Altschul and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRIUMPHS OF
+INVENTION AND DISCOVERY
+IN ART AND SCIENCE.
+
+[Illustration: GEORGE STEPHENSON'S HOME. Page 120.]
+
+
+
+
+    TRIUMPHS OF
+    INVENTION AND DISCOVERY
+    IN ART AND SCIENCE.
+
+    BY
+    J. HAMILTON FYFE.
+
+
+    "PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES NO LESS THAN WAR."
+
+
+    LONDON:
+    T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
+    EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
+
+    1871.
+
+
+
+
+Preface.
+
+    "_Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war._"--MILTON.
+
+
+It is not difficult to account for the pre-eminence, generally assigned
+to the victories of war over the victories of peace in popular history.
+The noise and ostentation which attend the former, the air of romance
+which surrounds them,--lay firm hold of the imagination, while the
+directness and rapidity with which, in such transactions, the effect
+follows the cause, invest them with a peculiar charm for simple and
+superficial observers. As Schiller says,--
+
+                      "Straight forward goes
+    The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path
+    Of the cannon ball. Direct it flies, and rapid,
+    Shattering that it _may_ reach, and shattering what it reaches.
+    My son! the road the human being travels,
+    That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow
+    The river's course, the valley's playful windings:
+    Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines,
+    Honouring the holy bounds of property!
+    And thus secure, though late, leads to its end."
+
+The path of peace is long and devious, now dwindling into a mere
+foot-track, now lost to sight in some dense thicket; and the heroes who
+pursue it are often mocked at by the crowd as poor, half-witted souls,
+wandering either aimlessly or in foolish chase of some Jack o' lantern
+that ever recedes before them. The goal they aim at seems to the common
+eye so visionary, and their progress towards it so imperceptible,--and
+even when reached, it takes so long before the benefits of their
+achievement are generally recognised,--that it is perhaps no wonder we
+should be more attracted by the stirring narratives of war, than by the
+sad, simple histories of the great pioneers of industry and science.
+
+Picturesque and imposing as deeds of arms appear, the victories of
+peace--the development of great discoveries and inventions, the
+performance of serene acts of beneficence, the achievements of social
+reform--possess a deeper interest and a truer romance for the seeing eye
+and the understanding heart. Wounds and death have to be encountered in
+the struggles of peace as well as in the contests of war; and peace has
+her martyrs as well as her heroes. The story of the cotton-spinning
+invention is at once as tragic and romantic as the story of the
+Peninsular war. There were "forlorn hopes" of brave men in both; but in
+the one case they were cheered by sympathy and association, in the other
+the desperate pioneers had to face a world of foes, "alone, unfriended,
+solitary, slow."
+
+The following pages contain sketches of some of the more momentous
+victories of peace, and the heroes who took part in them. The reader
+need hardly be reminded that this brief list does not exhaust the
+catalogue either of such events or persons, and that only a few of a
+representative character are here selected.
+
+In the present edition the different sections have been carefully
+revised, and the details brought down to the latest possible date.
+
+                                                                J. H. F.
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+THE ART OF PRINTING--
+    1. John Gutenberg,                                    13
+    2. William Caxton,                                    28
+    3. The Printing Machine,                              32
+
+THE STEAM ENGINE--
+    1. The Marquis of Worcester, and his Successors,      53
+    2. James Watt,                                        63
+
+THE MANUFACTURE OF COTTON--
+    1. Kay and Hargreaves,                                77
+    2. Sir Richard Arkwright,                             81
+    3. Samuel Crompton,                                   90
+    4. Dr. Cartwright,                                    98
+    5. Sir Robert Peel,                                  104
+
+THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE--
+    1. "The Flying Coach,"                               111
+    2. The Stephensons: Father and Son,                  116
+    3. The Growth of Railways,                           133
+
+THE LIGHTHOUSE--
+    1. The Eddystone,                                    141
+    2. The Bell Rock,                                    153
+    3. The Skerryvore,                                   160
+
+STEAM NAVIGATION--
+    1. James Symington,                                  171
+    2. Robert Fulton,                                    176
+    3. Henry Bell,                                       183
+    4. Ocean Steamers,                                   186
+
+IRON MANUFACTURE--
+    Henry Cort,                                          193
+
+THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH--
+    1. Mr. Cooke,                                        201
+    2. Professor Wheatstone,                             204
+    3. The Submarine Telegraph,                          209
+
+THE SILK MANUFACTURE--
+    1. John Lombe,                                       221
+    2. William Lee,                                      225
+    3. Joseph Marie Jacquard,                            227
+
+THE POTTER'S ART--
+    1. Luca Della Robbia,                                237
+    2. Bernard Palissy,                                  241
+    3. Josiah Wedgwood,                                  250
+
+THE MINER'S SAFETY LAMP--
+    1. Sir Humphrey Davy,                                263
+    2. George Stephenson's Lamp,                         275
+
+PENNY POSTAGE--
+    1. Sir Rowland Hill,                                 279
+    2. New Departments of the Postal System,             292
+
+THE OVERLAND ROUTE--
+    1. Lieutenant Waghorn,                               299
+    2. The Suez Canal,                                   309
+
+
+
+
+The Art of Printing.
+
+
+  I.--JOHN GUTENBERG.
+ II.--WILLIAM CAXTON.
+III.--THE PRINTING MACHINE.
+
+
+
+
+The Art of Printing.
+
+    "A creature he called to wait on his will,
+    Half iron, half vapour--a dread to behold--
+    Which evermore panted, and evermore rolled,
+    And uttered his words a millionfold.
+    Forth sprung they in air, down raining in dew,
+    And men fed upon them, and mighty they grew."
+
+                                            LEIGH HUNT, _Sword and Pen_.
+
+
+
+
+I.--JOHN GUTENBERG.
+
+
+Some Dutch writers, inspired by a not unnatural feeling of patriotism,
+have endeavoured to claim the honour of inventing the Art of Printing
+for a countryman of their own, Laurence Coster of Haarlem. Their sole
+reliance, however, is upon the statements of one Hadrian Junius, who was
+born at Horn, in North Holland, in 1511. About 1575 he wrote a work,
+entitled "Batavia," in which the account of Coster first appeared. And,
+as an unimpeachable authority has remarked, almost every succeeding
+advocate of Coster's pretensions has taken the liberty of altering,
+amplifying, or contradicting the account of Junius, according as it
+might suit his own line of argument; but not one of them has succeeded
+in producing a solitary fact in confirmation of it. The accounts which
+are given of Coster's discovery by Junius and his successors present
+many contradictory features. Thus Junius says: "Walking in a
+neighbouring wood, as citizens are accustomed to do after dinner and on
+holidays, he began to cut letters of beech-bark, with which, for
+amusement--the letters being inverted as on a seal--he impressed short
+sentences on paper for the children of his son-in-law." A later writer,
+Scriverius, is more imaginative: "Coster," he says, "walking in the
+wood, picked up a small bough of a beech, or rather of an oak-tree,
+blown off by the wind; and after amusing himself with cutting some
+letters on it, wrapped it up in paper, and afterwards laid himself down
+to sleep. When he awoke, he perceived that the paper, by a shower of
+rain or some accident having got moist, had received an impression from
+these letters; which induced him to pursue the accidental discovery."
+
+Not only are these accounts evidently deficient in authenticity, but it
+should be remarked that the earliest of them was not put before the
+world until Laurence Coster had been nearly a hundred and fifty years in
+his grave. The presumed writer of the narrative which first did justice
+to his memory had been also twelve years dead when his book was
+published. His information, or rather the information brought forward
+under cover of his name, was derived from an old man who, when a boy,
+had heard it from another old man who lived with Coster at the time of
+the robbery, and who had heard the account of the invention from his
+master. For, to explain the fact of the early appearance of typography
+in Germany, the Dutch writers are forced to the hypothesis that an
+apprentice of Coster's stole all his master's types and utensils,
+fleeing with them first to Amsterdam, second to Cologne, and lastly to
+Mentz! The whole story is too improbable to be accepted by any impartial
+inquirer; and the best authorities are agreed in dismissing the Dutch
+fiction with the contempt it deserves, and in ascribing to JOHN
+GUTENBERG, of Mentz, the honour to which he is justly entitled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of the career of Gutenberg we shall speak presently, but let us first
+point out that the invention of typography, like all great inventions,
+was no sudden conception of genius--not the birth of some singularly
+felicitous moment of inspiration--but the result of what may be called a
+gradual series of causes. Printing with movable types was the natural
+outcome of printing with blocks. We must go back, therefore, a few
+years, to examine into the origin of "block books."
+
+Mr. Jackson observes that there cannot be a doubt that the principle on
+which wood engraving is founded--that of taking impressions on paper or
+parchment, with ink, from prominent lines--was known and practised in
+attesting documents in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Towards
+the end of the fourteenth, or about the beginning of the fifteenth
+century, he says, there seems reason to believe that this principle was
+adopted by the German card-makers for the purpose of marking the
+outlines of the figures on their cards, which they afterwards coloured
+by the practice called _stencilling_.
+
+It was the Germans who first practised card-making as a trade, and as
+early as 1418 the name of a _kartenmacher_, or card-maker, occurs in the
+burgess-books of Augsburg. In the town-books of Nuremburg, the
+designation _formschneider_, or figure-cutter, is found in 1449; and we
+may presume that block books--that is, books each page of which was cut
+on a single block--were introduced about this time. These books were on
+religious subjects, and were intended, perhaps, by the monks as a kind
+of counterbalance against the playing-cards; "thus endeavouring to
+supply a remedy for the evil, and extracting from the serpent a cure for
+his bite."
+
+The earliest woodcut known--one of St. Christopher--bears the date of
+1432, and was found in a convent situated within about fifty miles of
+the city of Augsburg--the convent of Buxheim, near Memmingen. It was
+pasted on the inside of the right hand cover of a manuscript entitled
+_Laus Virginis_, and measures eleven and a quarter inches in height, by
+eight and one-eighth inches in width.
+
+The following description of it by Jackson is interesting:--
+
+"To the left of the engraving the artist has introduced, with a noble
+disregard of perspective, what Bewick would have called a 'bit of
+nature.' In the foreground a figure is seen driving an ass loaded with a
+sack towards a water-mill; while by a steep path a figure, perhaps
+intended for the miller, is seen carrying a full sack from the back-door
+of the mill towards a cottage. To the right is seen a hermit--known by
+the bell over the entrance to his dwelling--holding a large lantern to
+direct St. Christopher as he crosses the stream. The couplet at the foot
+of the cut,--
+
+    'Cristofori faciem die quacunque tueris,
+    Illa nempe die morte mala non morieris,'
+
+may be translated as follows,--
+
+    Each day that thou the image of St. Christopher shall see,
+    That day no frightful form of death shall chance to fall on thee.
+
+These lines allude to a superstition, once popular in all Catholic
+countries, that on the day they saw a figure or image of St.
+Christopher, they would be safe from a violent death, or from death
+unabsolved and unconfessed."
+
+Passing over some other woodcuts of great antiquity, in all of which the
+figures are accompanied by engraved letters, we come to the block books
+proper. Of these, the most famous are called, the _Apocalypsis, seu
+Historia Sancti Johannis_ (the "Apocalypse, or History of St. John");
+the _Historia Virginis ex Cantico Canticorum_ ("Story of the Virgin,
+from the Song of Songs"); and the _Biblia Pauperum_ ("Bible of the
+Poor"). The first is a history, pictorial and literal, of the life and
+revelations of St. John the Evangelist, partly derived from the book of
+Revelation, and partly from ecclesiastical tradition. The second is a
+similar biography of the Virgin Mary, as it is supposed to be typified
+in the Song of Solomon; and the third consists of subjects representing
+many of the most important passages in the Old and New Testaments, with
+texts to illustrate the subject, or clinch the lesson of duty it may
+shadow forth.
+
+With respect to the engraving, we are told that the cuts are executed in
+the simplest manner, as there is not the least attempt at shading, by
+means of cross lines or hatchings, to be detected in any one of the
+designs. The most difficult part of the engraver's task, says Jackson,
+supposing the drawing to have been made by another person, would be the
+cutting of the letters, which, in several of the subjects, must have
+occupied a considerable portion of time, and have demanded no small
+degree of perseverance, care, and skill.
+
+These block books were followed by others in which no illustrations
+appeared, but in which the entire page was occupied with text. The
+Grammatical Primer, called the "Donatus," from the name of its supposed
+compiler, was thus printed, or engraved, enabling copies of it to be
+multiplied at a much cheaper rate than they could be produced in
+manuscript.
+
+And thus we see that the art of printing--or, more correctly speaking,
+engraving on wood--has advanced from the production of a single figure,
+with merely a few words beneath it, to the impression of whole pages of
+text. Next, for the engraved page were to be substituted movable letters
+of metal, wedged together within an iron frame; and impressions, instead
+of being obtained by the slow and tedious process of friction, were to
+be secured by the swift and powerful action of the press.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About the year 1400, John Gænsfleisch, or Gutenberg, was born at Mentz.
+He sprung from an honourable family, and it is said that he himself was
+by birth a knight. He seems to have been a person of some property.
+
+About 1434 we find him living in Strasburg, and, in partnership with a
+certain Andrew Drytzcher, endeavouring to perfect the art of typography.
+How he was induced to direct his attention towards this object, and
+under what circumstances he began his experiments, it is impossible to
+say; but there can be no doubt that he was the first person who
+conceived the idea of _movable types_--an idea which is the very
+foundation of the art of printing.
+
+An old German chronicler furnishes the following account of the early
+stages of the great printer's discovery:--
+
+"At this time (about 1438), in the city of Mentz, on the Rhine, in
+Germany, and not in Italy as some persons have erroneously written, that
+wonderful and then unheard-of art of printing and characterizing books
+was invented and devised by John Gutenberger, citizen of Mentz, who,
+having expended most of his property in the invention of this art, on
+account of the difficulties which he experienced on all sides, was about
+to abandon it altogether; when, by the advice and through the means of
+John Fust, likewise a citizen of Mentz, he succeeded in bringing it to
+perfection. At first they formed or engraved the characters or letters
+in written order on blocks of wood, and in this manner they printed the
+vocabulary called a 'Catholicon.' But with these forms or blocks they
+could print nothing else, because the characters could not be transposed
+in these tablets, but were engraved thereon, as we have said. To this
+invention succeeded a more subtle one, for they found out the means of
+cutting the forms of all the letters of the alphabet, which they called
+_matrices_, from which again they cast characters of copper or tin of
+sufficient hardness to resist the necessary pressure, which they had
+before engraved by hand."
+
+This is a very brief and summary account of a great invention. By
+comparison of other authorities we are enabled to bring together a far
+greater number of details, though we must acknowledge that many of these
+have little foundation but in tradition or romance.
+
+Let us, therefore, take a peep at the first printer, working in
+seclusion and solitude in the old historic city of Strasburg, and
+endeavouring to elaborate in practice the grand idea which has been
+conceived and matured by his energetic brain. Doubtlessly he knew not
+the full importance of this idea, or of how great a social and religious
+revolution it was to be the seed, and yet we cannot believe that he was
+altogether unconscious of its value to future generations.
+
+Shutting himself up in his own room, seeing no one, rarely crossing the
+threshold, allowing himself hardly any repose, he set himself to work
+out the plan he had formed. With a knife and some pieces of wood he
+constructed a set of movable types, on one face of each of which a
+letter of the alphabet was carved in relief, and which were strung
+together, in the order of words and sentences, upon a piece of wire. By
+means of these he succeeded in producing upon parchment a very
+satisfactory impression.
+
+To be out of the way of prying eyes, he took up his quarters in the
+ruins of the old monastery of St. Arbogaste, outside the town, which had
+long been abandoned by the monks to the rats and beggars of the
+neighbourhood; and the better to mask his designs, as well as to procure
+the funds necessary for his experiments, he set up as a sort of
+artificer in jewellery and metal-work, setting and polishing precious
+stones, and preparing Venetian glass for mirrors, which he afterwards
+mounted in frames of metal and carved wood. These avowed labours he
+openly practised, along with a couple of assistants, in a public part of
+the monastery; but in the depths of the cloisters, in a dark secluded
+spot, he fitted up a little cell as the _atelier_ of his secret
+operations; and there, secured by bolts and bars, and a thick oaken
+door, against the intrusion of any one who might penetrate so far into
+the interior of the ruins, he applied himself to his great work. He
+quickly perceived, as a man of his inventiveness was sure to perceive,
+the superiority of letters of metal over those of wood. He invented
+various coloured inks, at once oily and dry, for printing with; brushes
+and rollers for transferring the ink to the face of the types; "forms,"
+or cases, for keeping together the types arranged in pages; and a press
+for bringing the inked types and the paper in contact.
+
+[Illustration: GUTENBERG IN THE OLD MONASTERY. Page 22.]
+
+Day and night, whenever he could spare an instant from his professed
+occupations, he devoted himself to the development of his great design.
+At night he could hardly sleep for thinking of it, and his hasty
+snatches of slumber were disturbed by agitating dreams. Tradition has
+preserved the story of one of these for us as he afterwards told it to
+his friends. He dreamt that, as he sat feasting his eyes upon the
+impression of his first page of type, he heard two voices whispering at
+his ear--the one soft and musical, the other harsh, dull, and bitter in
+its tones. The one bade him rejoice at the great work he had achieved;
+unveiled the future, and showed the men of different generations, the
+peoples of distant lands, holding high converse by means of his
+invention; and cheered him with the hope of an immortal fame. "Ay," put
+in the other voice, "immortal he might be, but at what a price! Man,
+more often perverse and wicked than wise and good, would profane the new
+faculty this art created, and the ages, instead of blessing, would have
+cause to curse the man who gave it to the world. Therefore let him
+regard his invention as a seductive but fatal dream, which, if
+fulfilled, would place in the hands of man, sinful and erring as he was,
+only another instrument of evil." Gutenberg, whom the first voice had
+thrown into an ecstasy of delight, now shuddered at the thought of the
+fearful power to corrupt and to debase his art would give to wicked men,
+and awoke in an agony of doubt. He seized his mallet, and had almost
+broken up his types and press, when he paused to reflect that, after
+all, God's gifts, although sometimes perilous and capable of abuse, were
+never evil in themselves, and that to give another means of utterance to
+the piety and reason of mankind was to promote the spread of virtue and
+intelligence, which were both divine. So he closed his ears to the
+suggestions of the tempter, and persisted in his work.
+
+Gutenberg had scarcely completed his printing machine, and got it into
+working order, when the jealousy and distrust of his associates in the
+nominal business he carried on, brought him into trouble with the
+authorities of Strasburg. He could have saved himself by the disclosure
+of all the secrets of his invention; but this he refused to do. His
+goods were confiscated; and he returned penniless, with a heavy heart,
+to his native town Mentz. There, in partnership with a wealthy goldsmith
+named John Fust, and his son-in-law Schoeffer, he started a printing
+office; from which he sent out many works, mostly of a religious
+character. The enterprise throve; but misfortune was ever dogging
+Gutenberg's steps, and he had but a brief taste of prosperity. The
+priests looked with suspicion upon the new art, which enabled people to
+read for themselves what before they had to take on trust from them. The
+transcribers of books,--a large and influential guild,--were also
+hostile to the invention, which threatened to deprive them of their
+livelihood. These two bodies formed a league against the printers; and
+upon the head of poor Gutenberg were emptied all the vials of their
+wrath. Fust and Schoeffer, with crafty adroitness, managed to conciliate
+their opponents, and to offer up their partner as a sacrifice for
+themselves. By the zeal of his enemies, and the treachery of his
+friends, Gutenberg was driven out of Mentz. After wandering about for
+some time in poverty and neglect, Adolphus, the Elector of Nassau,
+became his patron; and at his court Gutenberg set up a press, and
+printed a number of works with his own hands. Though poor, his last
+years were spent in peace; and when he died, he had only a few copies of
+the productions of his press to leave to his sister.
+
+Meanwhile, at Strasburg, some of his former associates pieced together
+the revelations that had fallen from him, while at the old monastery, as
+to his invention; and not only worked it with success, but claimed all
+the credit of its origin. In the same way, Fust and Schoeffer, at Mentz,
+grew rich through the invention of the man they had betrayed, and tried
+to rob of his fame.
+
+There is a curious, but not very well authenticated story about a visit
+Fust made to Paris to push the sale of his Bibles. "The tradition of the
+Devil and Dr. Faustus," writes D'Israeli in the "Curiosities of
+Literature," "was said to have been derived from the odd circumstances
+in which the Bibles of the first printer, Fust, appeared to the world.
+When Fust had discovered this new art, and printed off a considerable
+number of copies of the Bible to imitate those which were commonly sold
+as MSS., he undertook the sale of them at Paris. It was his interest to
+conceal this discovery and to pass off his printed copies for MSS. But,
+enabled to sell his Bibles at sixty crowns, while the other scribes
+demanded five hundred, this raised universal astonishment; and still
+more when he produced copies as fast as they were wanted, and even
+lowered his price. The uniformity of the copies increased the wonder.
+Informations were given in to the magistrates against him as a magician;
+and on searching his lodgings, a great number of copies were found. The
+red ink, and Fust's red ink is peculiarly brilliant, which embellished
+his copies, was said to be his blood; and it was solemnly adjudged that
+he was in league with the Infernal. Fust at length was obliged, to save
+himself from a bonfire, to reveal his art to the Parliament of Paris,
+who discharged him from all prosecution in consideration of the
+wonderful invention."
+
+The edition of the Bible, which was one of the very first productions of
+Gutenberg and Fust's press, is called the Mazarin, in consequence of the
+first known copy having been discovered in the famous library formed by
+Cardinal Mazarin. It seems to have been printed as early as August
+1456, and is a truly admirable specimen of typography; the characters
+being very clear and distinct, and the uniformity of the printing
+perfectly remarkable. A copy in the Royal Library at Paris is bound
+in two volumes, and every complete page consists of two columns,
+each containing forty-two lines. The reader will recognize the
+appropriateness of the fact that from the first printing press the first
+important work produced should be a copy of God's Word. It sanctified
+the new art which was to be so fruitful of good and evil results--the
+good superabounding, and clearly visible--the evil little, and destined,
+perhaps, to be directed eventually to good--for successive generations
+of mankind. It was a fitting forerunner of the long generation of books
+which have since issued so ceaselessly from the printing press; books,
+of the majority of which we may say, with Milton, that "they contain a
+potency of life in them to be as active as those souls were whose
+progeny they are; to preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and
+extraction of the living intellects that feed them."
+
+Gutenberg's career was dashed with many lights and shadows, but it
+closed in peace. In 1465, the Archbishop-elector of Mentz appointed him
+one of his courtiers, with the same allowance of clothing as the
+remainder of the nobles attending his court, and all other privileges
+and exemptions. It is probable that from this time he abandoned the
+practice of his new invention. The date of his death is uncertain; but
+there is documentary evidence extant which proves that it occurred
+before February 24, 1468. He was interred in the church of the Recollets
+at Mentz, and the following epitaph was composed by his kinsman Adam
+Gelthaus:--
+
+    "D. O. M. S.
+
+    "Joanni Gesnyfleisch, artis impressoriae repertori, de omni
+    natione et lingua optime merito, in nominis sui memoriam
+    immortalem Adam Gelthaus posuit. Ossa ejus in ecclesia D.
+    Francisci Moguntina feliciter cubant."
+
+
+
+
+II.--WILLIAM CAXTON.
+
+
+During the last thirty or forty years of the fifteenth century, while
+printing was becoming gradually more and more practised on the
+Continent, and the presses of Mentz, Bamberg, Cologne, Strasburg,
+Augsburg, Rome, Venice, and Milan, were sending forth numbers of Bibles,
+and various learned and theological works, chiefly in Latin, an English
+merchant, a man of substance and of no little note in Chepe, appeared at
+the court of the Duke of Burgundy at Bruges, to negotiate a commercial
+treaty between that sovereign and the king of England; which
+accomplished, the worthy ambassador seems to have liked the place and
+the people so well, and to have been so much liked in return, that for
+some years afterwards he took up his residence there, holding some
+honourable, easy appointment in the household of the Duchess of
+Burgundy. This was William Caxton, who here ripened, if he did not
+acquire, his love of literature and scholarship, and began, from hatred
+of idleness, to take pen in hand himself.
+
+"When I remember," says he, in his preface to his first work, a
+translation of a fanciful "Recueil des Histoires de Troye," "that every
+man is bounden by the commandment and counsel of the wise man to eschew
+sloth and idleness, which is mother and nourisher of vices, and ought to
+put himself into virtuous occupation and business, then I, having no
+great charge or occupation, following the said counsel, took a French
+book, and read therein many strange marvellous histories. And for so
+much as this book was new and late made, and drawn into French, and
+never seen in our English tongue, I thought in myself, it should be a
+good business to translate it into our English, to the end that it might
+be had as well in the royaume of England as in other lands, and also to
+pass therewith the time; and thus concluded in myself to begin this said
+work, and forthwith took pen and ink, and began boldly to run forth, as
+blind Bayard, in this present work."
+
+While at work upon this translation, Caxton found leisure to visit
+several of the German towns where printing presses were established, and
+to get an insight into the mysteries of the art, so that by the time he
+had finished the volume, he was able to print it. At the close of the
+third book of the "Recuyell," he says: "Thus end I this book which I
+have translated after mine author, as nigh as God hath given me cunning,
+to whom be given the laud and praise. And for as much as in the writing
+of the same my pen is worn, mine hand weary and not steadfast, mine eyen
+dimmed with overmuch looking on the white paper, and my courage not so
+prone and ready to labour as it hath been, and that age creepeth on me
+daily, and feebleth all the body; and also because I have promised to
+divers gentlemen and to my friends, to address to them as hastily as I
+might, this said book, therefore I have practised and learned, at my
+great charge and dispense, to ordain this said book in print, after the
+manner and form you may here see; and is not written with pen and ink as
+other books are, to the end that every man may have them at once. For
+all the books of this story, named the 'Recuyell of the Historyes of
+Troye,' thus imprinted as ye here see, were begun in one day, and also
+finished in one day" (that is, in the same space of time).
+
+By the year 1477, Caxton had returned to London, and set up a printing
+establishment within the precincts of Westminster Abbey; had given to
+the world the three first books ever printed in England,--"The Game
+and Play of the Chesse" (March 1474); "A boke of the hoole Lyf of
+Jason" (1475); and "The Dictes and Notable Wyse Sayenges of the
+Phylosophers" (1477),--and was fairly started in the great work of
+supplying printed books to his countrymen, which, as a placard in his
+largest type sets forth, if any one wanted, "emprynted after the forme
+of this present lettre whiche ben well and truly correct, late hym come
+to Westmonster, in to the Almonesrye, at the reed pale, and he shal have
+them good chepe." From the situation of the first printing office, the
+term chapel is applied to such establishments to this day.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM CAXTON. Page 30.]
+
+Caxton published between sixty and seventy different works during the
+seventeen years of his career as a printer, all of them in what is
+called black letter, and the bulk of them in English. He had always a
+view to the improvement of the people in the works he published, and
+though many of his productions may seem to us to be of an unprofitable
+kind, it is clear that in the issue of chivalrous narratives, and of
+Chaucer's poems (to whom, says the old printer, "ought to be given great
+laud and praising for his noble making and writing"), he was aiming at
+the diffusion of a nobler spirit, and a higher taste than then
+prevailed.
+
+In 1490, Caxton, an old, worn man, verging on fourscore years of age,
+wrote, "Every man ought to intend in such wise to live in this world, by
+keeping the commandments of God, that he may come to a good end; and
+then, out of this world full of wretchedness and tribulation, he may go
+to heaven, unto God and his saints, unto joy perdurable;" and passed
+away, still labouring at his post. He died while writing, "The most
+virtuous history of the devout and right renouned Lives of Holy Fathers
+living in the desert, worthy of remembrance to all well-disposed
+persons."
+
+Wynkyne de Worde filled his master's place in the almonry of
+Westminster; and the guild of printers gradually waxed strong in numbers
+and influence. In Germany they were privileged to wear robes trimmed
+with gold and silver, such as the nobles themselves appeared in; and to
+display on their escutcheon, an eagle with wings outstretched over the
+globe,--a symbol of the flight of thought and words throughout the
+world. In our own country, the printers were men of erudition and
+literary acquirements; and were honoured as became their mission.
+
+
+
+
+III.--THE PRINTING MACHINE.
+
+
+Between the rude screw-press of Gutenberg or Caxton, slow and laboured
+in its working, to the first-class printing machine of our own day,
+throwing off its fifteen or eighteen thousand copies of a large
+four-page journal in an hour, what a stride has been taken in the noble
+art! Step by step, slowly but surely, has the advance been made,--one
+improvement suggested after another at long intervals, and by various
+minds. With the perfection of the printing press, the name of Earl
+Stanhope is chiefly associated; but, although when he had put the
+finishing touches to its construction, immensely superior to all former
+machines, it was unavailable for rapid printing. In relation to the
+demand for literature and the means of supplying it, the world had, half
+a century ago, reached much the same deadlock as in the days when the
+production of books depended solely on the swiftness of the
+transcriber's pen, and when the printing press existed only in the
+fervid brain and quick imagination of a young German student. Not only
+the growth, but the spread of literature, was restricted by the labour,
+expense, and delay incident to the multiplication of copies; and the
+popular appetite for reading was in that transition state when an
+increased supply would develop it beyond all bounds or calculation,
+while a continuance of the starvation supply would in all likelihood
+throw it into a decline from want of exercise.
+
+Such was the state of things when a revolution in the art of printing
+was effected which, in importance, can be compared only to the original
+discovery of printing. In fact, since the days of Gutenberg to the
+present hour, there has been only one great revolution in the art, and
+that was the introduction of steam printing in 1814. The neat and
+elegant, but slow-moving Stanhope press, was after all but little in
+advance of its rude prototype of the fifteenth century, the chief
+features of which it preserved almost without alteration. The steam
+printing machine took a leap ahead that placed it at such a distance
+from the printing press, that they are hardly to be recognised as the
+offspring of the same common stock. All family resemblance has died out,
+although the printing machine is certainly a development of the little
+screw press.
+
+Of the revolution of 1814, which placed the printing machine in the seat
+of power, _vice_ the press given over to subordinate employment, Mr.
+John Walter of the _Times_ was the prominent and leading agent. But for
+his foresight, enterprise, and perseverance, the steam machine might
+have been even now in earliest infancy, if not unborn.
+
+Familiar as the invention of the steam printing machine is now, in the
+beginning of the present century it shared the ridicule which was thrown
+upon the project of sailing steam ships upon the sea, and driving steam
+carriages upon land. It seemed as mad and preposterous an idea to print
+off 5000 impressions of a paper like the _Times_ in one hour, as, in the
+same time, to paddle a ship fifteen miles against wind and tide, or to
+propel a heavily laden train of carriages fifty miles. Mr. Walter,
+however, was convinced that the thing could be done, and lost no time in
+attempting it. Some notion of the difficulties he had to overcome, and
+the disappointments he had to endure, while engaged in this enterprise,
+may be gathered from the following extracts from the biography of Mr.
+Walter, which appeared in the _Times_ at the time of his death in July
+1847:--
+
+"As early as the year 1804, an ingenious compositor, named Thomas
+Martyn, had invented a self-acting machine for working the press, and
+had produced a model which satisfied Mr. Walter of the feasibility of
+the scheme. Being assisted by Mr. Walter with the necessary funds, he
+made considerable progress towards the completion of his work, in the
+course of which he was exposed to much personal danger from the
+hostility of the pressmen, who vowed vengeance against the man whose
+inventions threatened destruction to their craft. To such a length was
+their opposition carried, that it was found necessary to introduce the
+various pieces of the machine into the premises with the utmost possible
+secresy, while Martyn himself was obliged to shelter himself under
+various disguises in order to escape their fury. Mr. Walter, however,
+was not yet permitted to reap the fruits of his enterprise. On the very
+eve of success he was doomed to bitter disappointment. He had exhausted
+his own funds in the attempt, and his father, who had hitherto assisted
+him, became disheartened, and refused him any further aid. The project
+was, therefore, for the time abandoned.
+
+"Mr. Walter, however, was not the man to be deterred from what he had
+once resolved to do. He gave his mind incessantly to the subject, and
+courted aid from all quarters, with his usual munificence. In the year
+1814 he was induced by a clerical friend, in whose judgment he confided,
+to make a fresh experiment; and, accordingly, the machinery of the
+amiable and ingenious Koenig, assisted by his young friend Bower, was
+introduced--not, indeed, at first into the _Times_ office, but into the
+adjoining premises, such caution being thought necessary upon the
+threatened violence of the pressmen. Here the work advanced, under the
+frequent inspection and advice of the friend alluded to. At one period
+these two able mechanics suspended their anxious toil, and left the
+premises in disgust. After the lapse, however, of about three days, the
+same gentleman discovered their retreat, induced them to return, showed
+them, to their surprise, their difficulty conquered, and the work still
+in progress. The night on which this curious machine was first brought
+into use in its new abode was one of great anxiety, and even alarm. The
+suspicious pressmen had threatened destruction to any one whose
+inventions might suspend their employment. 'Destruction to him and his
+traps.' They were directed to wait for expected news from the Continent.
+It was about six o'clock in the morning when Mr. Walter went into the
+press-room, and astonished its occupants by telling them that 'The
+_Times_ was already printed by steam! That if they attempted violence,
+there was a force ready to suppress it; but that if they were
+peaceable, their wages should be continued to every one of them till
+similar employment could be procured,'--a promise which was, no doubt,
+faithfully performed; and having so said, he distributed several copies
+among them. Thus was this most hazardous enterprise undertaken and
+successfully carried through, and printing by steam on an almost
+gigantic scale given to the world."
+
+On that memorable day, the 29th of November 1814, appeared the following
+announcement,--"Our journal of this day presents to the public the
+practical result of the greatest improvement connected with printing
+since the discovery of the art itself. The reader now holds in his hands
+one of the many thousand impressions of the _Times_ newspaper which were
+taken off last night by a mechanical apparatus. That the magnitude of
+the invention may be justly appreciated by its effects, we shall inform
+the public that after the letters are placed by the compositors, and
+enclosed in what is called a form, little more remains for man to do
+than to attend and watch this unconscious agent in its operations. The
+machine is then merely supplied with paper; itself places the form, inks
+it, adjusts the paper to the form newly inked, stamps the sheet, and
+gives it forth to the hands of the attendant, at the same time
+withdrawing the form for a fresh coat of ink, which itself again
+distributes, to meet the ensuing sheet, now advancing for impression;
+and the whole of these complicated acts is performed with such a
+velocity and simultaneousness of movement, that no less than 1100 sheets
+are impressed in one hour."
+
+Koenig's machine was, however, very complicated, and before long, it was
+supplanted by that of Applegath and Cowper, which was much simpler in
+construction, and required only two boys to attend it--one to lay on,
+and the other to take off the sheets. The vertical machine which Mr.
+Applegath subsequently invented, far excelled his former achievement;
+but it has in turn been superseded by the machine of Messrs. Hoe of New
+York. All these machines were first brought into use in the _Times'_
+printing office; and to the encouragement the proprietors of that
+establishment have always afforded to inventive talent, the readiness
+with which they have given a trial to new machines, and the princely
+liberality with which they have rewarded improvements, is greatly due
+the present advanced state of the noble craft and mystery.
+
+The printing-house of the _Times_, near Blackfriars Bridge, forms a
+companion picture to Gutenberg's printing-room in the old abbey at
+Strasburg, and illustrates not only the development of the art, but the
+progress of the world during the intervening centuries. Visit
+Printing-House Square in the day-time, and you find it a quiet, sleepy
+place, with hardly any signs of life or movement about it, except in
+the advertisement office in the corner, where people are continually
+going out and in, and the clerks have a busy time of it, shovelling
+money into the till all day long. But come back in the evening, and the
+place will wear a very different aspect. All signs of drowsiness have
+disappeared, and the office is all lighted up, and instinct with bustle
+and activity. Messengers are rushing out and in, telegraph boys, railway
+porters, and "devils" of all sorts and sizes. Cabs are driving up every
+few minutes, and depositing reporters, hot from the gallery of the House
+of Commons or the House of Lords, each with his budget of short-hand
+notes to decipher and transcribe. Up stairs in his sanctum the editor
+and his deputies are busy preparing or selecting the articles and
+reports which are to appear in the next day's paper. In another part of
+the building the compositors are hard at work, picking up types, and
+arranging them in "stick-fulls," which being emptied out into "galleys,"
+are firmly fixed therein by little wedges of wood, in order that
+"proofs" may be taken of them. The proofs pass into the hands of the
+various sets of readers, who compare them with the "copy" from which
+they were set up, and mark any errors on the margin of the slips, which
+then find their way back to the compositors, who correct the types
+according to the marks. The "galleys" are next seized by the persons
+charged with the "making-up" of the paper, who divide them into columns
+of equal length. An ordinary _Times_ newspaper, with a single inside
+sheet of advertisements, contains seventy-two columns, or 17,500 lines,
+made up of upwards of a million pieces of types, of which matter about
+two-fifths are often written, composed, and corrected after seven
+o'clock in the evening. If the advertisement sheet be double, as it
+frequently is, the paper will contain ninety-six columns. The types set
+up by the compositors are not sent to the machine. A mould is taken of
+them in a composition of brown paper, by means of which a "stereotype"
+is cast in metal, and from this the paper is printed. The advertisement
+sheet, single or double, as the case may be, is generally ready for the
+press between seven or eight o'clock at night. The rest of the paper is
+divided into two "forms,"--that is, columns arranged in pages and bound
+together by an iron frame, one for each side of the sheet. Into the
+first of these the person who "makes up" the paper endeavours to place
+all the early news, and it is ready for press usually about four
+o'clock. The other "form" is reserved for the leading articles,
+telegrams, and all the latest intelligence, and does not reach the press
+till near five o'clock.
+
+The first sight of Hoe's machine, by several of which the _Times_ is now
+printed, fills the beholder with bewilderment and awe. You see before
+you a huge pile of iron cylinders, wheels, cranks, and levers, whirling
+away at a rate that makes you giddy to look at, and with a grinding and
+gnashing of teeth that almost drives you deaf to listen to. With
+insatiable appetite the furious monster devours ream after ream of snowy
+sheets of paper, placed in its many gaping jaws by the slaves who wait
+on it, but seems to find none to its taste or suitable to its digestion,
+for back come all the sheets again, each with the mark of this strange
+beast printed on one side. Its hunger never is appeased,--it is always
+swallowing and always disgorging, and it is as much as the little
+"devils" who wait on it can do, to put the paper between its lips and
+take it out again. But a bell rings suddenly, the monster gives a gasp,
+and is straightway still, and dead to all appearance. Upon a closer
+inspection, now that it is at rest, and with some explanation from the
+foreman you begin to have some idea of the process that has been going
+on before your astonished eyes.
+
+The core of the machine consists of a large drum, turning on a
+horizontal axis, round which revolve ten smaller cylinders, also on
+horizontal axes, in close proximity to the drum. The stereotyped matter
+is bound, like a malefactor on the wheel, to the central drum, and round
+each cylinder a sheet of paper is constantly being passed. It is
+obvious, therefore, that if the type be inked, and each of the cylinders
+be kept properly supplied with a sheet of paper, a single revolution of
+the drum will cause the ten cylinders to revolve likewise, and produce
+an impression on one side of each of the sheets of paper. For this
+purpose it is necessary to have the type inked ten times during every
+revolution of the drum; and this is managed by a very ingenious
+contrivance, which, however, is too complicated for description here.
+The feeding of the cylinders is provided for in this way. Over each
+cylinder is a sloping desk, upon which rests a heap of sheets of white
+paper. A lad--the "layer-on"--stands by the side of the desk and pushes
+forward the paper, a sheet at a time, towards the tape fingers of the
+machine, which, clutching hold of it, drag it into the interior, where
+it is passed round the cylinders, and printed on the outer side by
+pressure against the types on the drum. The sheet is then laid hold of
+by another set of tapes, carried to the other end of the machine from
+that at which it entered, and there laid down on a desk by a projecting
+flapper of lath-work. Another lad--the "taker-off"--is in attendance to
+remove the printed sheets, at certain intervals. The drum revolves in
+less than two seconds; and in that time therefore ten sheets--for the
+same operation is performed simultaneously by the ten cylinders--are
+sucked in at one end and disgorged at the other printed on one side,
+thus giving about 20,000 impressions in an hour.
+
+Such is the latest marvel of the "noble craft and mystery" of printing;
+but it is not to be supposed that the limits of production have even now
+been reached. The greater the supply the greater has grown the demand;
+the more people read, the more they want to read; and past experience
+assures us that ingenuity and enterprise will not fail to expand and
+multiply the powers of the press, so that the increasing appetite for
+literature may be fully met.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We have briefly alluded to stereotyping; but some fuller notice seems
+requisite of a process so valuable and important, without which, indeed,
+the rapid multiplication of copies of a newspaper, even by a Hoe's
+six-cylinder machine, would be impossible. If stereotyping had not been
+invented, the printer would require to "set up" as many "forms" of type
+as there are cylinders in the machine he uses; an expensive and
+time-consuming operation which is now dispensed with, because he can
+resort to "casts." There is yet another advantage gained by the process;
+"casts" of the different sheets of a book can be preserved for any
+length of time; and when additional copies or new editions are needed,
+these "casts" can at once be sent to the machine, and the publisher is
+saved the great expense of "re-setting."
+
+The reader is well aware that while many books disappear with the day
+which called them forth, so there are others for which the demand is
+constant. This was found to be the case soon after the invention of
+printing, and the plan then adopted was the expensive and cumbrous one
+of setting up the whole of the book in request, and to keep the type
+standing for future editions. The disadvantages of this plan were
+obvious--a large outlay for type, the amount of space occupied by a
+constantly increasing number of "forms," and the liability to injury
+from the falling out of letters, from blows, and other accidents. As
+early as the eighteenth century attempts seem to have been made to
+remedy these inconveniences by cementing the types together at the
+bottom with lead or solder to effect their greater preservation. Canius,
+a French historian of printing, states that in June 1801 he received a
+letter from certain booksellers of Leyden, with a copy of their
+stereotype Bible, the plates for which were formed by soldering together
+the bottom of common types with some melted substance to the thickness
+of about three quires of writing-paper; and, it is added, "These plates
+were made about the beginning of the last century by an artist named Van
+du Mey."
+
+This, however, was not true stereotyping; whose leading principle is to
+dispense with the movable types--to set them again, as it were, at
+liberty--by making up perfect fac-similes in type-metal of the various
+combinations into which they may have entered. These fac-similes being
+made, the type is set free, and may be distributed, and used for making
+up fresh pages; which may once more furnish, so to speak, the punches to
+the mould into which the type-metal is poured for the purpose of
+effecting the fac-simile.
+
+The inventor of this ingenious process of casting plates from pages of
+type was William Ged, a goldsmith of Edinburgh, in 1735. Not possessing
+sufficient capital to carry out his invention, he visited London, and
+sought the assistance of the London stationers; from whom he received
+the most encouraging words, but no pecuniary assistance. But Ged was a
+man not readily discomfited, and applying at length to the Universities
+and the King's printer, he obtained the effective patronage he needed.
+He "stereotyped" some Bibles and Prayer-books, and the sheets worked off
+from his plates were admitted equal in point of appearance and accuracy
+to those printed from the type itself.
+
+But every benefactor of his kind is doomed to meet with the opposition
+of the envious, the ignorant, or the prejudiced. "The argument used by
+the idol-makers of old, 'Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our
+wealth,' and, 'This our craft is in danger to be set at nought,' was, as
+is usual in such cases, urged against this most useful and important
+invention. The compositors refused to set up works for stereotyping, and
+even those which were set up, however carefully read and corrected, were
+found to be full of gross errors. The fact was, that when the pages were
+sent to be cast, the compositors or pressmen, bribed, it is said, by a
+typefounder, disturbed the type, and introduced false letters and
+words. Poor Ged died, and left the dangerous secret of his art (which he
+did not disclose during his life-time) to his son, who, after many
+struggles for success, failed as his father had done before him." There
+is a tradition current, however, that he joined the Jacobite rebellion,
+was arrested, imprisoned, tried, and sentenced, but was eventually
+spared in consideration of the value of his father's admirable
+invention.
+
+That invention, after being forgotten for nearly half a century, was
+revived by a Dr. Tilloch, and taken up, improved, and extended by the
+ingenious Earl Stanhope. It is now practised in the following manner:--
+
+The type employed differs slightly from that in common use. The letter
+should have no shoulder, but should rise in a straight line from the
+foot; the spaces, leads, and quadrats are of the same height as the stem
+of the letter; the object being to diminish the number and depth of the
+cavities in the page, and thus lessen the chances of the mould breaking
+off and remaining in the form. Each page is corrected with the utmost
+care, and "imposed" in a small "chase" with metal furniture (or
+frame-work), which rises to a level with the type. Of course the number
+of pages in the form will vary according to the size of the book; a
+sheet being folded into sixteen leaves, twelve, eight, four, or two for
+16mo, 12mo, 8vo, quarto, or folio.
+
+Having our pages of type in complete order, we now proceed to rub the
+surface with a soft brush which has been lightly dipped into a very thin
+oil. Plumbago is sometimes preferred. A brass rectangular frame of three
+sides, with bevelled borders adapted to the size of the pages, is placed
+upon the chase so as to enclose three sides of the type, the fourth side
+being formed by a single brass edge, having the same inward sloping
+level as the other three sides. The use of this frame is to determine
+the size and thickness of the cast, which is next taken in
+plaster-of-paris--two kinds of the said plaster being used; the finer is
+mixed, poured over the surface of the type, and gently worked in with a
+brush so as to insure its close adhesion to the exclusion of bubbles of
+air; the coarser, after being mixed with water, is simply poured and
+spread over the previous and finer stratum.
+
+The superfluous plaster is next cleared away; the mould soon sets; the
+frame is raised; and the mould comes off from the surface of the type,
+on which it has been prevented from encrusting itself by the thin film
+of oil or plumbago.
+
+The next step is to dress and smoothen the plaster-mould, and set it on
+its edge in one of the compartments of a sheet-iron rack contained in an
+oven, and exposed, until perfectly dry, to a temperature of about 400°.
+This occupies about two hours. A good workman, it is said, will mould
+ten octavo sheets, or one hundred and sixty pages in a day: each mould
+generally contains a couple of octavo pages.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the state to which it is now brought, the mould is exceedingly
+friable, and requires to be handled with becoming care. With the face
+downwards it is placed upon the flat cast-iron _floating-plate_, which,
+in its turn, is set at the bottom of a square cast-iron tray, with
+upright edges sloping outwards, called the "dipping pan." It has a
+cast-iron lid, secured by a screw and shackles, not unlike a copying
+machine. This pan having been heated to 400°, it is plunged into an iron
+pot containing the melted alloy, which hangs over a furnace, the pan
+being slightly inclined so as to permit the escape of the air. A small
+space is left between the back or upper surface of the mould, and the
+lid of the dipping-pan, and the fluid metal on entering into the pan
+through the corner openings, _floats_ up the plaster together with the
+iron plate (hence called the _floating-plate_) on which the mould is
+set, with this effect, that the metal flows through the notches cut in
+the edge of the mould, and fills up every part of it, forming a layer of
+metal on its face corresponding to the depth of the border, while on
+the back is left merely a thin metallic film.
+
+The dipping-pan, says Tomlinson, is suspended, plunged in the metal, and
+removed by means of a crane; and when taken out, is set in a cistern of
+water upon supports so arranged that only the bottom of the pan comes in
+contact with the surface of the water. The metal thus _sets_, or
+solidifies, from below, and containing fluid above, maintains a fluid
+pressure during the contraction which accompanies the cooling.
+
+As it thus shrinks in dimensions, molten metal is poured into the
+corners of the pan for the purpose of maintaining the fluid pressure on
+the mould, and thus securing a good and solid cast. For if the pan were
+allowed to cool more slowly, the thin metallic film at the back of the
+inverted plaster mould would probably solidify first, and thus prevent
+the fluid pressure which is necessary for filling up all the lines of
+the mould.
+
+Tomlinson concludes his description of these interesting processes by
+informing us that an experienced and skilled workman will make five
+dips, each containing two octavo pages, in the course of an hour, or, as
+already stated, at the rate of nearly ten octavo sheets a day.
+
+When the pan is opened, the cake of metal and plaster is removed, and
+beaten upon its edges with a mallet, to clear away all superfluous
+metal. The stereotype plate is then taken by the _picker_, who planes
+its edges square, "turns" its back flat upon a lathe until the proper
+thickness is obtained, and removes any minute imperfections arising from
+specks of dirt and air-bubbles left among the letters in casting the
+mould. Damaged letters are cut out, and separate types soldered in as
+substitutes. After all this anxious care to obtain perfection, the plate
+is pronounced ready for working, and when made up with the other plates
+into the proper form, it may be worked either at the hand-press or by
+machine.
+
+Other modes of stereotyping have been introduced, but not one has
+attained to the popularity of the method we have just described.
+
+
+
+
+The Steam Engine.
+
+
+ I.--THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER.
+II.--JAMES WATT.
+
+
+
+
+The Steam Engine.
+
+    "It is said that ideas produce revolutions and truly they
+    do--not spiritual ideas only, but even mechanical."--CARLYLE.
+
+
+
+
+I.--THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER.
+
+
+As the last century was drawing to its close, two great revolutions were
+in progress, both of which were destined to exercise a mighty influence
+upon the years to come,--the one calm, silent, peaceful, the other full
+of sound and fury, bathed in blood, and crowned with thorns,--the one
+the fruit of long years of patient thought and work, the other the
+outcome of long years of oppression, suffering, and sin,--the one was
+Watt's invention of the steam engine, the other the great popular revolt
+in France. These are the two great events which set their mark upon our
+century, gave form and colour to its character, and direction to its
+aims and aspirations. In the pages of conventional history, of course,
+the French revolution, with its wild phantasmagoria of retribution, its
+massacres and martyrdoms, will no doubt have assigned to it the foremost
+rank as the great feature of the era,--
+
+    "For ever since historians writ,
+      And ever since a bard could sing,
+    Doth each exalt with all his wit
+      The noble art of murdering."
+
+But those who can look below the mere surface of events, and whose fancy
+is not captivated by the melo-drama of rebellion, and the pageantry of
+war, will find that Watt's steam machine worked the greatest revolution
+of modern times, and exercised the deepest, as well as widest and most
+permanent influence over the whole civilized world.
+
+Like all great discoveries, that of the motive power of steam, and the
+important uses to which it might be applied, was the work, not of any
+one mind, but of several minds, each borrowing something from its
+predecessor, until at last the first vague and uncertain Idea was
+developed into a practical Reality. Known dimly to the ancients, and
+probably employed by the priests in their juggleries and pretended
+miracles, it was not till within the last three centuries that any
+systematic attempt was made to turn it to useful account.
+
+But before we turn our attention to the persons who made, and, after
+many failures and discouragements, _successfully_ made this attempt, it
+will be advisable we should say something as to the principle on which
+their invention is founded.
+
+The reader knows that gases and vapours, when imprisoned within a narrow
+space, do struggle as resolutely to escape as did Sterne's starling from
+his cage. Their force of pressure is enormous, and if confined in a
+closed vessel, they would speedily rend it into fragments. Let some
+water boil in a pipkin whose lid fits very tightly; in a few minutes
+the vapour or steam arising from the boiling water, overcoming the
+resistance of the lid, raises it, and rushes forth into the atmosphere.
+
+Take a small quantity of water, and pour it into the hollow of a ball of
+metal. Then with the aid of a cork, worked by a metallic screw, close
+the opening of the ball hermetically, and place the ball in the heart of
+a glowing fire. The steam formed by the boiling water in the inside of
+the metallic bomb, finding no channel of escape, will burst through the
+bonds that sought to confine it, and hurl afar the fragments with a loud
+and dangerous explosion.
+
+These well-known facts we adduce simply as a proof of the immense
+mechanical power possessed by steam when enclosed within a limited area.
+Now, the questions must have occurred to many, though they were
+themselves unable to answer them,--Why should all this force be wasted?
+Can it not be directed to the service and uses of man? In the course of
+time, however, human intelligence _did_ discover a sufficient reply, and
+_did_ contrive to utilize this astonishing power by means of the machine
+now so famous as the Steam Engine.
+
+Let us take a boiler full of water, and bring it up to boiling point by
+means of a furnace. Attach to this boiler a tube, which guides the steam
+of the boiler into a hollow metallic cylinder, traversed by a piston
+rising and sinking in its interior. It is evident that the steam rushing
+through the tube into the lower part of the cylinder, and underneath the
+piston, will force the piston, by its pressure, to rise to the top of
+the cylinder. Now let us check for a moment the influx of the steam
+_below_ the piston, and turning the stopcock, allow the steam which
+fills that space to escape outside; and, at the same time, by opening a
+second tube, let in a supply of steam _above_ the piston: the pressure
+of the steam, now exercised in a downward direction, will force the
+piston to the bottom of its course, because there will exist beneath it
+no resistance capable of opposing the pressure of the steam. If we
+constantly keep up this alternating motion, the piston now rising and
+now falling, we are in a position to profit by the force of steam. For
+if the lever, attached to the rod of the piston at its lower end, is
+fixed by its upper to a crank of the rotating axle of a workshop or
+factory, is it not clear that the continuous action of the steam will
+give this axle a continuous rotatory movement? And this movement may be
+transmitted, by means of bands and pulleys, to a number of different
+machines or engines all kept at work by the power of a solitary engine.
+
+This, then, is the principle on which the inventions of Papin, the
+Marquis of Worcester, Newcomen, and James Watt have been based.
+
+The great astronomer Huyghens conceived the idea of creating a motive
+machine by exploding a charge of gunpowder under a cylinder traversed by
+a piston: the air contained in this cylinder, dilated by the heat
+resulting from the combustion of the powder, escaped into the outer air
+through a valve, whereupon a partial void existed beneath the piston,
+or, rather, the air considerably rarified; and from this moment the
+pressure of the atmospheric air falling on the upper part of the piston,
+and being but imperfectly counterpoised by the rarified air beneath the
+piston, precipitated this piston to the bottom of the cylinder.
+Consequently, said Huyghens, if to the said piston were attached a chain
+or cord coiling around a pulley, one might raise up the weights placed
+at the extremity of the cord, and so produce a genuine mechanical
+effect.
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL PRINCIPLE OF THE STEAM ENGINE.]
+
+But Experiment, the touchstone of Physical Truth, soon revealed the
+deficiencies of an apparatus such as Huyghens had suggested. The air
+beneath the piston was not sufficiently rarified; the void produced was
+too imperfect. Evidently gunpowder was not the right agent. What was?
+Denis Papin answered, Steam. And the first Steam Engine ever invented
+was invented by this ingenious Frenchman.
+
+Papin was born at Blois on the 22nd of August 1645. He died about 1714,
+but neither the exact date nor the place of his death is known. The
+lives of most men of genius are heavy with shadows, but Papin's career
+was more than ordinarily characterized by the incessant pursuit of the
+evil spirits of adversity and persecution. A Protestant, and devoutly
+loyal to his creed, he fled from France with thousands of his
+co-religionists, when Louis XIV. unwisely and unrighteously revoked the
+Edict of Nantes, which permitted the Huguenots to worship God after
+their own fashion. And it was abroad, in England, Italy, and Germany,
+that he realized the majority of his inventions, among which that of the
+Steam Engine is the most conspicuous.
+
+In 1707 Papin constructed a steam engine on the principle we have
+already described, and placed it on board a boat provided with wheels.
+Embarking at Cassel on the river Fulda, he made his way to Münden in
+Hanover, with the design of entering the waters of the Weser, and thence
+repairing to England, to make known his discovery, and test its
+capabilities before the public. But the harsh and ignorant boatmen of
+the Weser would not permit him to enter the river; and when he
+indignantly complained, they had the barbarity to break his boat in
+pieces. This was the crowning misfortune of Papin's life. Thenceforward
+he seems to have lost all heart and hope. He contrived to reach London,
+where the Royal Society, of which he was a member, allowed him a small
+pittance.
+
+In 1690 this ingenious man had devised an engine in which atmospheric
+vapour instead of steam was the motive agent. At a later period,
+Newcomen, a native of Dartmouth in Devonshire, conceived the idea of
+employing the same source of power.
+
+But, previously, the value of steam, if employed in this direction, had
+occurred to the Marquis of Worcester, a nobleman of great ability and a
+quick imagination, who, for his loyalty to the cause of Charles I., had
+been confined in the Tower of London as a prisoner. On one occasion,
+while sitting in his solitary chamber, the tight cover of a kettle full
+of boiling water was blown off before his eyes; for mere amusement's
+sake he set it on again, saw it again blown off, and then began to
+reflect on the capabilities of power thus accidentally revealed to him,
+and to speculate on its application to mechanical ends. Being of a
+quick, ingenious turn of mind, he was not long in discovering how it
+could be directed and controlled. When he published his project--"An
+Admirable and Most Forcible Way to Drive up Water by Fire"--he was
+abused and laughed at as being either a madman or an impostor. He
+persevered, however, and actually had a little engine of some two horse
+power at work raising water from the Thames at Vauxhall; by means of
+which, he writes, "a child's force bringeth up a hundred feet high an
+incredible quantity of water, and I may boldly call it the most
+stupendous work in the whole world." There is a fervent "Ejaculatory and
+Extemporary Thanksgiving Prayer" of his extant, composed "when first
+with his corporeal eyes he did see finished a perfect trial of his
+water-commanding engine, delightful and useful to whomsoever hath in
+recommendation either knowledge, profit, or pleasure." This and the rest
+of his wonderful "Centenary of Inventions," only emptied instead of
+replenishing his purse. He was reduced to borrow paltry sums from his
+creditors, and received neither respect for his genius nor sympathy for
+his misfortunes. He was before his age, and suffered accordingly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1698 his work was taken up by Thomas Savery, a miner, who, through
+assiduous labour and well-directed study, had become a skilful engineer.
+He succeeded in constructing an engine on the principle of the pressure
+of aqueous vapour, and this engine he employed successfully in pumping
+water out of coal mines. We owe to Savery the invention of a vacuum,
+which was suggested to him, it is said, in a curious manner: he
+happened to throw a wine-flask, which he had just drained, upon the
+fire; a few drops of liquor at the bottom of the flask soon filled it
+with steam, and, taking it off the fire, he plunged it, mouth downwards,
+into a basin of cold water that was standing on the table, when, a
+vacuum being produced, the water immediately rushed up into the flask.
+
+In tracing this lineage of inventive genius, we next come to Thomas
+Newcomen, a blacksmith, who carried out the principle of the piston in
+his Atmospheric Engine, for which he took out a patent in 1705. It is
+but just to recognize that this engine was the first which proved
+practically and widely useful, and was, in truth, the actual progenitor
+of the present steam engine. It was chiefly used for working pumps. To
+one end of a beam moving on a central axis was attached the rod of the
+pump to be worked; to the other, the rod of the piston moving in the
+cylinder below. Underneath this cylinder was a boiler, and the two were
+connected by a pipe provided with a stop-cock to regulate the supply of
+steam. When the pump-rod was depressed, and the piston raised to the top
+of the cylinder, which was effected by weights hanging to the pump-end
+of the beam, the stop-cock was used to cut off the steam, and a supply
+of cold water injected into the cylinder through a water-pipe connected
+with the tank or cistern. The steam in the cylinder was immediately
+condensed; a vacuum created below the piston; the latter was then forced
+down by atmospheric pressure, bringing with it the end of the beam to
+which it was attached, and raising the other along with the pump-rod. A
+fresh supply of steam was admitted below the piston, which was raised by
+the counterpoise; and thus the motion was constantly renewed. The
+opening and shutting of the stop-cocks was at first managed by an
+attendant; but a boy named Potter, who was employed for this purpose,
+being fonder of play than work, contrived to save himself all trouble in
+the matter by fastening the handles with pieces of string to some of the
+cranks and levers. Subsequently, Beighton, an engineer, improved on this
+idea by substituting levers, acted on by pins in a rod suspended from
+the beam.
+
+Properly speaking, Newcomen's engine was not a steam, but an atmospheric
+engine; for though steam was employed, it formed no essential feature of
+the contrivance, and might have been replaced by an air-pump. All the
+use that was made of steam was to produce a vacuum underneath the
+piston, which was pressed down by the weight of the atmosphere, and
+raised by the counterpoise of the buckets at the other end of the beam.
+Watt, in bringing the expansive force of steam to bear upon the working
+of the piston, may be said to have really invented the steam engine.
+Half a century before the little model came into Watt's hands,
+Newcomen's engine had been made as complete as its capabilities
+admitted of; and Watt struck into an entirely new line, and invented an
+entirely new machine, when he produced his Condensing Engine.
+
+
+
+
+II.--JAMES WATT.
+
+
+There are few places in our country where human enterprise has effected
+such vast and marvellous changes within the century as the country
+traversed by the river Clyde. Where Glasgow now stretches far and wide,
+with its miles of swarming streets, its countless mills, and warehouses,
+and foundries, its busy ship-building yards, its harbour thronged with
+vessels of every size and clime, and its large and wealthy population,
+there was to be seen, a hundred years ago, only an insignificant little
+burgh, as dull and quiet as any rural market-town of our own day. There
+was a little quay at the Broomielaw, seldom used, and partly overgrown
+with broom. No boat over six tons' burden could get so high up the
+river, and the appearance of a masted vessel was almost an event.
+Tobacco was the chief trade of the town; and the tobacco merchants might
+be seen strutting about at the Cross in their scarlet cloaks, and
+looking down on the rest of the inhabitants, who got their livelihood,
+for the most part, by dealing in grindstones, coals, and fish--"Glasgow
+magistrates," as herrings are popularly called, being in as great repute
+then as now. There were but scanty means of intercourse with other
+places, and what did exist were little used, except for goods, which
+were conveyed on the backs of pack-horses. The caravan then took two
+days to go to Edinburgh--you can run through now between the two cities
+in little more than an hour. There is hardly any trade that Glasgow does
+not prosecute vigorously and successfully. You may see any day you walk
+down to the Broomielaw, vessels of a thousand tons' burden at anchor
+there, and the custom duties which were in 1796 little over £100, have
+now reached an amount exceeding one million!
+
+Glasgow is indebted, in a great part, for the gigantic strides which it
+has made, to the genius, patience, and perseverance of a man who, in his
+boyhood, rather more than a hundred years ago, used to be scolded by his
+aunt for wasting his time, taking off the lid of the kettle, putting it
+on again, holding now a cup, now a silver spoon over the steam as it
+rose from the spout, and catching and counting the drops of water it
+fell into. James Watt was then taking his first elementary lessons in
+that science, his practical application of which in after life was to
+revolutionize the whole system of mechanical movement, and place an
+almost unlimited power at the disposal of the industrial classes.
+
+When a boy, James Watt was delicate and sickly, and so shy and sensitive
+that his school-days were a misery to him, and he profited but little by
+his attendance. At home, though, he was a great reader, and picked up a
+great deal of knowledge for himself, rarely possessed by those of his
+years. One day a friend was urging his father to send James to school,
+and not allow him to trifle away his time at home. "Look how the boy is
+occupied," said his father, "before you condemn him." Though only six
+years old, he was trying to solve a geometrical problem on the floor
+with a bit of chalk. As he grew older he took to the study of optics and
+astronomy, his curiosity being excited by the quadrants and other
+instruments in his father's shop. By the age of fifteen he had twice
+gone through De Gravesande's Elements of Natural Philosophy, and he was
+also well versed in physiology, botany, mineralogy, and antiquarian
+lore. He was further an expert hand in using the tools in his father's
+workshop, and could do both carpentry and metal work. After a brief stay
+with an old mechanic in Glasgow, who, though he dignified himself with
+the name of "optician," never rose beyond mending spectacles, tuning
+spinets, and making fiddles and fishing tackle, Watt went at the age of
+eighteen to London, where he worked so hard, and lived so sparingly in
+order to relieve his father from the burden of maintaining him, that his
+health suffered, and he had to recruit it by a return to his native air.
+During the year spent in the metropolis, however, he managed to learn
+nearly all that the members of the trade there could teach, and soon
+showed himself a quick and skilful workman.
+
+In 1757 we find the sign of "James Watt, Mathematical Instrument Maker
+to the College," stuck up over the entrance to one of the stairs in the
+quadrangle of Glasgow College. But though under the patronage of the
+University, his trade was so poor, that thrifty and frugal as he was, he
+had a hard struggle to live by it. He was ready, however, for any work
+that came to hand, and would never let a job go past him. To execute an
+order for an organ which he accepted, he studied harmonics diligently,
+and though without any ear for music, turned out a capital instrument,
+with several improvements of his own in its action; and he also
+undertook the manufacture of guitars, violins, and flutes. All this
+while he was laying up vast stores of knowledge on all sorts of
+subjects, civil and military engineering, natural history, languages,
+literature, and art; and among the professors and students who dropped
+into his little shop to have a chat with him, he soon came to be
+regarded as one of the ablest men about the college, while his modesty,
+candour, and obliging disposition gained him many good friends.
+
+[Illustration: JAMES WATT. Page 67.]
+
+Among his multifarious pursuits, Watt had experimented a little in the
+powers of steam; but it was not till the winter of 1763-4, when a model
+of Newcomen's engine was put into his hands for repair, that he took up
+the matter in earnest. Newcomen's engine was then about the most
+complete invention of its kind; but its only value was its power of
+producing a ready vacuum, by rapid condensation on the application of
+cold; and for practical purposes was neither cheaper nor quicker than
+animal power. Watt, having repaired the model, found, on setting it
+agoing, that it would not work satisfactorily. Had it been only a little
+less clumsy and imperfect, Watt might never have regarded it as more
+than the "fine plaything," for which he at first took it; but now the
+difficulties of the task roused him to further efforts. He consulted all
+the books he could get on the subject, to ascertain how the defects
+could be remedied; and that source of information exhausted, he
+commenced a series of experiments, and resolved to work out the problem
+for himself. Among other experiments, he constructed a boiler which
+showed by inspection the quantity of water evaporated in a given time,
+and thereby ascertained the quantity of steam used in every stroke of
+the engine. He found, to his astonishment, that a small quantity of
+water in the form of steam heated a large quantity of water injected
+into the cylinder for the purpose of cooling it; and upon further
+examination, he ascertained the steam heated six times its weight of
+well water up to the temperature of the steam itself (212°). After
+various ineffectual schemes, Watt was forced to the conclusion that, to
+make a perfect steam engine, two apparently incompatible conditions must
+be fulfilled--the cylinder must always be as hot as the steam that came
+rushing into it, and yet, at each descent of the piston, the cylinder
+must become sufficiently cold to condense the steam. He was at his wit's
+end how to accomplish this task, when, as he was taking a walk one
+afternoon, the idea flashed across his mind that, as steam was an
+elastic vapour, it would expand and rush into a previously exhausted
+place; and that, therefore, all he had to do to meet the conditions he
+had laid down, was to produce a vacuum in a separate vessel, and open a
+communication between this vessel and the cylinder of the steam-engine
+at the moment when the piston was required to descend, and the steam
+would disseminate itself and become divided between the cylinder and the
+adjoining vessel. But as this vessel would be kept cold by an injection
+of water, the steam would be annihilated as fast as it entered, which
+would cause a fresh outflow of the remaining steam in the cylinder, till
+nearly the whole of it was condensed, without the cylinder itself being
+chilled in the operation. Here was the great key to the problem; and
+when once the idea of separate condensation was started, many other
+subordinate improvements, as he said himself, "followed as corollaries
+in rapid succession, so that in the course of one or two days the
+invention was thus far complete in his mind."
+
+It cost him ten long weary years of patient speculation and experiment,
+to carry out the idea, with little hope to buoy him up, for to the last
+he used to say "his fear was always equal to his hope,"--and with all
+the cares and embarrassments of his precarious trade to perplex and
+burden him. Even when he had his working model fairly completed, his
+worst difficulties--the difficulties which most distressed and harassed
+the shy, sensitive, and retiring Watt--seemed only to have commenced. To
+give the invention a fair practical trial required an outlay of at least
+£1000; and one capitalist, who had agreed to join him in the
+undertaking, had to give it up through some business losses. Still Watt
+toiled on, always keeping the great object in view,--earning bread for
+his family (for he was married by this time), by adding land-surveying
+to his mechanical labours, and, in short, turning his willing hand to
+any honest job that offered.
+
+He got a patent in 1769, and began building a large engine; but the
+workmen were new to the task, and when completed, its action was
+spasmodic and unsatisfactory. "It is a sad thing," he then wrote, "for a
+man to have his all hanging by a single string. If I had wherewithal to
+pay for the loss, I don't think I should so much fear a failure; but I
+cannot bear the thought of other people becoming losers by my scheme,
+and I have the happy disposition of always painting the worst." And just
+then, to make matters still more gloomy, he learned that some rascally
+linen-draper in London was plagiarizing the great invention he had
+brought forth in such sore and protracted travail. "Of all things in
+the world," cried poor Watt, sick with hope deferred, and pressed with
+little carking cares on every side, "there is nothing so foolish as
+inventing."
+
+When nearly giving way to despair, and on the point of abandoning his
+invention, Watt was fortunate enough to fall in with Matthew Boulton,
+one of the great manufacturing potentates of Birmingham, an energetic,
+far-seeing man, who threw himself into the enterprise with all his
+spirit; and the fortune of the invention was made. An engine, on the new
+principle, was set up at Soho; and there Boulton and Watt sold, as the
+former said to Boswell, "what all the world desires to have,
+POWER;"--the infinite power that animates those mighty engines, which--
+
+          "England's arms of conquest are,
+    The trophies of her bloodless war:
+              Brave weapons these.
+    Victorious over wave and soil,
+    With these she sails, she weaves, she tills,
+    Pierces the everlasting hills,
+              And spans the seas."
+
+Watt's engine, once fairly started, was not long in making its way into
+general use. The first steam-engine used in Manchester was erected in
+1790; and now it is estimated that in that district, within a radius of
+ten miles, there are in constant work more than fifty thousand boilers,
+giving a total power of upwards of one million horses. And the united
+steam power of Great Britain is considered equal to the manual labour of
+upwards of four hundred millions of men, or more than double the number
+of males on the face of the earth. From the factory at Soho, Watt's
+improved engines were dispersed all over the country, especially in
+Cornwall--the firm receiving the value of a third part of the coal saved
+by the use of the new machine. In one mine, where there were three pumps
+at work, the proprietors thought it worth while, it is said, to purchase
+the rights of the inventors, at the price of £2500 yearly for each
+engine. The saving, therefore, on the three engines, in fuel alone, must
+have been at least £7500 a year.
+
+In the first year of the present century, Watt withdrew himself entirely
+from business; but though he lived in retirement, he did not let his
+busy mind get rusty or sluggish for want of exercise. At one time he
+took it into his head that his faculties were declining, and though
+upwards of seventy years of age, he resolved to test his mental powers
+by taking up some new subject of study. It was no easy matter to find
+one quite new to him, so wide and comprehensive had been his range of
+study; but at length the Anglo-Saxon tongue occurred to him, and he
+immediately applied himself to master it, the facility with which he did
+so, dispelling all doubt as to the failing of his stupendous intellect.
+He thus busied himself in various useful and entertaining pursuits, till
+close upon his death, which took place in 1819.
+
+Extraordinary as was Watt's inventive genius, his wide range of
+knowledge, theoretic and practical, was equally so. Great as is the
+"idea" with which his name is chiefly associated, he was not a man of
+one idea, but of a thousand. There was hardly a subject which came under
+his notice which he did not master; and, as was said of him, "it seemed
+as if every subject casually started by him had been that he had been
+occupied in studying." He had no doubt a rapid faculty of acquiring
+knowledge; but he owed the versatility and copiousness of his
+attainments above all to his unwearied industry. He was always at work
+on something or other, and he may truly be called one of those who--
+
+            "Could Time's hour-glass fall,
+    Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand,
+    And by incessant labour gather all."
+
+In a recent volume of memoirs by Mrs. Schimmel Pennick, we find the
+following graphic sketch of this extraordinary man:--"He was one of the
+most complete specimens of the melancholic temperament. His head was
+generally bent forward or leaning on his hand in meditation, his
+shoulders stooping, and his chest falling in, his limbs lank and
+unmuscular, and his complexion sallow. His utterance was slow and
+impassioned, deep and low in tone, with a broad Scotch accent; his
+manners gentle, modest, and unassuming. In a company where he was not
+known, unless spoken to, he might have tranquilly passed the whole time
+in pursuing his own meditations. When he entered the room, men of
+letters, men of science, many military men, artists, ladies, and even
+little children, thronged around him. I remember a celebrated Swedish
+artist being instructed by him that rat's whiskers made the most pliant
+painting-brushes; ladies would appeal to him on the best modes of
+devising grates, curing smoking chimneys, warming their houses, and
+obtaining fast colours."
+
+His reading was singularly extensive and diversified. He perused almost
+every work that came in his way, and used to say that he never opened a
+book, no matter what its subject or worth, without learning something
+from it. He had a vivid imagination, was passionately fond of fiction,
+and was a very gifted story-teller himself. When a boy, staying with his
+aunt in Glasgow, he used every night to enthral the attention of the
+little circle with some exciting narrative, which they would not go to
+bed till they had heard the end of; and kept them in such a state of
+tremor and excitement, that his aunt used to threaten to send him away.
+
+Since Watt's time, innumerable patents have been taken out for
+improvements in the steam engine; but his great invention forms the
+basis of nearly all of them, and the alterations refer rather to details
+than principles of action. The application of steam to locomotive
+purposes, however, led to the construction of the high pressure engine,
+in which the cumbrous condensing apparatus is dispensed with, and motion
+imparted to the piston by the elastic power of the steam being greater
+than that of the atmosphere.
+
+
+
+
+The Manufacture of Cotton.
+
+
+  I.--KAY AND HARGREAVES.
+ II.--SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT.
+III.--SAMUEL CROMPTON.
+ IV.--DR. CARTWRIGHT.
+  V.--SIR ROBERT PEEL.
+
+
+
+
+The Manufacture of Cotton.
+
+    "Are not our greatest men as good as lost? The men who walk
+    daily among us, clothing us, warming us, feeding us, walk
+    shrouded in darkness, mere mythic men."--CARLYLE.
+
+
+
+
+I.--KAY AND HARGREAVES.
+
+
+On the 3d of May 1734, there was a hanging at Cork which made a good
+deal more noise than such a very ordinary event generally did in those
+days. There was nothing remarkable about the malefactor, or the crime he
+had committed. He was a very commonplace ruffian, and had earned his
+elevation to the gallows by a vulgar felony. What was remarkable about
+the affair was, that the woollen weavers of Cork, being then in a state
+of great distress from want of work, dressed up the convict in cotton
+garments, and that the poor wretch, having once been a weaver himself,
+"employed" the last occasion he was ever to have of addressing his
+fellow creatures, by assuring them that all his misdeeds and misfortunes
+were to be traced to the "pernicious practice of wearing cottons."
+"Therefore, good Christians," he continued, "consider that if you go on
+to suppress your own goods, by wearing such cottons as I am now clothed
+in, you will bring your country into misery, which will consequently
+swarm with such unhappy malefactors as your present Object is; and the
+blood of every miserable felon that will hang after this warning from
+the gallows will lie at your doors."
+
+All which sayings were no doubt greatly applauded by the disheartened
+weavers on the spot, and much taken to heart by the citizens and gentry
+to whom they were addressed.
+
+This is only one out of the many illustrations which might be drawn from
+the chronicles of those days, of the prejudice and discouragement cotton
+had to contend against on its first appearance in this country.
+Prohibited over and over again, laid under penalties and high duties,
+treated with every sort of contumely and oppression, it had long to
+struggle desperately for the barest tolerance; yet it ended by
+overcoming all obstacles, and distancing its favoured rival wool.
+Returning good for evil, cotton now sustains one-sixth of our
+fellow-countrymen, and is an important mainstay of our commerce and
+manufactures.
+
+First imported into Great Britain towards the middle of the seventeenth
+century, cotton was but little used for purposes of manufacture till the
+middle of the eighteenth. The settlement of some Flemish emigrants in
+Lancashire led to that district becoming the principal seat of the
+cotton manufacture; and probably the ungenerous nature of its soil
+induced the people to resort to spinning and weaving to make up for the
+unprofitableness of their agricultural labours.
+
+A nobler monument of human skill, enterprise, and perseverance, than the
+invention of cotton-spinning machinery is hardly to be met with; but it
+must also be owned that its history, encouraging as it is in one aspect,
+is in another sad and humiliating to the last degree. It is difficult at
+first to credit the uniform ingratitude and treachery which the various
+inventors met with from the very men whom their contrivances enriched.
+"There is nothing," said James Watt in the crisis of his fortunes, worn
+with care, and sick with hope deferred--"there is nothing so foolish as
+inventing;" and with far more reason the inventors of cotton-spinning
+machines could echo the mournful cry. It is sad to think that so proud a
+chapter of our history should bear so dark a stain.
+
+In 1733 the primitive method still prevailed of spinning between the
+finger and thumb, only one thread at a time; and weaving up the yarn in
+a loom, the shuttle of which had to be thrown from right to left and
+left to right by both hands alternately. In that year, however, the
+first step was made in advance, by the invention of the fly-shuttle,
+which, by means of a handle and spring, could be jerked from side to
+side with one hand. This contrivance was due to the ingenuity of John
+Kay, a loom-maker at Colchester, and proved his ruin. The weavers did
+their best to prevent the use of the shuttle,--the masters to get it
+used, and to cheat the inventor out of his reward. Poor Kay was soon
+brought low in the world by costly law-suits, and being not yet tired of
+inventing, devised a rude power-loom. In revenge a mob of weavers broke
+into his house, smashed all his machines, and would have smashed him
+too, had they laid hands on him. He escaped from their clutches, to find
+his way to Paris, and to die there in misery not long afterwards. Kay
+was the first of the martyrs in this branch of invention. James
+Hargreaves was the next.
+
+The use of the fly-shuttle greatly expedited the process of weaving, and
+the spinning of cotton soon fell behind. The weavers were often brought
+to a stand-still for want of weft to go on with, and had to spend their
+mornings going about in search of it, sometimes without getting as much
+as kept them busy for the rest of the day. The scarcity of yarn was a
+constant complaint; and many a busy brain was at work trying to devise
+some improvement on the common hand-wheel. Amongst others, James
+Hargreaves, an ingenious weaver at Standhill, near Blackburn, who had
+already improved the mode of cleaning and unravelling the cotton before
+spinning, took the subject into consideration. One day, when brooding
+over it in his cottage, idle for want of weft, the accidental
+overturning of his wife's wheel suggested to him the principle of the
+spinning-jenny. Lying on its side, the wheel still continued in
+motion--the spindle being thrown from a horizontal into an upright
+position; and it occurred to him that all he had got to do was to place
+a number of spindles side by side. This was in 1764, and three years
+afterwards Hargreaves had worked out the idea, and constructed a
+spinning frame, with eight spindles and a horizontal wheel, which he
+christened after his wife Jenny, whose wheel had first put him in the
+right track. Directly the spinners of the locality got knowledge of this
+machine that was to do eight times as much as any one of them, they
+broke into the inventor's cottage, destroyed the jenny, and compelled
+him to fly for the safety of his life to Nottingham. He took out a
+patent, but the manufacturers leagued themselves against them. Sole,
+friendless, penniless, he could make no head against their numbers and
+influence, relinquished his invention, and died in obscurity and
+distress ten years after he had the misfortune to contrive the
+spinning-jenny.
+
+The history of the cotton manufacture now becomes identified with the
+lives of Arkwright, Crompton, and Cartwright--the inventors of the
+water-frame, the mule, and the power-loom.
+
+
+
+
+II.--SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT.
+
+
+Somewhere about the year 1752, any one passing along a certain obscure
+alley in Preston, then a mere village compared with the prosperous town
+into which it has since expanded, might have observed projecting from
+the entrance to the underground flat of one of the houses, a blue and
+white pole, with a battered tin plate dangling at the end of it, the
+object of which was to indicate that if he wanted his hair cut or his
+chin shaved, he had only to step down stairs, and the owner of the sign
+would be delighted to accommodate him. But either people in that quarter
+had little or no superfluous hair to get rid of, or they had it taken
+off elsewhere; for Dicky Arkwright, the barber in the cellar, for whom
+the pole and plate stood sponsor in the upper world, had few
+opportunities of displaying his talents, and spent most of his time
+whetting his razors on a long piece of leather, one end of which was
+nailed to the wall, while the other was drawn towards him, and keeping
+the hot water and the soap ready for the customers who seldom or never
+came. This sort of thing did not suit Dick's notions at all; for he was
+of an active temperament, and besides feeling very dull at being so much
+by himself all day, he pulled rather a long face when he counted out the
+scanty array of coppers in the till after shutting up shop for the
+night. As he sat one night, before tumbling into his truckle bed that
+stood in a recess in one corner of the dingy little room, meditating on
+the hardness of the times, a bright idea struck him; and the next
+morning the attractions of the sign-pole were enhanced by a staring
+placard, bearing the urgent invitation:--
+
+    COME TO THE
+    SUBTERRANEOUS BARBER!
+    HE SHAVES FOR A PENNY!!
+
+Now twopence, as we believe all those who have investigated the subject
+are agreed, was the standard charge for a clean shave at that period;
+and as soon as this innovation got wind, we can fancy how indignant the
+fraternity were at the unprincipled conduct of one of their number; how
+they denounced the reprobate, and prophesied his speedy ruin, over their
+pipes and beer in the parlour of the "Duke of Marlborough," which they
+patronized out of respect for that hero's enormous periwig,--in their
+eyes his chief title to immortality, and a bright example for the
+degenerate age, when people had not only taken to wearing their own
+hair, but were even beginning to leave off dusting it with flour! And to
+make matters worse, here was a low fellow offering to shave for a penny.
+A number of people, tickled with the originality of the placard, and not
+unmindful of the penny saved, began to patronize the "Subterraneous
+barber," and he soon drew so many customers away from the higher-priced
+shops, that they were obliged to come down, after a while, to a penny as
+well. Not to be outdone, Arkwright lowered his charge to a halfpenny,
+and still retained his rank as the cheapest barber in the place.
+
+Arkwright's parents had been very poor people; and as he was the
+youngest of a family of thirteen, it may be readily supposed that all
+the school learning he got was of the most meagre kind,--if, indeed, he
+ever was at school at all, which is very doubtful. He was of a very
+ardent, enterprising temperament, however, and when once he took a thing
+in hand, stubbornly persevered in carrying it through to the end. About
+the year 1760, being then about thirty years of age, Arkwright got tired
+of the shaving, which brought him but a very scanty and precarious
+livelihood, and resolved to try his luck in a business where there was
+more scope for his enterprise and activity. He therefore began business
+as an itinerant dealer in hair, travelling up and down the country to
+collect it, dressing it himself, and then disposing of it in a prepared
+state to the wig-makers. As he was very quick in detecting any
+improvements that might be made in the process of dressing, he soon
+acquired the reputation amongst the wig-makers of supplying a better
+article than any of his rivals, and drove a very good trade. He had also
+picked up or discovered for himself the secret of dyeing the hair in a
+particular way, by which he not only augmented his profits, but enlarged
+the circle of his customers. He throve so well, that he was able to lay
+by a little money and to marry. He was very fond of spending what
+leisure time he had in making experiments in mechanics; and for a while
+was very much taken up with an attempt to solve the attractive problem
+of perpetual motion. No doubt he soon saw the hopelessness of the
+effort; but although he left the question unsolved, the bent thus given
+to his thoughts was fruitful of most valuable consequences.
+
+Living in the midst of a manufacturing population, Arkwright was
+accustomed to hear daily complaints of the continual difficulty of
+procuring sufficient weft to keep the looms employed; while the
+exportation of cotton goods gave rise to a growing demand for the
+manufactured article. The weavers generally had the weft they used spun
+for them by their wives or daughters; and those whose families could not
+supply the necessary quantity, had their spinning done by their
+neighbours; and even by paying, as they had to do, more for the spinning
+than the price allowed by their masters, very few could procure weft
+enough to keep themselves constantly at work. It was no uncommon thing,
+we learn, for a weaver to walk three or four miles in a morning, and
+call on five or six spinners, before he could collect weft to serve him
+for the rest of the day. Arkwright must have been constantly hearing of
+this difficulty, and of the restrictions it placed on the manufacture of
+cotton goods; and being a mechanical genius, was led to think how it
+might be lessened, if not got rid of altogether. The idea of having an
+automaton spinner, instead of one of flesh and blood, had occurred
+before then to more than one speculator; but the thing had never
+answered, and no models or descriptions of the machines proposed were
+preserved. One inventor had, indeed, destroyed his own machine, after
+having constructed it and found it to work, for fear that if it came
+into use it would deprive the poor spinners of their livelihood,--in
+reality its effect would have been to provide employment and food for
+thousands more than at that time got a miserable living from their
+spinning-wheels.
+
+While Arkwright was intent on the discovery of perpetual motion, he fell
+in with a clockmaker of the name of Kay, who assisted him in making
+wheels and springs for the contrivance he was trying to complete. This
+led to an intimate connection between them; and when Arkwright had given
+up the perpetual motion affair, and applied his thoughts to the
+invention of some machine for producing cotton weft more rapidly than by
+the simple wheel, Kay continued to help him in making models. Arkwright
+soon became so engrossed in his new task, and so confident of ultimate
+success, that he began to neglect his regular business. All his
+thoughts, and nearly all his time, were given up to the great work he
+had taken in hand. His trade fell off; he spent all his savings in
+purchasing materials for models, and getting them put together, and he
+fell into very distressed circumstances. His wife remonstrated with him,
+but in vain; and one day, in a rage at what she considered the cause of
+all their privations, she smashed some of his models on the floor. Such
+an outrage was more than Arkwright could bear, and they separated.
+
+In 1768, Arkwright, having completed the model of a machine for spinning
+cotton thread, removed to Preston, taking Kay with him. At this time he
+had hardly a penny in the world, and was almost in rags. His poverty,
+indeed, was such, that soon after his arrival in Preston, a contested
+election for a member of Parliament having taken place, he was so
+tattered and miserable in his appearance, that the party with whom he
+voted had to give him a decent suit of clothes before he could be seen
+at the polling-booth. He had got leave to set up his machine in the
+dwelling-house attached to the Free Grammar School; but, afraid of
+suffering from the hostility of the spinners, as the unfortunate
+Hargreaves had done some time before, he and Kay thought it best to
+leave Lancashire, and try their fortune in Nottingham.
+
+Poor and friendless, it may easily be supposed that Arkwright found it a
+hard matter to get any one to back him in a speculation which people
+then regarded as hazardous, if not illusory. He got a few pounds from
+one of the bankers in the town; but that was soon spent, and further
+advances were refused. Nothing daunted, Arkwright tried elsewhere for
+help, and at length succeeded in convincing Messrs. Need and Strutt,[A]
+large stocking-weavers in the place, of the value of his invention, and
+inducing them to enter into partnership with him. In 1769 he took out a
+patent for the machine, as its inventor, and a mill, worked by
+horse-power, was erected for spinning cotton by the new machine. Two
+years after, he and his partner set up another mill in Derbyshire,
+worked by a water-wheel; and in 1775 he took out another patent for some
+improvements on his original scheme.
+
+The machinery which he patented consisted of a number of different
+contrivances; but the chief of these, and the one which he particularly
+claimed entirely as his own invention (for he frankly admitted that some
+of the other parts were only developments of other inventors), was what
+is called the water-frame throstle for drawing out the cotton from a
+coarse to a finer and harder twisted thread, and so rendering it fit to
+be used for the warp, or longitudinal threads of the cloth, which were
+formed of linen, as well as the weft. This apparatus was a combination
+of the carding and spinning machinery; and the principle of having two
+pairs of rollers, one revolving faster than the other, was now for the
+first time applied to machinery.
+
+In a year or two the success of Arkwright's inventions was fairly
+established. The manufacturers were fully alive to its importance; and
+Arkwright now reaped the reward of all the toil and danger he had
+undergone in the shape of a diligent and persistent attempt to rob him
+of his monopoly, which was carried on for a number of years, and was at
+length successful. Some of the manufacturers, who were greedy to profit
+by the new machinery without paying the inventor, got hold of Kay, who
+had quarrelled with Arkwright some time before, and found him a willing
+instrument in their hands. It would take too long to go over all the law
+processes which Arkwright had now to engage in to defend his rights. Kay
+got up a story that the real inventor was a poor reed maker named Highs,
+who had once employed him to make a model, the secret of which he had
+imparted to Arkwright; and this was a capital excuse for using the new
+machinery in defiance of the patent, although the evidence at the
+various trials is now held completely to vindicate Arkwright's title as
+inventor. One law plea was lost to him, on account of some technical
+omission in the specifications; another restored to him the enjoyment of
+his monopoly; and a third trial destroyed the patent, which Arkwright
+never took any steps to recover.
+
+Besides trying to defraud Arkwright of his patent-rights, the rival
+manufacturers, with jealous inconsistency, did their best to
+discountenance the use of the yarns he made, although much superior in
+quality to what was then in use. But Arkwright not only surmounted this
+obstacle, but turned it to good account, for it set him to manufacturing
+the yarn into stockings and calicoes, the duty on which being soon
+after lowered, in spite of the strenuous opposition of the
+manufacturers, turned out a very profitable speculation.
+
+For the first five years Arkwright's mills yielded little or no profit;
+but after that, the adverse tide against which he had struggled so
+bravely changed, and he followed a prosperous and honourable career till
+his death, which happened in 1792. He was knighted, not for being, as he
+was, a benefactor to his country, but because, in his capacity of high
+sheriff, he chanced to read some trumpery address to the king. He left
+behind a fortune of about half a million sterling.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] The founder of the family of Strutt of Belper, afterwards ennobled.
+
+
+
+
+III.--SAMUEL CROMPTON.
+
+
+Excellent as was the yarn produced by the spinning-jenny and the
+water-frame, compared with the old hand-spun stuff, it was coarse and
+full of knots; and when a demand arose for imitations of the fine India
+muslins, the weavers found they could produce but a very poor piece of
+work with such rough materials.
+
+Among those who were inconvenienced for want of a better sort of yarn
+was young Samuel Crompton, who lived with his widowed mother and two
+sisters in an old country house called Hall-in-the-Wood, near what was
+then the little rural town of Bolton in the Moors. When Samuel was only
+five years old his father died, and left his widow with the three
+children on her hands, to struggle through the world as best she could.
+A hard-working, energetic, God-fearing woman, she buckled to the fight
+with a stout heart and a resolute will. Her husband had been both farmer
+and weaver, like most of the men in that quarter; and she did her best
+to fill his place, looking after the little farm and the three cows, and
+working at the loom, the yarn for which she taught the bairns to spin.
+Whatever she took in hand she did with might and main, and the result
+was, her webs were the best woven, her butter the richest, her honey the
+purest, her home-made wines the finest flavoured of any in the district.
+Small as her means were, she gave her boy the best education that could
+be got in Bolton--first at a day-school, and afterwards, when he was old
+enough to take his place by day between the treadles, at a night-school.
+Rigid in her sense of duty, and resolute to do her own share of the
+work, she exacted the same from others, and kept her lad tightly to the
+loom. Every day he had to do a certain quantity of work; and there was
+no looking her in the face unless each evening saw it done, and well
+done too. Anxious to satisfy his mother, and yet get time for his
+favourite amusement of fiddle-making and fiddle-playing, Sam grew
+quickly sensitive of the imperfections of the machinery he had to work
+with. "He was plagued to deeath," he used to say, "wi' mendin' the
+broken threeads;" and could not help thinking many a time whether the
+jenny could not be improved so as to spin more quickly, and produce a
+better thread. By the time he came to man's estate, in 1774, his
+thoughts had settled so far into a track, that he was able to begin
+making a contrivance of his own, which he hoped would accomplish the
+object he had in view. He had a few common tools which had belonged to
+his father, but his own clasp-knife served nearly every purpose in his
+ready hands. He had his "bits of things" filed at the smithy, and to get
+money for materials, he fiddled at the theatre for 1s. 6d. a night.
+Every minute he could spare from the task-work of the day was spent in
+his little room over the porch of the hall in forwarding his invention.
+As it advanced, he grew more and more engrossed with it, and often the
+dawn found him still at work on it. The good folks down in Bolton were
+sorely puzzled to think what light it was that was so often seen
+glimmering at uncanny hours up at the old hall. The story went abroad
+that the place was haunted, and that the ghost of some former resident,
+uneasy from the sorrows or the sins of his past life, kept watch and
+ward till cock crow, with a spectral lamp. The mystery was cleared up at
+last. It was discovered that the ghost was only Sam Crompton "fashing
+himself over bits of wood and iron;" and Sam was pointed out as a
+"conjuror"--the cant term for inventor--when he walked through the town.
+
+The five years of labour and anxiety bore fruit in 1779, when the
+"mule-jenny" with its spindle carriage was finished and set to work. As
+its name indicates, it was an ingenious cross between the jenny and the
+water-frame, combining the best features of both with several novel
+ones, which rendered it a very valuable machine.
+
+Just as Crompton had put the finishing touches to his mule, the weavers
+and spinners broke out in open riot at Blackburn, and scoured the
+country with the cry, "Men, not machines;" breaking every machine they
+could lay hands on. To keep himself out of trouble and save his mule,
+Crompton took it to pieces, and hid it in the roof of the hall. When the
+storm had swept past, he brought it out, put it together, and began to
+use it in his daily work. The fine yarn he turned out made quite a
+sensation, and the fame of his invention spread far and wide. People
+came from all quarters to get a sight of it; and when denied admittance,
+brought ladders and harrows, and climbed up to the window of the room
+where it stood. One pertinacious fellow actually ensconced himself for
+several days in the cockloft, from which he watched Crompton at work in
+the room below, through a gimlet hole he bored in the ceiling. Crompton
+lost all patience with this constant espionage. "Why couldn't folk let
+him enjoy his machine by himself?" he asked. A friend, whose advice he
+asked, urged him not to think of taking out a patent, but to make a
+present of his invention to the community at large. Save me from my
+friends, Crompton might well have cried. Simple, guileless fellow that
+he was, he acted on his "friend's" advice, and on a number of
+manufacturers putting down their names for subscriptions varying from a
+guinea to a crown, threw open the invention to the world. When the time
+came for the subscriptions to be called in, some of the manufacturers
+actually were base enough to refuse payment of the paltry sums they had
+promised, and overwhelmed with abuse the man by the fruit of whose brain
+they were making their fortunes. When all the money was collected, it
+amounted to only £60, just as much as built Crompton a new machine, with
+no more than four spindles.
+
+Shy, simple, confiding, innocent of the cunning ways of the world, sadly
+backward in the study of mankind, and perhaps somewhat ungenial and
+unpractised to boot, Crompton, from the time when one would have thought
+he had set his foot on the first round of the ladder of fortune, went
+stumbling on from one misfortune to another, ill-used on every side, and
+unsuccessful in every effort to get on in the world. Wheedled out of his
+patent rights, cheated of the money promised him, his workmen lured away
+from him as soon as he had taught them the construction of the mule, he
+grew morbid and distrustful of everyone. He would have no more workmen;
+and as the production of his machines was thus restricted to the labours
+of his own hands, he could not compete with the large factories, who
+drew all the customers away from him. Peel, the father of the statesman,
+offered him first a lucrative place of trust, and afterwards a
+partnership; but he would not listen to him. He grew more wretched and
+discouraged every day. In despair he cut up his spinning machines, and
+hacked to pieces with an axe a carding machine he had invented,
+exclaiming bitterly, "They shall not have this too."
+
+He then retired into comparative obscurity at Oldham, where he drudged
+away at weaving, farming, cow-keeping, and overseeing the poor, and
+found it no easy matter withal to support his family, for he had married
+some years before. Afterwards he re-appeared at Bolton as a small
+manufacturer; and there was a brief interval of sunshine. The muslin
+trade was very brisk, and the weavers walked about with five-pound notes
+stuck in their hats, and dressed out in ruffled shirts and top boots,
+like fine gentlemen. While this lasted Crompton found abundant sale for
+his superior yarn. But trade grew depressed, and the gloom settled over
+Crompton's life to its close.
+
+The idea was started of getting Parliament to do something for him; but
+he was too independent to supplicate government officials in person.
+Spencer Perceval, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was willing to
+befriend him; but Crompton's ill luck was at his heels. On the 11th of
+May 1812, Crompton was talking with Peel and another gentleman in the
+lobby of the House of Commons, when Perceval walked up to them, saying,
+"You will be glad to know we mean to propose £20,000 for Crompton. Do
+you think it will be satisfactory?" Crompton walked away out of delicacy
+not to hear the answer. An instant afterwards there was a great shout,
+and a rush of people in alarm. Perceval lay bathed in his own blood,
+slain by the bullet of the assassin Bellingham. Crompton had lost his
+friend.
+
+When the subject of a grant to the inventor of the spinning-mule was
+brought up in the House a few days afterwards by Lord Stanley (now Lord
+Derby), only £5000 was proposed. No one thought of increasing it. "Let's
+give the man a £100 a-year," said an honourable member; "it's as much as
+he can drink." So the vote was agreed to; though at that very time the
+duty accruing to the revenue from the cotton wool imported to be spun
+upon the mule was £300,000 a-year, or more than £1000 a working day. The
+impulse which this invention gave to the cotton manufactures of Great
+Britain, and the commercial prosperity to which it led, enabled the
+country to bear the heavy drain of the war taxes; and it has been said,
+with no little truth, that Crompton contributed as much as Wellington to
+the downfall of Napoleon. As soon as it became known, the mule-spindle
+took the lead in cotton-spinning machines. In 1811 above 4,600,000
+mule-spindles, made by his pattern, were in use. At the present time it
+is calculated that there are upwards of 30,000,000 in use in Great
+Britain; and the increase goes on at the rate of above 1,000,000 a-year.
+In France there were in 1850 about 3,000,000 spindles on Crompton's
+principle; and one firm of mule makers (Hibbert, Platt, and Company, of
+Oldham), make mules at the rate of 500,000 spindles a-year. The immense
+impetus given to trade, money, civilization, and comfort by this
+invention is almost incalculable.
+
+The grant of £5000 was soon swallowed up in the payment of his debts,
+and in meeting the losses of his business. "Nothing more was ever done
+for him. The king, who was fond of patronizing merit, took no notice of
+him; his eldest son was promised a commission, which he did not get; and
+some time after, when struggling through life on only £100 a-year, the
+post of sub-inspector of the factories in Bolton became vacant; though
+he applied for the office, for which he was eminently qualified, he was
+passed over in favour of the natural son of one of the ex-secretaries of
+state--a man who did not know a mule from a spinning-jenny."[B]
+
+Crompton spent his last days in poverty and privation, and died at the
+age of seventy-four, in 1827.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[B] Athenæum.
+
+
+
+
+IV.--DR. CARTWRIGHT.
+
+
+In the summer of 1784 a number of gentlemen were chatting, after dinner,
+in a country house at Matlock in Derbyshire. Some extensive cotton-mills
+had recently been set up in the neighbourhood, and the conversation
+turned upon the wonderful inventions which had been introduced for
+spinning cotton. There were one or two gentlemen present connected with
+the "manufacturing interest," who were very bitter against Arkwright and
+his schemes.
+
+"It's all very well," said one of the grumblers, "but what will all this
+rapid production of yarn lead to? Putting aside the ruin of the poor
+spinners, who will be starved because they haven't as many arms as these
+terrible machines, you'll find that it will end in a great deal more
+yarn being spun than can be woven into cloth, and in large quantities of
+yarn being exported to the Continent, where it will be worked up by
+foreign weavers, to the injury of our home manufacture. That will be the
+short and the long of it, mark my words."
+
+"Well, but, sir," remarked a grave, portly, middle-aged gentleman of
+clerical appearance, after a few minutes' reflection, "when you talk of
+the impossibility of the weaving keeping up with the spinning, you
+forget that machinery may yet be applied to the former as well as the
+latter. Why may there not be a loom contrived for working up yarn as
+fast as the spindle produces it. That long-headed fellow Arkwright must
+just set about inventing a weaving machine."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense," returned the "practical man" pettishly, as though
+it were hardly worth while noticing the remarks of such a dreamer. "You
+might as well bid Arkwright grow the cloth ready made. Weaving by
+machinery is utterly impossible. You must remember how much more complex
+a process it is than spinning, and what a variety of movements it
+involves. Weaving by machinery is a mere idle vision, my dear sir, and
+shows you know nothing about the operation."
+
+"Well, I must confess my ignorance on the subject of weaving," replied
+the clergyman; "but surely it can't be a more complex matter than moving
+the pieces in a game of chess. Now, there's an automaton figure now
+exhibiting in London, which handles the chess men, and places them on
+the proper squares of the board, and makes the most intricate moves, for
+all the world as if it were alive. If that can be done, I don't see why
+weaving should baffle a clever mechanist. A few years ago we should have
+laughed at the notion of doing what Arkwright has done; and I'm certain
+that before many years are over, we shall have 'weaving Johnnies,' as
+well as 'spinning Jennies.'"
+
+Dr. Cartwright, for that was the clergyman's name, confidently as he
+foretold that machine-weaving would be devised before long, little
+dreamt at that moment that he was himself to bring about the fulfilment
+of his own prediction. A quiet, country clergyman, of literary tastes, a
+scholar, and poetaster, he had spent his life hitherto in the discharge
+of his ministerial duties, writing articles and verses, and had never
+given the slightest attention to mechanics, theoretical or practical. He
+had never so much as seen a loom at work, and had not the remotest
+notion of the principle or mode of its construction. But the chance
+conversation at the Matlock dinner table suddenly roused his interest in
+the subject. He walked home meditating on what sort of a process weaving
+must be; brooded over the subject for days and weeks,--was often
+observed by his family striding up and down the room in a fit of
+abstraction, throwing his arms from side to side like a weaver jerking
+the shuttles,--and at last succeeded in evolving, as the Germans would
+say, from "the depths of his moral consciousness," the idea of a
+power-loom. With the help of a smith and a carpenter, he set about the
+construction of a number of experimental machines, and at length, after
+five or six months' application, turned out a rude, clumsy piece of
+work, which was the basis of his invention.
+
+"The warp," he says, "was laid perpendicularly, the reed fell with the
+force of at least half a hundredweight, and the springs which threw the
+shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. In short,
+it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a
+slow rate, and only for a short time. This being done, I then
+condescended to see how other people wove; and you will guess my
+astonishment when I compared their easy modes of operation with mine.
+Availing myself of what I then saw, I made a loom in its general
+principles nearly as they are now made. But it was not till the year
+1787 that I completed my invention."
+
+Having given himself to the contrivance of a loom that should be able to
+keep pace in the working up of the yarn with the jenny which produced
+it, solely from motives of philanthropy, he felt bound, now that he had
+devised the machine, to prove its utility, and bring it into use. To
+have stopped with the work of invention, would, he conceived, have been
+to leave the work half undone; and, therefore, at no slight sacrifice of
+personal inclination, and to the rupture of all old ties, associations,
+and ways of life, he quitted the ease and seclusion of his parsonage,
+abandoned the pursuits which had formerly been his delight, and devoted
+himself to the promotion of his invention. He set up weaving and
+spinning factories at Doncaster, and, bent on the welfare of his race,
+began the weary, painful struggle that was to be his ruin, and to end
+only with his life. "I have the worst mechanical conception any man can
+have," wrote his friend Crabbe, "but you have my best wishes. May you
+weave webs of gold." Alas! the good man wove for himself rather a web of
+dismal sack-cloth, sore and grievous to his peace, like the harsh shirts
+of hair old devotees used to vex their flesh with for their sins. The
+golden webs were for other folk's wear,--for those who toiled not with
+their brain as he had done, but who reaped what they had not sown.
+
+He had invented a machine that was to promote industry, and save the
+English weavers from being driven from the field, as was beginning to be
+the case, by foreign weavers; and masters and men were up in arms
+against him as soon as his design was known. His goods were maliciously
+damaged,--his workmen were spirited away from him,--his patent right was
+infringed. Calumny and hatred dogged his steps. After a succession of
+disasters, his prospects assumed a brighter aspect, when a large
+Manchester firm contracted for the use of four hundred looms. A few days
+after they were at work, the mill that had been built to receive them
+stood a heap of blackened ruins.
+
+Still, he would not give up till all his resources were exhausted,--and
+surely and not slowly that event drew nigh. The fortune of £30,000 with
+which he started in the enterprise melted rapidly away; and at length
+the day came when, with an empty purse, a frame shattered with anxiety
+and toil, but with a brave, stout heart still beating in his breast,
+Cartwright turned his back upon his mills, and went off to London to
+gain a living by his pen. As he turned from the scene of his
+misfortunes, he exclaimed,--
+
+    "With firm, unshaken mind, that wreck I see,
+    Nor think the doom of man should be reversed for me."
+
+The lion that has once eaten a man has ever after, it is said, a wild
+craving after human blood. And it would seem that the faculty of
+invention, once aroused, its appetite for exercise is constant and
+insatiable. Cartwright having discovered his dormant powers, could no
+more cease to use them than to eat. A return to his quiet literary ways,
+fond as he still was of such pursuits, was impossible. An inventor he
+was, and an inventor he must continue till his eye was glazed, and his
+brain numbed in death. When a clergyman he set himself to study
+medicine, and acquired great skill and knowledge in the science, solely
+for the benefit of the poor parishioners, and now he gave himself up to
+the labours of invention with the same benevolent motives. Gain had not
+tempted him to enter the arena,--discouragement and ruin were not to
+drive him from it. The resources of his ingenuity seemed inexhaustible,
+and there was no limit to its range of objects. Wool-combing machines,
+bread and biscuit baking machines, rope-making machines, ploughs, and
+wheel carriages, fire-preventatives, were in turn invented or improved
+by him. He predicted the use of steam-ships, and steam-carriages,--and
+himself devised a model of the former (with clock-work instead of a
+steam-engine), which a little boy used to play with on the ponds at
+Woburn, that was to grow up into an eminent statesman--Lord John
+Russell. To the very last hour of his life his brain was teeming with
+new designs. He went down to Dover in his eightieth year for warm
+sea-bathing, and suggested to his bathman a way of pumping up the water
+that saved him the wages of two men; and almost the day before his
+death, he wrote an elaborate statement of a new mode he had discovered
+of working the steam-engine. Moved by an irresistible impulse to promote
+the "public weal," he truly fulfilled the resolution he expressed in
+verse,--
+
+    "With mind unwearied, still will I engage,
+    In spite of failing vigour and of age,
+    Nor quit the combat till I quit the stage."
+
+In 1808 he was rewarded by Parliament for his invention of the
+power-loom, and the losses it brought upon him, by a grant of £10,000.
+He died in October 1823.
+
+
+
+
+V.--SIR ROBERT PEEL.
+
+
+Cartwright's power-loom was afterwards taken in hand and greatly
+improved by other ingenious persons--mechanics and weavers. "The names
+of many clever mechanics," says a writer in the _Quarterly Review_, "who
+contributed to advance it, step by step, through failure and
+disappointment, have long been forgotten. Some broke their hearts over
+their projects when apparently on the eve of success. No one was more
+indefatigable in his endeavours to overcome the difficulties of the
+contrivance than William Radcliffe, a manufacturer at Mellor, near
+Manchester, whose invention of the dressing-machine was an important
+step in advance. With the assistance of an ingenious young weaver in his
+employment, named Johnson, he also brought out the dandy-loom, which
+effects almost all that can be done for the hand-loom as to motion.
+Radcliffe was not, however, successful as a manufacturer; he exhausted
+his means in experiments, of which his contemporaries and successors
+were to derive the benefit; and after expending immense labour, and a
+considerable fortune in his improvements, he died in poverty in
+Manchester only a few years ago."
+
+To the Peel family the cotton manufacture is greatly indebted for its
+progress. Robert Peel, the founder of the family, developed the plan of
+printing calico, and his successors perfected it in a variety of ways.
+While occupied as a small farmer near Blackburn, he gave a great deal of
+attention to the subject, and made a great many experiments. One day,
+when sketching a pattern on the back of a pewter dinner-plate, the idea
+occurred to him, that if colour were rubbed upon the design an
+impression might be printed off it upon calico. He tested the plan at
+once. Filling in the pattern with colour on the back of the plate, and
+placing a piece of calico over it, he passed it through a mangle, and
+was delighted with seeing the calico come out duly printed. This was his
+first essay in calico-printing; and he soon worked out the idea,
+patented it, and starting as a calico-printer, succeeded so well, that
+he gave up the farm and devoted himself entirely to that business. His
+sons succeeded him; and the Peel family, divided into numerous firms,
+became one of the chief pillars of the cotton manufacture.
+
+To such perfection has calico-printing now been brought, that a mile of
+calico can be printed in an hour, or three cotton dresses in a minute;
+and so extensive is the production of that article, that one firm
+alone--that of Hoyle--turns out in a year more than 10,000 miles of it,
+or more than sufficient to measure the diameter of our planet.
+
+It was a favourite saying of old Sir Robert Peel, in regard to the
+importance of commercial wealth in a national point of view, "that the
+gains of individuals were small compared with the national gains arising
+from trade;" and there can be no doubt that the success of the cotton
+trade has contributed essentially to the present affluence and
+prosperity of the United Kingdom. It has placed cheap and comfortable
+clothing within the reach of all, and provided well-paid employment for
+multitudes of people; and the growth of population to which it has led,
+and consequent increase in the consumption of the various necessaries
+and luxuries of life, have given a stimulus to all the other branches of
+industry and commerce. From one of the most miserable provinces in the
+land, Lancashire has grown to be one of the most prosperous. Within a
+hundred and fifty years the population has increased tenfold, and land
+has risen to fifty times its value for agricultural, and seventy times
+for manufacturing purposes. From an insignificant country town and a
+little fishing village have sprung Manchester and Liverpool; and many
+other towns throughout the country owe their existence to the same
+source. These are the great monuments to the achievements of Arkwright,
+Crompton, Peel, and the other captains of industry who wrought this
+mighty change, and the best trophies of their genius and enterprise.
+
+
+
+
+The Railway and the Locomotive.
+
+
+  I.--"THE FLYING COACH."
+ II.--THE STEPHENSONS: FATHER AND SON.
+III.--THE GROWTH OF RAILWAYS.
+
+
+
+
+The Railway and the Locomotive
+
+
+
+
+I.--"THE FLYING COACH."
+
+
+It is the grey dawn of a fine spring morning in the year 1669, and early
+though it be, there are many folks astir and gathering in clusters
+before the ancient, weather-stained front of All Souls' College, Oxford.
+The "Flying Coach" which has been so much talked about, and which has
+been solemnly considered and sanctioned by the heads of the University,
+is to make its first journey to the metropolis to-day, and to accomplish
+it between sunrise and sunset. Hitherto the journey has occupied two
+days, the travellers sleeping a night on the road; and the new
+undertaking is regarded as very bold and hazardous. A buzz rises from
+the knots of people as they discuss its prospects,--some very sanguine,
+some very doubtful, not a few very angry at the presumption of the
+enterprise. But six o'clock is on the strike--all the passengers are
+seated, some of them rather wishful to be safe on the pavement
+again--the driver has got the reins in his hand--the guard sounds his
+bugle, and off goes the "Flying Coach" at a rattling pace, amidst the
+cheering of the crowd and the benedictions of the university "Dons," who
+have come down to honour the event with their presence. Learned,
+liberal-minded men these "Dons" are for the times they live in; but only
+fancy what they would think if some old seer, whose meditation and
+research had
+
+    "Pierced the future, far as human eye could see,
+    Seen the vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be,"
+
+were to come forth and tell them, that before two centuries were over
+men would think far less of travelling from Oxford to London in one hour
+than they then did of doing so in a day, by means of a machine of iron,
+mounted upon wheels, which should rush along the ground, and drag a
+load, which a hundred horses could not move, as though it were a
+feather. Roger Bacon had prophesied as much four centuries before; the
+Marquis of Worcester was propounding the same theory at that very day,
+and yet who can blame them if they treated the notion as the falsehood
+of an impostor, or the hallucination of a lunatic?
+
+In these days when railways traverse the country in every direction,
+and are still multiplying rapidly, when no two towns of the least
+size and consideration are unprovided with this mode of mutual
+communication--when we step into a railway carriage as readily as into
+an omnibus, and breakfasting comfortably in London, are whisked off to
+Edinburgh, almost in time for the fashionable dinner hour,--it requires
+no little effort to realize the incredulity and contempt with which the
+idea of superseding the stage-coach by the steam locomotive, and having
+lines of iron railways instead of the common highways, was regarded for
+many years after the beginning of the present century. Even after the
+practicability of the project had been proved, and steam-engines had
+been seen puffing along the rails, with a train of carriages attached,
+even so late as 1825, we find one of the leading periodicals--the
+_Quarterly Review_--denouncing the gross exaggeration of the powers of
+the locomotive which its promoters were guilty of, and predicting that
+though it might delude for a time, it must end in the mortification of
+all concerned. The fact was, said the writer, that people would as soon
+suffer themselves to be fired off like a Congreve rocket, as trust
+themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate--the
+rate of eighteen miles an hour, which people now-a-days, accustomed to
+dash along in express trains at two or three times that speed, would
+deem a perfect snail-pace.
+
+The "railway" had the start of the locomotive by a couple of centuries,
+and derives its parentage from the clumsy wooden way-leaves or
+tram-roads which were laid down to lessen the labour of dragging the
+coal-waggons to and from the place of shipment in the Newcastle
+colleries. These were in use from the beginning of the seventeenth
+century, but it was not till the beginning of the nineteenth that the
+locomotive steam-engine made its appearance. Watt himself took out a
+patent for a locomotive in 1784, but nothing came of it; and the honour
+of having first proved the practicability of applying steam to the
+purposes of locomotion is due to a Cornishman named Trevithick, who
+devised a high-pressure engine of very ingenious construction, and
+actually set it to work on one of the roads in South Wales. At first,
+therefore, there was no alliance between the engine and the rail; and
+though afterwards Trevithick adapted it to run on a tram-way, something
+went wrong with it, and the idea was for the time abandoned. There was a
+long-headed engine-man in one of the Newcastle collieries about this
+time, in whose mind the true solution of the problem was rapidly
+developing, but Trevithick had nearly forestalled him. The stories of
+these two men afford a most instructive lesson. A man of undoubted
+talent and ingenuity, with influential friends both in Cornwall and
+London, Trevithick had a fair start in life, and every opportunity of
+distinguishing himself. But he lacked steadiness and perseverance, and
+nothing prospered with him. He had no sooner applied himself to one
+scheme than he threw it up, and became engrossed in another, to be
+abandoned in turn for some new favourite. He was always beginning some
+novelty, and never ending what he had begun, and the consequence was an
+almost constant succession of failures. He was always unhappy and
+unsuccessful. If now and then a gleam of success did brighten on his
+path, it was but temporary, and was speedily absorbed in the gloom of
+failure. He found a man of capital to take up his high-pressure engine,
+got his locomotive built and set to work, brought his ballast engine
+into use, and stood in no want of praise and encouragement; and yet, one
+after another his schemes went wrong. Not one of them did well, because
+he never stuck to any of them long enough. "The world always went wrong
+with him," he said himself. "He always went wrong with the world," said
+more truly those who knew him. His haste, impatience, and want of
+perseverance ruined him. After actually witnessing his steam engine at
+work in Wales, dragging a train of heavy waggons at the rate of five
+miles an hour, he lost conceit of his invention, went away to the West
+Indies, and did not return to England till Stephenson had solved the
+difficulty of steam locomotion, and was laying out the Stockton and
+Darlington Railway. The humble engine-man, without education, without
+friends, without money, with countless obstacles in his way, and not a
+single advantage, save his native genius and resolution, had won the
+day, and distanced his more favoured and accomplished rival. It was
+reserved for GEORGE STEPHENSON to bring about the alliance of the
+locomotive and the railroad--"man and wife," as he used to call
+them--whose union, like that of heaven and earth in the old mythology,
+was to bear an offspring of Titanic might--the modern railway.
+
+
+
+
+II.--THE STEPHENSONS: FATHER AND SON.
+
+
+Towards the close of the last century, a bare-legged herd-laddie, about
+eight years old, might have been seen, in a field at Dewley Burn, a
+little village not far from Newcastle, amusing himself by making
+clay-engines, with bits of hemlock-stalk for imaginary pipes. The child
+is father of the man; and in after years that little fellow became the
+inventor of the passenger locomotive, and as the founder of the gigantic
+railway system which now spreads its fibres over the length and breadth,
+not only of our own country, but of the civilized world, the true hero
+of the half-century.
+
+The second son of a fireman to one of the colliery engines, who had six
+children and a wife to support on an income of twelve shillings a-week,
+George Stephenson had to begin work while quite a child. At first he was
+set to look after a neighbour's cows, and keep them from straying; and
+afterwards he was promoted to the work of leading horses at the plough,
+hoeing turnips, and such like, at a salary of fourpence a-day. The lad
+had always been fond of poking about in his father's engine house; and
+his great ambition at this time was to become a fireman like his father.
+And at length, after being employed in various ways about the colliery,
+he was, at the age of fourteen, appointed his father's assistant at a
+shilling a-day. The next year he got a situation as fireman on his own
+account; and "now," said he, when his wages were advanced to twelve
+shillings a-week--"now I'm a made man for life."
+
+The next step he took was to get the place of "plugman" to the same
+engine that his father attended as fireman, the former post being rather
+the higher of the two. The business of the plugman, the uninitiated may
+be informed, is to watch the engine, and see that it works properly--the
+name being derived from the duty of plugging the tube at the bottom of
+the shaft, so that the action of the pump should not be interfered with
+by the exposure of the suction-holes. George now devoted himself
+enthusiastically to the study of the engine under his care. It became a
+sort of pet with him; and he was never weary of taking it to pieces,
+cleaning it, putting it together again, and inspecting its various parts
+with admiration and delight, so that he soon made himself thoroughly
+master of its method of working and construction.
+
+Eighteen years old by this time, George Stephenson was wholly
+uneducated. His father's small earnings, and the large family he had to
+feed, at a time when provisions were scarce and at war prices, prevented
+his having any schooling in his early years; and he now set himself to
+repair his deficiencies in that respect. His duties occupied him twelve
+hours a-day, so that he had but little leisure to himself; but he was
+bent on improving himself, and after the duties of the day were over,
+went to a night-school kept by a poor teacher in the village of
+Water-row, where he was now situated, on three nights during the week,
+to take lessons in reading and spelling, and afterwards in the science
+of pot-hooks and hangers as well; so that by the time he was nineteen he
+was able to read clearly, and to write his own name. Then he took to
+arithmetic, for which he showed a strong predilection. He had always a
+sum or two by him to work out while at the engine side, and soon made
+great progress.
+
+The next year he was appointed brakesman at Black Collerton Colliery,
+with six shillings added to his wages, which were now nearly a pound
+a-week, and he was always making a few shillings extra by mending his
+fellow-workmen's shoes, a job at which he was rather expert. Busy as he
+was with his various tasks, he found time to fall in love. Pretty Fanny
+Henderson, a servant at a neighbouring farm, caught his fancy; and
+getting her shoes to mend, it cost him a great effort to return them to
+the comely owner after they were patched up. He carried them about with
+him in his pocket for some time, and would pull them out, and then gaze
+fondly at them with as much emotion as the old story tells us the sight
+of the dainty glass slipper, which Cinderella dropped at the ball,
+excited in the breast of the young prince. Bent upon taking up house for
+himself, with Fanny as presiding genius, Stephenson now began to save
+up, and declared himself a "rich man" when he put his first guinea in
+the box.
+
+Instead of spending the Saturday afternoon with his fellow-workmen in
+the public-house, Stephenson employed himself in taking the engine to
+pieces, and cleaning it; but besides his attention to work, he was also
+remarkable for his skill at putting and wrestling, in which he beat most
+of his comrades. And he was not without pluck either, as he let a great
+hulking fellow, who was the bully of the village, know to his cost, by
+giving him such a drubbing as made him a "sadder and wiser man" for some
+time afterwards. He still continued his attendance at the night-school,
+till he had got out of the master as much instruction in arithmetic as
+he was able to supply.
+
+By the time he was of age he had saved up enough to take a little
+cottage and furnish it comfortably, though, of course, very humbly; and
+in the winter of 1802, Fanny, now Mrs. George Stephenson, rode home from
+church on horseback, seated on a pillion behind her husband, with her
+arms round his waist; and very proud and happy, we may be sure, he was
+that day, as the neighbours came to their doors to wish him "God speed"
+in his new mode of life.
+
+Having learned all he could from the village teacher, George Stephenson
+now began to study mensuration and mathematics at home by himself; but
+he also found time to make a number of experiments in the hope of
+finding out the secret of perpetual motion, and to make shoe-lasts and
+shoes, as well as mend them. At the end of 1803 his only son, Robert,
+was born; and soon after the family removed to Killingworth, seven miles
+from Newcastle, where George got the place of brakesman. They had not
+been settled long here when Fanny died--a loss which affected George
+deeply, and attached him all the more intensely to the offspring of
+their union. At this time everything seemed to go wrong with him. As if
+his wife's death was not grief enough, his father met with an accident
+which deprived him of his eye-sight, and shattered his frame; George
+himself was drawn for the militia, and had to pay a heavy sum of money
+for a substitute; and with his father, and mother, and his own boy to
+support, at a time when taxes were excessive and food dear, he had only
+a salary of £50 or £60 a-year to meet all claims. He was on the verge of
+despair, and would have emigrated to America, if, fortunately for our
+country, he had not been unable to raise sufficient money for his
+passage. So he had to stay in the old country, where a bright and
+glorious future awaited him, dark and desperate as the prospect then
+appeared.
+
+He still went on making models and experiments, and perfecting his
+knowledge of his own engine. To add to his earnings he also took to
+clock-cleaning, with the view of saving up enough to give his boy the
+best education it was in his power to bestow. "In the earlier period of
+my career," he used afterwards to say, "when Robert was a little boy, I
+saw how deficient I was in education, and I made up my mind that he
+should not labour under the same defect, but that I would put him to a
+good school, and give him a liberal training. I was, however, a poor
+man, and how do you think I managed? I betook myself to mending my
+neighbours' clocks and watches at nights, after my daily labour was
+done, and thus I procured the means of educating my son." George began
+by teaching his son to work with him; and when the little chap could not
+reach so high as to put a clock-hand on, would set him on a chair for
+the purpose, and very proud Robert was whenever he could "help father"
+in any of his jobs.
+
+About this time a new pit having been sunk in the district where he
+worked, the engine fixed for the purpose of pumping the water out of the
+shaft was found a failure. This soon reached George's ears. He walked
+over to the pit, carefully examined the various parts of the machinery,
+and turned the matter over in his mind. One day when he was looking at
+it, and almost convinced that he had discovered the cause of the
+failure, one of the workmen came up, and asked him if he could tell what
+was wrong.
+
+"Yes," said George; "and I think I could alter it, and in a week's time
+send you to the bottom."
+
+George offered his services to the engineer. Every expedient had been
+tried to repair the engine, and all had failed. There could be no harm,
+if no good, in Stephenson trying his hand at it. So he got leave, and
+set to work. He took the engine entirely to pieces, and in four days had
+repaired it thoroughly, so that the workmen could get to the bottom and
+proceed with their labours. George Stephenson's skill as an
+engine-doctor began to be noised abroad, and secured him the post of
+engine-wright at Killingworth, with a salary of £100 a-year. Robert was
+now old enough to go to school, and was sent to one in Newcastle, to
+which, dressed in a suit of coarse grey stuff cut out by his father, he
+rode every day upon a donkey. Robert spent much of his spare time in the
+Literary and Philosophical Institute of Newcastle; and would sometimes
+take home a volume from the library, which father and son would eagerly
+peruse together. Occasionally they tried chemical experiments together;
+and now and then Robert would try his hand by himself. On one occasion
+he electrified the cows in an adjacent enclosure by means of an electric
+kite, making the bewildered animals dash madly about the field, with
+their tails erect on end; and another time he administered a severe
+electric shock to his father's Galloway pony, which nearly knocked it
+over, and drew down upon him the affected wrath of his father, who,
+coming out at the instant, shook his whip at him and called him a
+mischievous scoundrel, though pleased all the while at the lad's
+ingenuity and enterprise. As an early proof of the former, there still
+stands over the cottage door at Killingworth a sun-dial, constructed by
+Robert when he was thirteen years old, with some little help from his
+father.
+
+The idea of constructing a steam-engine to run on the colliery
+tram-roads leading to the shipping-place was now receiving considerable
+attention from the engineering community. Several schemes had been
+propounded, and engines actually made; but none of them had been brought
+into use. A mistaken notion prevailed that the plain round wheels of an
+engine would slip round without catching hold of the rails, and that
+thus no progress would be made; but George Stephenson soon became
+convinced that the weight of the engine would of itself be sufficient to
+press the wheels to the rails, so that they could not fail to bite. He
+turned the subject over and over in his mind, tested his conceptions by
+countless experiments, and at length completed his scheme. Money for the
+construction of a locomotive engine on his plan having been supplied by
+Lord Ravensworth, one was made after many difficulties, and placed upon
+the tram-road at Killingworth, where it drew a load of 30 tons up a
+somewhat steep gradient at the rate of four miles an hour. Still there
+was very little saving in cost, and little advance in speed as compared
+with horse-power; but in a second one, which Stephenson quickly set
+about constructing, he turned the waste steam into the chimney to
+increase the draught, and thus puff the fuel into a brisker flame, and
+create a larger volume of steam to propel the locomotive. The
+fundamental principles of the engine thus formed remain in operation to
+this day; and it may in truth be termed the progenitor of the great
+locomotive family.
+
+In 1821 George Stephenson got the appointment of engineer, with £300 of
+salary, to the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company, in the Act of
+Parliament for which power was given to use locomotive engines, if
+needful, either for the conveyance of goods or passengers. When the line
+was opened, it was worked partly by horses and partly by locomotive and
+stationary engines. This led to a partnership between Mr. Edward Pease
+of Darlington, the chief projector of the line, and Stephenson, in a
+locomotive manufactory in Newcastle,--for many years the only one of the
+kind in existence.
+
+Meanwhile, young Robert Stephenson, having spent a year or two in
+gaining a practical acquaintance with the machinery and working of a
+colliery, went to the University of Edinburgh, where he spent a session
+in attending the courses of lectures on chemistry, natural philosophy,
+and geology. He made the best of his opportunities; and that he might
+profit to the utmost by the lectures, he studied short-hand, and took
+them all down _verbatim_, transcribing his notes every evening before
+he went to bed. Robert brought home the prize for mathematics, and
+showed he had made so much progress at college that, though the £80
+which the session cost was a large sum to his father at that time,
+George never failed, then or afterwards, to declare that it was one of
+the best investments he had ever made.
+
+After a year or two in his father's locomotive factory, Robert spent two
+or three years in charge of the machinery of a mining company in
+Columbia, and returned to England at the close of 1827, to find the
+great question, "Whether locomotives can be successfully and profitably
+applied to passenger traffic?" hotly agitated, his father, almost alone,
+taking the side of the travelling, against that of the fixed engines,
+and insisting that the wheel and the rail were clearly and closely part
+of one system.
+
+The success of the Darlington line induced the Liverpool merchants to
+project a line between that town and Manchester; and George Stephenson
+was almost unanimously chosen engineer, though it was still undetermined
+whether the new line should be worked by steam or horse power. But,
+apart from that question, a great, and, as it appeared to most of the
+engineers of the time, an insurmountable difficulty existed in the
+quagmire of Chat Moss,--an enormous mass of watery pulp, which rose in
+height in wet, and sank in dry weather like a sponge, and over whose
+treacherous depths it was pronounced impossible to form a firm road. It
+was perfect madness to think of such a thing, said the engineers, and
+none of them would support Stephenson's scheme; but he resolved to see
+what could be done. Truck-load after truck-load of stuff was emptied
+into the moss, and still the insatiable bog kept gaping as though it had
+not had half a feed. The directors, alarmed, would have abandoned the
+project, had they not been so deeply involved that they were obliged to
+let Stephenson continue. But he never doubted himself--not for a moment.
+He only pushed on the works more vigorously; and, before six months were
+over, the directors found themselves whirling along over the very bog
+they expected all their capital was to be fruitlessly sunk to the bottom
+of. Still, no decision had been come to as to whether locomotive or
+fixed engines were to be adopted; and the Stephensons were still
+battling bravely in favour of the locomotive against a host of
+opponents. Robert did his father good service by the able and pithy
+pamphlets which he wrote on the subject; and at length their
+perseverance was rewarded by the directors consenting to employ a
+locomotive, if they could get one that would run at the rate of ten
+miles an hour, and not weigh more than six tons, including tender; and
+offering a reward of £500 for the best engine fulfilling these
+conditions. George Stephenson and his son set to work immediately, and
+the product of their united skill and ingenuity was the celebrated
+_Rocket_, which carried off the prize, and attained a speed of
+twenty-nine miles on the opening day. The practicability and success of
+the locomotive was now beyond a doubt; from that day forward public
+opinion began to turn. Of course, for many a long year afterwards there
+were not wanting numbers of bigoted men of the old school who cried down
+the new-fangled system, and would hear of no means of transit but the
+stage-coach and the canal-boat. But shrewd folk, like the old Duke of
+Bridgewater, whose faculties were sharpened by their pockets being in
+danger, could not help crying out, "There's mischief in these tram-ways!
+I wish the canals mayn't suffer;" and, within ten years of the day when
+the _Rocket_ went puffing triumphantly along the Liverpool and
+Manchester line, most sensible people had become convinced of the
+importance of the locomotive railway, and scarcely a principal town in
+the country but was supplied with a line.
+
+The Stephensons had fought a hard fight for their protegé, "rail and
+wheel," and now they were to reap the fruits of their enterprise and
+foresight. To nearly all the most important of the new lines George
+Stephenson acted as engineer; and thus, in the course of two years,
+above 321 miles of railway were constructed under his superintendence,
+at a cost of £11,000,000 sterling. Robert at first left his father to
+attend to the laying out of railways, and directed his attention to the
+improvement of the locomotive in all its details, experimenting
+incessantly, and trying now one new device, now another. "It was
+astonishing," says Mr. Smiles, "to observe the rapidity of the
+improvements effected,--every engine turned out of Stephenson's
+workshops exhibiting an advance upon its predecessor in point of speed,
+power, and working efficiency."
+
+By this time George had taken up his residence at Tapton House, near
+Chesterfield, where he continued to reside for the remainder of his
+life. Close by were some extensive coal-pits, which he had taken in
+lease, and from which he supplied London with the first coals sent by
+railway. He was now a man of wealth and fame, known and honoured
+throughout his own country, and in many foreign ones, and blessed with
+many a staunch, true friend. More than once he was offered knighthood by
+Sir Robert Peel, but declined the honour. As he grew up in years, he
+gradually abandoned his railway business to the charge of his son, and
+settled down into a quiet country gentleman of agricultural tastes. He
+was very fond of gardening and farming, and spent many a long day
+superintending the operations in the fields. When a boy, he had always
+been very fond of taming birds and rabbits, and had once had flocks of
+robins, which, in the hard winter, used to come hopping round his feet
+for crumbs. And now, in his old age, he had special pets among his dogs
+and horses, and was proud of his superior breed of rabbits. There was
+scarcely a nest on his estate that he was not acquainted with; and he
+used to go round from day to day to look at them, and see that they were
+kept uninjured.
+
+The year before his death he visited Sir Robert Peel at Drayton Manor.
+Dr. Buckland, the geologist, was of the party. One Sunday, as they were
+returning from church, they observed a train speeding along the valley
+in the distance.
+
+"Now, Buckland," said Mr. Stephenson, "I have a poser for you. Can you
+tell me what is the power that is driving that train?"
+
+"Well," said the other, "I suppose it is one of your big engines."
+
+"But what drives the engine?"
+
+"Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver."
+
+"What do you say to the light of the sun?"
+
+"How can that be?" asked the professor.
+
+"It is nothing else," said the engineer. "It is light bottled up in the
+earth for tens of thousands of years--light, absorbed by plants and
+vegetables, being necessary for the condensation of carbon during the
+process of their growth, if it be not carbon in another form; and now,
+after being buried in the earth for long ages in fields of coal, that
+latent light is again brought forth and liberated, made to work as in
+that locomotive, for great human purposes."
+
+On the 12th of August 1848, this great, good man--one of the truest
+heroes that ever lived, and one of the greatest benefactors of our
+country--passed from among us, leaving his son, Robert, to develop and
+extend the great work of which he had laid the foundation.
+
+Among one of the first railways of any extent of which Robert Stephenson
+had the laying out, was the London and Birmingham; and it is related, as
+an illustration of his conscientious perseverance in executing the task,
+that in the course of the examination of the country he walked over the
+whole of the intervening districts upwards of twenty times. Many other
+lines, in England and abroad, were executed by him in rapid succession;
+and it was stated a few years ago, that the lines of railway constructed
+under his superintendence had involved an outlay of £70,000,000
+sterling.
+
+The three great works, however, with which his name will always be most
+intimately associated, and which are the grandest monuments of his
+genius, are the High Level Bridge at Newcastle, the Britannia Bridge
+across the Menai Straits, and the Victoria Bridge across the St.
+Lawrence at Montreal. The first two are sufficiently well known--the one
+springing across the valley of the Tyne, between the busy towns of
+Newcastle and Gateshead; the other spanning, in mid air, a wide arm of
+the sea, at such a height that vessels of large burden in full sail can
+pass beneath. The third great effort of Robert Stephenson's prolific
+brain he did not live to see the completion of. The Victoria Bridge at
+Montreal is constructed on the same principle as the Britannia Bridge,
+but on a much larger scale. "The Victoria Bridge," says Mr. Smiles,
+"with its approaches, is only sixty yards short of two miles in length.
+In its gigantic strength and majestic proportions, there is no structure
+to compare with it in ancient or modern times. It consists of not less
+than twenty-five immense tubular bridges joined into one; the great
+central span being 332 feet, the others, 242 feet in length. The weight
+of the wrought iron on the bridge is about 10,000 tons, and the piers
+are of massive stone, containing some 8000 tons each of solid masonry."
+
+After the completion of the Britannia Bridge, and again after the
+opening of the High Level Bridge, Robert Stephenson was offered the
+honour of knighthood, which, like his father before him, he respectfully
+declined. In 1857 he received the title of D.C.L. from the University of
+Oxford; and for many years before his death he represented Whitby in
+Parliament. He was passionately fond of yachting, and almost immediately
+after a trip to Norway in the summer of 1859, he was seized with a
+mortal illness, and died in the beginning of October. On the 14th
+October he was buried in Westminster, amongst the illustrious dead of
+England.
+
+No man could be more beloved than Robert Stephenson was by a wide circle
+of friends, and none better deserved it. "In society," writes one who
+had opportunities of intercourse with him, "he was simply charming and
+fascinating in the highest degree, from his natural goodness of heart
+and the genial zest with which he relished life himself and participated
+its enjoyment with others. He was generous and even princely in his
+expenditure--not upon himself, but on his friends. On board the
+_Titania_, or at his house in Gloucester Square, his frequent and
+numerous guests found his splendid resources at all times converted to
+their gratification with a grace of hospitality which, although
+sedulous, was never oppressive. There was nothing of the patron in his
+manner, or of the Olympic condescension which is sometimes affected by
+much lesser men. A friend (and how many friends he had!) was at once his
+equal, and treated with republican freedom, yet with the most high-bred
+courtesy and happy considerateness.... His payment of half the debt of
+£6000, which weighed like an incubus on an institution at Newcastle, is
+generally known; but his private charities were as boundless as his
+nature was generous, and as quietly performed as that nature was
+unostentatious. Such, then, was Robert Stephenson, as complete a
+character in the multifarious relations of life as probably any man has
+met or will meet in the course of his experience. Not unlike, or rather
+exceedingly _like_, his father in some respects, especially in the easy,
+unimposing manner in which he went about his life's work, he was hardly
+to be accounted his father's inferior, except perhaps in the heroic
+quality of combativeness. Father and son, independently of each other,
+and both in conjunction, have left grand and beneficent results to
+posterity, and both recall to us Monckton Milnes's men of old, who
+
+    "'Went about their gravest tasks
+    Like noble boys at play.'"
+
+
+
+
+III.--THE GROWTH OF RAILWAYS.
+
+
+It was about the year 1818 that Thomas Gray of Nottingham, travelling in
+the north of England, happened to visit one of the collieries. As he
+stood watching a train of loaded waggons being propelled by steam along
+the tram-road which led from the mouth of the pit to the wharf where the
+coals were shipped, the idea flashed through his mind that the same
+system was applicable to the ordinary purposes of locomotion.
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed to the engineer who was showing him over the
+place,--"why are there not tram-roads laid down all over England so as
+to supersede our common roads, and steam engines employed to drag
+waggons full of goods, and carriages full of passengers along them,
+instead of horse-power?"
+
+"Propose that to the nation," replied his companion, "and see what you
+will get by it. Why, sir, you would be worried to death for your
+pains."
+
+Gray was not to be balked, however. The idea took firm possession of his
+mind, and became the one great subject of his thoughts and conversation.
+He talked about it to everybody whom he met, and who had patience to
+listen to him, wrote letters and memorials to public men, and afterwards
+appealed to the people at large. He was laughed at as a whimsical,
+crochetty fellow, and no one gave any serious attention to his views.
+Mr. Jones of Gromford Manor, and Mr. Pease of Darlington, also
+distinguished themselves by their agitation in favour of railways, at a
+time when they were regarded with suspicion and alarm. The growing trade
+of Liverpool and Manchester, and other large towns, however, spoke more
+imperatively and forcibly in favour of the new project than any amount
+of individual agitation. The means of communication between the various
+manufacturing towns had fallen far behind their wants; and it was at
+length felt that some new system must be adopted. The railroad and the
+locomotive got a trial; and before long the carriers' carts and the
+stage coaches were driven off the road for want of custom, although the
+conveyance of goods and passengers throughout the country went on
+multiplying an hundred-fold. One can fancy the astonishment and awe with
+which the country-folk watched the progress of the first railway train
+through their peaceful acres,--how old and young left their work and
+rushed out to see the marvellous spectacle,--how the "oldest
+inhabitants" shook their heads, and muttered about changed times,--how
+the horses in the field trembled with fear, and threw up their heels at
+their iron rival as it went snorting past--a strange, iron monster, the
+handicraft of man, able to drag the heaviest burdens, and yet outstrip
+_Flying Childers_ or _Eclipse_, as fresh at the end of a journey as at
+the beginning, and never to be tired out by any toil, if only kept in
+meat and drink. Just as in the days of Charles the First, honest,
+short-sighted folk prophesied the ruin of the empire and a judgment upon
+the use of coaches, and bewailed the misfortunes of the hundreds of
+able-bodied men who would be thrown out of employment; so in the early
+days of the railroad, great fears were entertained that the horses'
+occupation would be gone, and that the noble breed would quickly become
+extinct. There was no measure to the lamentations over the ruin of that
+great institution of English life--the stage-coach, with its gallant
+driver and guard, and spanking team.
+
+The extension of the railway system is one of the wonders of our time.
+The few score miles of railroad planted in 1825 have put forth offshoots
+and branches, till now a mighty net-work of some ten thousand miles in
+all, is spread over the three kingdoms, with many fresh shoots in bud.
+Up to the end of 1834, when not a hundred miles of railway were open,
+the annual average of travellers by coach was some six millions a year;
+ten years afterwards there were more than four times that number, and
+to-day the annual average is more than a hundred millions! The number of
+persons employed upon the working railroads of the United Kingdom amount
+to about one hundred and thirty thousand, while nearly half as many find
+employment in the construction of new lines.
+
+A few facts, stated by the late Mr. Robert Stephenson, illustrate in a
+very striking manner the gigantic proportion of the railway system of
+Great Britain:--The railway has pierced the earth with tunnels to the
+extent of more than fifty miles, and there are about twelve miles of
+viaducts in the vicinity of London alone. The earthworks which have been
+thrown up would measure 550,000,000 cubic yards, beside which St. Paul's
+would shrink to a pigmy, for it would form a pyramid a mile and a half
+high, with a base larger than the whole of St. James's Park. Every
+moment four tons of coal flashes into steam twenty tons of water--as
+much water as would suffice to supply the domestic and other wants of a
+town the size of Liverpool, and as much coal as equals half the
+consumption of the metropolis. The wear and tear is so great that twenty
+thousand tons of iron have to be replaced annually, and three hundred
+thousand trees, or as much as five thousand acres could produce, have to
+be felled for sleepers.
+
+When George Stephenson was planning the Liverpool and Manchester line,
+the directors entreated him, when they went to Parliament, not to talk
+of going at a faster rate than ten miles an hour, or he "would put a
+cross on the concern." George was sanguine, however, and spoke of
+fifteen miles an hour, to the astonishment of the committee, who began
+to think him crazy. The average speed is now twenty-five miles an hour,
+and a mile a minute can be done, if need be. The wind is hard pushed to
+keep ahead of a good engine at its fullest speed.[C] The express trains
+on the "broad gauge" of the Great Western travel at the rate of
+fifty-one miles an hour, or forty-three, including stoppages. To attain
+this rate, a speed of sixty miles an hour is adopted midway between some
+of the stations, and even seventy miles an hour have been reached in
+certain experimental trips. The engines on this line can draw a
+passenger-train weighing one hundred and twenty tons at a speed of sixty
+miles an hour, the engine and tender themselves weighing an additional
+fifty-two tons. The ordinary luggage-trains weigh some six hundred tons
+each. The locomotive, however, goes on the principle that the labourer
+is worthy of his hire; if it works hard, it eats voraciously. At
+ordinary mail speed the engine consumes about twenty lbs. of coke per
+mile; so that, costing £2500 to begin with, and spending an allowance of
+£2000 a year--as much as an under-secretary of state--the locomotive is
+rather an extravagant customer--only, it works very hard for the money,
+and earns it over and over again. With all its strength and size, the
+locomotive is a much more delicate concern than would be supposed; the
+5416 different pieces of which it is composed must be put together as
+carefully as a watch, and, though guaranteed to go two years without a
+doctor, exacts the most devoted attention from its guardians to keep it
+in order.
+
+It would fill a volume of huge dimensions to dilate on all the phases of
+the social revolution which the modern railway has wrought in our own
+and other countries; how it is daily annihilating time and space, and
+making the Land's End and John o'Groat's House next door neighbours;
+rubbing down old prejudices and jealousies, both national and
+provincial, promoting commerce, developing manufacture, transforming
+poor little villages into flourishing towns, and industrious towns into
+mighty cities; carrying civilization into the heart of the jungle and
+the desert, and, with its twin-brother, the steam-ship, joining hands
+and hearts in peace and amity all the world over. After the wonders of
+the last thirty years, who can doubt that our children, at the close of
+the century, will regard us as little less backward than we now do our
+fathers at its dawn?
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] The wind is calculated to travel at the rate of eighty-two feet in a
+second; the pace of a steam-engine, at the rate of sixty miles an hour,
+would be rather more.
+
+
+
+
+The Lighthouse.
+
+
+  I.--THE EDDYSTONE.
+ II.--THE BELL ROCK.
+III.--THE SKERRYVORE.
+
+
+
+
+The Lighthouse.
+
+    "Far in the bosom of the deep,
+    O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep:
+    A ruddy gleam of changeful light,
+    Bound on the dusky brow of night;
+    The seaman bids my lustre hail,
+    And scorns to strike his timorous sail."--SCOTT.
+
+
+
+
+I.--THE EDDYSTONE.
+
+
+When worthy Mr. Phillips, the Liverpool Quaker, taking thought in what
+way he could best benefit his fellow-creatures, built the beacon on the
+Smalls Rock in 1772, he could hardly have made a happier selection of "a
+great good to serve and save humanity." There are few enterprises more
+heroic or beneficent than those connected with the construction and
+management of lighthouses. From first to last, from the rearing of the
+column on the rock to the monotonous, nightly vigil in attendance on the
+lamps--from the setting to the rising of the sun--the valour,
+intrepidity, and endurance, of all concerned are called into play, and
+the wild perils and stirring adventures they experience impart to the
+story of their labours a thrilling and romantic interest. In the case of
+the Smalls Lighthouse, for instance, Whiteside, the self-taught
+engineer, and his party of Cornish miners had no sooner landed, and got
+a long iron shaft worked a few feet into the rock, than a storm arose
+that drove away their cutter, and kept them clinging with the tenacity
+of despair to the half-fastened rod for three days and two nights, when
+the wind fell and the sea calmed, and they were rescued, rather dead
+than alive, numbed from their long immersion in the water, which rose
+almost to their necks, and exhausted from want of food. And after the
+lighthouse had been erected, the engineer and some of his men again
+found themselves, as a paper in a bottle they had cast into the sea
+revealed to those on shore, in a "most dangerous and distressed
+condition on the Smalls," cut off from the mainland by the stormy
+weather, without fuel, and almost at the end of their stock of food and
+water--in which alarming situation they had to remain some time before
+their friends could get out to their relief. Most sea-girt beacons have
+their own legends of similar perils and fortitude; and the narratives of
+the erection of the three great lighthouses of Eddystone, Inchcape, and
+Skerryvore, which may be selected as the types of the rest, are full of
+incidents as exciting as any "hair breadth 'scapes i' the imminent
+deadly breach."
+
+About fourteen miles south from Plymouth, and ten from the Ram's Head,
+on the Cornish coast, lies a perilous reef of rocks, against which the
+long rolling swell of the Atlantic waves dashes with appalling force,
+and breaks up into those swirling eddies from which the reef is
+named--the Eddystone. Upon these treacherous crags many a gallant vessel
+has foundered and gone down within sight of the shore it had scarcely
+quitted or was just about to reach; and situated in the midst of a much
+frequented track, the rapid succession of calamities at the Eddystone
+was not long in awakening men's minds to the necessity of some warning
+light. The exposure of the reef to the wild fury of the Atlantic, and
+the small extent of the surface of the chief rock, however, rendered the
+construction of a lighthouse in such a situation a work of great and (as
+it was long considered) insuperable difficulty. The project was long
+talked of before any one was found daring enough to attempt the task;
+and when at length in 1696 Henry Winstanley stepped forward to undertake
+it, he might have been thought of all others the very last from whose
+brain so serious a conception would have emanated. The great hobby of
+his life had been to fill his house at Littlebury, in Essex, with
+mechanical devices of the most absurd and fantastic kind. If a visitor,
+retiring to his bedroom, kicked aside an old slipper on the floor,
+purposely thrown in his way, up started a ghost of hideous form. If,
+startled at the sight, he fell back into an arm chair placed temptingly
+at hand, a pair of gigantic arms would instantly spring forth and clasp
+him a prisoner in their rude embrace. Tired of these disagreeable
+surprises, the astonished guest perhaps took refuge in the garden, and
+sought repose in a pleasant arbour by the side of a canal; but he had
+scarcely seated himself, when he found himself suddenly set adrift on
+the water, where he floated about till his whimsical host came to his
+relief. Such was the man who now entered upon one of the most formidable
+engineering enterprises in the world.
+
+Although Winstanley's lighthouse was but a slight affair compared with
+its successors, it occupied six years in the erection--the frequent
+rising of the sea over the rock, and the difficulty and danger of
+passing to and from it greatly retarding the operations, and rendering
+them practicable only during a short summer season. For ten or fourteen
+days after a storm had passed, and when all was calm elsewhere, the
+ground-swell from the Atlantic was often so heavy among these rocks that
+the waves sprang two hundred feet, and more, in the air, burying the
+works from sight. The first summer was spent in boring twelve holes in
+the rock, and fixing therein twelve large irons as a holdfast for the
+works that were to be reared. The next season saw the commencement of a
+round pillar, which was to form the steeple of the tower, as well as
+afford protection to the workmen while at their labours. When Winstanley
+bade farewell to the rock for that year, the tower had risen to the
+height of twelve feet; and resuming operations next spring, he built at
+it till it reached the height of eighty feet. Having got the apartments
+fit for occupation, and the lantern set up, Winstanley determined to
+take up his abode there with his men, in order that no time might be
+lost in going to and from the rock. The first night they spent on the
+rock a great storm arose, and for eleven days it was impossible to hold
+any communication with the shore. "Not being acquainted with the height
+of the sea's rising," writes the architect, "we were almost drowned with
+wet, and our provisions in as bad a condition, though we worked night
+and day as much as possible to make shelter for ourselves." The storm
+abating, they went on shore for a little repose; but soon returning, set
+to work again with undiminished energy.
+
+On the 14th November of the same year (1698), Winstanley lighted his
+lantern for the first time. A long spell of boisterous weather followed,
+and it was not till three days before Christmas that they were able to
+quit their desolate abode, being "almost at the last extremity for want
+of provisions; but by good Providence then two boats came with
+provisions and the family that was to take care of the light; and so
+ended this year's work."
+
+It was soon found that the sea rose to a much greater height than had
+been anticipated, the lantern, although sixty feet above the rock, being
+often "buried under water." Winstanley was, therefore, under the
+necessity of enlarging the tower and carrying it to a greater
+elevation. The fourth season, accordingly, was spent in encasing the
+tower with fresh outworks, and adding forty feet to its height. This
+proved too high for its strength to bear; and in the course of three
+years the winds and waves had made sad havoc in the unstable fabric.
+
+In November 1703, Winstanley went out to the rock himself, accompanied
+by his workmen, to institute the repairs. As he was putting off in the
+boat from Plymouth, a friend who had for some time before been watching
+the condition of the lighthouse with much anxiety, mentioned to him his
+suspicion that it was in a bad way, and could not last long. Winstanley,
+full of faith in the stability of his work, replied that "he only wished
+to be there in the greatest storm that ever blew under the face of the
+heavens, that he might see what effect it would have on his structure."
+And with these words he shoved off from the beach, and made for the
+rock.
+
+With the last gleams of daylight, before the night fell and shrouded it
+from view, the tower was seen rising proudly from the midst of the
+waters. Before the dawn it had disappeared for ever, and the waves were
+lashing fiercely round the bare bleak ledge of the fatal rock. Poor
+Winstanley had had his presumptuous wish only too fully realized. The
+storm of the 26th November was one of the most fearful that ever ravaged
+our shores. The whole coast suffered severely from its fury, and when
+the morning came, not a sign remained of the lighthouse, architect, or
+workmen, save a fragment of chain-cable wedged firmly into a crevice of
+the rock. The disappearance of the warning light was quickly followed by
+the wreck of a large homeward-bound man-of-war, and the loss of nearly
+all her crew, upon the rocks.
+
+This first Eddystone lighthouse was a strange, fantastic looking
+structure, deficient in every element of stability, and the wonder was
+not that it fell in pieces as it did, but that it was able to withstand
+so long the boisterous weather of the Channel. But if of little merit as
+an architect, Winstanley at least deserves respect, as Smeaton remarks,
+for the heroism he displayed in undertaking "a piece of work that before
+had been looked on as impossible."
+
+For four years the Eddystone remained bare and untenanted, till, in the
+summer of 1706, the erection of a new lighthouse was commenced under the
+superintendence of John Rudyerd, by profession a silk-mercer in Ludgate
+Hill, but by natural genius an engineer of considerable merit. With such
+skill and energy did he apply himself to the work, that before two
+summers were over his tower was completed, and its friendly light beamed
+over the troubled waters and sunken crags. Rudyerd's lighthouse was
+entirely of wood, weighted at the base by a few courses of mason work,
+and 92 feet in height. In form, it was a smooth, solid cone of elegant
+simplicity, unbroken by any of those ornamental outworks, which offered
+the wind and sea so many points to lay hold of, in Winstanley's
+whimsical pagoda. Smeaton speaks of Rudyerd's tower as a masterly
+performance; and had it not been destroyed by fire, forty-six years
+after its erection, there seems little reason to suppose it might not
+have been standing to this day,--although no doubt the ravages of the
+worm in the wood would have demanded frequent repairs. On the 2d
+December 1755, some fishermen who happened to be on the beach very early
+in the morning preparing their nets, were startled by the sight of
+volumes of smoke issuing from the lighthouse. They instantly gave the
+alarm, and a boat was quickly manned for the relief of the sufferers. It
+did not reach the rock till about ten o'clock, and the fire had then
+been raging for eight hours. It was first discovered by the light-keeper
+upon watch who, going into the lantern about two o'clock in the morning
+to snuff the candles, found the place filled with smoke. He opened the
+door of the lantern into the balcony, and a mass of flame immediately
+burst from the inside of the cupola. He lost no time in seizing the
+buckets of water kept at hand, and dashing them over the fire, but
+without effect. His two companions were asleep, and it was some time
+before they heard his shouts for assistance. When at length they did
+bestir themselves, all the water in the house was exhausted. The
+light-keeper--an old man in his ninety-fourth year--urged them to
+replenish the buckets from the sea; but the difficulty of lowering the
+buckets to such a depth, and their confusion and terror at the sudden
+catastrophe and their impending fate, destroyed their presence of mind,
+and rendered them quite powerless. The old man did his best to prevent
+the advance of the flames; but, exhausted by the unavailing labour, and
+severely injured by the melting lead from the roof, he had to desist. As
+the fire spread from point to point, with rapid strides descending from
+the summit to the base, the poor wretches fled before it, retreating
+from room to room, till at last they were driven to seek shelter from
+the blazing timbers and red hot bars, in a cleft of the rock. There they
+were found by their preservers, crouching together half dead with
+suffering and fright. It was with the greatest difficulty that they were
+got into the boat; and they had no sooner reached the shore than one of
+them, crazed by the terrors he had undergone, ran away, and was never
+heard of more. The old man lingered on for a few days in great agony,
+and died from the injuries he had received.
+
+Such was the fate of the second lighthouse on the Eddystone,--one
+element revenging, as it were, the conquest over another.
+
+In spite of the fatality which seemed to attend these lighthouses,
+the lessees of the Eddystone--for it was then in private hands, and
+did not come into the hands of the Trinity House till many years
+after--resolved to make another attempt; and this time they selected as
+the architect one of the ablest professional men of the day, and with
+sagacious liberality, adopted his advice to build it of stone and
+granite.
+
+Smeaton truly belonged to the class of heaven-born engineers. From his
+earliest years the bent of his genius unmistakably revealed itself.
+Before he was six years old, he one day terrified his parents by
+climbing to the top of a barn to fix up some contrivance he had put
+together, after the fashion of a windmill; and another time he
+constructed a pump that raised water, after watching some workmen
+sinking one. And as he grew older, his efforts took a more ambitious
+range, and were all equally remarkable for their originality and
+success. His father destined him for the bar; but his inclination for
+engineering was so irresistible, that he allowed him to resign all
+chance of the woolsack, and set up in business as a mathematical
+instrument maker. He gradually advanced to the profession of civil
+engineering,--which he was the first man in England to pursue, and which
+he may be said to have created.
+
+It was in 1756 he commenced the construction of the great work which may
+be regarded as the monument of his fame. Having decided that his
+lighthouse should be of stone, the next point to be settled was its
+form. His thoughts, he tells us in his book, instinctively reverted to
+the analogy between a lighthouse shaft and the trunk of a stately oak.
+He remarked the spreading roots taking a broad, firm grip of the soil,
+the rise of the swelling base, gradually lessening in girth in a
+graceful curve, till a preparation being required for the support of the
+spreading boughs, a renewed swelling of diameter takes place; and he
+held that cutting off the branches we have, in the trunk of an oak, a
+type of such a lighthouse column as is best adapted to resist the
+influence of the winds and waves. Whether or not Smeaton arrived at the
+form of his lighthouse, which has since become the model for all others,
+from this fanciful analogy, its appearance rising from the rock presents
+a strong resemblance to a noble tree stripped of its boughs and foliage.
+
+Smeaton commenced the undertaking by visiting the rock in the spring of
+1756, accurately measuring its very irregular surface, and in order to
+ensure exactness in his plans, making a model of it. In the summer of
+the same year he prepared the foundation by cutting the surface of the
+rock in regular steps or trenches, into which the blocks of stone were
+to be dovetailed. The first stone was laid in June 1757, and the last in
+August 1759. Of that period there were only 431 days when it was
+possible to stand on the rock, and so small a portion even of these was
+available for carrying on the work, that it is calculated the building
+in reality occupied but six weeks. The whole was completed without the
+slightest accident to any one; and so well were all the arrangements
+made, that not a minute was lost by confusion or delay amongst the
+workmen.
+
+The tower measures 86 feet in height, and 26 feet in diameter at the
+level of the first entire course, the diameter under the cornice being
+only 15 feet. The first twelve feet of the structure form a solid mass
+of masonry,--the blocks of stone being held together by means of stone
+joggles, dovetailed joints, and oaken tree-nails. All the floors of the
+edifice are arched; to counteract the possible outburst of which,
+Smeaton bound the courses of his stone work together by belts of iron
+chain, which, being set in grooves while in a heated state, by the
+application of hot lead, on cooling, of course, tightened their clasp on
+the tower. Throughout the whole work the greatest ingenuity is displayed
+in obtaining the greatest amount of resistance, and combining the two
+great principles of strength and weight,--technically speaking, cohesion
+and inertia.
+
+On the 16th October 1759, the warning light once more, after an interval
+of four years, shone forth over the troubled waters from the dangerous
+rock; but it was but a feeble illumination at the best, for it came from
+only a group of tallow candles. It was better than nothing, certainly;
+but the exhibition of a few glimmering candles was but a paltry
+conclusion to so stupendous an undertaking. For many years, however, no
+stronger light gleamed from the tower, till, in 1807, when it passed
+from the hands of private proprietors into the charge of the Trinity
+House, the mutton dips were supplanted by Argand burners, with silvered
+copper reflectors.
+
+Imperfect, however, as used to be the lighting apparatus, the Eddystone
+Beacon has always been a great boon to all those "that go down to the
+sea in great ships," and has robbed these perilous waters of much of
+their terror. We can readily sympathize with the exultation of the great
+engineer who reared it, when standing on the Hoe at Plymouth, he spent
+many an hour, with his telescope, watching the great swollen waves, in
+powerless fury, dash against his tower, and "fly up in a white column,
+enwrapping it like a sheet, rising at the least to double the height of
+the tower, and totally intercepting it from sight." It is now more than
+a hundred years since Smeaton's Lighthouse first rose upon the
+Eddystone; but, in spite of the many furious storms which have put its
+stability to rude and searching proof, it still lifts its head proudly
+over the waves, and shows no signs of failing strength.
+
+
+
+
+II.--THE BELL ROCK.
+
+
+The Inch Cape, or Bell Rock, is a long, narrow reef on the east coast of
+Scotland, at the mouth of the Frith of Tay, and some dozen of miles from
+the nearest land. At high water the whole ledge is buried out of sight;
+and even at the ebb the highest part of it is only three or four feet
+out of the water. In the days of old, as the tradition goes, one of the
+abbots of Arbroath, among many good works, exhibited his piety and
+humanity by placing upon a float attached to the perilous reef a large
+bell, so suspended as to be tolled by the rising and falling of the
+waves.
+
+    "On a buoy, in the storm it floated and swung,
+    And over the waves its warning rung."
+
+Many a storm-tossed mariner heard the friendly knell that warned him of
+the nearness of the fatal rock, and changed his course before it was too
+late, with blessings on the good old monk who had hung up the bell; but
+after some years, one of the pirates who infested the coast cut it down
+in wanton cruelty, and was one of the first who suffered from the loss.
+Not long after, he perished upon this very rock, which a dense fog
+shrouded from sight, and no bell gave timely warning of.
+
+    "And even in his dying fear,
+    One dreadful sound did the rover hear;
+    A sound as if with the Inch Cape Bell,
+    The devil below was ringing his knell."
+
+After the lapse of many years, two attempts were made to raise a beacon
+of spars upon the rock; but one after the other they fell a prey to the
+angry waves, and were hardly set up before they disappeared. It was not
+till the beginning of the century that the Commissioners of Northern
+Lighthouses took up the idea of erecting a lighthouse on this reef, the
+most dangerous on all the coast. Several years elapsed before they got
+the sanction of Parliament to the undertaking, and 1807 arrived before
+it was actually entered upon.
+
+Mr. Robert Stevenson, to whom the work was intrusted as engineer, had
+from a very early age been employed in connection with lighthouses. He
+went almost directly from school to the office of Mr. Thomas Smith of
+Edinburgh, and when that gentleman was appointed engineer to the
+Northern Lighthouse Commissioners, became his assistant, and afterwards
+successor. When only nineteen, Mr. Stevenson superintended the
+construction of the lighthouse on the island of Little Cumbray; and
+during the time he was engineer to the Commissioners, which post he held
+till 1842, he erected no fewer than forty-two lighthouses, and
+introduced a great many valuable improvements into the system. His
+reputation, however, will be chiefly perpetuated as the architect of the
+Bell Rock Lighthouse.
+
+On the 17th August 1807, Mr. Stevenson and his men landed on the rock,
+to the astonishment and discomposure of the seals who had, from time
+immemorial, been in undisturbed possession of it, and now floundered off
+into the water on the approach of the usurpers. The workmen at once set
+about preparing the rock for the erection of a temporary pyramid on
+which a barrack-house was to be placed for the reception of the workmen.
+They could only work on the rock for a few hours at spring-tide. As soon
+as the flood-tide began to rise around them, putting out the fire of the
+smith's forge, and gradually covering the rock, they had to gather up
+their tools and retreat to a floating barrack moored at a considerable
+distance, in order to reach which they had to row in small boats to the
+tender, by which they were then conveyed to their quarters. The
+operations of this first season were particularly trying to the men, on
+account of their having to row backwards and forwards between the rock
+and the tender at every tide, which in rough weather was a very heavy
+pull, and having often after that to work on the rock knee deep in
+water, only quitting it for the boats when absolutely compelled by the
+swelling waves. Sometimes the sea would be so fierce for days together
+that no boat could live in it, and the men had, therefore, to remain
+cooped up wearily on board the floating barrack.
+
+One day in September, when the engineer and thirty-one men were on the
+rock, the tender broke from its moorings, and began to drift away from
+the rock, just as the tide was rising. Mr. Stevenson, perched on an
+eminence above the rest, surveying them at their labours, was the first,
+and for a while, the men being all intent on their work, the only one,
+who observed what had happened. He said nothing, but went to the
+highest point of the rock, and kept an anxious watch on the progress of
+the vessel and the rising of the sea. First the men on the lower tier of
+the works, then by degrees those above them, struck work on the approach
+of the water. They gathered up their tools and made towards the spot
+where the boats were moored, to get their jackets and stockings and
+prepare for quitting the rock. What their feelings were when they found
+only a couple of boats there, and the tender drifting off with the other
+in tow, may be conceived. All the peril of their situation must have
+flashed across their minds as they looked across the raging sea, and saw
+the distance between the tender and the rock increasing every moment,
+while all around them the water rose higher and higher. In another hour,
+the waves would be rolling twelve feet and more above the crag on which
+they stood, and all hope of the tender being able to work round to them
+was being quickly dissipated. They watched the fleeting vessel and the
+rising tide, and their hearts sank within them, but not a word was
+uttered. They stood silently counting their numbers and calculating the
+capacity of the boats; and then they turned their eyes upon their
+trusted leader, as if their last hope lay in his counsel. Stevenson
+never forgot the appalling solemnity of the moment. One chance, and but
+a slender one, of escape alone occurred to him. It was that, stripping
+themselves of their clothes, and divesting the two boats, as much as
+possible, of everything that weighted and encumbered them, so many men
+should take their seats in the boats, while the others hung on by the
+gunwales; and that they should then work their way, as best they could,
+towards either the tender or the floating barrack. Stevenson was about
+to explain this to his men, but found that all power of speech had left
+him. The anxiety of that dreadful moment had parched his throat, and his
+tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He stooped to one of the little
+pools at his feet to moisten his fevered lips with the salt water.
+Suddenly a shout was raised, "A boat! A boat!" and through the haze a
+large pilot boat could dimly be discerned making towards the rock. The
+pilot had observed the _Smeaton_ drifting off, and, guessing at once the
+critical position of the workmen on the rock, had hastened to their
+relief.
+
+Next morning when the bell sounded on board the barrack for the return
+to the rock, only eight out of the twenty-six workmen, beside the
+foreman and seamen, made their appearance on deck to accompany their
+leader. Mr. Stevenson saw it would be useless to argue with them then.
+So he made no remark, and proceeded with the eight willing workmen to
+the rock, where they spent four hours at work. On returning to the
+barrack, the eighteen men who had remained on board appeared quite
+ashamed of their cowardice; and without a word being said to them, were
+the first to take their places in the boats when the bell rang again in
+the afternoon.
+
+At length the barrack was completed, and the men were then relieved from
+the toil of rowing backwards and forwards between the tender and the
+rock, as well as from the constant sickness which tormented them on
+board the floating barrack. They were now able to prolong their labours,
+when the tide permitted, into the night. At such times the rock assumed
+a singularly picturesque and romantic aspect--its surface crowded with
+men in all variety of attitudes, the two forges and numerous torches
+lighting up the scene, and throwing a lurid gleam across the waters, and
+the loud dong of the anvils mingling with the dashing of the breakers.
+
+On the 18th July 1808, the site having been properly excavated, the
+first stone of the lighthouse was laid by the Duke of Argyle; and by the
+end of the second season some five or six feet of building had been
+erected, and were left to the mercy of the waves till the ensuing
+spring. The third season's operations raised the masonry to a height of
+thirty feet above the sea, and the fourth season saw the completion of
+the tower. On the first night in February of the succeeding year (1811)
+the lamp was lit, and beamed forth across the waters.
+
+The Bell Rock Tower is 100 feet in height, 42 feet in diameter at the
+base, and 15 feet at the top. The door is 30 feet from the base, and the
+ascent is by a massive bronze ladder. The "light" is revolving, and
+presents a white and red light alternately, by means of shades of red
+glass arranged in a frame. The machinery which causes the revolution of
+the lamp is also applied to the tolling of two large bells, in order to
+give warning to the mariner of his approach to the rock in foggy
+weather, thus reviving the traditional practice from which the rock
+takes its name.
+
+
+
+
+III.--THE SKERRYVORE.
+
+
+"Having crept upon deck about four in the morning, I find we are beating
+to windward off the Isle of Tyree, with the determination on the part of
+Mr. Stevenson that his constituents should visit a reef of rocks called
+Skerry Vhor, where he thought it would be essential to have a
+lighthouse. Loud remonstrances on the part of the commissioners, who one
+and all declare they will subscribe to his opinion, whatever it may be,
+rather than continue this dreadful buffeting. Quiet perseverance on the
+part of Mr. Stevenson, and great kicking, bouncing, and squabbling upon
+that of the yacht, who seems to like the idea of Skerry Vhor as little
+as the commissioners. At length, by dint of exertion, came in sight of
+this long range of rocks (chiefly under water), on which the tide breaks
+in a most tremendous style. There appear a few low broad rocks at one
+end of the reef which is about a mile in length. These are never
+entirely under water, though the surf dashes over them. We took
+possession of it in the name of the commissioners, and generously
+bestowed our own great names on its crags and creeks. The rock was
+carefully measured by Mr. Stevenson. It will be a most desolate position
+for a lighthouse--the Bell Rock and Eddystone a joke to it, for the
+nearest land is the wild island of Tyree, at 14 miles distance."
+
+Such is an entry in the diary of Sir Walter Scott's Yacht Tour, on the
+27th August 1814; but although the necessity of a lighthouse on the
+Skerry Vhor, or, as it is now generally called, Skerryvore, was fully
+acknowledged by the authorities, it was not till twenty-four years
+afterwards that the undertaking was actually commenced, under the
+superintendence of Mr. Alan Stevenson, the son of the eminent engineer
+who erected the Bell Rock Lighthouse.
+
+In the execution of this great work, if the son had, as compared with
+his father, certain advantages in his favour, he had also various
+disadvantages to contend with at Skerryvore from which the engineer of
+the Bell Rock was free. Mr. Alan Stevenson had steam power at his
+command, and the benefit of all the experience derived from the
+experiments of his predecessors in similar operations; but at the same
+time, the rock on which he had to work was at a greater distance from
+the land, and separated from it by a more dangerous passage than that of
+either the Bell or the Eddystone; and the geological formation of which
+the rock is composed, was much more difficult to work upon. The
+Skerryvore is distant from Tyree, the nearest inhabited island, about 11
+miles; even in fine weather the intervening passage is a trying one, and
+in rough weather no ship can live in such a sea, studded as it is with
+treacherous rocks. The sandstone of the Bell Rock is worn into rugged
+inequalities, which favoured the operations of the engineer; but the
+action of the waves on the igneous formation of the Skerryvore has given
+it all the smoothness and slippery polish of a mass of dark coloured
+glass. Indeed, the foreman of the masons, on first visiting the rock,
+not unjustly compared the operation of ascending it to that of "climbing
+up the neck of a bottle."
+
+The 7th August 1838 was the first day of entire work on the rock, and
+with succeeding ones was spent in the erection of a temporary barrack of
+wood, for the men to lodge in on the rock. It was completed before the
+season closed; but one of the first heavy gales in November wrenched it
+from its holdings, and swept it into the sea, leaving nothing to mark
+the site but a few broken and twisted stanchions, attached to one of
+which was a portion of a great beam which had been shaken and rent, by
+dashing against the rocks, into a bundle of ribands. Thus in one night
+were obliterated the results of a whole season's toil, and with them,
+the hopes the men cherished of having a dwelling on the rock, instead of
+on board the brig, where they suffered intensely from the miseries of
+constant sickness.
+
+The excavation of the foundations occupied the whole of the summer
+season of 1839, from the 6th May to the 3d September. The hard,
+nitrified rock held out stoutly against the assaults of both iron and
+gunpowder; and much time was spent in hollowing out the basin in which
+the lighthouse was to be fixed. From the limited extent of the rock and
+the absence of any place of shelter, the blasting was an operation of
+considerable danger, as the men had no place to run to, and it had to be
+managed with great caution. Only a small portion of the rock could be
+blown up at a time, and care had to be taken to cover the part over with
+mats and nettings made of old rope to check the flight of the stones.
+The excavation of the flinty mass occupied nearly two summers.
+
+The operations of 1840 included, much to the delight of the workmen, the
+reconstruction of the barrack, to which they were glad to remove from
+the tossing vessel. The second edifice was more substantial than the
+first, and proved more enduring. Rude and narrow as it was, it offered,
+after the discomforts of the vessel, almost a luxurious lodging to its
+hardy inmates.
+
+"Packed 40 feet above the weather-beaten rock, in this singular abode,"
+writes the engineer, Mr. Alan Stevenson, "with a goodly company of
+thirty men, I have spent many a weary day and night, at those times
+when the sea prevented any one going down to the rock, anxiously looking
+for supplies from the shore, and earnestly longing for a change of
+weather favourable to the recommencement of the works. For miles around
+nothing could be seen but white foaming breakers, and nothing heard but
+howling winds and lashing waves. Our slumbers, too, were at times
+fearfully interrupted by the sudden pouring of the sea over the roof,
+the rocking of the house on its pillars, and the spurting of water
+through the seams of the doors and windows; symptoms which, to one
+suddenly aroused from sound sleep, recalled the appalling fate of the
+former barrack, which had been engulphed in the foam not twenty yards
+from our dwelling, and for a moment seemed to summon us to a similar
+fate. On two occasions in particular, these sensations were so vivid as
+to cause almost every one to spring out of bed; and some of the men fled
+from the barrack by a temporary gangway to the more stable, but less
+comfortable shelter afforded by the bare walls of the lighthouse tower,
+then unfinished, where they spent the remainder of the night in the
+darkness and the cold."
+
+In spite of their anxiety to get on with the work, and their intrepidity
+in availing themselves of every opportunity, these gallant men were
+often forced by stress of weather into an inactivity which we may be
+sure they felt sadly irksome and against the grain. "At such seasons,"
+says Mr. Stevenson, "much of our time was spent in bed, for there alone
+we had effectual shelter from the winds and the spray which reached
+every cranny in the walls of our barrack." On one occasion they were for
+fourteen days without communication with the shore, and when at length
+the seas subsided, and they were able to make the signal to Tyree that a
+landing at the rock was practicable, scarcely twenty-four hours' stock
+of provisions remained on the rock. In spite of hardships and perils,
+however, the engineer declares that "life on the Skerryvore Rock was by
+no means destitute of its peculiar pleasures. The grandeur of the
+ocean's rage--the deep murmur of the waves--the hoarse cry of the sea
+birds, which wheeled continually over us, especially at our meals--the
+low moaning of the wind--or the gorgeous brightness of a glossy sea and
+a cloudless sky--and the solemn stillness of a deep blue vault, studded
+with stars, or cheered by the splendours of the full moon,--were the
+phases of external things that often arrested our thoughts in a
+situation where, with all the bustle that sometimes prevailed, there was
+necessarily so much time for reflection. Those changes, together with
+the continual succession of hopes and fears connected with the important
+work in which we were engaged, and the oft recurring calls for advice or
+direction, as well as occasional hours devoted to reading and
+correspondence, and the pleasures of news from home, were more than
+sufficient to reconcile me to--nay, to make me really enjoy--an
+uninterrupted residence, on one occasion, of not less than five weeks on
+that desert rock."
+
+The Skerryvore Lighthouse was at length successfully completed. The
+height of the tower is 138 feet 6 inches, of which the first 26 feet is
+solid. It contains a mass of stone work of more than double the quantity
+of the Bell Rock, and nearly five times that of the Eddystone. The
+entire cost, including steam tug and the building of a small harbour at
+Hynish for the reception of the little vessel that now attends the
+lighthouse, was £86,977. The light is revolving, and reaches its
+brightest state once every minute. It is produced by the revolution of
+eight great annular lenses around a central light, with four wicks, and
+can be seen from the deck of a vessel at the distance of 18 miles. Mr.
+Alan Stevenson sums up his deeply interesting narrative in the following
+words: "In such a situation as the Skerryvore, innumerable delays and
+disappointments were to be expected by those engaged in the work; and
+the entire loss of the fruit of the first season's labour in the course
+of a few hours, was a good lesson in the school of patience, and of
+trust in something better than an arm of flesh. During our progress,
+also, cranes and other materials were swept away by the waves; vessels
+were driven by sudden gales to seek shelter at a distance from the rocky
+shores of Mull and Tyree; and the workmen were left on the rock
+desponding and idle, and destitute of many of the comforts with which a
+more roomy and sheltered dwelling, in the neighbourhood of friends, is
+generally connected. Daily risks were run in landing on the rock in a
+heavy surf, in blasting the splintery gneiss, or by the falling of heavy
+bodies from the tower on a narrow space below, to which so many persons
+were necessarily confined. Yet had we not any loss of either life or
+limb; and although our labours were prolonged from dawn to night, and
+our provisions were chiefly salt, the health of the people, with the
+exception of a few slight cases of dysentery, was generally good
+throughout the six successive summers of our sojourn on the rock. The
+close of the work was welcomed with thankfulness by all engaged in it;
+and our remarkable preservation was viewed, even by many of the most
+thoughtless, as, in a peculiar manner, the gracious work of Him by whom
+the very hairs of our heads are all numbered!"
+
+
+
+
+Steam Navigation.
+
+
+  I.--JAMES SYMINGTON.
+ II.--ROBERT FULTON.
+III.--HENRY BELL.
+ IV.--OCEAN STEAMERS.
+
+
+
+
+Steam Navigation.
+
+
+
+
+I.--JAMES SYMINGTON.
+
+
+Of the many triumphs of enterprise achieved by the agency of that
+tremendous power which James Watt tamed and put in harness for his race,
+perhaps the greatest and most momentous is that which has reversed the
+old proverb, that "time and tide wait for no man," given ten-fold
+meaning to the truth that "seas but join the regions they divide," and
+enabled our ships to dash across the trackless deep in spite of opposing
+elements,--
+
+    "Against wind, against tide,
+    Steadying with upright keel,"
+
+in a fraction of the time, and with a fraction of the cost and peril of
+the old mode of naval locomotion. How amply realized has been James
+Bell's prediction more than half a century ago, "I will venture to
+affirm that history does not afford an instance of such rapid
+improvement in commerce and civilization, as that which will be effected
+by steam vessels!"
+
+Towards the close of the last century, a number of ingenious minds were
+in travail with the scheme of steam navigation. The Marquis de Jouffroy
+in France, and Fitch and Rumsey in America, were successful in
+experiments of its feasibility; but it is to the efforts of Miller and
+Symington in Scotland, followed up by those of Fulton and Bell, that we
+are chiefly and more immediately indebted for the practical development
+of the project.
+
+Having a natural bent for mechanical contrivances, and abundance of
+leisure and money to indulge his tastes, Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, in
+Dumfriesshire, somewhere about the year 1785, was full of schemes for
+driving ships by means of paddle-wheels,--by no means a novel idea, for
+it was known to the Romans, if not to the Egyptians, and had often been
+tried before.
+
+All he aimed at originally was, to turn the wheels by the power of men
+or horses; and this he managed to do successfully enough. Single,
+double, and treble boats were often to be seen driving along Dalswinton
+Lake, moved by paddle-wheels instead of oars. On one occasion, at Leith,
+one of the double boats, sixty feet long, propelled by two wheels, each
+of which was turned by a couple of men, was matched against a
+Custom-house boat, which was reckoned a fast sailer. The paddle-wheels
+did duty very well; but the men were soon knocked up with turning them,
+and the want of some other motive power was strongly felt. A young man
+named Taylor, who was tutor to Mr. Miller's boys, is said to have
+suggested the use of steam; but whether this be so or not, it was not
+till Miller met with James Symington that the idea assumed a practical
+form.
+
+In 1786 James Symington, then joint-engineer with his brother George, to
+the Wanlockhead Mines, was struck with the idea which, as we have seen,
+several other ingenious minds were also busy with about the same
+time,--of rendering the steam-engine available for locomotion both on
+land and sea. After much study and reflection, he succeeded in embodying
+the idea in a working model. It was supported on four wheels, which were
+moved in any direction by means of a small steam-engine, and could carry
+16 cwt., besides coals, water, &c. It was exhibited in Edinburgh in the
+summer of 1786, and made a considerable sensation. Mr. Miller, fond of
+all such inventions, did not fail to get a sight of Symington's
+locomotive engine, the first time he was in town. He was delighted with
+its ingenuity and completeness, and procured an interview with the
+author. Of course, Miller was full of his own experiments, and told
+Symington the whole story of his efforts to propel vessels by
+paddle-wheels, and the want of some stronger, and more constant power
+than that of men to turn the capstan, upon which the motion of the
+wheels depended. Symington at once expressed the opinion he had
+formed,--that steam was equally available for vessels as for carriages,
+and showed him how the steam-engine which he had devised for his
+locomotive could be applied to the paddle-wheels. Miller was so much
+struck by his statements, which he illustrated by reference to the
+model, that he determined to have an engine made on the same plan, and
+fitted into one of his double boats. Accordingly, an engine was built
+under Symington's directions and superintendence, sent to Dalswinton,
+and put together in October 1788. The engine, in a strong oak frame, was
+placed in the one half of a double pleasure-boat, the boiler occupying
+the other half, and the paddle-wheels being fixed in the middle.
+
+The autumn was withering into winter, the yellow leaves were swirling to
+the ground with every little breath of wind, and the boughs were
+beginning to show forth bare and grim, when the little boat was launched
+upon the bosom of Dalswinton Loch. At length all the preparations were
+finished, and on the 14th November Mr. Miller had the delight of seeing
+the vessel gliding over the mimic waves of the lake at the rate of five
+miles an hour. The company on board the boat on that memorable occasion
+were--Mr. Miller himself, of course, nervous with pleasure and
+exultation; Taylor, the tutor; Alexander Nasmyth (the well-known
+landscape painter, and father of the man who, in the next generation,
+was to invent the wonderful steam-hammer, that knocks masses of iron
+about like putty, and can yet so moderate its force as to crack a nut
+without bruising the kernel); a brisk stripling with strongly marked
+features, by name Harry Brougham, afterwards to be Lord Chancellor of
+England, and perhaps the most many-sided genius of his time; and--last
+and greatest of the group--there was one of Mr. Miller's tenants, the
+farmer of Ellisland,--Robert Burns, the great bard of Scotland, enjoying
+to the full, no doubt, the novelty of the expedition, but, we must
+suppose, unconscious of its import and grand future consequences, since
+he has accorded it no commemorative verse. "Many a time," says Mr. James
+Nasmyth, son of the distinguished painter, "I have heard my father
+describe the delight which this first and successful essay at steam
+navigation yielded the party in question. I only wish Burns had
+immortalized it in fit, clinking rhyme, for, indeed, it was a subject
+worthy of his highest muse."
+
+The experiment was next tried on a large scale with a canal boat, on the
+Forth and Clyde Canal, but one of the wheels broke. Not to be balked,
+Symington had stronger wheels made, and the next time the steam was put
+on, the vessel went off at the rate of seven miles an hour. The
+experiment was several times repeated with success. The vessel, however,
+was so slight, that many more trips would have knocked it to pieces; and
+it was therefore dismantled. The fitting up of these vessels, and the
+working of them, formed a heavy drain upon Mr. Miller's purse; and
+having laid satisfactory proof before the world that the thing could be
+done, he relinquished the enterprise, and left it to be worked out by
+others. Just then, however, no one came forward to fill his place; and
+for some years the idea slumbered.
+
+In 1801 Symington could not afford to indulge in further efforts at his
+own expense, but he found a patron in Lord Dundas, who commissioned him
+to construct a steam-tug for dragging canal boats. A stout, serviceable
+tug was built; and a series of experiments entered upon to test her
+efficiency, which cost upwards of £3000. One bleak, stormy spring-day in
+1802, the people on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal might have
+been seen staring with wonder, at the short, stumpy little tug pushing
+gallantly on at the rate of three or four miles an hour, with a strong
+wind right in her teeth, that no other vessel could make head against,
+and two loaded vessels (each of more than 70 tons burden) in tow. By
+itself, the tug could do six miles an hour without any great strain. The
+company made some objection, however, about the banks of the canal being
+injured, and the tug fell into disuse. It served an important end,
+though, in giving both Fulton and Bell a basis for their operations, and
+must be considered the parent of our modern steam-craft.
+
+
+
+
+II.--ROBERT FULTON.
+
+
+After Dr. Cartwright, the inventor of the power-loom, had retired
+penniless from his manufacturing enterprises, and had taken up his abode
+in London, one of the constant visitors at his modest residence in
+Marylebone Fields, was a thin, sharp-featured American, about
+twenty-eight years of age, an artist by profession, and formerly student
+of Benjamin West, who, however, was now much more interested in the art
+of engineering than the art of painting. From an early age he had shown
+a taste for mechanics, and was fond of spending his play-hours at school
+loitering about workshops and factories, watching the men at their work,
+and studying the machines and instruments they used. This sojourn in
+England had brought him into contact with the Duke of Bridgewater, the
+great canal projector, and Lord Stanhope, well known for his
+improvements in the printing press and other contrivances, in whose
+company his boyish bent towards mechanics was revived, and became quite
+a passion with him. He threw aside his brushes and palette, and applied
+himself to his favourite pursuit with heart and soul. Having formed the
+acquaintance of Cartwright, he became a daily visitor at his house, and
+the enthusiastic, good-natured doctor and he would sit debating for
+hours the great problem: "Whether it were practicable to move vessels by
+steam?" Fulton, eager, restless, vivacious, with pencil in hand, was
+perpetually sketching plans of paddle-wheels; while the doctor, calm,
+dignified, and earnest, equally engrossed in the subject, was contriving
+various modes of bringing steam to act upon them. Neither of them had
+any doubt that the thing could be done, but the "how" long baffled them;
+and even though the doctor constructed "the model of a boat, which,
+being wound up like a clock, moved on the water in a highly satisfactory
+manner," nothing practical came of their cogitations till some years
+after.
+
+While on a visit to Paris, Fulton was struck with the injury which
+standing navies of men-of-war inflicted on the mercantile marine, and
+gave his whole attention, as he says, "to find out the means of
+destroying such engines of oppression, by some method which would put it
+out of the power of any nation to maintain such a system, and compel
+every government to adopt the simple principles of education, industry,
+and a free circulation of its produce." The means presented itself to
+his mind in the shape of an explosive shell, called the torpedo, by
+which any ship of war could be blown to pieces; and for six or seven
+years he occupied himself in fruitless attempts to get first the
+government of France, and then that of England, to take up his project.
+He did not abandon his schemes with regard to steam-vessels, however;
+but, under the auspices of Mr. Livingstone, the American ambassador,
+made several experiments. One vessel of considerable size broke through
+the middle when the engines were placed on board, but a second one was
+rather more successful, though but a slow rate of movement was attained.
+His project came under the notice of Napoleon, then First Consul, who
+did not fail to appreciate its value. "It was," he said, "capable of
+changing the face of the world;" and he directed a commission to inquire
+into its merits. Nothing came of it, however.
+
+Shortly after, Fulton visited Scotland, and got an introduction to
+Symington, whom he pressed for a sight of his boat. Symington generously
+consented, and gave him a short sail on board the steam-tug. Fulton made
+no concealment of his intention of starting steamboats in his own
+country, whither he was about to return, and asked Symington to allow
+him to make a few notes of his observations on board. Symington had no
+objections; and, therefore, he says, "Fulton pulled out a memorandum
+book, and after putting several pointed questions respecting the general
+construction and effect of the machine, which I answered in a most
+explicit manner, he jotted down particularly everything then described,
+with his own remarks upon the boat while moving with him on board along
+the canal." Fulton was very liberal in his promises not to forget his
+assistance, if he got steamboats established in America; but Symington
+never heard anything more of him.
+
+Fulton was at New York in 1806, and busy getting a steamboat put
+together. It was a costly undertaking, and he had little spare cash of
+his own; so he offered shares in the concern to his friends, but no one
+would have anything to do with so ridiculous a scheme, as they thought.
+"My friends," says Fulton, "were civil, but shy. They listened with
+patience to my explanations, but with a settled cast of incredulity on
+their countenances. I felt the full force of the lamentation of the
+poet,--
+
+    'Truths would you teach, to save a sinking land,
+    All shun, none aid you, and few understand.'
+
+As I had occasion to pass daily to and from the building-yard while my
+boat was in progress, I have often loitered, unknown, near the idle
+groups of strangers, gathering in little circles, and heard various
+inquiries as to the object of this new vehicle. The language was
+uniformly that of scorn, sneer, or ridicule. The loud laugh rose at my
+expense, the dry jest, the wise calculation of losses and expenditure,
+the dull, but endless repetition of 'the Fulton Folly.' Never did a
+single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or a warm wish, cross my
+path."
+
+Let them laugh that win. The success which shortly attended Fulton's
+scheme turned the tables upon those who had mocked at him. The
+_Clermont_ was completed in August 1807, and the day arrived when the
+trial was to be made on the Hudson river. "To me," wrote Fulton, "it was
+a most trying and interesting occasion. I wanted some friends to go on
+board to witness the first successful trip. Many of them did me the
+favour to attend as a mark of personal respect; but it was manifest they
+did it with reluctance, fearing to be partners of my mortification, and
+not of my triumph. The moment arrived in which the word was to be given
+for the vessel to move. My friends were in groups on the deck. There was
+anxiety mixed with fear among them. They were silent, sad, and weary. I
+read in their looks nothing but disaster, and almost repented of my
+efforts. The signal was given, and the boat moved on a short distance,
+and then stopped and became immovable. To the silence of the preceding
+moment now succeeded murmurs of discontent and agitation, and whispers
+and shrugs. I could hear distinctly repeated--'I told you so; it is a
+foolish scheme; I wish we were well out of it.' I elevated myself on a
+platform, and stated that I knew not what was the matter; but if they
+would be quiet, and indulge me for half an hour, I would either go on or
+abandon the voyage. I went below, and discovered that a slight
+misadjustment was the cause. It was obviated. The boat went on; we left
+New York; we passed through the Highlands; we reached Albany! Yet even
+their imagination superseded the force of fact. It was doubted if it
+could be done again, or if it could be made, in any case, of any great
+value."
+
+The simple-minded country folk on the banks of the Hudson were almost
+frightened out of their wits at the awful apparition which they saw
+gliding along the river, and which, especially when seen indistinctly
+looming through the night, looked to their bewildered eyes, "a monster
+moving on the water, defying the winds and tide, and breathing flames
+and smoke." Pine-wood was used for fuel, and whenever the fire was
+stirred, a great burst of sparks issued from the chimney. "This uncommon
+light," says Colden, the biographer of Fulton, "first attracted the
+attention of the crews of other vessels. Notwithstanding the wind and
+tide were adverse to its approach, they saw with astonishment that it
+was rapidly coming towards them; and when it came so near that the noise
+of the machinery and paddles were heard, the crews in some instances
+shrunk beneath their decks from the terrific sight, and others left
+their vessels to go on shore; while others, again, prostrated
+themselves, and besought Providence to protect them from the approach of
+the horrible monster which was marching on the tides, and lighting its
+path by the fires which it vomited."
+
+With the novelty of the spectacle its terror died away, and people soon
+got tired of rushing out to see the remarkable machine that had once
+seemed so miraculous to them. The _Clermont_ soon began to travel
+regularly as a passage-boat between Albany and New York, other
+steam-vessels were constructed on its model, and by degrees the steam
+marine of America grew into the host it is at present. Thirty years
+after the first experiment on the Hudson, it was calculated 1300
+steamboats had been built in the States.
+
+Fulton did not live long to enjoy his triumphs. He died in 1815, having
+been actively engaged in promoting steam navigation to his last hours.
+
+
+
+
+III.--HENRY BELL.
+
+
+The honour which in America attached to Fulton as the man who first
+brought the steamboat into use, and to the River Hudson as being the
+scene of the experiment, in our own country fell (in a somewhat less
+degree, being subsequent), to Henry Bell, and the River Clyde.
+
+Brought up as a millwright, Bell, from want of funds to start in
+business, was obliged for many years to gain his living as a common
+carpenter in Glasgow, where he was noted among the trade as being very
+fond of "schemes," and suspected on that account by narrow-minded folk
+of being not very reliable in the lower branches of his craft. Scheme
+after scheme issued from his fertile mind; but he was rash and hasty in
+working them out, and few proved of much worth. Steam navigation being
+one of the vexed problems of the time, had every fascination for his
+peculiar genius; and he seems to have been brooding over it as the last
+century was closing, and the present opening upon the world. When Fulton
+visited Symington's invention, Bell appears to have accompanied him, and
+to have afterwards corresponded with him on the subject. "This," he
+says, "led me to think of the absurdity of writing my opinions to other
+countries, and not putting it in practice myself in my own country; and
+from these considerations I was roused to set on foot a steamboat, for
+which I made a number of different models before I was satisfied."
+Having removed to the little village of Helensburgh, on the banks of the
+Clyde, and there established a hotel and bath-house, which his wife
+managed, he endeavoured to work the passage-boats by which visitors were
+brought to the place, by means of paddle-wheels worked by the hand,
+instead of oars; but the plan did not succeed very well, for the same
+reason that led to Mr. Miller's abandonment of it--the inefficiency of
+manual power, which could not be applied with sufficiently sustained and
+continuous force. He therefore gave it up, and turned his attention to
+the employment of steam power for the same purpose. Of course, he was
+laughed at for his pains; and Henry Bell's project for having steamers
+on the Clyde became a standing joke among the frequenters of the
+watering-place. Even after the permanent success of Fulton's scheme was
+known, people would not moderate their incredulity; but Bell's faith,
+which had never wavered, was now confirmed, and he set about the work
+with redoubled energy.
+
+In 1811, Bell, having procured the necessary funds, had a steam-boat
+built of twenty-five tons and four horse power. He named it the _Comet_,
+because a comet had just then appeared in the north-west of Scotland.
+The _Comet_ began to run regularly between Glasgow and Helensburgh in
+January 1812, and continued to ply successfully during the summer of
+that year. At first, however, she brought rather loss than gain to her
+projector. People were shy of trusting themselves on board, and parties
+interested in the stage-coaches and sailing vessels, spread all sorts of
+absurd reports about her. It was not till she had gone for some time
+without accident, that tourists began to think they might as well save
+their money and their time by patronizing the new mode of conveyance. In
+the second year Bell took the _Comet_ off the Clyde, and sent her on a
+tour round the open coasts of the three kingdoms. Before long the safety
+and utility of steam navigation was admitted on all hands, and numerous
+rival enterprises were on foot. In 1820 the _Comet_ was lost between
+Glasgow and Fort William; and in the following year another of Bell's
+vessels was burnt to the water-edge--two misfortunes that carried £3000
+out of his pocket. His rivals, with abundant capital, soon drove him out
+of the field, and Bell sank into poverty and neglect. A small annuity
+from the Clyde trustees, and a subscription among his friends, to keep
+him from starving, were all the rewards he ever received for his
+enterprise and perseverance. He died in 1830 in the sixty-fourth year of
+his age.
+
+
+
+
+IV.--OCEAN STEAMERS.
+
+
+In the quarter of a century which elapsed between 1812, when the _Comet_
+first began to churn the waters of the Clyde, and 1837, steam navigation
+progressed steadily and surely. At first, content with plying along
+rivers and quiet bays, steamers by-and-by ventured out upon the open
+sea. We owe the regular establishment of deep-sea packets to the courage
+and enterprise of Mr. David Napier of Glasgow, "who," says Mr. Scott
+Russell, "has effected more for the improvement of steam navigation than
+any other man." He was quick to appreciate the capabilities of
+steam-vessels, and saw that they were fit for something more than mere
+inland voyages. Before starting one of them upon the open sea, however,
+he carefully estimated the danger to be encountered and the difficulties
+to be overcome. He took passage at the worst season of the year in one
+of the sailing vessels which formerly plied between Glasgow and Belfast,
+and which often required a week to perform a journey that is now done by
+steam in a few hours.
+
+Stationing himself on an elevated part of the deck, he kept a close
+watch on the movements of the vessel, observing the tossing to which she
+was subjected by the waves, the extent of the dip when she sank into a
+trough, the height of elevation when lifted on the summit of a wave, and
+calculating in his mind how all this would tell on the paddle-wheels.
+Through the roughest of the storm, when the vessel was pitching worst,
+and the wind blowing at its fiercest, he kept his place on deck,
+regardless of the drenching spray and the blast that almost carried him
+off his legs. When at length he had satisfied himself by the observation
+of his own eyes and inquiries of the captain and crew, that there was
+nothing in the voyage which a steamer could not encounter, he retired
+contentedly to his cabin, leaving everybody astonished at his strange
+curiosity respecting the effect of rough weather on the ship.
+
+Not long after David Napier started the _Rob Roy_ steam-packet between
+Greenock and Belfast, and afterwards between Dover and Calais. In the
+course of two or three years more he had established steam communication
+between Holyhead and Dublin, Liverpool and Greenock, and various other
+parts. The length of each unbroken passage was then considered the great
+difficulty; but as steamers got improved both in form and machinery,
+passages of greater length were successfully accomplished. Steamers
+traversed in all directions the German Ocean, the Mediterranean, the
+Baltic, and, in short, all the waters on the eastern side of the
+Atlantic; and were in use upon all the rivers and lakes of any size in
+Europe.
+
+At length, in 1836, the startling project was set on foot of superseding
+the far-famed New York and Liverpool packet ships by a fleet of
+steam-ships. Before this the _Savannah_, a steam vessel of 300 tons,
+had, in 1819, crossed from New York to Liverpool in twenty-six days,
+partly with sails and partly with steam; and another steam vessel had,
+in 1825, made the voyage from England to Calcutta; but one swallow does
+not make a summer, and many learned folks, on both sides of the
+Atlantic, shook their heads doubtfully at the daring scheme of regular
+steam communication across 13,000 miles of ocean. The experiment was to
+be made, however; and on the 4th April 1838, the _Sirius_, of 700 tons
+and 320 horse power, sailed from Cork for the far West. Four days after
+the _Great Western_ followed in her wake from Bristol.
+
+Great was the excitement in New York as the time drew nigh when the
+_Sirius_ was considered due. For days together the Battery was crowded
+with anxious watchers, from the first breaking of the cold, grey dawn
+till night dropped its dark curtain on the scene. At that time a
+telescope was a thing to be begged, borrowed, or stolen,--to be got,
+somehow or other, if only for a minute,--and a man who possessed one was
+to be looked up to, made much of, and, if possible, coaxed out of the
+loan of it. All day long a hundred telescopes swept the sea. The ocean
+steamer was the great topic of the hour, and "any appearance of her?"
+the constant question when two people met. On St. George's day, the 23d
+April, a dim, dusky speck on the far horizon grew under the eye of the
+thousands of breathless watchers into a long train of smoke, beneath
+which, as the hours wore on, appeared the black prow of a huge
+steam-boat. There she was, long looked for come at last; and with the
+American colours at the fore, and the flag of Old England rustling at
+the stern, the _Sirius_ swept into the harbour amidst the cheers of the
+multitude, the ringing of the city bells, and the firing of salutes. The
+excitement reached its climax, and the shouting and firing grew
+deafening, when, some few hours later on the same auspicious day, the
+_Great Western_ came to anchor alongside of her rival.
+
+Twenty-two years have passed since then, and the marvel of 1838 has
+become a mere everyday affair. There are some fourteen different lines
+of steamers, comprising more than fifty vessels, running between the
+United States and Europe, to say nothing of the magnificent steam fleets
+of the Peninsular and Oriental, the Royal West India, British and North
+American, Pacific, Australian, South Western, and other companies.
+
+The employment of iron in the construction of ships, thus securing at
+once lightness and strength, and the invention of the screw propeller,
+in 1836, by Mr. J. P. Smith, a farmer at Hendon, by means of which a
+vessel can combine all the qualities of a first-rate sailing ship with
+the use of steam power, gave a great impulse to steam navigation, which
+is still making steady and continuous progress. From one steam vessel
+in 1812 the number in the kingdom has risen successively to 20 in 1820,
+824 in 1840, and over 2000 in 1860. During 1858, 153 steamers were built
+in the United Kingdom, of which 112 were of iron. It is interesting to
+observe the advance in size of the steam vessels from their first
+introduction on the Clyde.
+
+                                                  Length.     Breadth.
+    1812. Comet                                   40 feet   10-1/2 feet.
+    1825. Enterprise (built expressly to go to
+          India, coaling at intermediate
+          stations)                              122  "     27      "
+    1835. Tagus (for Mediterranean)              182  "     28      "
+    1838. Great Western (the first ship built
+          expressly for Transatlantic service)   236  "     35-1/2  "
+    1844. Great Britain (the first large screw
+          ship, and largest iron ship up to that
+          time)                                  322  "     51      "
+    1853. Himalaya (iron)                        370  "     43-1/2  "
+    1856. Persia (do.)                           390  "     45      "
+    1859. Great Eastern (do.)                    680  "     83      "
+
+In the interval between 1812 and 1870 the number of steamers in the
+United Kingdom has increased from one to nearly three thousand; and the
+ocean-going steamer of 1870 is nearly six times the length of that of
+1825, and seventeen times the length of the _Comet_, while the
+difference in tonnage is still greater. How Fulton or Bell would open
+their eyes at the sight of a vast moving city, such as the Big Ship, an
+eighth of a mile in length, propelled by both paddle-wheels and screw,
+each worked by four huge engines!
+
+
+
+
+Iron Manufacture.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY CORT.
+
+
+
+
+Iron Manufacture.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY CORT.
+
+
+The multifarious use of iron in our day has given its name to the age.
+We have got far beyond the primitive applications of that metal--every
+day it is supplanting some other substance, and there is no saying where
+the wide-spread and varied service we exact from it will stop. The
+invention of the steam-engine, and the improvement of manufacturing
+machines, would be comparatively valueless, unless we had at command a
+cheap and abundant supply of iron for their construction. The land is
+covered with a net-work of iron rails, traversed by iron steeds--gulfs
+and valleys are spanned by iron arches and iron tubes--huge ships of
+iron ride upon the deep. Even stones and bricks are being discarded for
+this all-useful substance, and of iron we are building houses, palaces,
+theatres, churches, and spacious domes. There is no end to its uses.
+
+And yet, it is only between seventy and eighty years ago since Britain,
+the richest of all countries in native ore, was dependent upon others
+for her supply of the manufactured metal. We wanted but little iron in
+those days, compared with the present demand, and yet that little we
+could not furnish ourselves with. As much as a million and a half
+a-year went out of our pockets to purchase wrought iron from Sweden
+alone, and we were good customers to Russia as well. All the iron that
+our country could then produce was some 17,000 tons. The man who showed
+us how to turn our own ore to account, who rendered us independent of
+all other countries for our supply, and made us the great purveyors of
+wrought iron to the world, who opened up to us this great source of
+national wealth, was Henry Cort of Gosport.
+
+The great difficulty which he solved was how to get wrought iron out of
+the crude iron as it came from the smelting furnace, without using
+charcoal. With but a small tract of country, densely peopled, we had but
+a scant supply of wood at our command. The great forests which once
+overspread the land were gradually vanishing, partly before the spread
+of population and the growth of towns, and partly from the inroads made
+on them by the demand for timber. Formerly, the first transformation of
+the ore into pig iron (the crude form of the manufactured metal) was
+effected by means of wood; and the consumption was so great that an Act
+was passed in 1581 restraining its use. Soon afterwards Lord Dudley
+discovered that coal would answer the purpose just as well, and obtained
+a patent of monopoly. He reaped but little profit from his invention,
+however, for his iron-works were destroyed by a mob; and it was not till
+a century afterwards, when people got more alarmed at the growing
+scarcity of timber, and the increased demand for it, that the plan was
+generally adopted. This was one step in the right direction, but another
+yet remained to be made, for the manufacture was still hampered in our
+country by the want of wood for the second process--the conversion of
+crude into malleable iron, in which state alone it is fit for service.
+
+About the year 1785, Henry Cort, iron-master, of Gosport, after many
+years of patient and wearisome research, of anxious thought, and
+indefatigable experiment, in which he spent a private fortune of some
+£20,000, perfected a couple of inventions of priceless value. The first
+was the process of converting pig iron into wrought iron by the flame of
+pit coal in a puddling furnace, thus dispensing with the use of
+charcoal,--the cost and scarcity of which had before formed such a dead
+weight on the trade, and placed us at such a disadvantage compared with
+Sweden and Russia. The second was a further process for drawing the iron
+into bars by means of grooved rollers. Till then, this operation had to
+be performed with hammer and anvil, and was very tedious and laborious.
+The new system not only reduced the cost and labour of producing iron to
+one-twentieth of what they were previously, but greatly improved the
+quality of the article produced.
+
+It is not easy to estimate all that Henry Cort's inventions have done
+for this country. Without them we should have lost an overflowing and
+inexhaustible source of national wealth, and, moreover, large sums would
+have been taken out of the country in the purchase of wrought metal; we
+should never have been able to give full scope to the great mechanical
+inventions brought forth towards the close of the last, and the opening
+of the present century; we should have been debarred from taking rank as
+the great engineers and engine-makers for the rest of the world. The
+direct gain to this country from the inventions of Henry Cort, which
+enabled us to work up our own iron, has been calculated as equal by this
+time to not less than a hundred millions; and it is hardly possible to
+exaggerate the benefits which it has conferred. Lord Sheffield's
+prophecy, that the adoption of these processes would be worth more to
+Britain than a dozen colonies, may be said to have been fulfilled.
+
+Like many another benefactor of his country, Cort got little good out of
+his invention for himself. He took out a patent for his process, and
+arranged with the leading iron-masters to accept a royalty of ten
+shillings a ton for the use of them. With a large fortune in prospect,
+his purse was just then exhausted by the expenses he had incurred in
+experiments and researches; and he had to look out for a capitalist to
+aid him in working the patent on his own account. As ill luck would
+have it, he entered into partnership with a certain Adam Jellicoe, then
+deputy-paymaster of the navy. Jellicoe was considered a man of
+substance, and a "thoroughly respectable" character. He was to advance
+the ready money, and to receive in return half of the profits of the
+trade, Cort assigning to him, by way of collateral security, his patent
+rights. For a year or two all went well. The patent was everywhere
+adopted, and Cort's own iron works drove a lucrative and growing trade.
+He seemed in a fair way of getting back the fortune he had spent in
+bringing out the inventions, doubled or trebled, as he well deserved.
+The respectable Jellicoe was seized with a mortal sickness: at his death
+his desk was filled by another, his books were examined, and it turned
+out that he had been robbing the government for many a year back, and
+was a large defaulter. Cort, of course, had nothing to do with this
+villany, but he had to pay the penalty of it. As Jellicoe's partner he
+was responsible, in those days of unlimited liability, for all
+Jellicoe's debts; but that was not the worst of it. The treasurer of the
+navy was not content to exact only the payment of Jellicoe's
+defalcations, as he had no doubt a right to do, but confiscated the
+whole of Cort's patent rights, business, and property, which would have
+paid the debt seven or eight times over, had it been fairly valued.
+
+This incident has never been properly cleared up, but what glimpses of
+its secret passages have been obtained, seem to indicate clearly enough
+that poor Cort was the victim, not of one, but of two or more swindlers.
+To the day of his death he never could obtain a distinct account of the
+proceedings; and when, after his death, a Royal Commission was appointed
+to inquire into the matter, the treasurer of the navy and his deputy
+took care, a week or two before the Commission met, to indemnify each
+other by a joint release, and to burn their accounts for upwards of a
+million and a half of public money, for the application of which they
+were responsible, as well as all papers relating to Cort's case. When
+the Commission met, and the treasurer and his deputy were called before
+it, they refused to answer questions which would criminate themselves.
+
+His connection with Jellicoe was, of course, the ruin of Henry Cort. He
+had no means of re-establishing himself in business; he was robbed of
+all income from his patents; and he died ruined and broken-hearted ten
+years after, leaving a family of nine children, without a sixpence in
+the world. Four of these children now survive--old, infirm, and
+indigent--only saved from being dependent upon parish bounty by
+pensions, amounting in the aggregate to £90 per annum. Well may it be
+said, "There should be more gratitude in our Iron Age to the children of
+HENRY CORT."
+
+
+
+
+The Electric Telegraph.
+
+
+  I.--MR. COOKE.
+ II.--PROFESSOR WHEATSTONE.
+III.--THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.
+
+
+
+
+The Electric Telegraph.
+
+    "Speak the word and think the thought,
+    Quick 'tis as with lightning caught--
+    Over, under lands or seas,
+    To the far antipodes;
+    Here again, as soon as gone,
+    Making all the earth as one;
+    Moscow speaks at twelve o'clock,--
+    London reads ere noon the shock."
+
+
+
+
+I.--MR. COOKE.
+
+
+Of all the marvels of our time, the most marvellous is the subjugation
+of the electric fluid, that potent elemental force,--twin brother of the
+fatal lightning,--to be our submissive courier, to bear our messages
+from land to land, and "put a girdle round about the earth in forty
+minutes." The Prospero that tamed this Ariel was no individual genius,
+but "two single gentlemen rolled into one." The idea of employing the
+electric current for the conveyance of signals between distant points,
+can be traced pretty far back in date; but to Mr. Cooke and Professor
+Wheatstone is undoubtedly due the credit of having made the electric
+telegraph an actual and accomplished fact, and rendered it practicable
+for everyday uses.
+
+Having served for a number of years as an officer in our Indian army,
+Mr. Cooke came back to Europe to recruit his health in the beginning of
+1836, and took up his abode at Heidelberg. He found agreeable
+occupation for his leisure in the study of anatomy, and in the
+construction of anatomical models for his father's museum at Durham,
+where he was a professor in the university. Entirely self-taught in this
+delicate art, Mr. Cooke applied himself to it with characteristic
+ardour, and attained remarkable skill. One day he happened to witness
+some experiments which were made by Professor Möncke, to illustrate the
+feasibility of electric signalling. A current of electricity was passed
+through a long wire, and set a magnetic needle at the end quivering
+under its influence. The experiment was a very simple one, and not at
+all novel; but Cooke had never paid any attention to the subject before,
+and was much struck with what he saw. He became strongly impressed with
+the possibility of employing electricity in the transmission of
+telegraphic intelligence between distant places. From the day he
+witnessed the experiments in Professor Möncke's classroom, he forsook
+the dissecting knife, threw aside his modelling tools, and applied
+himself to the realization of his conception. With such ardour and
+devotion did he labour, and such skill and ingenuity did he bring to the
+work, that within three weeks he had constructed a telegraph with six
+wires, forming three complete metallic currents, and influencing three
+needles, by the varied inclination of which twenty-six different signals
+were designated. In that short time he had also invented the detector,
+by which injuries to the wires, whether from water, fracture, or
+contact with substances capable of diverting the current, were readily
+traced, and the alarum, by which notice is given at one end of the wire
+that a message is coming from the other. Both these contrivances were of
+the utmost value,--indeed, without them electric telegraphy would be
+impracticable,--and are still in use. Possessing more of a mechanical
+than a scientific genius, Mr. Cooke bestowed more of his time and
+ingenuity on the perfection of a telegraph to be worked by clock
+mechanism, set in action by the withdrawal of a detent by an electro
+magnet than in the completion of the electric telegraph pure and simple.
+
+Soon after having invented his telegraph, he came over to London, and
+spent the rest of the year in making a variety of instruments, and in
+efforts to get his telegraph introduced on the Liverpool and Manchester
+Railway. He found an obstacle to the complete success of his mechanical
+telegraph, in the difficulty of transmitting to a distance sufficient
+electric power to work the electro magnet upon which its action
+depended. A friend advised him to consult Professor Wheatstone, then
+known to be deeply engaged in electrical experiments, with a view to
+telegraphy; and accordingly, an interview between them took place in
+February 1837.
+
+
+
+
+II.--PROFESSOR WHEATSTONE.
+
+
+Mr. Charles Wheatstone, F.R.S., and Professor of Experimental Philosophy
+in King's College at the time of that interview, had made considerable
+advances in the scientific part of the enterprise. At the commencement
+of his career as a maker and seller of musical instruments in London, he
+was led to investigate the science of sound; and from his researches in
+that direction, he was led--much as Herschel was led--to devote himself
+to optics, and to study the philosophy of light. He was the first to
+point out the peculiarity of binocular vision, and to describe the
+stereoscope, which has since become so popular an instrument. Gradually,
+however, his thoughts and researches came to be steadfastly directed to
+the application of electricity to the communication of signals. In
+determining the rate at which the electric current travels through a
+wire he had laid down, he made an important stride towards the end in
+view. He proved by a series of most ingenious experiments, that one
+spark of electricity leaps on before another, and that its progress is a
+question of time. He found that electricity travels through a _copper_
+wire as fast as, if not faster, than light, that is, at the rate of
+200,000 miles in a second; but through an _iron_ wire, electricity moves
+at the rate of only 15,400 miles in a second. In 1836 Mr. Wheatstone had
+begun experiments in the vaults of King's College, with four miles of
+wire, properly insulated, and was working out the details of a
+telegraph, the scientific principles of which he had already laid down.
+He had discovered an original method of converting a few wires into a
+considerable number of circuits, so that the greatest number of signals
+could be transmitted by a limited number of wires, by the deflection of
+magnetic needles. Mr. Wheatstone, however, was somewhat backward in the
+mechanical parts of the scheme, and the meeting between him and Cooke
+was therefore of the greatest benefit to both, and an admirable
+illustration of the old proverb, that two heads are better than one. Had
+they never been brought together,--had they kept on working out their
+own ideas apart--each would, no doubt, have been able to produce an
+electric telegraph; but a great deal of time would have been lost, and
+their respective efforts less complete and valuable than the one they
+effected in conjunction. Cooke wanted sound, scientific knowledge;
+Wheatstone wanted mechanical ingenuity; and their union supplied mutual
+deficiencies. A partnership was immediately formed between them. Before
+their combined genius all difficulties vanished; and in the June of the
+same year they were able to take out a patent for a telegraph with five
+wires and five needles. Their respective shares in its invention are
+clearly marked out by Sir J. Brunel and Professor Daniell, who, as
+arbiters between the two upon that delicate question, gave the
+following award in 1841:--
+
+"Whilst Mr. Cooke is entitled to stand alone as the gentleman to whom
+this country is indebted for having practically introduced and carried
+out the electric telegraph as a useful undertaking, promising to be a
+work of national importance; and Professor Wheatstone is acknowledged as
+the scientific man whose profound and successful researches had already
+prepared the public to receive it as a project capable of practical
+application,--it is to the united labours of two gentlemen so well
+qualified for mutual assistance, that we must attribute the rapid
+progress which this important invention has made during the five years
+since they have been associated."
+
+Shortly after the taking out of a patent, wires were laid down between
+Euston Square Terminus and Camden Town Station, on the North-Western
+Railway; and the new telegraph was subjected to trial. Late in the
+evening of the 25th July 1837, in a dingy little room in one of the
+Euston Square offices, Professor Wheatstone sat alone, with a hand on
+each handle of the signal instrument, and an anxious eye upon the dial,
+with its needles as yet in motionless repose. In another little room at
+the Camden Town Station, Mr. Cooke was seated in a similar position
+before the instrument at the other end of the wires, along with Mr., now
+Sir Charles Fox, Robert Stephenson, and some other gentlemen. It was a
+trying, agitating moment for the two inventors,--how Wheatstone's pulse
+must have throbbed, and his heart beat, as he jerked the handle, broke
+the electric current, and sent the needles quivering on the dial; in
+what suspense he must have spent the next few minutes, holding his
+breath as though to hear his fellow's voice, and almost afraid to look
+at the dial lest no answer should be made; with what a thrill of joy
+must each have seen the needles wag knowingly and spell out their
+precious message,--the "All's well; thank God," that flashed from heart
+to heart, along the line of senseless wire. "Never," said Wheatstone,
+"did I feel such a tumultuous sensation before, as when all alone in the
+still room I heard the needles click; and as I spelled the words, I felt
+all the magnitude of the invention now proved to be practicable beyond
+cavil or dispute."
+
+A few days before this trial of the telegraph in London, Steinheil, of
+Munich, is said to have had one of his own invention at work there; and
+it is a difficult question to decide whether he or Cooke and Wheatstone
+were the first inventors. It is, however, a question of no consequence,
+as each worked independently. Since the first English electric telegraph
+was patented, there have been a thousand and one other contrivances of a
+similar kind taken out; but it may be doubted whether, for practical
+purposes, the original apparatus, with the improvements which its own
+inventors have made on it, is not still the best of them all.
+
+From being used merely to carry railway messages, the telegraph was
+brought into the service of the general public; the advantages of such
+almost instantaneous communication were readily appreciated; and eight
+years after Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone took out their patent, lines of
+telegraph to the extent of 500 miles were in operation in England upon
+the original plan. In 1855 telegraphic correspondence had become so
+general, that the Electric Telegraph Company was started to supply the
+demand. In that establishment the Needle Telegraph of Wheatstone and
+Cooke is the one generally used, with the Chemical Recording Telegraph
+of Bain for special occasions. By means of the latter, blue lines of
+various lengths, according to an alphabet, are drawn upon a ribbon of
+paper, and as many as 20,000 words can be sent in an hour, though the
+ordinary rate is 100 per minute. In the purchase of patent rights alone,
+the Company have spent £170,000, and they are every year adding to the
+length of their wires. In June 1850 they had 6730 miles of wires, and
+despatched 29,245 messages a year. In December 1853 they had 24,340
+miles of wires, and despatched 212,440 messages a-year. Their lines now
+extend over a much larger mileage, and convey a greatly increased number
+of messages. The Magnetic Telegraph Company have also a large extent of
+wires, and do a considerable business.
+
+
+
+
+III.--THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.
+
+
+The land telegraph having had such success, the next step was to carry
+the wires across the deep, and link continent to continent,--an
+all-important step for an island kingdom such as ours, with its legion
+of distant colonies. The success of a submerged cable between Gosport
+and Portsmouth, and of one across the docks at Hull, proved the
+feasibility of a water telegraph, at least on a small scale, and it was
+not long before more ambitious attempts were made. On the 28th of August
+1850, a cable, 30 miles long, in a gutta percha sheathing, was stretched
+at the bottom of the straits between Dover and Cape Grisnez, near
+Calais. Messages of congratulation sped along this wire between England
+and France; and although a ridge of rocks filed the cable asunder on the
+French coast, the suspension of communication was only temporary. The
+link has once more been established, and is in daily use. The first news
+sent by the wire to England was of the celebrated _coup d'etat_ of the
+2d December, which cleared the way for Louis Napoleon's ascent of the
+throne. Numerous other cables have since been sunk beneath the waters;
+complete telegraphic communication has just been established between
+England and India, and will, no doubt, before long be extended to
+Australia.
+
+The greatest enterprise of this kind, however, still remains
+unaccomplished--that is, the laying of the Atlantic cable. A company was
+started in 1856 to carry out this great enterprise, the governments of
+Great Britain and the United States engaging to assist them, not only
+with an annual subsidy of £10,000 a-year for twenty-five years, but to
+furnish the men and ships required for laying the cable from one side of
+the Atlantic to the other. The chief difficulty which engaged the
+attention of Mr. Wildman Whitehouse and the other agents of the notable
+enterprise was the enormous size of the cable which, it was thought,
+would be necessary. The general belief at that time was, that the
+greater the distance to be traversed, the larger must be the wire along
+which the electric current was to pass, and that the rate of speed would
+be in proportion to the size of the conductor. Mr. Whitehouse, however,
+thought it would be as well to begin by making sure that this was really
+the case, and that a monster cable was essential; and after some three
+thousand separate observations and experiments, was delighted to find
+that the difficulty which stared them in the face was imaginary. Instead
+of a large cable transmitting the current faster than a small one, he
+ascertained beyond a doubt, that the bigger the wire, the slower was the
+passage of the electricity. It would be needful, therefore, to make the
+cable only strong enough to stand the strain of its own weight, and
+heavy enough to sink to the bottom. A single wire would have been quite
+sufficient, but a strand of seven wires of the finest copper was used
+for the cable, so that the fracture of one of them might not interfere
+with the communication,--as long as one wire was left intact the current
+would proceed. A triple coating of gutta percha, to keep the sea from
+sucking out the electricity, and a thick coating of iron wire, to sink
+the cable to the bottom and give it strength, were added to the copper
+rope, and then the cable was complete. No less than 325,000 miles of
+iron and copper wire were woven into this great cable,--as much as might
+be wound thirteen times round the globe; and its weight was about a ton
+per mile. The length of the cable was 18,947 miles--some 600 miles being
+allowed to come and go upon, in case of accidents.
+
+The end of July 1857 was selected for the sailing of the ships that were
+to lay the cable, as fogs and gales were then out of season, and no
+icebergs to be met with. On the 8th of August, the _Agamemnon_ (English)
+and _Niagara_ (American), with four smaller steamers to attend them, and
+each with half of the mighty cable in her hold, got up their steam and
+left Valentia Harbour. One end of the cable was carried by a number of
+boats from the _Niagara_ on shore, where the Lord-Lieutenant was in
+waiting to receive it, and place it in contact with the batteries, which
+were arranged in a little tent upon the beach. A slight accident to the
+cable for a little while delayed the departure of the ships; but by the
+10th they had got 200 miles out to sea, and so far the cable had been
+laid successfully. Messages passed and repassed between the ships and
+the shore. The next day the engineer discovering that too much cable was
+being paid out, telegraphed to the people on board to put a greater grip
+on it; the operation was clumsily managed, and the cable snapped,
+sinking to a depth of 12,000 feet.
+
+Not disheartened, however, the Company replaced the lost portion of the
+cable; the Government again furnished ships and men, and the cable was
+actually laid at the bottom of the Atlantic from Valentia Bay to Trinity
+Harbour.
+
+Addresses of congratulation passed between the Queen and the President
+of the States, and numerous messages were transmitted. But gradually the
+signals grew fainter and more faint, till they ceased altogether. The
+cable was stricken dumb. A little to the north of the fiftieth parallel
+of latitude, at the bottom of the Atlantic, where the plateau is
+unbroken by any great depression, some 1500 miles of the disabled cable
+were lying, on a soft bed of mud, which was constantly thickening, at a
+depth of from 10,000 to 15,000 feet.
+
+The importance of telegraphic communication between England and the
+United States was, however, so obvious that its projectors were not to
+be daunted by the failure they had sustained. Nor was it altogether a
+failure. They had proved that a cable _could_ be laid, and messages
+flashed through it. What was wanted was evidently a stronger cable,
+which should be less liable to injury, and more perfect in its
+insulation of the telegraphic wires.
+
+From 1858 to 1864, the Company were engaged in the difficult task of
+raising fresh funds, and in endeavouring to secure grants from the
+British and American Governments. Their men of science, meanwhile, were
+devising improvements in the form of cable, and contriving fresh
+apparatus to facilitate its submersion. Eventually the Telegraph
+Construction and Maintenance Company, an union of the Gutta Percha
+Company with the celebrated firm of Glass and Elliott, constructed an
+entirely new cable, which was not only costlier, but thicker and
+stronger than the preceding one. The conductor, three hundred pounds per
+mile, and one-seventh of an inch thick, consisted of seven No. 18 copper
+wires, each one-twentieth of an inch in thickness. The core or heart of
+the cable, says a writer in "Chambers's Encyclopædia," was formed of
+four layers of gutta percha alternating with four of Chatterton's
+compound (a solution of gutta percha in Stockholm tar); the wire and
+conductor being seven hundred pounds per mile, and nine-twentieths of an
+inch thick. Outside this was a coating of hemp or jute yarn, saturated
+with a preservative composition; while the sheath consisted of ten iron
+wires, each previously covered with five tarred Manilla yarns. The whole
+cable was an inch and one eighth thick, weighed thirty-five and
+three-quarter hundredweights per mile, and was strong enough to endure a
+breaking strain of seven tons and three-quarters. During the various
+processes of manufacture, the electrical quality of the cable was tested
+to an unusual extent. The portions of finished core were tested by
+immersion in water at various temperatures; next submitted to a pressure
+of six hundred pounds to the square inch, to imitate the ocean pressure
+at so great depth; then the conducting power of the copper wire was
+tested by a galvanometer; and various experiments were also made on the
+insulating property of the gutta percha. The various pieces having been
+thus severely put to the proof, they were spliced end to end, and the
+joints or splicings tested. In a word, nothing was left undone that
+could insure the success or guarantee the stability of the new cable.
+
+When completed, the cable measured two thousand three hundred miles, and
+weighed upwards of four thousand tons. It was felt that such a burden
+could only be intrusted to Brunel's "big ship," the _Great Eastern_. For
+this purpose three huge iron tanks were built, in the fore, middle, and
+aft holds of the vessel, each from fifty to sixty feet in diameter, and
+each twenty and a half feet in depth; and in these the cable was
+deposited in three vast coils.
+
+On the 23rd of July 1865, the _Great Eastern_ left Valentia, the
+submarine cable being joined end to end to a more massive shore cable,
+which was hauled up the cliff at Foilhummerum Bay, to a telegraph-house
+at the top. The electric condition of the cable was continually tested
+during the ship's voyage across the Atlantic; and more than once its
+efficiency was disturbed by fragments of wire piercing the gutta percha
+and destroying the insulation. At length on August 2nd, the cable
+snapped by overstraining, and the end sank to the bottom in two thousand
+fathoms water, at a distance of one thousand and sixty-four miles from
+the Irish coast. Attempts were made to recover it by dredging. A
+five-armed grapnel, suspended to the end of a stout iron-wire rope five
+miles long, was flung overboard; and when it reached the bottom, the
+_Great Eastern_ steamed to and fro in the direction where the lost cable
+was supposed to be lying; but failure followed upon failure, and the
+cable was never once hooked. There remained nothing to be done but for
+the _Great Eastern_ to return to England with the news of her
+non-success, and leaving (including the failure of 1857-8) nearly four
+thousand tons of electric cable at the bottom of the ocean.
+
+The promoters of ocean telegraphy, however, were determined to be
+resolute to the end. A new Company was formed, new capital was raised,
+and a third cable manufactured, differing in some respects from the
+former. The outside jacket was made of hemp instead of jute; the iron
+wires of the sheath were galvanized, and the Manilla hemp which covered
+them was not tarred. Chiefly through the absence of the tar, the weight
+of the cable was diminished five hundred pounds per mile; while its
+strength or breaking strain was increased. A sufficient quantity of this
+improved cable was made to cross the Atlantic, with all due allowance
+for slack; and also a sufficient quantity of the 1865 cable to remedy
+the disaster of that year.
+
+On July 13th, 1866, the _Great Eastern_ once more set forth on her
+interesting voyage, accompanied by the steamers _Terrible_, _Medway_,
+and _Albany_, to assist in the submersion of the cable, and to act as
+auxiliaries whenever needed. The line of route chosen lay about midway
+between those of the 1858 and 1865 cables, but at no great distance from
+either. The _Great Eastern_ exchanged telegrams almost continuously with
+Valentia as she steamed towards the American continent; and great were
+the congratulations when she safely arrived in the harbour of Heart's
+Content, Newfoundland, on the 27th.
+
+Operations were next commenced to recover the end of the 1865 cable, and
+complete its submergence. The _Albany_, _Medway_, and _Terrible_ were
+despatched on the 1st of August, to the point where, "deep down beneath
+the darkling waves," the cable was supposed to be lying, and on the 9th
+or 10th they were joined by the _Great Eastern_, when grappling was
+commenced, and carried on through the remainder of the month. The cable
+was repeatedly caught, and raised to a greater or less height from the
+ocean bed; but something or other snapped or slipped every time, and
+down went the cable again. At last, after much trial of patience, the
+end of the cable was safely fished up on September 1st; and electric
+messages were at once sent through to Valentia, just as well as if the
+cable had not had twelve months' soaking in the Atlantic. An additional
+length having been spliced to it, the laying recommenced; and on the 8th
+the squadron entered Heart's Content, having thus succeeded in laying a
+second line of cable from Ireland to America.
+
+The two cables, the old and the new, continued to work very smoothly
+during the winter of 1866 and 1867; but in May 1867, the new cable was
+damaged by an iceberg, which drifted across it at a distance of about
+three miles from the Newfoundland shore. The injury was soon repaired;
+but again, in July 1867, the same cable broke at about fifty miles from
+Newfoundland.
+
+The earlier cable continued to work for several years, but both cables
+gave way towards the close of the autumn of 1870. No special
+inconvenience was felt, however, as two years ago a French line of
+cable was laid down between Europe and America; the _Great Eastern_
+being again employed, and the operations being conducted under the
+superintendence of English electricians. The two British cables will
+probably be repaired in the spring of the present year (1871).
+
+Submarine cables have multiplied recently, and almost every ocean flows
+over the mysterious wires which flash intelligence beneath the rolling
+waters from point to point of the civilized world. By a telegraph-cable,
+which is partly submarine, the India Office in Westminster is united
+with the Governor-General and his Council at Calcutta. There is also
+communication between Singapore and Australia, and the network of ocean
+telegraphy is being so rapidly extended that, before long, the British
+Government in the metropolis will be enabled to convey its instructions
+in a few hours to the administrative authorities in every British
+colony. And thus the words which the poet puts into the mouth of "Puck"
+will be nearly realized in a sense the poet never dreamed of--"I'll put
+a girdle round about the world in forty minutes."
+
+
+
+
+The Silk Manufacture.
+
+
+  I.--JOHN LOMBE.
+ II.--WILLIAM LEE.
+III.--JOSEPH MARIE JACQUARD.
+
+
+
+
+The Silk Manufacture.
+
+
+
+
+I.--JOHN LOMBE.
+
+
+In the reign of the Emperor Justinian, a couple of Persian monks, on a
+religious mission to China, brought away with them a quantity of
+silkworms' eggs concealed in a piece of hollow cane, which they carried
+to Constantinople. There they hatched the eggs, reared the worms, and
+spun the silk,--for the first time introducing that manufacture into
+Europe, and destroying the close monopoly which China had hitherto
+enjoyed. From Constantinople the knowledge and the practice of the art
+gradually extended to Greece, thence to Italy, and next to Spain. Each
+country, as in turn it gained possession of the secret, strove to
+preserve it with jealous care; but to little purpose. A secret that so
+many thousands already shared in common, could not long remain so,
+although its passage to other countries might be for a time deferred.
+France and England were behind most of the other states of Europe in
+obtaining a knowledge of the "craft and mystery." The manufacture of
+silk did not take root in France till the reign of Francis I.; and was
+hardly known in England till the persecutions of the Duke of Parma in
+1585 drove a great number of the manufacturers of Antwerp to seek
+refuge in our land. James I. was very anxious to promote the breed of
+silkworms, and the production of silken fabrics. During his reign a
+great many mulberry-trees were planted in various parts of the
+country--among others, that celebrated one in Shakspeare's garden
+at Stratford-on-Avon--and an attempt was made to rear the worm
+in our country, which, however, the ungenial climate frustrated.
+Silk-throwsters, dyers, and weavers were brought over from the
+Continent; and the manufacture made such progress that, by 1629, the
+silk-throwsters of London were incorporated, and thirty years after
+employed no fewer than 40,000 hands. The emigration from France
+consequent on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) added not
+only to the numbers engaged in the trade, but to the taste, skill, and
+enterprise with which it was conducted. It is not easy to estimate how
+deeply France wounded herself by the iniquitous persecution of the
+Protestants, or how largely the emigrants repaid by their industry the
+shelter which Britain afforded them.
+
+Although the manufacture had now become fairly naturalized in England,
+it was restricted by our ignorance of the first process to which the
+silk was subjected. Up till 1718, the whole of the silk used in England,
+for whatever purpose, was imported "thrown," that is, formed into
+threads of various kinds and twists. A young Englishman named John
+Lombe, impressed with the idea that our dependence on other countries
+for a supply of thrown silk prevented us from reaping the full benefit
+of the manufacture, and from competing with foreign traders, conceived
+the project of visiting Italy, and discovering the secret of the
+operation. He accordingly went over to Piedmont in 1715, but found the
+difficulties greater than he had anticipated. He applied for admittance
+at several factories, but was told that an examination of the machinery
+was strictly prohibited. Not to be balked, he resolved, as a last
+resort, to try if he could accomplish by stratagem what he had failed to
+do openly. Disguising himself in the dress of a common labourer, he
+bribed a couple of the workmen connected with one of the factories, and
+with their connivance obtained access in secret to the works. His visits
+were few and short; but he made the best use of his time. He carefully
+examined the various parts of the machinery, ascertained the principle
+of its operation, and made himself completely master of the whole
+process of throwing. Each night before he went to bed he noted down
+everything he had seen, and drew sketches of parts of the machinery.
+This plot, however, was discovered by the Italians. He and his
+accomplices had to fly for their lives, and not without great difficulty
+escaped to a ship which conveyed them to England.
+
+Lombe had not forgotten to carry off with him his note-book, sketches,
+and a chest full of machinery, and on his return home lost no time in
+practising the art of "throwing" silk. On a swampy island in the river
+Derwent, at Derby, he built a magnificent mill, yet standing, called the
+"Old Silk Mill." Its erection occupied four years, and cost £30,000. It
+was five storeys in height, and an eighth of a mile in length. The grand
+machine numbered no fewer than 13,384 wheels. It was said that it could
+produce 318,504,960 yards of organzine silk thread daily; but the
+estimate is no doubt exaggerated.
+
+While the mill was building, Lombe, in order to save time and earn money
+to carry on the works, opened a manufactory in the Town Hall of Derby.
+His machinery more than fulfilled his expectations, and enabled him to
+sell thrown silk at much lower prices than were charged by the Italians.
+A thriving trade was thus established, and England relieved from all
+dependence on other countries for "thrown" silk.
+
+The Italians conceived a bitter hatred against Lombe for having broken
+in upon their monopoly and diminished their trade. In revenge,
+therefore, according to William Hutton, the historian of Derby, they
+"determined _his_ destruction, and hoped that of his works would
+follow." An Italian woman was despatched to corrupt her two countrymen
+who assisted Lombe in the management of the works. She obtained
+employment in the factory, and gained over one of the Italians to her
+iniquitous design. They prepared a slow poison, and administered it in
+small doses to Lombe, who, after lingering three or four years in agony,
+died at the early age of twenty-nine. The Italian fled; the woman was
+seized and subjected to a close examination, but no definite proof could
+be elicited that Lombe had been poisoned. Lombe was buried in great
+state, as a mark of respect on the part of his townsmen. "He was," says
+Hutton, "a man of quiet deportment, who had brought a beneficial
+manufactory into the place, employed the poor, and at advanced
+wages,--and thus could not fail to meet with respect; and his melancholy
+end excited much sympathy."
+
+
+
+
+II.--WILLIAM LEE.
+
+
+In the Stocking Weavers' Hall, in Redcross Street, London, there used to
+hang a picture, representing a man in collegiate costume in the act of
+pointing to an iron stocking-frame, and addressing a woman busily
+knitting with needles by hand. Underneath the picture appeared the
+following inscription: "In the year 1589, the ingenious William Lee,
+A.M., of St. John's College, Cambridge, devised this profitable art for
+stockings (but, being despised, went to France), yet of iron to himself,
+but to us and to others of gold; in memory of whom this is here
+painted." As to who this William Lee was, and the way in which he came
+to invent the stocking-frame, there are conflicting stories, but the
+one most generally received and best authenticated is as follows:--
+
+William Lee, a native of Woodborough, near Nottingham, was a fellow of
+one of the Cambridge Colleges. He fell in love with a young country
+lass, married her, and consequently forfeited his fellowship. A poor
+scholar, with much learning, but without money or the knowledge of any
+trade, he found himself in very embarrassed circumstances. Like many
+another "poor scholar," he might exclaim:--
+
+    "All the arts I have skill in,
+            Divine and humane;
+    Yet all's not worth a shilling;
+    Alas! poor scholar, whither wilt thou go?"
+
+His wife, however, was a very industrious woman, and by her knitting
+contributed to their joint support. It is said--but the story lacks
+authentic confirmation--that when Lee was courting her, she always
+appeared so much more occupied with her knitting than with the soft
+speeches he was whispering in her ear, that her lover thought of
+inventing a machine that would "facilitate and forward the operation of
+knitting," and so leave the object of his love more leisure to converse
+with him. "Love, indeed," says Beckmann, "is fertile in invention, and
+gave rise, it is said, to the art of painting; but a machine so complex
+in its parts, and so wonderful in its effects, would seem to require
+longer and greater reflection, more judgment, and more time and patience
+than could be expected of a lover." But afterwards, when Lee, in his
+painfully enforced idleness, sat many a long hour watching his wife's
+nimble fingers toiling to support him, his mind again recurred to the
+idea of a machine that would give rest to her weary fingers. His
+cogitations resulted in the contrivance of a stocking-frame, which
+imitated the movements of the fingers in knitting.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM LEE, THE INVENTOR OF THE STOCKING-FRAME. Page
+226.]
+
+Although the invention of this loom gave a great impulse to the
+manufacture of silk stockings in England, and placed our productions in
+advance of those of other countries, Lee reaped but little profit from
+it. He met with neglect both from Queen Elizabeth and James I.; and, not
+succeeding as a manufacturer on his own account, went to France, where
+he did very well until after the assassination of Henri IV., when he
+shared the persecutions of the Protestants, and died in great distress
+in Paris.
+
+
+
+
+III.--JOSEPH MARIE JACQUARD.
+
+
+Joseph Marie Jacquard, the inventor of the loom which bears his name,
+and to whom the extent and prosperity of the silk manufacture of our
+time is mainly due, was born at Lyons in 1752, of humble parents, both
+of whom were weavers. His father taught him to ply the shuttle; but for
+education of any other sort, he was left to his own devices. He managed
+to pick up some knowledge of reading and writing for himself; but his
+favourite occupation was the construction of little models of houses,
+towers, articles of furniture, and so on, which he executed with much
+taste and accuracy. On being apprenticed to a type-founder, he exhibited
+his aptitude for mechanical contrivances by inventing a number of
+improved tools for the use of the workmen. On his father's death he set
+up as a manufacturer of figured fabrics; but although a skilful workman,
+he was a bad manager, and the end of the undertaking was, that he had to
+sell his looms to pay his debts. He married, but did not receive the
+dowry with his wife which he expected, and to support his family had to
+sell the house his father had left him,--the last remnant of his little
+heritage. The invention of numerous ingenious machines for weaving,
+type-founding, &c., proved the activity of his genius, but produced not
+a farthing for the maintenance of his wife and child. He took service
+with a lime-maker at Brest, while his wife made and sold straw hats in a
+little shop at Lyons. He solaced himself for the drudgery of his labours
+by spending his leisure in the study of machines for figure-weaving. The
+idea of the beautiful apparatus which he afterwards perfected began to
+dawn on him, but for the time it was driven out of his mind by the
+stirring transactions of the time. The whirlwind of the Revolution was
+sweeping through the land. Jacquard ardently embraced the cause of the
+people, took part in the gallant defence of Lyons in 1793, fled for his
+life on the reduction of the city, and with his son--a lad of
+sixteen--joined the army of the Rhine. His boy fell by his side on the
+field of battle, and Jacquard, destitute and broken-hearted, returned to
+Lyons. His house had been burned down; his wife was nowhere to be heard
+of. At length he discovered her in a miserable garret, earning a bare
+subsistence by plaiting straw. For want of other employment he shared
+her labours, till Lyons began to rise from its ruins, to recover its
+scattered population, and revive its industry. Jacquard applied himself
+with renewed energy to the completion of the machine of which he had,
+before the Revolution, conceived the idea; exhibited it at the National
+Exposition of the Products of Industry in 1801; and obtained a bronze
+medal and a ten years' patent.
+
+During the peace of Amiens, Jacquard happened to take up a newspaper in
+a _cabaret_ which he frequented, and his eye fell on a translated
+extract from an English journal, stating that a prize was offered by a
+society in London for the construction of a machine for weaving nets. As
+a mere amusement he turned his thoughts to the subject, contrived a
+number of models, and at last solved the problem. He made a machine and
+wove a little net with it. One day he met a friend who had read the
+paragraph from the English paper. Jacquard drew the net from his pocket
+saying, "Oh! I've got over the difficulty! see, there is a net I've
+made." After that he took no more thought about the matter, and had
+quite forgotten it, when he was startled by a summons to appear at the
+Prefectal Palace. The prefect received him very kindly, and expressed
+his astonishment that his mechanical genius should so long have remained
+in obscurity. Jacquard could not imagine how the prefect had discovered
+his mechanical experiments, and began vaguely to dread that he had got
+into some shocking scrape. He stammered out a sort of apology. The
+prefect was surprised he should deny his own talent, and said he had
+been informed that he had invented a machine for weaving nets. Jacquard
+owned that he had.
+
+"Well, then, you're the right man, after all," said the prefect. "I have
+orders from the emperor to send the machine to Paris."
+
+"Yes, but you must give me time to make it," replied Jacquard.
+
+In a week or two Jacquard again presented himself at the palace with his
+machine and a half manufactured net. The prefect was eager to see how it
+worked.
+
+"Count the number of loops in that net," said Jacquard, "and then strike
+the bar with your foot."
+
+The prefect did so, and was surprised and delighted to see another loop
+added to the number.
+
+"Capital!" cried he. "I have his majesty's orders, M. Jacquard, to send
+you and your machine to Paris."
+
+"To Paris! How can that be? How can I leave my business here?"
+
+"There is no help for it; and not only must you go to Paris, but you
+must start at once, without an hour's delay."
+
+"If it must be, it must. I will go home and pack up a little bundle, and
+tell my wife about my journey, I shall be ready to start to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow won't do; you must go to-day. A carriage is waiting to take
+you to Paris; and you must not go home. I will send to your house for
+any things you want, and convey any message to your wife. I will provide
+you with money for the journey."
+
+There was no help for it, so Jacquard got into the carriage, along with
+a gendarme who was to take charge of him, and wondered, all the way to
+Paris, what it all meant. On reaching the capital he was taken before
+Napoleon, who received him in a very condescending manner. Carnot, who
+was also present, could not at first comprehend the machine, and turning
+to the inventor, exclaimed roughly, "What, do you pretend to do what is
+beyond the power of man? Can you tie a knot in a stretched string?"
+Jacquard, not at all disconcerted, explained the construction of his
+machine so simply and clearly, as to convince the incredulous minister
+that it accomplished what he had hitherto deemed an impossibility.
+
+Jacquard was now employed in the Conservatory of Arts and Manufactures
+to repair and keep in order the models and machines. At this time a
+magnificent shawl was being woven in one of the government works for the
+Empress Josephine. Very costly and complicated machinery was employed,
+and nearly £1000 had already been spent on it. It appeared to Jacquard
+that the shawl might be manufactured in a much simpler and less
+expensive manner. He thought that the principle of a machine of
+Vaucousin's might be applied to the operation, but found it too complex
+and slow. He brooded over the subject, made a great many experiments,
+and at last succeeded in contriving an improved apparatus.
+
+He returned to Lyons to superintend the introduction of his machine for
+figure-weaving and the manufacture of nets. The former invention was
+purchased for the use of the people, and was brought into use very
+slowly. The weavers of Lyons denounced Jacquard as the enemy of the
+people, who was striving to destroy their trade, and starve themselves
+and families, and used every effort to prevent the introduction of his
+machine. They wilfully spoiled their work in order to bring the new
+process into discredit. The machine was ordered to be destroyed in one
+of the public squares. It was broken to pieces,--the iron-work was sold
+for old metal, and the wood-work for faggots. Jacquard himself had on
+one occasion to be rescued from the hands of a mob who were going to
+throw him into the Rhone.
+
+Before Jacquard's death in 1835, his apparatus had not only made its way
+into every manufactory in France, but was used in England, Switzerland,
+Germany, Italy, and America. Even the Chinese condescended to avail
+themselves of this invention of a "barbarian."
+
+Jacquard's apparatus is, strictly speaking, not a loom, but an appendage
+to one. It is intended to elevate or depress, by bars, the warp threads
+for the reception of the shuttle, the patterns being regulated by means
+of bands of punched cards acting on needles with loops and eyes. At
+first applied to silk weaving only, the use of this machine has since
+been extended to the bobbin net, carpets, and other fancy manufactures.
+By its agency the richest and most complex designs, which could formerly
+be achieved only by the most skilful labourers, with a painful degree of
+labour, and at an exorbitant cost, are now produced with facility by the
+most ordinary workmen, and at the most moderate price.
+
+Of late years the silk manufacture has greatly improved, both in
+character and extent. The products of British looms exhibited at the
+Great Exhibition of 1862 vied with those of the Continent. Every year
+upwards of £2,300,000 worth of silk is brought to England; and the silk
+manufacture engages some £55,000,000 of capital, and employs eleven to
+twelve hundred thousand of our population.
+
+
+
+
+The Potter's Art.
+
+
+  I.--LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.
+ II.--BERNARD PALISSY.
+III.--JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
+
+
+
+
+The Potter's Art.
+
+
+
+
+I.--LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.
+
+
+There can be little doubt as to the antiquity of the pottery
+manufacture. It probably had its origin in that of bricks, which at a
+very early date men made for purposes of construction; but it is not
+impossible that he had previously contrived to fabricate the commoner
+articles of domestic economy, such as pans and dishes, of sun-dried
+clay.
+
+Bricks, as everybody knows, are fashioned out of a coarse clay, such as
+we meet with in very numerous localities. After mixing up with water a
+kind of paste out of these clayey earths, the moulder works up the paste
+into the shape of bricks, and they are then exposed to the heat of the
+kiln. Sometimes it was thought sufficient to dry these bricks in the
+rays of a burning sun; but, so dried, their solidity is very
+inconsiderable. Baked bricks owe their redness of colour to the oxide of
+iron which they contain. They are either moulded with the hand or cast
+in rectangular frames of wood, dusted with sand. To bake them, they are
+piled up in huge stacks, in which intervals are left for storing and
+kindling the fuel. They are also baked in kilns.
+
+The commoner pottery wares are manufactured with the coarse impure
+clays, which are allowed to rot in trenches for several years to render
+them more plastic. Flower-pots, sugar-pans, vases, and other and more
+graceful articles, are moulded on the potter's wheel.
+
+Now, this potter's wheel is one of the most ancient instruments of human
+industry, one of the earliest inventions by which man utilized and
+economized his labour. It consists of a large disc of wood, to which a
+rotatory motion is given by the workman's foot. A second and smaller
+disc, on which is placed the paste for working, is fixed upon the upper
+extremity of the vertical axis to which the larger and inferior disc is
+attached. Seated on his bench, the workman places in the centre of the
+disc a certain quantity of soft moist clay, and turning the wheel with
+his foot, moulds the said paste with both hands, until it assumes the
+desired shape. You can imagine no prettier spectacle than that of a
+skilful potter causing the clay, under his nimble fingers, to assume the
+most varied forms. It seems as if by miracle the vase was created
+suddenly, and the rude clay sprang into a life and beauty of its own.
+
+The Campanian potteries, improperly but commonly called the Etruscan,
+and the ancient Greek wares, belong to the class of soft and lustrous
+potteries which are no longer manufactured. The Etruscan vases are the
+most remarkable specimens of the ancient potter's art; pure, simple, and
+elegant in form, they cannot be surpassed by any efforts of the modern
+potter. The paste of which they are made is very fine and homogeneous,
+coated with a peculiar glassy lustre, which is thin but tenacious, red
+or black, and formed of silica rendered fusible by an alkali. They were
+baked at a low temperature. In this ware, which was in vogue between 500
+and 320 B.C., the Aretine and Roman pottery originated. The former was
+manufactured at Arezzo or Arretium.
+
+The knowledge of glazes, which was acquired by the Egyptians and
+Assyrians, seems to have been handed down to the Persians, Moors, and
+Arabs. Fayences, and enamelled bricks and plaques, were commonly used
+among them in the twelfth century, and among the Hindus in the
+fourteenth. The celebrated glazed tiles, or _azulejos_, which contribute
+so much to the beauty of the Alhambra, were introduced into Spain by the
+Moors about 711 A.D. In Italy, it is supposed, they were made known as
+early as the conquest of Majorca by the Pisans, in 1115 A.D. But
+Brongniart places their introduction three centuries later, or in 1415,
+and says this peculiar kind of ware was called _Majolica_, from Majorica
+or Majorca. This, however, seems to have been the Italian enamelled
+fayence, which was used for subjects in relief by the celebrated
+Florentine sculptor, Luca della Robbia.
+
+Robbia had been bred to the trade of a goldsmith--in those days a trade
+of great distinction and opulence--but his artistic tastes could not be
+controlled, and he abandoned it to become a sculptor. A man of a
+singularly enthusiastic and ardent nature, he applied himself arduously
+to his new work. He worked all day with his chisel, and sat up, even
+through the night, to study. "Often," says Vasari, "when his feet were
+frozen with cold in the night time, he kept them in a basket of shavings
+to warm them, that he might not be compelled to discontinue his
+drawings." Such devotion could hardly fail to secure success. Luca was
+recognised as one of the first sculptors of the day, and executed a
+number of great works in bronze and marble. On the conclusion of some
+important commissions, he was struck with the disproportion between the
+payment he received and the time and labour he had expended; and,
+abandoning marble and bronze, resolved to work in clay. Before he could
+do that, however, it was necessary to discover some means of rendering
+durable the works which he executed in that material. Applying himself
+to the task with characteristic zeal and perseverance, he at length
+succeeded in discovering a mode of protecting such productions from the
+injuries of time, by means of a glaze or enamel, which conferred not
+only an almost eternal durability, but additional beauty on his works in
+terra cotta. At first this enamel was of a pure white, but he afterwards
+added the further invention of colouring it. The fame of these
+productions spread over Europe, and Luca found abundant and profitable
+employment during the rest of his days, the work being carried on, after
+his death, by brothers and descendants.
+
+
+
+
+II.--BERNARD PALISSY.
+
+
+The next great master in the art was Bernard Palissy,--a man
+distinguished not only for his artistic genius, but for his
+philosophical attainments, his noble, manly character, and zealous
+piety. Born of poor parents about the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, Bernard Palissy was taken as apprentice by a land-surveyor, who
+had been much struck with the boy's quickness and ingenuity.
+Land-surveying, of course, involved some knowledge of drawing; and thus
+a taste for painting was developed. From drawing lines and diagrams he
+went on to copy from the great masters. As this new talent became known
+he obtained employment in painting designs on glass. He received
+commissions in various parts of the country, and in his travels employed
+his mind in the study of natural objects. He examined the character of
+the soils and minerals upon his route, and the better to grapple with
+the subject, devoted his attention to chemistry. At length he settled
+and married at Staines, and for a time lived thriftily as a painter.
+
+One day he was shown an elegant cup of Italian manufacture, beautifully
+enamelled. The art of enamelling was then entirely unknown in France,
+and Palissy was at once seized with the idea, that if he could but
+discover the secret it would enable him to place his wife and family in
+greater comfort. "So, therefore," he writes, "regardless of the fact
+that I had no knowledge of clays, I began to seek for these enamels as a
+man gropes in the dark. I reflected that God had gifted me with some
+knowledge of drawing, and I took courage in my heart, and besought him
+to give me wisdom and skill."
+
+[Illustration: PALISSY THE POTTER. Page 242.]
+
+He lost no time in commencing his experiments. He bought a quantity of
+earthen pots, broke them into fragments, and covering them with various
+chemical compounds, baked them in a little furnace of his own
+construction, in the hope of discovering the white enamel, which he had
+been told was the key to all the rest. Again and again he varied the
+ingredients of the compositions, the proportions in which they were
+mixed, the quality of the clay on which they were spread, the heat of
+the furnace to which they were subjected; but the white enamel was still
+as great a mystery as ever. Instead of discouraging, each new defeat
+seemed to confirm his hope of ultimate success and to increase his
+perseverance. Painting and surveying he no longer practised, except when
+sheer necessity compelled him to resort to them to provide bread for his
+family. The discovery of the enamel had become the great mission of his
+life, and to that all other occupations must be sacrificed. "Thus
+having blundered several times at great expense and through much
+trouble, with sorrows and sighs, I was every day pounding and grinding
+new materials and constructing new furnaces, which cost much money, and
+consumed my wood and my time." Two years had passed now in fruitless
+effort. Food was becoming scarce in the little household, his wife worn
+and shrewish, the children thin and sickly. But then came the thought to
+cheer him,--when the enamel was found his fortune would be made, there
+would then be an end to all his privations, anxieties, and domestic
+unhappiness, Lisette would live at ease, and his children lack no
+comfort. No, the work must not be given up yet. His own furnace was
+clumsy and imperfect,--perhaps his compositions would turn out better in
+a regular kiln. So more pots were bought and broken into fragments,
+which, covered with chemical preparations, were fired at a pottery in
+the neighbourhood. Batch after batch was prepared and despatched to the
+kiln, but all proved disheartening failures. Still with "great cost,
+loss of time, confusion, and sorrow," he persevered, the wife growing
+more shrewish, the children more pinched and haggard. By good luck at
+this time came the royal commissioners to establish the gabelle or tax
+in the district of Saintonge, and Palissy was employed to survey the
+salt marshes. It was a very profitable job, and Palissy's affairs began
+to look more flourishing. But the work was no sooner concluded, than
+the "will o' the wisp," as his wife and neighbours held it, was dancing
+again before his eyes, and he was back, with redoubled energy, to his
+favourite occupation, "diving into the secret of enamels."
+
+Two years of unremitting, anxious toil, of grinding and mixing, of
+innumerable visits to the kiln, sanguine of success, with ever new
+preparations; of invariable journeys home again, sad and weary, for the
+moment utterly discouraged; of domestic bickerings; of mockery and
+censure among neighbours, and still the enamel was a mystery,--still
+Palissy, seemingly as far from the end as ever, was eager to prosecute
+the search. He appeared to have an inward conviction that he would
+succeed; but meanwhile the remonstrances of his wife, the pale, thin
+faces of his bairns, warned him he must desist, and resume the
+employments that at least brought food and clothing. There should be one
+more trial on a grand scale,--if that failed, then there should be an
+end of his experiments. "God willed," he says, "that when I had begun to
+lose my courage, and was gone for the last time to a glass-furnace,
+having a man with me carrying more than three hundred pieces, there was
+one among those pieces which was melted within four hours after it had
+been placed in the furnace, which trial turned out white and polished,
+in a way that caused me such joy as made me think I was become a new
+creature." He rushed home, burst into his wife's chamber, shouting, "I
+have found it!"
+
+From that moment he was more enthusiastic than ever in his search. He
+had discovered the white enamel. The next thing to be done was to apply
+it. He must now work at home and in secret. He set about moulding
+vessels of clay after designs of his own, and baked them in a furnace
+which he had built in imitation of the one at the pottery. The grinding
+and compounding of the ingredients of the enamel cost him the labour,
+day and night, of another month. Then all was ready for the final
+process.
+
+The vessels, coated with the precious mixture, are ranged in the
+furnace, the fire is lit and blazes fiercely. To stint the supply of
+fuel would be to cheat himself of a fortune for the sake of a few pence,
+so he does not spare wood. All that day he diligently feeds the fire,
+nor lets it slacken through the night. The excitement will not let him
+sleep even if he would. The prize he has striven for through these weary
+years, for which he has borne mockery and privation, is now all but
+within his grasp; in another hour or two he will have possessed it.
+
+The grey dawn comes, but still the enamel melts not. His boy brings him
+a portion of the scanty family meal. There shall soon be an end to that
+miserable fare! More faggots are cast on the fire. The night falls, and
+the sun rises on the third day of his tending and watching at the
+furnace door, but still the powder shows no signs of melting. Pale,
+haggard, sick at heart with anxiety and dread, worn with watching,
+parched and fevered with the heat of the fire, through another, and yet
+another and another day and night, through six days and six nights in
+all, Bernard Palissy watches by the glaring furnace, feeds it
+continually with wood, and still the enamel is unmelted. "Seeing it was
+not possible to make the said enamel melt, I was like a man in
+desperation; and although quite stupified with labour, I counselled to
+myself that in my mixture there might be some fault. Therefore I began
+once more to pound and grind more materials, all the time without
+letting my furnace cool. In this way I had double labour, to pound,
+grind, and maintain the fire. I was also forced to go again and purchase
+pots in order to prove the said compound, seeing that I had lost all the
+vessels which I had made myself. And having covered the new pieces with
+the said enamel, I put them into the furnace, keeping the fire still at
+its height."
+
+By this time it was no easy matter to "keep the fire at its height." His
+stock of fuel was exhausted; he had no money to buy any more, and yet
+fuel must be had. On the very eve of success--alas! an eve that so
+seldom has a dawn--it would never do to lose it all for want of wood,
+not while wood of any kind was procurable. He rushed into the garden,
+tore up the palings, the trellis work that supported the vines, gathered
+every scrap of wood he could find, and cast them on the fire. But soon
+again the deep red glow of the furnace began to fade, and still it had
+not done its work. Suddenly a crashing noise was heard; his wife, the
+children clinging to her gown, rushed in. Palissy had seized the chairs
+and table, had torn the door from its hinges, wrenched the window frames
+from their sockets, and broken them in pieces to serve as fuel for the
+all-devouring fire. Now he was busy breaking up the very flooring of the
+house. And all in vain! The composition would not melt.
+
+"I suffered an anguish that I cannot speak, for I was quite exhausted
+and dried up by the heat of the furnace. Further to console me, I was
+the object of mockery; even those from whom solace was due, ran, crying
+through the town that I was burning my floors. In this way my credit was
+taken from me, and I was regarded as a madman," if not, as he tells us
+elsewhere, as one seeking ill-gotten gains, and sold to the evil one for
+filthy lucre.
+
+He made another effort, engaged a potter to assist him, giving the
+clothes off his own back to pay him, and afterwards receiving aid from a
+friendly neighbour, and this time proved that his mixture was of the
+right kind. But the furnace having been built with mortar which was full
+of flints, burst with the heat, and the splinters adhered to the
+pottery. Sooner than allow such imperfect specimens of his art to go
+forth to the world, Palissy destroyed them, "although some would have
+bought them at a mean price."
+
+Better days, however, were at hand for himself and family. His next
+efforts were successful. An introduction to the Duke of Montmorency
+procured him the patronage of that nobleman, as well as of the king. He
+now found profitable employment for himself and food for his family.
+"During the space of fifteen or sixteen years in all," he said
+afterwards, "I have blundered on at my business. When I had learned to
+guard against one danger, there came another on which I had not
+reckoned. All this caused me such labour and heaviness of spirit, that
+before I could render my enamels fusible at the same degrees of heat, I
+verily thought I should be at the door of my sepulchre.... But I have
+found nothing better than to observe the counsel of God, his edicts,
+statutes, and ordinances; and in regard to his will, I have seen that he
+has commanded his followers to eat bread by the labour of their bodies,
+and to multiply their talents which he has committed to them."
+
+When the Reformation came, Palissy was an earnest reformer, on Sunday
+mornings assembling a number of simple, unlearned men for religious
+worship, and exhorting them to good works. Court favour exempted him
+from edicts against Protestants, but could not shield him from popular
+prejudice. His workshops at Saintes were destroyed; and to save his
+life and preserve the art he had invented, the king called him to Paris
+as a servant of his own. Thus he escaped the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew. Besides being a skilful potter, Palissy was a naturalist of
+no little eminence. "I have had no other book than heaven and earth,
+which are open to all," he used to say; but he read the wondrous volume
+well, while others knew it chiefly at second-hand, and hence his
+superiority to most of the naturalists of the day. He was in the habit
+of lecturing to the learned men of the capital on natural history and
+chemistry. When more than eighty years of age he was accused of heresy,
+and shut up in the Bastille. The king, visiting him in prison, said, "My
+good man, if you do not renounce your views upon religious matters, I
+shall be constrained to leave you in the hands of my enemies." "Sire,"
+replied Palissy, "those who constrain you, a king, can never have power
+over me, because I know how to die." Palissy died in prison, aged and
+exhausted, in 1590, at the age of eighty.
+
+Before his death his wares had become famous, and were greatly prized.
+The enamel, which he went through so much toil and suffering to
+discover, was the foundation of a flourishing national manufacture.
+
+
+
+
+III.--JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
+
+
+Josiah Wedgwood, whose name in connection with pottery-ware has become a
+household word amongst us, was the younger son of a potter at Burslem,
+in Staffordshire, who had also a little patch of ground which he farmed.
+When Josiah was only eleven years old, his father died, and he was thus
+left dependent upon his elder brother, who employed him as a "thrower"
+at his own wheel. An attack of smallpox, in its most malignant form,
+soon after endangered his life, and he survived only by the sacrifice of
+his left leg, in which the dregs of the disease had settled, and which
+had to be cut off. Weak and disabled, he was now thrown upon the world
+to seek his own fortune. At first it was very uphill work with him, and
+he found it no easy matter to provide even the most frugal fare. He was
+gifted, however, with a very fine taste in devising patterns for
+articles of earthenware, and found ready custom for plates,
+knife-handles, and jugs of fanciful shape. He worked away industriously
+himself, and was able by degrees to employ assistance and enlarge his
+establishment. The pottery manufactures of this country were then in a
+very primitive condition. Only the coarsest sort of articles were made,
+and any attempt to give elegance to the designs was very rare indeed.
+All the more ornamental and finer class of goods came from the
+Continent. Wedgwood saw no reason why we should not emulate foreigners
+in the beauty of the forms into which the clay was thrown, and made a
+point of sending out of his own shop articles of as elegant a shape as
+possible. This feature in his productions was not overlooked by
+customers, and he found a growing demand for them. The coarseness of the
+material was, however, a great drawback to the extension of the trade in
+native pottery; and it seemed almost like throwing good designs away to
+apply them to such rude wares. Wedgwood saw clearly that if earthenware
+was ever to become a profitable English manufacture, something must be
+done to improve the quality of the clay. He brooded over the subject,
+tested all the different sorts of earth in the district, and at length
+discovered one, containing silica, which, black in colour before it went
+into the oven, came out of it a pure and beautiful white. This fact
+ascertained, he was not long in turning it to practical account, by
+mixing flint powder with the red earth of the potteries, and thus
+obtaining a material which became white when exposed to the heat of a
+furnace. The next step was to cover this material with a transparent
+glaze; and he could then turn out earthenware as pure in quality as that
+from the Continent. This was the foundation not only of his own fortune,
+but of a manufacture which has since provided profitable employment for
+thousands of his countrymen, besides placing within the reach of even
+the humblest of them good serviceable earthenware for household use.
+
+The success of his white stoneware was such, that he was able to quit
+the little thatched house he had formerly occupied, and open shop in
+larger and more imposing premises. He increased the number of his hands,
+and drove an extensive and growing trade. He was not content to halt
+after the discovery of the white stoneware. On the contrary, the success
+he had already attained only impelled him to further efforts to improve
+the trade he had taken up, and which now became quite a passion with
+him. When he devoted himself to any particular effort in connection with
+it, his first thought was always how to turn out the very best article
+that could be made--his last thought was whether it would pay him or
+not. He stuck up for the honour of old England, and maintained that
+whatever enterprise could be achieved, that English skill and enterprise
+was competent to do. Although he had never had any education himself
+worth speaking of, his natural shrewdness and keen faculty of
+observation supplied his deficiencies in that respect; and when he
+applied himself, as he now did, to the study of chemistry, with a view
+to the improvement of the pottery art, he made rapid and substantial
+progress, and passed muster creditably even in the company of men of
+science and learning. He contributed many valuable communications to the
+Royal Society, and invented a thermometer for measuring the higher
+degrees of heat employed in the various arts of pottery.
+
+Again his premises proved too confined for his expanding trade, and he
+removed to a larger establishment, and there perfected that
+cream-coloured ware with which Queen Charlotte was so delighted, that
+she ordered a whole service of it, and commanding that it should be
+called after her--the Queen's Ware, and that its inventor should receive
+the title of the "Royal Potter."
+
+A royal potter Wedgwood truly was; the very king of earthenware
+manufactures, resolute in his determination to attain the highest degree
+of perfection in his productions, indefatigable in his labours, and
+unstinting in his outlay to secure that end. He invented altogether
+seven or eight different kinds of ware; and succeeded in combining the
+greatest delicacy and purity of material, and utmost elegance of design,
+with strength, durability, and cheapness. The effect of the improvements
+he successively introduced into the manufacture of earthenware is thus
+described by a foreign writer about this period: "Its excellent
+workmanship, its solidity, the advantage which it possesses of
+sustaining the action of fire, its fine glaze, impenetrable to acids,
+the beauty and convenience of its form, and the cheapness of its price,
+have given rise to a commerce so active and so universal, that in
+travelling from Paris to Petersburg, from Amsterdam to the furthest port
+of Sweden, and from Dunkirk to the extremity of the south of France,
+one is served at every inn with Wedgwood ware. Spain, Portugal, and
+Italy are supplied with it, and vessels are loaded with it for the East
+Indies, the West Indies, and the continent of America." Wedgwood
+himself, when examined before a committee of the House of Commons in
+1785, some thirty years after he had begun his operations, stated that
+from providing only casual employment to a small number of inefficient
+and badly remunerated workmen, the manufacture had increased to an
+extent that gave direct employment to about twenty thousand persons,
+without taking into account the increased numbers who earned a
+livelihood by digging coals for the use of the potteries, by carrying
+the productions from one quarter to another, and in many other ways.
+
+Wedgwood did not confine himself to the manufacture of useful articles,
+though such, of course, formed the bulk of his trade, but published
+beautiful imitations of Egyptian, Greek, and Etruscan vases, copies of
+cameos, medallions, tablets, and so on. Valuable sets of old porcelain
+were frequently intrusted to him for imitation, in which he succeeded so
+well that it was difficult to tell the original from the counterfeit,
+except sometimes from the superior excellence and beauty of the latter.
+When the celebrated Barberini Vase was for sale, Wedgwood, bent upon
+making copies of it, made heavy bids against the Duchess of Portland
+for it; and was only induced to desist by the promise, that he should
+have the loan of it in order that he might copy it. Accordingly, the
+duchess had the vase knocked down to her at eighteen hundred guineas,
+and Wedgwood made fifty copies of it, which he sold at fifty guineas
+each, and was thus considerably out of pocket by the transaction. He did
+it, however, not for the sake of profit, but to show what an English
+pottery could accomplish.
+
+Besides copying from antique objects, Wedgwood tried to rival them in
+the taste and elegance of original productions. He found out Flaxman
+when he was an unknown student, and employed him, upon very liberal
+terms, to design for him; and thus the articles of earthenware which he
+manufactured proved of the greatest value in the art education of the
+people. We owe not a little of the improved taste and popular
+appreciation and enjoyment of the fine arts in our own day to the
+generous enterprise of Josiah Wedgwood, and his talented designs.
+
+In order to secure every access from the potteries to the eastern and
+western coasts of the island, Wedgwood proposed, and, with the aid of
+others whom he induced to join him, carried out the Grand Trunk Canal
+between the Trent and the Mersey. He himself constructed a turnpike road
+ten miles in length through the potteries, and built a village for his
+work-people, which he called Etruria, and where he established his
+works. He died there in 1795, at the age of sixty-five, leaving a large
+fortune and an honoured name, which he had acquired by his own industry,
+enterprise, and generosity.
+
+A remarkable memorial to the genius and artistic labours of Wedgwood was
+erected in 1863, and some reference to it should undoubtedly be made in
+these pages.
+
+It is a twofold memorial: a bronze statue at Stoke-upon-Trent, and a
+memorial institute, erected close to the birth-place of the Great Potter
+at Burslem. The foundation-stone was laid on the 26th of October by the
+Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in
+the presence of a very large and enthusiastic assemblage. The Chancellor
+delivered a public address, which in eloquent terms did homage to
+Wedgwood's great mental qualities and his services to his country.
+
+He described as his most signal and characteristic merit, the firmness
+and fulness of his perception of the true law of what we term industrial
+art, or, in other words, of the application of the higher art to
+industry--the law which teaches us to aim first at giving to every
+object the greatest possible degree of fitness and convenience for its
+purpose, and next at making it the article of the highest degree of
+beauty, which compatibly with that fitness and convenience it will
+bear--which does not substitute the secondary for the primary end, but
+recognizes as part of the business the study to harmonize the two.
+
+Mr. Gladstone observed, that to have a strong grasp of this principle,
+and to work it out to its results in the details of a vast and varied
+manufacture, was a praise high enough for any man, at any time and in
+any place. But he thought it was higher and more peculiar in the case of
+Wedgwood than it could be in almost any other case. For that truth of
+art which he saw so clearly, and which lies at the root of excellence,
+is one of which England, his country, has not usually had a perception
+at all corresponding in strength and fulness with her other rare
+endowments. She has long taken a lead among the European nations for the
+cheapness of her manufactures, not so for their beauty. And if the day
+should arrive when she shall be as eminent for purity of taste as she is
+now for economy of production, the result will probably be due to no
+other single man in so remarkable a degree as to Josiah Wedgwood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We conclude with a lively extract from the Chancellor's exhaustive and
+interesting address:--
+
+"Wedgwood," he says, "in his pursuit of beauty, did not overlook
+exchangeable value or practical usefulness. The first he could not
+overlook, for he had to live by his trade; and it was by the profit
+derived from the extended sale of his humbler productions that he was
+enabled to bear the risks and charges of his higher works. Commerce did
+for him what the King of France did for Sèvres, and the Duke of
+Cumberland for Chelsea, it found him in funds. And I would venture to
+say that the lower works of Wedgwood are every whit as much
+distinguished by the fineness and accuracy of their adaptation to their
+uses as his higher ones by their successful exhibition of the finest
+arts. Take, for instance, his common plates, of the value of, I know not
+how few, but certainly of a very few pence each. They fit one another as
+closely as cards in a pack. At least, I for one have never seen plates
+that fit like the plates of Wedgwood, and become one solid mass. Such
+accuracy of form must, I apprehend, render them much more safe in
+carriage....
+
+"Again, take such a jug as he would manufacture for the wash-stand table
+of a garret. I have seen these made apparently of the commonest material
+used in the trade. But instead of being built up, like the usual and
+much more fashionable jugs of modern manufacture, in such a shape that a
+crane could not easily get his neck to bend into them, and the water can
+hardly be poured out without risk of spraining the wrist, they are
+constructed in a simple capacious form, of flowing curves, broad at the
+top, and so well poised that a slight and easy movement of the hand
+discharges the water. A round cheese-holder or dish, again, generally
+presents in its upper part a flat space surrounded by a curved rim; but
+the cheese-holder of Wedgwood will make itself known by this--that the
+flat is so dead a flat, and the curve so marked and bold a curve; thus
+at once furnishing the eye with a line agreeable and well-defined, and
+affording the utmost available space for the cheese. I feel persuaded
+that a Wiltshire cheese, if it could speak, would declare itself more
+comfortable in a dish of Wedgwood's than in any other dish."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The worthiest successor to Wedgwood whom England has known was the late
+Herbert Minton, who was scarcely less distinguished than his predecessor
+for perseverance, patient effort, and artistic sentiment. We owe to him
+in a great measure the revival of the elegant art of manufacturing
+encaustic tiles.
+
+The principal varieties of ceramic ware now in use are:--1. Porcelain,
+which is composed, in England, of sand, calcined bones, china-clay,
+and potash; and, at Dresden, of kaolin, felspar, and broken
+biscuit-porcelain; 2. Parian, which is used in a liquid state, and
+poured into plaster-of-paris moulds; 3. Earthenware, the _Fayence_ of
+the Italians, and the _Delft_ of the Dutch, made of various kinds of
+clay, with a mixture of powdered calcined flint; and, 4. Stoneware,
+composed of several kinds of plastic clay, mixed with felspar and sand,
+and occasionally a little lime.
+
+It is estimated that our English potteries not only supply the demand
+of the United Kingdom, but export ware to the value of nearly a million
+and a half annually. The establishments are about 190 in number; employ
+75,000 to 80,000 operatives; and export 90,000,000 pieces.
+
+
+
+
+The Miner's Safety Lamp.
+
+
+    SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.
+
+
+
+
+The Miner's Safety Lamp.
+
+
+
+
+SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.
+
+
+"What's that? Is the house coming down?" cried Mr. Borlase, the
+surgeon-apothecary of Penzance, jumping out of his cozy arm-chair, as a
+tremendous explosion shook the house from top to bottom, making a great
+jingle among the gallipots in the shop below, and rousing him from a
+comfortable nap.
+
+"Please, sir," said Betty, the housemaid, putting her head into the
+room, "here's that boy Davy been a-blowing of hisself up agen. Drat him,
+he's always up to some trick or other! He'll be the death of all of us
+some day, that boy will, as sure as my name's Betty."
+
+"Bring him here directly," replied her master, knitting his brow, and
+screwing his mild countenance into an elaborate imitation of that of a
+judge he once saw at the assizes, with the black cap on, sentencing some
+poor wretch to be hanged. "Really, this sort of thing won't do at all."
+
+Only, it must be owned, Mr. Borlase had said that many times before, and
+put on the terrible judicial look too, and yet "that boy Davy" was at
+his tricks again as much as ever.
+
+"I'll bring as much as I can find of him, sir," said Betty, gathering up
+her apron, as if she fully expected to discover the object of her search
+in a fragmentary condition.
+
+Presently there was heard a shuffling in the passage, and a somewhat
+ungainly youth, about sixteen years of age, was thrust into the room,
+with the due complement of legs, arms, and other members, and only
+somewhat the grimier about the face for the explosion. His fingers were
+all yellow with acids, and his clothes plentifully variegated with
+stains from the same compounds. At first sight he looked rather a dull,
+loutish boy, but his sharp, clear eyes somewhat redeemed his expression
+on a second glance.
+
+"Here he is, sir," cried Betty triumphantly, as though she really had
+found him in pieces, and took credit for having put him cleverly
+together again.
+
+"Well, Humphrey," said Mr. Borlase, "what have you been up to now?
+You'll never rest, I'm afraid, till you have the house on fire."
+
+"Oh! if you please, sir, I was only experimenting in the garret, and
+there's no harm done."
+
+"No harm done!" echoed Betty; "and if there isn't it's no fault of
+yours, you nasty monkey. I declare that blow up gave me such a turn you
+could ha' knocked me down with a feather, and there's a smell all over
+the house enough to pison any one."
+
+"That'll do, Betty," said her master, finding the grim judicial
+countenance rather difficult to keep up, and anxious to pronounce
+sentence before it quite wore off. "I'll tell you what it is, young
+Davy, this sort of thing won't do at all. I must speak to Mr. Tonkine
+about you; and if I catch you at it again, you'll have to take yourself
+and your experiments somewhere else. So I warn you. You had much better
+attend to your work. It was only the other day you gave old Goody Jones
+a paperful of cayenne instead of cinnamon; and there's Joe Grimsly, the
+beadle, been here half a dozen times this day for those pills I told you
+to make up, and they're not ready yet. So just you take yourself off,
+mind your business, and don't let me have any more nonsense, or it'll be
+the worse for you."
+
+And so the culprit gladly backed out of the room, not a whit abashed by
+the reprimand, for it was no novelty, to begin his experiments again and
+again, and one day, by way of compensation for keeping his master's
+household in constant terror of being blown up, to make his name
+familiar as a household word, by the invention of a little instrument
+that would save thousands and thousands from the fearful consequences of
+coal-pit explosions.
+
+The Mr. Tonkine that his master referred to was the self-constituted
+protector of the Davy family. Old Davy had been a carver in the town,
+and dying, left his widow in very distressed circumstances, when this
+generous friend came forward and took upon himself the charge of the
+widow and her children. Young Humphrey, on leaving school, had been
+placed with Mr. Borlase to be brought up as an apothecary; but he was
+much fonder of rambling about the country, or experimenting in the
+garret which he had constituted his laboratory, than compounding drugs
+behind his master's counter. As a boy he was not particularly smart,
+although he was distinguished for the facility with which he gleaned the
+substance of any book that happened to take his fancy, and for an early
+predilection for poetry. As he grew up, the ardent, inquisitive turn of
+his mind displayed itself more strongly. He was very fond of spending
+what leisure time he had in strolling along the rocky coast searching
+for sea-drift and minerals, or reading some favourite book.
+
+    "There along the beach he wandered, nourishing a youth sublime,
+    With the fairy-tales of science, and the long result of time."
+
+In after life he used often to tell how when tired he would sit down on
+the crags and exercise his fancy in anticipations of future renown, for
+already the ambition of distinguishing himself in his favourite science
+had seized him. "I have neither riches, nor power, nor birth," he wrote
+in his memorandum-book, "to recommend me; yet if I live, I trust I shall
+not be of less service to mankind and my friends than if I had been born
+with all these advantages." He read a great deal, and though without
+much method, managed, in a wonderfully short time, to master the
+rudiments of natural philosophy and chemistry, to say nothing of
+considerable acquaintance with botany, anatomy, and geometry; so that
+though the pestle and mortar might have a quieter time of it than suited
+his master's notions, Humphrey was busy enough in other ways.
+
+[Illustration: HUMPHREY'S EXPERIMENTS ON THE DIFFUSION OF HEAT. Page
+267.]
+
+In his walk along the beach, the nature of the air contained in the
+bladders of sea-weed was a constant subject of speculation with him; and
+he used to sigh over the limited laboratory at his command, which
+prevented him from thoroughly investigating the matter. But one day, as
+good luck would have it, the waves threw up a case of surgical
+instruments from some wrecked vessel, somewhat rusty and sand clogged,
+but in Davy's ingenious hands capable of being turned to good account.
+Out of an old syringe, which was contained in the case, he managed to
+construct a very tolerable air pump; and with an old shade lamp, and a
+couple of small metal tubes, he set himself to work to discover the
+causes of the diffusion of heat. At first sight the want of proper
+instruments for carrying on his researches might appear rather a
+hindrance to his progress in the paths of scientific discovery; but, in
+truth, his subsequent success as an experimentalist has been very
+properly attributed, in no small degree, to that necessity which is the
+parent of invention, and which forced him to exercise his skill and
+ingenuity in making the most of the scanty materials at his command.
+"Had he," says one of his biographers, "in the commencement of his
+career been furnished with all those appliances which he enjoyed at a
+later period, it is more than probable that he might never have acquired
+that wonderful tact of manipulation, that ability of suggesting
+expedients, and of contriving apparatus, so as to meet and surmount the
+difficulties which must constantly arise during the progress of the
+philosopher through the unbeaten track and unexplored regions of
+science!"
+
+While Davy was thus busily engaged qualifying himself for the
+distinguished career that awaited him, Gregory Watt, the son of the
+celebrated James Watt, being in delicate health, came to Penzance for
+change of air, and lodged with Mrs. Davy. At first he and Humphrey did
+not get on very well together, for the latter had just been reading some
+metaphysical works, and was very fond of indulging in crude and flippant
+speculations on such subjects, which rather displeased the shy invalid.
+But one day some chance remark of Davy's gave token of his extensive
+knowledge of natural history and chemistry, and thenceforth a close
+intimacy sprang up between them, greatly to the lad's advantage, for
+Watt's scientific knowledge set him in a more systematic groove of
+study, and encouraged him to concentrate his energies on his favourite
+pursuit.
+
+Another useful friend Davy also found in Mr. Gilbert, afterwards
+President of the Royal Society. Passing along one day, Mr. Gilbert
+observed a youth making strange contortions of face as he hung over the
+hutch gate of Borlase's house; and being told by a companion that he was
+"the son of Davy the carver," and very fond of making chemical
+experiments, he had a talk with the lad, and discovering his talents,
+was ever afterwards his staunch friend and patron.
+
+Through his two friends, Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Watt, Davy formed the
+acquaintance of Dr. Beddoes, who was just setting up at Bristol, under
+the title of Pneumatic Institution, an establishment for investigating
+the medical properties of different gases; and who, appreciating his
+abilities, gave him the superintendence of the new institution.
+
+Although only twenty years of age at this time, Davy was well abreast of
+the science of the day, and soon applied his vigorous and searching
+intellect to several successful investigations. His first scientific
+discovery was the detection of siliceous earth in the outer coating of
+reeds and grasses. A child was rubbing two pieces of bonnet cane
+together, and he noticed that a faint light was emitted; and on striking
+them sharply together, vivid sparks were produced just as if they had
+been flint and steel. The fact that when the outer skin was peeled off
+this property was destroyed, showed that it was confined to the skin,
+and on subjecting it to analysis silex was obtained, and still more in
+reeds and grasses.
+
+As superintendent of Dr. Beddoe's institution, his attention was, of
+course, chiefly directed to the subject of gases, and with the
+enthusiasm of youth, he applied himself ardently to the investigation of
+their elements and effects, attempting several very dangerous
+experiments in breathing gases, and more than once nearly sacrificing
+his life. In the course of these experiments he found out the peculiar
+properties of nitrous oxide, or, as it has since been popularly called,
+"laughing gas," which impels any one who inhales it to go through some
+characteristic action,--a droll fellow to laugh, a dismal one to weep
+and sigh, a pugnacious man to fight and wrestle, or a musical one to
+sing.
+
+At twenty-two years of age, such was the reputation he had acquired,
+that he got the appointment of lecturer at the Royal Institution, which
+was just then established, and found himself in a little while not only
+a man of mark in the scientific, but a "lion" in the fashionable world.
+Natural philosophy and chemistry had begun to attract a good deal of
+attention at that time; and Davy's enthusiasm, his clear and vivid
+explanations of the mysteries of science, and the poetry and imagination
+with which he invested the dry bones of scientific facts, caught the
+popular taste exactly. His lecture-room became a fashionable lounge, and
+was crowded with all sorts of distinguished people. The young lecturer
+became quite the rage, and was petted and feted as the lion of the day.
+It was only six years back that he was the druggist's boy in a little
+country town, alarming and annoying the household with his indefatigable
+experiments. He could hardly have imagined, as one of his day-dreams at
+the sea-side, that his fame would be acquired so quickly.
+
+In spite of all the flatteries and attentions which were showered upon
+him, Davy stuck manfully to his profession; and if his reputation was
+somewhat artificial and exaggerated at the commencement, he amply earned
+and consolidated it by his valuable contributions to science during the
+rest of his career.
+
+The name of Humphrey Davy will always be best known from its association
+with the ingenious safety lamp which he invented, and which well
+entitles him to rank as one of the benefactors of mankind. It was in the
+year 1815 that Davy first turned his attention to this subject. Of
+frequent occurrence from the very first commencement of coal-mining, the
+number of accidents from fire-damp had been sadly multiplied by the
+increase of mining operations consequent on the introduction of the
+steam engine. The dreadful character of some of the explosions which
+occurred about this time, the appalling number of lives lost, and the
+wide-spread desolation in some of the colliery districts which they had
+occasioned, weighed heavily on the minds of all connected with such
+matters. Not merely were the feelings of humanity wounded by the
+terrible and constant danger to which the intrepid miners were exposed,
+but it began to be gravely questioned whether the high rate of wage
+which the collier required to pay him not only for his labour, but for
+the risk he ran, would admit of the mines being profitably worked. It
+was felt that some strenuous effort must be made to preserve the miners
+from their awful foe. Davy was then in the plenitude of his reputation,
+and a committee of coal-owners besought him to investigate the subject,
+and if possible provide some preventative against explosions. Davy at
+once went to the north of England, visited a number of the principal
+pits, obtained specimens of fire-damp, analyzed them carefully, and
+having discovered the peculiarities of this element of destruction,
+after numerous experiments devised the safety-lamp as its antagonist.
+
+The principles upon which this contrivance rests, are the modification
+of the explosive tendencies of fire-damp (the inflammable gas in mines)
+when mixed with carbonic acid and nitrogen; and the obstacle presented
+to the passage of an explosion, if it should occur, through a hole less
+than the seventh of an inch in diameter; and accordingly, while the
+small oil lamp in burning itself mixes the surrounding gas with carbonic
+acid and nitrogen, the cylinder of wire-gauze which surrounds it
+prevents the escape of any explosion. It is curious that George
+Stephenson, the celebrated engineer, about the same time, hit on much
+the same expedient.
+
+To control a "power that in its tremendous effects seems to emulate the
+lightning and the earthquake," and to enclose it in a net of the most
+slender texture, was indeed a grand achievement; and when we consider
+the many thousand lives which it has been the means of saving from a
+sudden and cruel death, it must be acknowledged to be one of the noblest
+triumphs, not only of science, but of humanity, which the world has ever
+seen. Honours were showered upon Davy, from the miners and coal-owners,
+from scientific associations, from crowned heads; but all must agree
+with Playfair in thinking that "it is little that the highest praise,
+and that even the voice of national gratitude when most strongly
+expressed, can add to the happiness of one who is conscious of having
+done such a service to his fellow-men." Davy himself said he "valued it
+more than anything he ever did." When urged by his friends to take out a
+patent for the invention, he replied,--"No, I never thought of such a
+thing. My sole object was to serve the cause of humanity, and if I have
+succeeded, I am amply rewarded by the gratifying reflection of having
+done so."
+
+The honours of knighthood and baronetage were successively conferred on
+Davy as a reward for his scientific labours; and the esteem of his
+professional brethren was shown in his election to the President-ship
+of the Royal Institution, in which, oddly enough, he was succeeded by
+his old friend Mr. Gilbert, who had first taken him by the hand, and
+whom he had got ahead of in the race of life.
+
+Davy died at Geneva before he had completed his fifty-first year, no
+doubt from over-exertion and the unhealthy character of the researches
+he prosecuted so recklessly. Assiduous as he was in his devotion to his
+favourite science, he found time also to master several continental
+languages; to keep himself well acquainted with, and also to contribute
+to the literature of the day; and to indulge his passion for
+fly-fishing, at which he was a keen and practised adept.
+
+Eminent as were the talents of Sir Humphrey Davy, and valuable as his
+discovery of the safety-lamp has proved, it is but fair to own that his
+credit to the latter has been very openly denied. Two persons of
+scientific celebrity have been put forward as the real inventors of the
+safety-lamp--namely, Dr. Reid Clanny of Newcastle, and the great
+railway-engineer, George Stephenson. Of Clanny's safety-lamp a
+description appeared in the _Philosophical Transactions_ in 1813--that
+is, ten years before Sir Humphrey made his communication to the Royal
+Society. However, it was a complicated affair, which required the whole
+attention of a boy to work it, and was based on the principle of forcing
+in air through water by the agency of bellows.
+
+Stephenson's was a very different apparatus. In its general principle it
+resembled Davy's, the chief difference being, that he inserted a glass
+cylinder inside the wire-gauze cylinder, and inside the top of the glass
+cylinder a perforated metallic chimney--the supply of air being kept up
+through a triple circle of small holes in the bottom.
+
+Stephenson's claim has, of course, been disputed by the friends and
+admirers of Sir Humphrey Davy; but Mr. Smile has conclusively proved
+that his lamp, the "Geordy," was in use at the Killingworth collieries
+at the very time that Davy was conducting the experiments which led to
+his invention. It is not to be inferred, however, that Davy knew aught
+of what Stephenson had accomplished. It seems to be one of those rare
+cases in which two minds, working independently, and unknown each to the
+other, have both arrived simultaneously at the same result.
+
+
+
+
+Penny Postage.
+
+
+    SIR ROWLAND HILL.
+
+
+
+
+Penny Postage.
+
+    "He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
+    News from all nations lumb'ring at his back,--
+    Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks;
+    Births, deaths, and marriages; epistles wet
+    With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks
+    Fast as the periods of his fluent quill;
+    Or charged with am'rous sighs of absent swains,
+    Or nymphs responsive."
+
+                                                                 COWPER.
+
+
+The growth of the postal system is a sure measure of the progress of
+industry, commerce, education, and all that goes to make up the sum of
+civilization; and there is no more striking illustration to be found of
+the strides which our country has made in that direction since the
+century began than the introduction of a cheap and rapid delivery of
+letters, and the craving which it has at once satisfied and augmented.
+Nothing gives us so forcible an idea of the difference between the
+Britain of the present day and the Britain of the Stuart or even of the
+Georgian period, than the contrast between the postal communication of
+these times and of our own. The itch of writing is now so strong in us,
+we are so constantly writing or receiving letters, our appetite for them
+is so ravenous, that we wonder how people got on in the days when the
+postman was the exclusive messenger of the king, and when even majesty
+was so badly served that, as one old postmaster[D] wrote in
+self-exculpation of some delay, "when placards are sent (to order the
+immediate forwarding of some state despatches) the constables many times
+be fayne to take the horses oute of plowes and cartes, wherein," he
+gravely adds, "can be no extreme diligence." It was a sure sign that the
+country was going ahead when Cromwell (1656) found it worth while to
+establish posts for the people at large, and was able to farm out the
+post office for £10,000 a year. The profits of that establishment were
+doubled by the time the Stuarts returned to the throne, and more than
+doubled again before the close of the seventeenth century. The country
+has kept on growing out of system after system, like a lad out of his
+clothes, and at different times has had new ones made to its measure.
+Brian Tuke's easy plan of borrowing farmers' horses on which to mount
+his emissaries, gave place to regular relays of post-boys and
+post-horses; and, in course of time, when the robbery of the mails by
+sturdy highwaymen had become almost the rule, and their safe conveyance
+the exception, post-boys were in turn supplanted by a system of
+stage-coaches, convoyed by an armed guard. This was thought a great
+advance; and so it was. A pushing, zealous man named Palmer originated
+the scheme. Amidst many other avocations, he found time to travel on the
+outside of stage-coaches, for the sake of talking with the coachmen and
+observing the routes, here, there, and everywhere all over England, and
+thus matured all the details of his plan from personal experience. "None
+but an enthusiast," said Sheridan in a rapture of admiration in the
+House of Commons, "could have conceived, none but an enthusiast could
+have practically entertained, none but an enthusiast could have carried
+out such a system."
+
+Still, in spite of the exactitude with which Palmer's scheme was
+declared to fit the wants of the country, it soon began to be grown out
+of like the rest. It became too short, too tight, too straitened every
+way, and impeded the circulation of correspondence,--no unimportant
+artery of our national system. The cost of postage was too high, the
+mode of delivery too slow, and the consequence was, that people either
+repressed their desire to write letters, or sent them through some
+cheaper and illegitimate channel. Sir Walter Scott knew a man who
+recollected the mail from London reaching Edinburgh with only a single
+letter. Of all the tens of thousands of the modern Babylon, only one
+solitary individual had got anything to say to anybody in the metropolis
+of the sister kingdom worth paying postage for. "We look back now,"
+writes Miss Martineau, "with a sort of amazed compassion to the old
+crusading times, when warrior-husbands and their wives, grey-headed
+parents and their brave sons, parted with the knowledge that it must be
+months or years before they could hear of one another's existence. We
+wonder how they bore the depth of silence! And we feel the same now
+about the families of Polar voyagers. But, till a dozen years ago, it
+did not occur to many of us how like this was the fate of the largest
+class in our own country. The fact is, there was no full and free
+epistolary intercourse in the country, except between those who had the
+command of franks. There were few families in the wide middle class who
+did not feel the cost of postage a heavy item in their expenditure; and
+if the young people sent letters home only once a fortnight, the amount
+at the year's end was a rather serious matter. But it was the vast
+multitudes of the lower orders who suffered like the crusading families
+of old, and the geographical discoverers of all times. When once their
+families parted off from home it was a separation almost like that of
+death. The hundreds of thousands of apprentices, of shopmen, of
+governesses, of domestic servants, were cut off from family relations as
+if seas or deserts lay between them and home. If the shilling for each
+letter could be saved by the economy of weeks or months at first, the
+rarity of correspondence went on to increase the rarity; new interests
+hastened the dying out of old ones; and the ancient domestic affections
+were but too apt to wither away, till the wish for intercourse was gone.
+The young girl could not ease her heart by pouring out her cares and
+difficulties to her mother before she slept, as she can now, when
+the penny and the sheet of paper are the only condition of the
+correspondence. The young lad felt that a letter home was a serious
+and formal matter, when it must cost his parents more than any
+indulgence they ever thought of for themselves; and the old fun and
+light-heartedness were dropped off from such domestic intercourse as
+there was. The effect upon the morals of this kind of restraint is
+proved beyond a doubt by the evidence afforded in the army. It was a
+well-known fact, that in regiments where the commanding officer was kind
+and courteous about franking letters for the privates, and encouraged
+them to write as often as they pleased, the soldiers were more sober and
+manly, more virtuous and domestic in their affections, than where
+difficulty was made by the indolence or stiffness of the franking
+officer."
+
+Under the costly postal system, the revenue of the post office did not,
+as it had hitherto done, and should have continued to do, keep pace with
+the progress of the country. The appetite for communication between
+distant friends or men of business was evidently either decaying, or
+finding vent in an unlawful way. The latter was chiefly the case. There
+were vast numbers of people separated from each other by long weary
+miles, too many to permit of visits, who could not resist writing to
+each other,--the doating parent to the child, the lover to his
+mistress, the merchant to his agents, the lawyer to his clients. Those
+who could not afford postage, were the very class who could not get
+franks; for the principle was, that those who could best afford postage
+money should have plenty of franks, which were, of course, quite out of
+the way of poor, humble folks,--the fat sow had his ear well greased,
+the lean, starving one had to consume his own fat, like the bear, or go
+without. The consequence was, that those who were eager to write and
+could not get letters through the post, found other means of forwarding
+them to the evasion of the law. There was no limit to the exercise of
+ingenuity in this direction. Three or four letters were written on one
+piece of paper, to be cut up and distributed separately by one of the
+recipients; newspapers were turned into letters by underscoring or
+pricking with a pin the letters required to form the various words of
+the communication; some peculiarity in the style of address on the
+outside was arranged between correspondents, the sight of which was
+enough to indicate a message, and the letter was then rejected, having
+served its purpose; and so on, in a hundred other ways, fraudulent means
+were found of evading the law. Some carriers had a large and profitable
+business in smuggling letters. In many populous districts the number of
+letters conveyed by carriers at a penny each in an illegal way far
+exceeded those sent through the post. In Manchester, for every letter
+that went by the postman, six went by the carrier; and in Glasgow the
+proportion was as one to ten. All this was notorious. The most
+honourable people saw no great harm in cheating the post to send a word
+of comfort or encouragement to an absent friend,--it was a vice that
+leaned to virtue's side. But it was a bad thing for the country that
+people should be driven to such devices, in obeying a natural and proper
+impulse. The man who began by smuggling letters, might end by smuggling
+tobacco or brandy; and the system was morally pernicious. All felt the
+evil, but remedy seemed impossible. As the urgency for a change grew to
+a head, the man came to effect it,--a man "of open heart, who could
+enter into family impulses; a man of philosophical ingenuity, who could
+devise a remedial scheme; a man of business, who could fortify such a
+scheme with impregnable accuracy"--that man was Rowland Hill.
+
+When quite a young man, on a pedestrian excursion through the lake
+district, Rowland Hill, passing a cottage door, observed the postman
+deliver a letter to a woman, and overheard her, after looking anxiously
+at the envelope, and then returning it, say she had no money to pay the
+postage. The man was about to put it back in his wallet and pass on, for
+it was an every-day thing for him to receive such a reply from the poor
+countryfolk, when Mr. Hill in his goodness of heart, out of compassion
+for the woman, stepped forward and paid the shilling, regardless of
+many shakes of the head, and hints of remonstrance from her, which he
+interpreted as merely unwillingness to trespass on a stranger's bounty.
+As soon as the postman was out of sight she broke the seal, and showed
+him why she did not want him to pay for the letter. The sheet was a
+blank, and the envelope had served as a means of communication between
+her and her correspondent. It appeared that she had arranged with her
+brother, that as long as all went well with him he should send a blank
+sheet in that way once a quarter, and thus she had tidings of him
+without paying the postage.
+
+As he pursued his walk, Mr. Hill could not help meditating on the
+incident, which had made a deep impression on his mind. He could not
+blame the poor woman and her brother for the trick they had played upon
+the post office in order to correspond with each other; and yet he felt
+there must be something wrong in a system which put it out of their
+reach, and of others similarly circumstanced, to do so in a lawful
+manner. Every country post-master had a budget of touching stories of
+poor folk who were tantalized with the sight of a letter from some dear
+one, full, perhaps, of kind words and cheering news, or asking sympathy
+and condolence in misfortune, or transmitting money to help them in
+their straits; as well as of countless little frauds of the sort
+described, which they could not always harden themselves to circumvent
+and punish, so piteously eager did the poor souls appear to be to get
+word of their friends. And yet, in spite of all sorts of frauds, to
+people in humble life letters came like "angels' visits, few and far
+between."
+
+Mr. Hill asked himself whether there was no means of lessening the cost
+of postage, whether the government could not afford to charge a lower
+rate, or manage to get the work done more cheaply? Keeping his ears and
+eyes open, always on the alert to pick up a fact as regarded the
+present, or a hint for the future, examining the mode of carriage and
+delivery, the routes chosen, and the time occupied, Mr. Hill, after a
+while, arrived at the conviction, that the postage rates might not only
+be reduced, but that the transmission of letters might be more quickly
+performed by a remodelling of the system. He ascertained that the cost
+of mere transit incurred upon a letter sent from London to Edinburgh, a
+distance of 400 miles, was not more than a thirty-sixth part of a penny,
+and that, therefore, there was a margin, under the existing charge, of
+11-35/36d. for extra expenses and profit. He observed that the twopenny
+posts of London and other large towns were found to answer very well,
+although people, being within easy distances of each other, did not need
+so much as in the country to correspond in writing, and that the
+carriers, in spite of the illegality of the traffic, had loads of
+letters to deliver at a penny each, and that penny paid them for their
+trouble, as well as their risk of detection. He therefore came to the
+conclusion, that what was wanted, and what it was quite possible to
+establish, was a uniform penny postage rate over the whole of the United
+Kingdom. He calculated that if that were adopted, the number of people
+then in the habit of writing letters would write a great many more than
+ever; that others, who had been precluded by the expense from
+corresponding, would come into the field; and that hundreds of letters
+forwarded illegally would now pass through the post, so that the number
+of letters sent by post would be increased fourfold, and the revenue, at
+first, perhaps a trifle curtailed, would soon mount up again.
+
+The post-office authorities were greatly shocked and disgusted at so
+audacious and utopian a proposal. But the public were greatly delighted
+with it, only doubting whether it was not too good news to be true.
+First by means of an anonymous pamphlet, then by direct and personal
+application to the government, Mr. Hill endeavoured to get his plans
+taken into consideration--no easy matter, for circumlocution officials
+had passed from contemptuous indifference to active hostility, as they
+gradually discovered how formidable an antagonist in the truth and
+accuracy of his calculations, the sincerity and earnestness of his
+purpose, they had to deal with. It was a great national cause Mr. Hill
+was fighting, and he was not to be put down. The people took his side,
+Parliament granted an inquiry, and the result was a report in favour of
+his scheme. On the 17th of August 1839--why is not the anniversary kept
+with rejoicings?--penny postage became the law of the land.
+
+During the last weeks of the year a uniform fourpenny rate was charged
+by way of accustoming people to the cheap system, and saving official
+feelings from the rude shock of a sudden descent from the respectable
+rate of a shilling, to the vulgar one of a penny. On the 10th January
+1840 the penny system came into force. At first Mr. Hill availed himself
+of a suggestion thrown out some years before by Mr. Charles Knight, that
+the best way of collecting the penny postage on newspapers would be to
+have stamped covers; but subsequently stamped envelopes were done away
+with, and queen's heads introduced. The franking privilege, of course,
+died with the dear postage.
+
+Upon the adoption of the scheme, Mr. Hill received an appointment in the
+post office in order to superintend its working; but he had an uneasy
+berth of it. His plan was adopted only in part,--the postage rate was
+lowered, while the other compensating and essential features were thrown
+aside; official jealousy of reform showed itself in various attempts to
+thwart his efforts, and to fulfil its prediction of failure to the
+scheme. The consequence was, that the immediate results were not so
+satisfactory as could have been wished. The increase in the number of
+letters was certainly very great. During the last month of the old
+system the total number of letters passing through the post office was
+little more than two millions and a half, of which only a fifth were
+paid letters; while a twelvemonth after the introduction of the new
+system the total number of letters had risen to nearly six millions per
+month, of which the unpaid letters formed less than a twelfth part. Very
+heavy expenses, however, not connected with the new plan, had been
+incurred; and the consequence was, that the profits of the post office
+were only a fourth of what they had been. Advantage was taken of this to
+get Mr. Hill ousted from his post; but, after he had transferred his
+services for some years to the management of the London and Brighton
+Railway, the authorities were glad to receive him back again, to place
+the remodelling of the system in his hands, and to allow him to
+introduce the other parts of his scheme which had before been neglected.
+In this work Mr. Hill was busily engaged for a number of years, and most
+of his plans were gradually carried out with great advantage to the
+public. In 1846 a public testimonial of £13,360 was presented to Mr.
+Hill in acknowledgment of his distinguished services to the country; and
+at a later date he was made a Knight of the Bath.
+
+Cheap postage has now been fairly tried, and must be pronounced a grand
+success. It has become part and parcel of our national life, and has
+been found precious as the gift of a new faculty. We should miss the
+loss of cheap and rapid correspondence with our friends and
+acquaintances almost as much as the loss of speech or the loss of sight.
+The postman has now to find his way to the humblest, poorest districts,
+where twenty years back his knock was never heard; and what was once a
+rare luxury, has now come to be considered a common necessary of life.
+Instead of only seventy-six millions of letters passing through the post
+in a year, as in 1838, the number has risen to between seven and eight
+hundred millions. On the average every individual in England receives
+twenty-eight letters a-year (in London the individual average is
+forty-six), in Scotland eighteen, and in Ireland nine.
+
+The gross revenue derived from these sources is over four millions; and
+some of the railway companies each make more money out of the conveyance
+of the mails in a year, than the annual revenue of the whole kingdom in
+the days of William and Mary.
+
+The moral and social effects of the cheap postage are incalculable. It
+has tended to strengthen and perpetuate domestic ties, to bring the most
+scattered and distant members of a family under the benign influences of
+home, and to foster feelings of friendship and sympathy between man and
+man. Upon the education and intelligence of the people, too, it has
+had, concurrently with other causes, a marked effect. Many who looked
+upon the art of writing as only a temptation to forgery, were induced to
+take pen in hand and master the science of pot-hooks and hangers, for
+the sake of corresponding with their friends, and of being able to read
+the letters they received. In 1839 a third of the men and half of the
+women who were married, according to the registrar's returns, could not
+sign their own names; in 1857 that was the case with only a seventh of
+the men, and a fifth of the women; and not a little of this advanced
+education may be attributed to the impulse given by the introduction of
+cheap postage.
+
+Nor have the advantages derived from the post office by the great body
+of the public ended here. It has shown itself the most progressive
+department of the government, and has undertaken many benevolent
+branches of work which were never contemplated by Sir Rowland Hill. Thus
+it carries on an extensive savings-bank system, worked out by Mr. Frank
+Ives Scudamore, adopted by Mr. Gladstone when Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, and established by Act of Parliament in 1861. This valuable
+department, whose operations are now of a very extensive character,
+keeps a separate account for every depositor, acknowledges the receipt,
+and, on the requisite notice being furnished, sends out warrants
+authorizing post-masters to pay such sums as depositors may wish to
+withdraw. The deposits are handed over to the Commissioners for the
+reduction of the National Debt, and repaid to the depositors through the
+post office. The rate of interest payable to depositors is two and a
+half per cent. Each depositor has his savings-bank book, which is sent
+to him yearly for examination, and the increasing interest calculated
+and allowed.
+
+The post office now acts, too, as a life-insurance society, offering
+advantages to the operative which no other society can offer, and which
+the public are beginning to appreciate.
+
+In 1869 the entire telegraphic system of the United Kingdom passed into
+the hands of the post office, whose administrators have shown themselves
+anxious to offer increased facilities to the public for the transaction
+of business. The number of telegraphic stations has been greatly
+increased, and the rate reduced at which messages are flashed from one
+part of the island to the other.
+
+Finally, a recent innovation, made entirely in the interest of the
+public weal, is the introduction of _Halfpenny Post Cards_. On one side
+of these missives the sender writes the name and address of his
+correspondent; on the other, the communication intended for him. The
+card already bears a halfpenny stamp impressed, and nothing more remains
+to be done but to deposit it in the nearest office or pillar-post. We
+think, then, it may fairly be said that the post office has shown itself
+anxious to "keep abreast" with the ever-increasing wants of the
+commercial classes of Great Britain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While these pages are passing through the press, the following
+particulars, apparently issued under official direction, have attracted
+our attention. We append them here, as they cannot fail to interest the
+reader:--"It appears that there are in the United Kingdom 6 miles 712
+yards of _pneumatic tubes_ in connection with the postal telegraphic
+system (1871). Of these, 4 miles 638 yards exist in London, and 2 miles
+74 yards in the provinces--the latter being confined to Liverpool,
+Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow. Of the total length of tubes now
+existing, only 2 miles 1324 yards existed prior to the transfer of the
+telegraphs to the post office; so that no less than 3 miles 1148 yards
+have been laid since that date; or, in other words, the system has been
+considerably more than doubled in less than a year. The total length of
+new tubes ordered and in progress exceeds 3 miles, and when these are
+completed, the system will be nearly 10 miles in length. All of the
+tubes in the provinces, and all but two of those in London, are worked
+on Clark's system. The two which form an exception are those between
+Telegraph Street and St. Martin's-le-Grand, which are worked on Siemens'
+system. The former are made of lead, with a diameter varying from 1-1/4
+to 2-1/4 inches--the more frequent size being 1-1/2 inches. The latter
+are made of iron, and have a diameter of 3 inches. The idea of iron
+tubes worked on Siemens' principle is derived, we believe, from Berlin,
+where the system is entirely of this description; and of the new tubes
+in progress, that from St. Martin's-le-Grand to Temple Bar will be of
+this kind. All of the tubes now in existence are worked in both
+directions by means of alternate pressure and vacuum; the motive power,
+in the shape of a steam-engine, being stationed at the central office,
+with which the out-stations have communication by this means. It is
+interesting to note the difference of time occupied by the different
+tubes in London in passing the 'carriers' through from one end to the
+other--the speed being governed by the length and diameter of the tube,
+and by the circumstance whether it is carried in a straight line, or has
+to encounter sharp curves and bends on its way. The great advantage of
+this means of communication, for short distance, over the electric is,
+that the tubes are not liable to sudden blocks of work as the wires are,
+and that a dozen or more messages may be sent through, at one blow, if
+desired. For local telegraphs in great towns the pneumatic system is
+invaluable, and is certain to be greatly extended under the postal
+administration."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[D] Brian Tuke, master of the post to King Henry VIII.
+
+
+
+
+The Overland Route.
+
+
+    LIEUTENANT WAGHORN.
+
+
+
+
+The Overland Route.
+
+
+
+
+LIEUTENANT WAGHORN.
+
+
+Worthy to stand on a par with, or at lowest, in the very next rank to,
+the men who originate great inventions, are those whose foresight and
+energy discover the means of extending their utility; and in shortening
+the journey between Europe and India, by the establishment of the
+overland route, Lieutenant Waghorn practically achieved as great a
+triumph over time and space, as if he had invented a machine for the
+purpose that would have traversed the old route in the same time.
+
+It was in 1827 that Thomas Waghorn first promulgated the idea of steam
+communication between our Eastern possessions and the mother country. He
+was then twenty-seven years of age, and had just returned to Calcutta
+from rough and arduous service in the Arracan war. When a midshipman of
+barely seventeen, he had passed the "navigation" examination for
+lieutenant,--the youngest, it appears, who ever did so; but although,
+consequently, eligible for that rank, he had never reached it up to this
+time, in spite of the distinction he had acquired in various actions.
+His health had been so much shattered by a fever caught in Arracan, that
+he had to return to England; but he did not leave Calcutta without
+communicating his design to the government there, and obtaining a letter
+of credence from Lord Combermere (then vice-president in council) to the
+East India Company, recommending him, in consequence of his meritorious
+conduct in the recent war, "as a fit and proper person to open steam
+navigation with India, _via_ the Cape of Good Hope."
+
+The idea, however, was just then in advance of the time, and all
+Waghorn's agitation in its favour proved of no avail. In the meantime,
+the idea of saving the time spent in "doubling the Cape," by means of a
+route through the Mediterranean, across the Isthmus of Suez, and down
+the Red Sea, had occurred to him; and in 1829 he procured a commission
+from the East India Directory to report on the probability of Red Sea
+navigation, and at the same time to convey certain despatches to Sir
+John Malcolm, Governor of Bombay.
+
+He got notice of this mission on the 24th October, and was desired to be
+at Suez by the 8th December, in order to catch the steamer _Enterprise_,
+and proceed in her to India. He took only four days to make ready for
+the journey, and on the 28th left London on the top of the _Eagle_
+stage-coach from Gracechurch Street. Circumstances were anything but
+propitious all through this expedition of his; and yet he defied and
+disregarded them all. Bridges broke down at central points, falling
+avalanches had to be kept clear of, an accident disabled the steamer,
+and he had to go some hundred and thirty miles out of his way in
+consequence. In spite of all that, he dashed through five kingdoms, and
+reached Trieste in nine days, or little more than half the time occupied
+by the post-office mails on the same journey. Impatient of delay, he
+learned that an Austrian brig had left for Alexandria the night before,
+but the breeze had fallen, and she was still to be caught a glimpse of
+from the hill-tops. A fresh posting carriage was got out, and off he
+went in chase of the vessel, hoping to make up to her at Pesano, twenty
+miles down the Gulf of Venice. The calm still prevailed; and as he went
+dashing along he could catch sight, now and then, as the carriage passed
+some open part of the road and disclosed the sea, of the brig creeping
+lazily along. Every hour he gained on her; instead of a dull, black
+speck upon the horizon, he began to make out her hull, her sails, and
+rigging. He urged the post-boys with redoubled vehemence--kept them
+going at a furious pace. He was within three miles of the vessel--it was
+crawling, he was flying--another half hour would see him safe on board,
+and then heigh for India. But stay, surely that was the wind among the
+trees; could the breeze have risen? It had indeed. A strong northerly
+wind sprang up; gradually the sails of the brig swelled out before
+it, and poor Waghorn, with his panting, jaded horses, was left far
+behind. The chase was hopeless now--so he went back mournfully to
+Trieste--"exhausted in body with fatigue, and racked by disappointment
+after the previous excitement."
+
+The next ship, a Spanish one, was not to sail for three days. That was
+more than Waghorn could endure; he went to the captain, urged him,
+bribed him with fifty dollars to make it two days, instead of three, and
+succeeded. In eight and forty hours he was somewhat consoled for his
+former discouragement, to find himself at length at sea. In sixteen days
+he was at Alexandria, and after a rest of only five hours there, hired
+donkeys and was off to Rosetta. The donkeys were in the conspiracy
+against him, as well as the wind and the avalanches. The first day they
+trotted and walked along as brisk as may be, and our indefatigable
+traveller worked them well. It is well known that the donkey of the east
+is a paragon of wisdom, compared with his dunce of a brother in Europe;
+and upon a night's reflection, Mr. Waghorn's donkeys seem to have
+clearly perceived that he had no notion of easy stages, and was bent on
+keeping them going as fast as he could, and as long as daylight
+suffered. So the second day they managed to stumble, and limp, and fall
+down intentionally four or five times, and to put on a pitiful
+affectation of fatigue and weariness,--a common dodge, the drivers said,
+of those knowing animals.
+
+Fortunately he was soon able to dispense with the deceitful donkeys; and
+embarking on the Nile, undertook to navigate the boat himself, in order
+to take soundings and make observations in regard to the route. After
+brief repose at Rosetta, he set out for Cairo on a _cangé_, a sort of
+boat of fifteen tons burthen, with two large latteen sails. The captain
+undertook to land him at Cairo in three days and four nights; but the
+boat went aground on a shoal, and after tacking for five days and
+nights, Waghorn lost all patience, and proceeded to his destination upon
+donkeys. He crossed the desert from Cairo to Suez in four days, on two
+of which he travelled seventy-four miles. He was thus able to keep his
+appointment and be at Suez by the 8th December, but there was no sign of
+the steamer. The wind was blowing right in her teeth; so after waiting
+two days, with feverish impatience, Mr. Waghorn determined to sail down
+the centre of the Red Sea, in an open boat, in the hope of meeting the
+steamer somewhere above Cossier. All the seamen of the locality held up
+their hands at the proposal of the mad Englishman, and tried to dissuade
+him. It was the opinion, he knew, of nautical authorities at the time,
+that the Red Sea was not navigable. But he could not rest quiet at Suez;
+he had important despatches to deliver; he was commissioned to inquire
+into the navigability of these waters; and out he would go in an open
+boat, let folk say what they would, and so he did.
+
+"He embarked," says the narrator of his "Life and Labours," in
+_Household Words_,[E] "in an open boat, and without having any personal
+knowledge of the navigation of this sea, without chart, without compass,
+or even the encouragement of a single precedent for such an
+enterprise--his only guide the sun by day, and the north star by
+night--he sailed down the centre of the Red Sea. Of this most
+interesting and unprecedented voyage Mr. Waghorn gives no detailed
+account. All intermediate things are abruptly cut off with these very
+characteristic words: '_Suffice it_ to say, _I arrived_ at Juddah, 620
+miles in six and a half days, in that boat!' You get nothing more than
+the sum total. He kept a sailor's log-journal; but it is only meant for
+sailors to read, though now and then you obtain a glimpse of the sort of
+work he went through. Thus: '_Sunday, 13th_--Strong, N.W. wind, half a
+gale, but scudding under storm-sail. Sunset, anchored for the night.
+Jaffateen Islands out of sight to the N. Lost two anchors during the
+night,' &c. The rest is equally nautical and technical. In one of the
+many scattered papers collected since the death of Mr. Waghorn, we find
+a very slight passing allusion to toils, perils, and privations, which,
+however, he calmly says, were 'inseparable from such a voyage under such
+circumstances,'--but not one touch of description from first to last. A
+more extraordinary instance of great practical experience and
+knowledge, resolutely and fully carrying out a project which must of
+necessity have appeared little short of madness to almost everybody
+else, was never recorded. He was perfectly successful, so far as the
+navigation was concerned, and in the course he adopted, notwithstanding
+that his crew of six Arabs mutinied. It appears (for he tells us only
+the bare fact) they were only subdued on the principle known to
+philosophers in theory, and to high-couraged men, accustomed to command,
+by experience,--namely, that the one man who is braver, stronger, and
+firmer than any individual of ten or twenty men, is more than a match
+for the ten or twenty put together. He touched at Cossier on the 14th,
+not having fallen in with the _Enterprise_. There he was told by the
+governor that the steamer was expected every hour. Mr. Waghorn was in no
+state of mind to wait very long; so, finding she did not arrive, he
+again put to sea in his open boat, resolved, if he did not fall in with
+her, to proceed the entire distance to Juddah--a distance of 400 miles
+further. Of this further voyage he does not leave any record, even in
+his log, beyond the simple declaration that he 'embarked for Juddah--ran
+the distance in three days and twenty-one hours and a quarter--and on
+the 23d anchored his boat close to one of the East India Company's
+cruisers, the _Benares_.' But now comes the most trying part of his
+whole undertaking--the part which a man of his vigorously constituted
+impulses was least able to bear as the climax of his prolonged and
+arduous efforts, privations, anxieties, and fatigue. Repairing on board
+the _Benares_ to learn the news, the captain informed him that, in
+consequence of being found in a defective state on her arrival at
+Bombay, 'the _Enterprise_ was not coming at all.' This intelligence
+seems to have felled him like a blow, and he was immediately seized with
+a delirious fever. The captain and officers of the _Benares_ felt great
+sympathy and interest in this sad result of so many extraordinary
+efforts, and detaining him on board, bestowed every attention on his
+malady."
+
+It was six weeks before he could proceed by sailing vessel to Bombay,
+where he arrived on the 21st March, having, in spite of all the
+drawbacks in his way, accomplished the journey in four months and
+twenty-one days--quite an extraordinary rapidity at that time. Had he
+escaped the fever at Juddah, and fallen in with the _Enterprise_ at the
+right time, nearly two months might have been saved.
+
+He had proved the practicability of the overland route, and he now
+devoted himself to its establishment. In an address to the Home
+Government and the East India Company, he thus expresses his views:--
+
+"Of myself, I trust I may be excused when I say, that the highest object
+of my ambition has ever been an extensive usefulness; and my line of
+life--my turn of mind--my disposition, long ago impelled me to give all
+my leisure, and all my opportunities of observation, to the introduction
+of steam-vessels, and permanently establishing them as the means of
+communication between India and England including all the colonies on
+the route. The vast importance of three months' earlier information to
+his Majesty's government, and to the Honourable Company,--whether
+relative to a war or a peace--to abundant or to short crops--to the
+sickness or convalescence of a colony or district, and oftentimes even
+of an individual; the advantages to the merchant, by enabling him to
+regulate his supplies and orders according to circumstances and demands;
+the anxieties of the thousands of my countrymen in India for accounts,
+and further accounts, of their parents, children, and friends at home;
+the corresponding anxieties of those relatives and friends in this
+country;--in a word, the speediest possible transit of letters to the
+tens of thousands who at all times in solicitude await them, was, to my
+mind, a service of the greatest general importance; and it shall not be
+my fault if I do not, and for ever establish it."
+
+The scheme which he thus resolutely and enthusiastically declared his
+adoption of, he lived to carry out, but at the cost of years of weary
+advocacy, agitation for help, desperate attempts on his own account, or
+in conjunction with a few enterprising associates, in the teeth of
+constant discouragement, official indifference, jealousy, and disguised
+hostility. The East India Company told him there was no need of steam
+navigation to the East at all, ordered him to mind his own business and
+return to field service, circulated reports of his insanity through
+their agents in Egypt when Waghorn went there to enlist the Pasha in his
+cause. The overland route, however, was no theory, but an undoubted
+fact. Waghorn never for a moment relaxed his grasp of it, or doubted its
+value; and in the end, after unheard of difficulties, disappointments,
+and opposition, into the long, painful story of which we need not enter,
+succeeded in establishing the overland route. When he left Egypt in
+1841, he had provided English carriages, vans, and horses, for the
+conveyance of passengers across the desert, placed small steamers on the
+Nile and Alexandrian Canal, and built the eight halting-places on the
+desert between Cairo and Suez. He also set up the three hotels in the
+same quarter "in which every comfort, and even some luxuries, were
+provided and stored for the passing traveller,--among which should be
+mentioned iron tanks with good water, ranged in cellars beneath;--and
+all this in a region which was previously a waste of arid sands and
+scorching gravel, beset with wandering robbers and their camels. These
+wandering robbers he converted into faithful guides, as they are now
+found to be by every traveller; and even ladies with their infants are
+enabled to cross and re-cross the desert with as much security as if
+they were in Europe."
+
+In acknowledgment of his services, Mr. Waghorn received the rank of
+lieutenant in the Royal Navy, a grant of £1500, and an annuity of £200
+a-year from Government, and another annuity of £200 from the East India
+Company; but he did not live long to enjoy his well-earned rewards. The
+care, and anxiety, and fatigue he had undergone had shattered his
+constitution. Through some misunderstanding or mismanagement on the part
+of the East India Company, rivals were allowed to step in and carry off
+the chief profits of the overland system, and his last years were
+embittered by various disputes with the authorities. He died in the end
+of 1849, by years only in the prime of life; but old, and worn by his
+labours before his time. Such was the career of the "pioneer of the
+Overland Route."
+
+But in connection with England's route to India, the name of Monsieur de
+Lesseps must never be forgotten, nor the great enterprise which, at so
+much cost, and in spite of so many obstacles, he successfully carried
+out--the Suez Canal. When he first projected it he met with most of the
+obstacles which are thrown in the way of great inventions. England,
+jealous of a scheme which seemed likely to throw into the hands of a
+foreign power the nearest route to her beloved India, stood sullenly
+aloof, and refused to contribute moral or pecuniary support; while some
+of the most eminent English and foreign engineers openly declared that
+it could never be carried out. M. de Lesseps, however, was one of those
+men who, when they have seized a great idea, can never be thrown off it.
+It had taken full possession of his imagination, judgment, and
+intellect! he felt that it _could_, and he determined that it _should_
+be realized. He conquered every difficulty: he raised funds; he secured
+the support of his own government; and in 1856 he obtained from the
+Pasha of Egypt the exclusive privilege of constructing a ship-canal from
+Tyneh, near the ruins of the ancient Pelusium, to Suez.
+
+M. de Lesseps determined that his canal should be cut in a straight
+line, with an average width of 330 feet, and at an uniform depth of 20
+feet under low-water mark, while at each end was to be constructed a
+sluice-lock, 330 feet long by 70 wide. Further, at each end he proposed
+to execute a magnificent harbour; that at the Mediterranean end was to
+be extended five miles into the sea, so as to obtain a permanent depth
+of water for a ship drawing twenty-three feet, on account of the
+enormous quantity of mud annually silted up by the Nile; that at the Red
+Sea end was to be three miles long.
+
+In 1865 the great canal was begun. The Mediterranean entrance is at Port
+Said, about the middle of the narrow neck of land between Lake Menzaleh
+and the sea, in the eastern part of the Delta. Thence it is carried for
+about twenty miles across Menzaleh Lake, being 112 yards wide at the
+surface, 26 yards at the bottom, and 26 feet deep. On each side an
+artificial bank rises some 15 feet high. The distance thence to Abu
+Ballah Lake is 11 miles, through ground which varies from 15 to 30 feet
+above the level of the sea. This lake being traversed, there is land
+again--a troublesome and shifty soil--to Timsah Lake, the canal being
+cut at a depth below the sea-level of 50 to 100 feet. On the shore of
+Timsah Lake has risen a new and busy town, the central point of the
+canal, and named Ismailia, in honour of the present Pasha of Egypt.
+
+A space of eight miles intervenes between the Timsah Lake and the Bitter
+Lakes, and in this space the cuttings are very deep and difficult. The
+soil being almost purely sand, the constant labour of powerful dredging
+machines is constantly required, to prevent the channel from filling up.
+The deepest cutting occurs at El Guisr, or Girsch, and is no less than
+85 feet below the surface: at the water-level it is 112 yards wide, at
+the summit-level 173 yards. In traversing the Bitter Lakes the course of
+the canal is marked by embankments. From the southern end of these lakes
+to Suez, a distance of about thirteen miles, the cuttings are heavy and
+deep.
+
+After many discouraging failures, M. de Lesseps' great work was
+completed last year, and the formal opening of the canal took place in
+the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and a goodly number of
+princes, potentates, and distinguished personages. It is now open to
+navigation from end to end, and ships of considerable tonnage have
+successfully accomplished the passage. Whether the canal is a
+_commercial_ success may still be doubted. The cost of further deepening
+and enlarging it, and of maintaining its banks and harbours, amounts to
+a sum which, as yet, the traffic charges are not at all likely to
+defray. But, in an engineering sense, the Suez Canal is one of the
+wonders of this wonderful nineteenth century.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[E] August 17, 1850.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Beautifully Illustrated Works.
+
+
+EARTH AND SEA. From the French of LOUIS FIGUIER. Translated, Edited, and
+Enlarged by W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS, Illustrated with Two Hundred and
+Fifty Engravings by FREEMAN, GIACOMELLI, YAN D'ARGENT, PRIOR, FOULQUIER,
+RIOU, LAPLANTE, and other Artists. Imperial 8vo. Handsomely bound in
+cloth and gold. Price 15s.
+
+This volume is founded upon M. Figuier's "_La Terre et Les Mers_," but
+so many additions have been made to the original, and its aim and scope
+have been so largely extended, that it may almost be called a new work.
+These additions and this extension were deemed necessary by the Editor,
+in order to render it more suitable for the British public, and in order
+to bring it up to the standard of geographical knowledge.
+
+
+THE DESERT WORLD. From the French of ARTHUR MANGIN. Translated, Edited,
+and Enlarged by the Translator of "The Bird," by Michelet. With One
+Hundred and Sixty Illustrations by W. FREEMAN, FOULQUIER, and YAN
+D'ARGENT. Imperial 8vo, full gilt side and gilt edges. Price 12s. 6d.
+
+    SATURDAY REVIEW.--"_The illustrations are numerous, and
+    extremely well cut. Two handsomer and more readable volumes than
+    this and 'The Mysteries of the Ocean' it would be difficult to
+    produce._"
+
+
+THE MYSTERIES OF THE OCEAN. From the French of ARTHUR MANGIN. By the
+Translator of "The Bird." With One Hundred and Thirty Illustrations by
+W. FREEMAN and J. NOEL. Imperial 8vo, full gilt side and gilt edges.
+Price 10s. 6d.
+
+    PALL MALL GAZETTE.--"_Science walks to-day in her silver
+    slippers. We have here another sumptuously produced popular
+    manual from France. It is an account, complete in extent and
+    tolerably full in detail, of the Sea. It is eminently
+    readable.... The illustrations are altogether excellent; and the
+    production of such a book proves at least that there are very
+    many persons who can be calculated on for desiring to know
+    something of physical science._"
+
+
+THE BIRD. By JULES MICHELET, Author of "History of France," &c.
+Illustrated by Two Hundred and Ten Exquisite Engravings by GIACOMELLI.
+Imperial 8vo, full gilt side and gilt edges. Price 10s. 6d.
+
+    WESTMINSTER REVIEW.--"_This work consists of an exposition of
+    various ornithological matters from points of view which could
+    hardly be thought of, except by a writer of Michelet's peculiar
+    genius. With his argument in favour of the preservation of our
+    small birds we heartily concur. The translation seems to be
+    generally well executed; and in the matter of paper and
+    printing, the book is almost an _ouvrage de luxe_. The
+    illustrations are generally very beautiful._"
+
+    THE ART JOURNAL.--"_It is a charming book to read, and a most
+    valuable volume to think over.... It was a wise, and we cannot
+    doubt it will be a profitable, duty to publish it here, where it
+    must take a place second only to that it occupies in the
+    language in which it was written.... Certainly natural history
+    has never, in our opinion, been more exquisitely illustrated by
+    wood-engraving than in the whole of these designs by M.
+    Giacomelli, who has treated the subject with rare delicacy of
+    pencil and the most charming poetical feeling--a feeling
+    perfectly in harmony with the written descriptions of M.
+    Michelet himself._"
+
+
+
+
+THE "SCHÖNBERG-COTTA" SERIES OF BOOKS.
+
+_In Cloth Binding, 6s. 6d. each; in Morocco, 12s. each._
+
+
+CHRONICLES OF THE SCHÖNBERG-COTTA FAMILY.
+
+    THE TIMES.--"_We are confident that most women will read it with
+    keen pleasure, and that those men who take it up will not easily
+    lay it down without confessing that they have gained some pure
+    and ennobling thoughts from the perusal._"
+
+
+DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN: A Story of the Times of Whitefield and
+the Wesleys.
+
+    GLASGOW CITIZEN.--"_The various characters are well
+    discriminated, and the story flows on naturally and pleasantly
+    to the end._"
+
+
+THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS: A Story of the Civil Wars.
+
+    DAILY REVIEW.--"_It is the most interesting of all the
+    authoress' productions._"
+
+
+ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA: A Story of the Commonwealth and the
+Restoration.
+
+    ATHENÆUM.--"_A good deal of ingenuity has been employed for the
+    purpose of grouping together many of the well-known characters
+    of that day; and in spite of the general gravity of the
+    narrative, there is evidence of a considerable sense of quiet
+    humour both in the characters and in the language employed._"
+
+
+WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN.
+
+    ECLECTIC.--"_Very acceptable to many thousands, and only needing
+    to be mentioned to be sought for and read._"
+
+
+THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN AND THE LIBERATORS OF HOLLAND; or, The Story of the
+Sisters Dolores and Costanza Cazalla.
+
+
+SKETCHES OF CHRISTIAN LIFE IN ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME.
+
+
+DIARY OF BROTHER BARTHOLOMEW, WITH OTHER TALES AND SKETCHES OF CHRISTIAN
+LIFE IN DIFFERENT LANDS AND AGES.
+
+
+WANDERINGS OVER BIBLE LANDS AND SEAS. With a Photograph, and other
+Illustrations.
+
+
+WATCHWORDS FOR THE WARFARE OF LIFE (From the Writings of Luther).
+Translated and Arranged by the Author of "The Schönberg-Cotta Family."
+
+
+POEMS. By the Author of "Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family."
+CONTENTS:--The Women of the Gospels--The Three Wakings--Songs and
+Hymns--Memorial Verses. Crown 8vo, gilt edges.
+
+
+
+
+VALUABLE WORKS.
+
+
+BY THE REV. J. C. RYLE, B.A.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE LAST CENTURY; or, England a Hundred Years
+Ago. By the Rev. J. C. RYLE, B.A., Christ Church, Oxford, Author of
+"Expository Thoughts," &c. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 7s. 6d.
+
+    PALL MALL GAZETTE.--"_Mr. Ryle has evidently a complete
+    acquaintance with his subject, such as a mere critical historian
+    would never be likely to acquire; and we believe there is no
+    book existing which contains nearly the same amount of
+    information upon it._"
+
+
+BY THE REV. WILLIAM ARNOT.
+
+LAWS FROM HEAVEN FOR LIFE ON EARTH--ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOOK OF
+PROVERBS. New Edition. Complete in One Volume. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price
+7s. 6d.
+
+    FAMILY TREASURY.--"_A noble volume by one of the freshest and
+    most vigorous writers of the present day."_
+
+THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. Crown 8vo, cloth antique. Price 7s. 6d.
+
+    REV. JAMES HAMILTON, D.D.--"_The best family book on the
+    Parables._"
+
+    SPURGEON.--"_Mr. Arnot is the fittest man living to expound the
+    Parables, for he is himself a great master of metaphorical
+    teaching. In the valuable work before us there is, as is usual
+    with the author, much striking originality, and much unparaded
+    learning. The first will make it popular, the second will
+    commend it to the thoughtful. Many writers have done well upon
+    this subject, but in some respects, as far as space would permit
+    him, our friend excels them all. 'The Parables' will be a fit
+    companion to 'The Proverbs,' and both books will be immortal._"
+
+
+BY THE REV. A. A. HODGE, D.D.
+
+OUTLINES OF THEOLOGY. Edited by the Rev. W. H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of
+Biblical Literature and Church History, Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. Price 6s.
+6d.
+
+    SPURGEON.--"_We can best show our appreciation of this able Body
+    of Divinity by mentioning that we have used it in our college
+    with much satisfaction both to tutor and students. We intend to
+    make it a class-book, and urge all young men who are anxious to
+    become good theologians to master it thoroughly. Of course we do
+    not endorse the chapter on baptism. To a few of the Doctor's
+    opinions in other parts we might object, but as a Hand-book of
+    Theology, in our judgment, it is like Goliath's sword--'there is
+    none like it.'_"
+
+THE ATONEMENT. Edited by the Rev. W. H. Goold, D.D., Crown 8vo. Price
+5s.
+
+    EXTRACT FROM LETTER BY THE AUTHOR TO THE EDITOR OF THIS
+    EDITION.--"_This work has been written with a view to meet the
+    rationalistic speculations of the present day as to the nature
+    of sin, the extent of human depravity and moral ability, the
+    nature of our connection with Adam, the nature and extent of the
+    Atonement, &c. &c. So much has been written that is positively
+    false, or fatally defective, by Maurice, Jowett, Bushnell, and
+    others, that it appeared high time that those who love the truth
+    should rouse themselves to do what they can to defend and exalt
+    it._"
+
+
+BY THE REV. ISLAY BURNS, D.D.
+
+HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST: With a Special View to the Delineation
+of Christian Faith and Life. With Notes, Chronological Tables, Lists of
+Councils, Examination Questions, and other Illustrative Matter. (From
+A.D. 1 to A.D. 313.) Crown 8vo, cloth antique. Price 5s.
+
+
+
+
+Beautifully Illustrated Books for the Young.
+
+
+THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON; or, Adventures of a Shipwrecked Family on a
+Desolate Island. A New and Unabridged Translation. With an Introduction
+from the French of CHARLES NODIER. Illustrated with upwards of Three
+Hundred Engravings. Crown 8vo, cloth extra. Price 6s.
+
+This is a new and _unabridged translation_ of a work which has acquired
+a great and well-merited popularity from its happy combination of
+instruction and amusement, of the interest of romance with the
+discoveries of science.
+
+
+PAUL AND VIRGINIA. From the French of BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE. An
+Entirely New Translation, with Botanical Notes, and upwards of Ninety
+Engravings. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 4s.
+
+
+THE WORLD AT HOME: Pictures and Scenes from Far-off Lands. By MARY and
+ELIZABETH KIRBY. With upwards of One Hundred and Thirty Illustrations.
+Square 8vo. Cloth, richly gilt. Price 6s.
+
+    THE TIMES.--"_An admirable collection of adventures and
+    incidents in foreign lands, gleaned largely from foreign
+    sources, and excellently illustrated._"
+
+    BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW.--"_A very charming book; one of the
+    best popular wonder-books for young people that we have seen. In
+    language of singular simplicity, and with a very profuse use of
+    very effective woodcuts, the distinctive features of far-off
+    lands--their natural history, the manners and customs of their
+    inhabitants, their physical phenomena, &c.--are brought home to
+    the fireside in a way to entrance alike the children of five or
+    six years old, and the older folk who instruct them. No better
+    book has appeared this season._"
+
+
+BOOK FOR BOYS--ILLUSTRATED BY GUSTAVE DORÉ.
+
+GEOFFREY THE KNIGHT. A Tale of Chivalry of the Days of King Arthur. With
+Twenty Full-page Engravings by GUSTAVE DORÉ. Post 8vo, cloth extra, gilt
+edges. Price 4s.
+
+    THE SCOTSMAN.--"_'Geoffrey the Knight' appears now in perhaps
+    the most attractive form it has yet assumed. Printed in the best
+    style, it is still further enriched by a number of admirable
+    engravings by Gustave Doré, illustrating all the most thrilling
+    adventures related._"
+
+
+CATS AND DOGS; or, Notes and Anecdotes of Two Great Families of the
+Animal Kingdom. By Mrs. HUGH MILLER. New Edition. With upwards of Forty
+Engravings. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+    THE TIMES.--"_A full and well-written account of both the feline
+    and the canine species. It is filled with spirited engravings,
+    many of which, giving pictures of tiger and lion hunting, will
+    have special attractions for the Gordon Cummings and Gerrards
+    and Livingstones of the future, who are now in our
+    school-rooms._"
+
+
+NEW GIFT-BOOK FOR BOYS.
+
+THE PLAYGROUND AND THE PARLOUR. A Hand-Book of Boys' Games, Sports, and
+Amusements. By ALFRED ELLIOTT. With One Hundred Illustrations. Post 8vo.
+Price 3s. 6d.
+
+    ILLUSTRATED TIMES.--"_We have not for some time seen any Book of
+    Sports better got up or more carefully compiled than this._"
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR BOYS.
+
+
+THE FOREST, THE JUNGLE, AND THE PRAIRIE; or, Scenes with the Trapper and
+the Hunter in Many Lands. By ALFRED ELLIOTT. With Thirty Engravings.
+Post 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 5s.
+
+    DAILY NEWS.--"_An excellent volume, in which lessons in zoology
+    are communicated whilst the reader accompanies the hunter in the
+    jungles of India, the lairs of Africa, the prairies of America,
+    and the plains of Ceylon._"
+
+
+BY R. M. BALLANTYNE.
+
+_New and Cheaper Editions._
+
+THE YOUNG FUR-TRADERS: A Tale of the Far North. With Illustrations. Post
+8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+UNGAVA: A Tale of Esquimaux Land. With Illustrations. Post 8vo, cloth.
+Price 3s.
+
+THE CORAL ISLAND: A Tale of the Pacific. With Illustrations. Post 8vo,
+cloth. Price 3s.
+
+MARTIN RATTLER; or, A Boy's Adventures in the Forests of Brazil. With
+Illustrations. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+THE DOG CRUSOE AND HIS MASTER: A Tale of the Western Prairies. With
+Illustrations. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+THE GORILLA HUNTERS: A Tale of Western Africa. With Illustrations. Post
+8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+THE WORLD OF ICE; or, Adventures in the Polar Regions. With Engravings.
+Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+
+BY J. H. FYFE.
+
+MERCHANT ENTERPRISE; or, the History of Commerce from the Earliest
+Times. Caravans of Old--The Phoenicians--Marts of the Mediterranean, &c.
+With Eight Illustrations from designs by CLARK STANTON, Esq., R.S.A.
+Post 8vo, cloth extra. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+BRITISH ENTERPRISE BEYOND THE SEAS; or, The Planting of our Colonies.
+Illustrated. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND DISCOVERY. Illustrated. Post 8vo, cloth extra.
+Price 2s. 6d.
+
+
+BY W. H. G. KINGSTON.
+
+_New Editions, Illustrated._
+
+ROUND THE WORLD: A Tale for Boys. With Fifty-two Engravings. Post 8vo,
+cloth extra. Price 5s.
+
+OLD JACK: A Sea Tale. With Sixty Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth extra.
+Price 5s.
+
+MY FIRST VOYAGE TO SOUTHERN SEAS. With Forty-two Engravings. Post 8vo,
+cloth extra. Price 5s.
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.
+
+   ART JOURNAL.--"_Among the best Publishers of Books for the Young
+   we must rank the names of the Messrs. Nelson._"
+
+
+AFAR IN THE FOREST; or, Pictures of Life and Scenery in the Wilds of
+Canada. By Mrs. TRAILL, Author of the "Canadian Crusoes," &c.
+Illustrated. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.
+
+FAITHFUL AND TRUE; or, The Evans Family. By the Author of "Tony Starr's
+Legacy," &c. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+THINGS IN THE FOREST. By MARY AND ELIZABETH KIRBY. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 1s. 6d.
+
+THE HISTORY OF A PIN. By F. M. S. Illustrated. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 1s. 6d.
+
+OLD ROBIN AND HIS PROVERB. By Mrs. HENRY F. BROCK. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 1s. 6d.
+
+TRUTH IS ALWAYS BEST; or, A Fault Confessed is Half Redressed. By MARY
+AND ELIZABETH KIRBY. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+TRUTHS AND FANCIES FROM FAIRY LAND; or Fairy Stories with a Purpose.
+With Four Steel Plates. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+SCENES OF THE OLDEN TIME. By the Author of "Records of Noble Lives,"
+"The Boy Makes the Man," &c. With Four Steel Plates. Foolscap 8vo,
+cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+ALICE STANLEY, and other Stories. By Mrs. S. C. HALL. With Four Steel
+Engravings. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+THE PLAYFELLOW, and other Stories. By Mrs. S. C. HALL. With Four Steel
+Engravings. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+THE WAY OF THE WORLD, and other Tales. By Mrs. S. C. HALL. With Four
+Steel Engravings. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+STORIES FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY. By the Rev. JAMES WOOD. With Four Steel
+Plates. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+
+_New Illustrated Edition._
+
+PAUL AND VIRGINIA. With Seventy Cuts. Royal 32mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+Price 1s.
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.
+
+
+ISABEL'S SECRET; or, A Sister's Love. By the Author of "The Story of a
+Happy Little Girl." Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+ANNA LEE: The Maiden--The Wife--The Mother. By T. S. ARTHUR. Post 8vo,
+cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+TRUE RICHES; or, Wealth without Wings. By T. S. ARTHUR. With Five
+Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+WOODLEIGH HOUSE; or, The Happy Holidays. With Eight Engravings. Post
+8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+MISSIONARY EVENINGS AT HOME. By H. L. L. Post 8vo, cloth extra, gilt
+edges. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+THE GOLDEN MISSIONARY PENNY, and other Addresses to the Young. By the
+late Rev. JAMES BOLTON, Kilburn. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+MARION'S SUNDAYS; or, Stories on the Commandments. With Engravings.
+Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.
+
+ANNALS OF THE POOR. With Memoir of the Author. With Eight Plates printed
+in Colours. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.; or, cloth extra, gilt edges,
+price 3s.
+
+NELLY NOWLAN'S EXPERIENCE, and other Stories. By Mrs. S. C. HALL.
+Illustrated. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.
+
+THE STORY OF THE WHITE-ROCK COVE. A Tale for the Young. With Six
+Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth extra. Price 3s.
+
+FAR AND NEAR; or, Stories of a Christmas Tree. By ITA. With Coloured
+Frontispiece. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+THE FLOWER OF THE FAMILY: A Tale of Domestic Life. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 2s.
+
+THE WORLD'S BIRTHDAY. By the Rev. Professor L. GAUSSEN. With Plates.
+Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+WOODRUFF; or, "Sweetest when Crushed." A Tale. By Mrs. VEITCH. Foolscap
+8vo, cloth. Price 2s.
+
+THE REGULAR SERVICE; or, the Story of Reuben Inch. By the Author of
+"Village Missionaries," "Under the Microscope," &c. Illustrated. Post
+8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+THE A. L. O. E. SERIES OF BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.
+
+BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED AND ELEGANTLY BOUND.
+
+    CHURCH OF ENGLAND SUNDAY-SCHOOL MAGAZINE.--"_With A. L. O. E.'s
+    well-known powers of description and imagination, circumstances
+    are described and characters sketched, which we believe many
+    readers will recognize as their own._"
+
+
+_Post 8vo, Cloth._
+
+CLAUDIA. A Tale. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+HEBREW HEROES. A Tale founded on Jewish History. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+ON THE WAY; or Places Passed by Pilgrims. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+THE TRIUMPH OVER MIDIAN. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+HOUSE BEAUTIFUL; or, The Bible Museum. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+RESCUED FROM EGYPT. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+PRIDE AND HIS PRISONERS. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+THE GOLDEN FLEECE. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+THE ROBY FAMILY. With Seven Illustrations. Gilt edges. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+THE ROBBERS' CAVE: A Story of Italy. With Seven Illustrations. Gilt
+edges, with beautifully illuminated side. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES. Vignette Title. Gilt edges. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+STORY OF A NEEDLE. With Seven Illustrations. Gilt edges, with
+beautifully illuminated side. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+MY NEIGHBOUR'S SHOES; or, Feeling for Others. Illustrated. Gilt edges,
+with beautifully illuminated side. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+
+_Foolscap 8vo, Cloth._
+
+IDOLS IN THE HEART. A Tale. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+THE SILVER CASKET; or, Love not the World. A Tale. Illustrated. Price
+3s.
+
+WAR AND PEACE. A Tale of the Retreat from Cabul. Illustrated. Price 3s.
+
+THE HOLIDAY CHAPLET. Illustrated. Cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 3s.
+
+THE SUNDAY CHAPLET. Illustrated. Cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 3s.
+
+MIRACLES OF HEAVENLY LOVE IN DAILY LIFE. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+WHISPERING UNSEEN; or, "Be ye Doers of the Word, and not Hearers Only."
+Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+PARLIAMENT IN THE PLAY-ROOM. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+THE MINE; or, Darkness and Light. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+FLORA; or, Self-Deception. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+THE CROWN OF SUCCESS; or, Four Heads to Furnish. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+ZAIDA'S NURSERY NOTE-BOOK. A Book for Mothers. Price 2s.
+
+POEMS AND HYMNS. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+RAMBLES OF A RAT. Illustrated. Price 2s.
+
+STORIES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS. Illustrated. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+WINGS AND STINGS. 18mo Edition. Illustrated. Price 1s.
+
+
+_New Editions, Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cloth Extra._
+
+THE YOUNG PILGRIM. A Tale Illustrating the Pilgrim's Progress. With
+Twenty-Seven Engravings. Price 4s.
+
+THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM. With Forty Engravings. Price 5s.
+
+EXILES IN BABYLON; or, Children of Light. Thirty-four Cuts. Price 5s.
+
+PRECEPTS IN PRACTICE. With Forty Engravings. Price 4s.
+
+THE GIANT-KILLER. With Forty Engravings. Price 4s.
+
+FAIRY KNOW-A-BIT. With Thirty-four Illustrations. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+T. NELSON AND SONS, LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK.
+
+[Transcriber's Note:
+
+Ligature occurrences of oe have been represented as two separate letters,
+such as in "Koenig" and "Phoenicians".
+
+The following alterations have been made to the text as originally
+printed:
+   Page 30: Changed quotes from double to single: 'Recuyell of the
+            Historyes of Troye,'
+   Page 64: "reader." changed to "reader,"
+   Page 65: "home," changed to "home."
+   Page 128: Added closing quote: ... and working efficiency."
+   Page 131: Added closing quote: ... of solid masonry."
+   Page 136: "porportion" changed to "proportion"
+   Page 166: "better then an arm" changed to "better than an arm"
+   Page 187: "paddle-wheels Through" changed to "paddle-wheels. Through"
+   Page 197: "a mortal sickness:" changed to "a mortal sickness;"
+   Page 249: "own, Thus" changed to "own. Thus"
+   Page 250: "condition Only" changed to "condition. Only"
+   Page 295: Changed double quotes to single quotes: passing the
+             'carriers' through
+   Page 295: Added closing quote: ... under the postal
+             administration."
+   Page 315: Added closing quote: ... present day."
+   Page 316: "Dore" changed to "Doré"
+]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in
+Art and Science, by J. Hamilton Fyfe
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIUMPHS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 36768-8.txt or 36768-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/6/36768/
+
+Produced by Sharon Joiner, Jana Srna, Bill Keir, Erica
+Pfister-Altschul and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/36768-8.zip b/36768-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..edc0bbb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-8.zip
diff --git a/36768-h.zip b/36768-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7afb5d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h.zip
diff --git a/36768-h/36768-h.htm b/36768-h/36768-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b964a1f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/36768-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,10438 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science, by J. Hamilton Fyfe.
+    </title>
+
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+body {
+    margin-left: 10%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+    text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+h2.primary { font-family:sans-serif; }
+
+p {
+    margin-top: .75em;
+    text-align: justify;
+    margin-bottom: .75em;
+}
+
+ul { list-style-type: none; }
+
+ul.TOC {
+    position: relative;
+    left: -3%;
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+    width: 50%;
+}
+
+.chapterTOC {
+    font-weight:bold;
+    list-style-type: upper-roman;
+    margin-left: 30%;
+    margin-right: auto;
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+li.chapter {
+    margin-top: 1.5em;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+span.ralign { /* use absolute positioning to move page# right */
+    position: absolute;
+    right: 0; /* right edge against container's right edge */
+    top: auto; /* vertical align to original text baseline */
+}
+.floatright    {float:right;}
+
+hr {
+    margin-top: 2em;
+    margin-bottom: 2em;
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+hr.cb { width: 80%; }
+hr.tb { width: 35%; }
+
+table {
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+}
+
+.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+    /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+    position: absolute;
+    left: 92%;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    text-align: right;
+} /* page numbers */
+
+.blockquot {
+    margin-left: 5%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+.ads {
+    margin-left: 10%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+.center   {text-align: center;}
+.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+img.cap { float:left;
+        margin: 0 0.5em 0 0;
+        position:relative; }
+p.cap_1 { text-indent: -1em; }
+div.drop p:first-letter { color:Window; }
+div.drop p { margin-bottom:0; }
+
+p.adscap:first-letter {
+    vertical-align:text-top;
+    float: left; clear: left;
+    margin: 0 0.1em 0 0;
+    padding:0;
+    line-height: 1.2em; font-size: 150%; }
+
+.caption  {font-weight: bold;}
+.pageref  {float:right; font-weight:normal; font-size:smaller;}
+
+/* Images */
+.figcenter   {
+    margin: auto;
+    margin-bottom: 1.5em;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+.figleft {
+    float: left;
+    clear: left;
+    margin-left: 0;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-right: 1em;
+    padding: 0;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+.figright {
+    float: right;
+    clear: right;
+    margin-left: 1em;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-right: 0;
+    padding: 0;
+    text-align: center;
+}
+
+/* Footnotes */
+.footnotes        {border: dashed 1px; padding: 2em;}
+
+.footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+
+.footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+
+.fnanchor {
+    vertical-align: super;
+    font-size: .8em;
+    text-decoration:
+    none;
+}
+
+/* Poetry */
+.poem {
+    text-align: left;
+    margin-left:30%;
+    margin-right:30%;
+}
+.poem br {display: none;}
+.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+
+.poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em;}
+.poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;}
+.poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;}
+.poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em;}
+.poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em;}
+
+a,img { border: none; text-decoration: none; }
+
+.tnote { width: 40em;
+    border: 1px dashed #808080;
+    background-color: #f6f6f6;
+    text-align: justify;
+    padding: 0.5em;
+    margin: 80px auto 80px auto;
+}
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art
+and Science, by J. Hamilton Fyfe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science
+
+Author: J. Hamilton Fyfe
+
+Release Date: July 17, 2011 [EBook #36768]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIUMPHS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sharon Joiner, Jana Srna, Bill Keir, Erica
+Pfister-Altschul and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 312px;">
+    <a href="images/cover-800.jpg">
+    <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="312" height="500" alt="" title="" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<h1>TRIUMPHS OF<br />
+INVENTION AND DISCOVERY<br />
+IN ART AND SCIENCE.</h1>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 398px;">
+<a href="images/fig-frontispiece-1200.png">
+<img src="images/fig-frontispiece-600.png" width="398" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</a>
+<span class="caption">GEORGE STEPHENSON&#39;S HOME.<br />
+<span class="pageref">Page 120</span></span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/header-tp.png" width="400" height="108" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>TRIUMPHS OF<br />
+INVENTION AND DISCOVERY<br />
+IN ART AND SCIENCE.</h1>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+<h2>J. HAMILTON FYFE.</h2>
+
+<h4>"PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES NO LESS THAN WAR."</h4>
+
+<h3>LONDON:<br />
+T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;<br />
+EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.</h3>
+
+<h4>1871.</h4>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/header-v.png" width="600" height="117" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 175px;">
+<a name="Preface" id="Preface"></a>
+<img src="images/title-preface.png" width="175" height="34" alt="Preface" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war.</i>"&mdash;<span class="smcap">Milton.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>It is not difficult to account for the pre-eminence,
+generally assigned to the victories of war over the
+victories of peace in popular history. The noise and
+ostentation which attend the former, the air of
+romance which surrounds them,&mdash;lay firm hold of
+the imagination, while the directness and rapidity
+with which, in such transactions, the effect follows
+the cause, invest them with a peculiar charm for
+simple and superficial observers. As Schiller says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">"Straight forward goes</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Of the cannon ball. Direct it flies, and rapid,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Shattering that it <i>may</i> reach, and shattering what it reaches.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">My son! the road the human being travels,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The river's course, the valley's playful windings:</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Honouring the holy bounds of property!</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And thus secure, though late, leads to its end."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>
+The path of peace is long and devious, now dwindling
+into a mere foot-track, now lost to sight in some
+dense thicket; and the heroes who pursue it are often
+mocked at by the crowd as poor, half-witted souls,
+wandering either aimlessly or in foolish chase of
+some Jack o' lantern that ever recedes before them.
+The goal they aim at seems to the common eye so
+visionary, and their progress towards it so imperceptible,&mdash;and
+even when reached, it takes so long
+before the benefits of their achievement are generally
+recognised,&mdash;that it is perhaps no wonder we should
+be more attracted by the stirring narratives of war,
+than by the sad, simple histories of the great pioneers
+of industry and science.</p>
+
+<p>Picturesque and imposing as deeds of arms appear,
+the victories of peace&mdash;the development of great
+discoveries and inventions, the performance of serene
+acts of beneficence, the achievements of social reform&mdash;possess
+a deeper interest and a truer romance for
+the seeing eye and the understanding heart. Wounds
+and death have to be encountered in the struggles
+of peace as well as in the contests of war; and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>
+peace has her martyrs as well as her heroes. The
+story of the cotton-spinning invention is at once as
+tragic and romantic as the story of the Peninsular
+war. There were "forlorn hopes" of brave men in
+both; but in the one case they were cheered by sympathy
+and association, in the other the desperate
+pioneers had to face a world of foes, "alone, unfriended,
+solitary, slow."</p>
+
+<p>The following pages contain sketches of some of
+the more momentous victories of peace, and the
+heroes who took part in them. The reader need
+hardly be reminded that this brief list does not
+exhaust the catalogue either of such events or persons,
+and that only a few of a representative character
+are here selected.</p>
+
+<p>In the present edition the different sections have
+been carefully revised, and the details brought down
+to the latest possible date.</p>
+
+<p class="floatright">J. H. F.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/footer-vii.png" width="300" height="98" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/header-ix.png" width="600" height="116" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 175px;">
+<img src="images/title-contents.png" width="175" height="28" alt="Contents." title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<ul class="TOC">
+<li><a href="#The_Art_of_Printing">
+<span class="smcap">The Art of Printing</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. <a href="#JOHN_GUTENBERG">John Gutenberg</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. <a href="#WILLIAM_CAXTON">William Caxton</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></span></li>
+  <li>3. <a href="#THE_PRINTING_MACHINE">The Printing Machine</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#The_Steam_Engine">
+<span class="smcap">The Steam Engine</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. <a href="#THE_MARQUIS_OF_WORCESTER">The Marquis of Worcester, and his Successors,</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. <a href="#JAMES_WATT">James Watt</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#The_Manufacture_of_Cotton">
+<span class="smcap">The Manufacture of Cotton</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. <a href="#KAY_AND_HARGREAVES">Kay and Hargreaves</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. <a href="#SIR_RICHARD_ARKWRIGHT">Sir Richard Arkwright</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></span></li>
+  <li>3. <a href="#SAMUEL_CROMPTON">Samuel Crompton</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></span></li>
+  <li>4. <a href="#DR_CARTWRIGHT">Dr. Cartwright</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></span></li>
+  <li>5. <a href="#SIR_ROBERT_PEEL">Sir Robert Peel</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#The_Railway_and_the_Locomotive">
+<span class="smcap">The Railway and the Locomotive</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. "<a href="#THE_FLYING_COACH">The Flying Coach</a>,"
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. <a href="#THE_STEPHENSONS_FATHER_AND_SON">The Stephensons: Father and Son</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></span></li>
+  <li>3. <a href="#THE_GROWTH_OF_RAILWAYS">The Growth of Railways</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#The_Lighthouse">
+<span class="smcap">The Lighthouse</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. <a href="#THE_EDDYSTONE">The Eddystone</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. <a href="#THE_BELL_ROCK">The Bell Rock</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></span></li>
+  <li>3. <a href="#THE_SKERRYVORE">The Skerryvore</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#Steam_Navigation">
+<span class="smcap">Steam Navigation</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. <a href="#JAMES_SYMINGTON">James Symington</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. <a href="#ROBERT_FULTON">Robert Fulton</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></span></li>
+  <li>3. <a href="#HENRY_BELL">Henry Bell</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></span></li>
+  <li>4. <a href="#OCEAN_STEAMERS">Ocean Steamers</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></div>
+
+<ul class="TOC">
+<li><a href="#Iron_Manufacture">
+<span class="smcap">Iron Manufacture</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li><a href="#HENRY_CORT">Henry Cort</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#The_Electric_Telegraph">
+<span class="smcap">The Electric Telegraph</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. <a href="#MR_COOKE">Mr. Cooke</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. <a href="#PROFESSOR_WHEATSTONE">Professor Wheatstone</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></span></li>
+  <li>3. <a href="#THE_SUBMARINE_TELEGRAPH">The Submarine Telegraph</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#The_Silk_Manufacture">
+<span class="smcap">The Silk Manufacture</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. <a href="#JOHN_LOMBE">John Lombe</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_221">221</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. <a href="#WILLIAM_LEE">William Lee</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_225">225</a></span></li>
+  <li>3. <a href="#JOSEPH_MARIE_JACQUARD">Joseph Marie Jacquard</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#The_Potters_Art">
+<span class="smcap">The Potter's Art</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. <a href="#LUCA_DELLA_ROBBIA">Luca Della Robbia</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_237">237</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. <a href="#BERNARD_PALISSY">Bernard Palissy</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></span></li>
+  <li>3. <a href="#JOSIAH_WEDGWOOD">Josiah Wedgwood</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#The_Miners_Safety_Lamp">
+<span class="smcap">The Miner's Safety Lamp</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. <a href="#SIR_HUMPHREY_DAVY">Sir Humphrey Davy</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_263">263</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. George Stephenson's Lamp,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#Penny_Postage">
+<span class="smcap">Penny Postage</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. Sir Rowland Hill,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. New Departments of the Postal System,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_292">292</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+
+<li><a href="#The_Overland_Route">
+<span class="smcap">The Overland Route</span></a>&mdash;
+  <ul>
+  <li>1. <a href="#LIEUTENANT_WAGHORN">Lieutenant Waghorn</a>,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></span></li>
+  <li>2. The Suez Canal,
+  <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_309">309</a></span></li>
+  </ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/footer-x.png" width="300" height="109" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="The_Art_of_Printing" id="The_Art_of_Printing"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p011.png" alt="The Art of Printing." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+<ol class="chapterTOC">
+  <li> &mdash; JOHN GUTENBERG.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; WILLIAM CAXTON.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; THE PRINTING MACHINE.</li>
+</ol>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/header-013.png" width="600" height="117" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p013.png" alt="The Art of Printing." title="" /></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A creature he called to wait on his will,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Half iron, half vapour&mdash;a dread to behold&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Which evermore panted, and evermore rolled,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And uttered his words a millionfold.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Forth sprung they in air, down raining in dew,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And men fed upon them, and mighty they grew."</span><br />
+<span class="floatright"><span class="smcap">Leigh Hunt</span>, <i>Sword and Pen</i>.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="JOHN_GUTENBERG" id="JOHN_GUTENBERG"></a>I.&mdash;JOHN GUTENBERG.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="drop">
+<img src="images/dropcap-013.png" alt="S" width="80" height="164" class="cap" />
+<p class="cap_1">Some Dutch writers, inspired by a not unnatural
+feeling of patriotism, have endeavoured
+to claim the honour of inventing
+the Art of Printing for a countryman of
+their own, Laurence Coster of Haarlem.
+Their sole reliance, however, is upon the statements
+of one Hadrian Junius, who was born at Horn, in
+North Holland, in 1511. About 1575 he wrote a
+work, entitled "Batavia," in which the account of
+Coster first appeared. And, as an unimpeachable
+authority has remarked, almost every succeeding
+advocate of Coster's pretensions has taken the liberty
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+of altering, amplifying, or contradicting the account
+of Junius, according as it might suit his own line of
+argument; but not one of them has succeeded in
+producing a solitary fact in confirmation of it. The
+accounts which are given of Coster's discovery by
+Junius and his successors present many contradictory
+features. Thus Junius says: "Walking in a neighbouring
+wood, as citizens are accustomed to do after
+dinner and on holidays, he began to cut letters of
+beech-bark, with which, for amusement&mdash;the letters
+being inverted as on a seal&mdash;he impressed short
+sentences on paper for the children of his son-in-law."
+A later writer, Scriverius, is more imaginative:
+"Coster," he says, "walking in the wood,
+picked up a small bough of a beech, or rather of an
+oak-tree, blown off by the wind; and after amusing
+himself with cutting some letters on it, wrapped it
+up in paper, and afterwards laid himself down to
+sleep. When he awoke, he perceived that the paper,
+by a shower of rain or some accident having got
+moist, had received an impression from these letters;
+which induced him to pursue the accidental discovery."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Not only are these accounts evidently deficient in
+authenticity, but it should be remarked that the
+earliest of them was not put before the world until
+Laurence Coster had been nearly a hundred and fifty
+
+years in his grave. The presumed writer of the
+narrative which first did justice to his memory had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+been also twelve years dead when his book was
+published. His information, or rather the information
+brought forward under cover of his name, was
+derived from an old man who, when a boy, had
+heard it from another old man who lived with Coster
+at the time of the robbery, and who had heard the
+account of the invention from his master. For, to
+explain the fact of the early appearance of
+typography in Germany, the Dutch writers are forced to
+the hypothesis that an apprentice of Coster's stole
+all his master's types and utensils, fleeing with them
+first to Amsterdam, second to Cologne, and lastly to
+Mentz! The whole story is too improbable to be
+accepted by any impartial inquirer; and the best
+authorities are agreed in dismissing the Dutch fiction
+with the contempt it deserves, and in ascribing to
+<span class="smcap">John Gutenberg</span>, of Mentz, the honour to which
+he is justly entitled.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Of the career of Gutenberg we shall speak presently,
+but let us first point out that the invention
+of typography, like all great inventions, was no
+sudden conception of genius&mdash;not the birth of some
+singularly felicitous moment of inspiration&mdash;but the
+result of what may be called a gradual series of
+causes. Printing with movable types was the
+natural outcome of printing with blocks. We must
+go back, therefore, a few years, to examine into the
+origin of "block books."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+Mr. Jackson observes that there cannot be a
+doubt that the principle on which wood engraving
+is founded&mdash;that of taking impressions on paper or
+parchment, with ink, from prominent lines&mdash;was
+known and practised in attesting documents in the
+thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Towards the
+end of the fourteenth, or about the beginning of the
+fifteenth century, he says, there seems reason to believe
+that this principle was adopted by the German
+card-makers for the purpose of marking the outlines
+of the figures on their cards, which they afterwards
+coloured by the practice called <i>stencilling</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It was the Germans who first practised card-making
+as a trade, and as early as 1418 the name
+of a <i>kartenmacher</i>, or card-maker, occurs in the
+burgess-books of Augsburg. In the town-books of
+Nuremburg, the designation <i>formschneider</i>, or figure-cutter,
+is found in 1449; and we may presume that
+block books&mdash;that is, books each page of which was
+cut on a single block&mdash;were introduced about this
+time. These books were on religious subjects, and
+were intended, perhaps, by the monks as a kind of
+counterbalance against the playing-cards; "thus
+endeavouring to supply a remedy for the evil, and
+extracting from the serpent a cure for his bite."</p>
+
+<p>The earliest woodcut known&mdash;one of St. Christopher&mdash;bears
+the date of 1432, and was found in a
+convent situated within about fifty miles of the city
+of Augsburg&mdash;the convent of Buxheim, near
+Mem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>mingen.
+It was pasted on the inside of the right
+hand cover of a manuscript entitled <i>Laus Virginis</i>,
+and measures eleven and a quarter inches in height,
+by eight and one-eighth inches in width.</p>
+
+<p>The following description of it by Jackson is
+interesting:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To the left of the engraving the artist has introduced,
+with a noble disregard of perspective, what
+Bewick would have called a 'bit of nature.' In
+the foreground a figure is seen driving an ass loaded
+with a sack towards a water-mill; while by a steep
+path a figure, perhaps intended for the miller, is seen
+carrying a full sack from the back-door of the mill
+towards a cottage. To the right is seen a hermit&mdash;known
+by the bell over the entrance to his dwelling&mdash;holding
+a large lantern to direct St. Christopher
+as he crosses the stream. The couplet at the foot
+of the cut,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Cristofori faciem die quacunque tueris,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Illa nempe die morte mala non morieris,'</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>may be translated as follows,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Each day that thou the image of St. Christopher shall see,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">That day no frightful form of death shall chance to fall on thee.</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These lines allude to a superstition, once popular in
+all Catholic countries, that on the day they saw a
+figure or image of St. Christopher, they would be
+safe from a violent death, or from death unabsolved
+and unconfessed."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+Passing over some other woodcuts of great antiquity,
+in all of which the figures are accompanied
+by engraved letters, we come to the block books
+proper. Of these, the most famous are called, the
+<i>Apocalypsis, seu Historia Sancti Johannis</i> (the
+"Apocalypse, or History of St. John"); the <i>Historia
+Virginis ex Cantico Canticorum</i> ("Story of
+the Virgin, from the Song of Songs"); and the <i>Biblia
+Pauperum</i> ("Bible of the Poor"). The first is a
+history, pictorial and literal, of the life and revelations
+of St. John the Evangelist, partly derived from
+the book of Revelation, and partly from ecclesiastical
+tradition. The second is a similar biography of the
+Virgin Mary, as it is supposed to be typified in the
+Song of Solomon; and the third consists of subjects
+representing many of the most important passages
+in the Old and New Testaments, with texts to illustrate
+the subject, or clinch the lesson of duty it may
+shadow forth.</p>
+
+<p>With respect to the engraving, we are told that
+the cuts are executed in the simplest manner, as
+there is not the least attempt at shading, by
+means of cross lines or hatchings, to be detected
+in any one of the designs. The most difficult
+part of the engraver's task, says Jackson, supposing
+the drawing to have been made by another
+person, would be the cutting of the letters,
+which, in several of the subjects, must have
+occupied a considerable portion of time, and have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+demanded no small degree of perseverance, care,
+and skill.</p>
+
+<p>These block books were followed by others in
+which no illustrations appeared, but in which the
+entire page was occupied with text. The Grammatical
+Primer, called the "Donatus," from the
+name of its supposed compiler, was thus printed, or
+engraved, enabling copies of it to be multiplied at
+a much cheaper rate than they could be produced
+in manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>And thus we see that the art of printing&mdash;or,
+more correctly speaking, engraving on wood&mdash;has
+advanced from the production of a single figure,
+with merely a few words beneath it, to the impression
+of whole pages of text. Next, for the engraved
+page were to be substituted movable letters of metal,
+wedged together within an iron frame; and impressions,
+instead of being obtained by the slow and
+tedious process of friction, were to be secured by
+the swift and powerful action of the press.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>About the year 1400, John G&aelig;nsfleisch, or Gutenberg,
+was born at Mentz. He sprung from an
+honourable family, and it is said that he himself
+was by birth a knight. He seems to have been a
+person of some property.</p>
+
+<p>About 1434 we find him living in Strasburg,
+and, in partnership with a certain Andrew Drytzcher,
+endeavouring to perfect the art of typography. How
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+he was induced to direct his attention towards this
+object, and under what circumstances he began his
+experiments, it is impossible to say; but there can
+be no doubt that he was the first person who conceived
+the idea of <i>movable types</i>&mdash;an idea which is
+the very foundation of the art of printing.</p>
+
+<p>An old German chronicler furnishes the following
+account of the early stages of the great printer's
+discovery:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"At this time (about 1438), in the city of Mentz,
+on the Rhine, in Germany, and not in Italy as some
+persons have erroneously written, that wonderful
+and then unheard-of art of printing and characterizing
+books was invented and devised by John Gutenberger,
+citizen of Mentz, who, having expended most
+of his property in the invention of this art, on account
+of the difficulties which he experienced on all
+sides, was about to abandon it altogether; when,
+by the advice and through the means of John Fust,
+likewise a citizen of Mentz, he succeeded in bringing
+it to perfection. At first they formed or engraved
+the characters or letters in written order on blocks
+of wood, and in this manner they printed the vocabulary
+called a 'Catholicon.' But with these forms or
+blocks they could print nothing else, because the
+characters could not be transposed in these tablets,
+but were engraved thereon, as we have said. To
+this invention succeeded a more subtle one, for they
+found out the means of cutting the forms of all the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+letters of the alphabet, which they called <i>matrices</i>,
+from which again they cast characters of copper or
+tin of sufficient hardness to resist the necessary pressure,
+which they had before engraved by hand."</p>
+
+<p>This is a very brief and summary account of a
+great invention. By comparison of other authorities
+we are enabled to bring together a far greater number
+of details, though we must acknowledge that many
+of these have little foundation but in tradition or
+romance.</p>
+
+<p>Let us, therefore, take a peep at the first printer,
+working in seclusion and solitude in the old historic
+city of Strasburg, and endeavouring to elaborate in
+practice the grand idea which has been conceived
+and matured by his energetic brain. Doubtlessly
+he knew not the full importance of this idea, or of
+how great a social and religious revolution it was to
+be the seed, and yet we cannot believe that he was
+altogether unconscious of its value to future generations.</p>
+
+<p>Shutting himself up in his own room, seeing no
+one, rarely crossing the threshold, allowing himself
+hardly any repose, he set himself to work out the
+plan he had formed. With a knife and some pieces
+of wood he constructed a set of movable types, on
+one face of each of which a letter of the alphabet
+was carved in relief, and which were strung together,
+in the order of words and sentences, upon a
+piece of wire. By means of these he succeeded in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+producing upon parchment a very satisfactory impression.</p>
+
+<p>To be out of the way of prying eyes, he took up
+his quarters in the ruins of the old monastery of St.
+Arbogaste, outside the town, which had long been
+abandoned by the monks to the rats and beggars of
+the neighbourhood; and the better to mask his
+designs, as well as to procure the funds necessary for
+his experiments, he set up as a sort of artificer in
+jewellery and metal-work, setting and polishing
+precious stones, and preparing Venetian glass for
+mirrors, which he afterwards mounted in frames
+of metal and carved wood. These avowed labours
+he openly practised, along with a couple of assistants,
+in a public part of the monastery; but in
+the depths of the cloisters, in a dark secluded spot,
+he fitted up a little cell as the <i>atelier</i> of his secret
+operations; and there, secured by bolts and bars,
+and a thick oaken door, against the intrusion of any
+one who might penetrate so far into the interior of
+the ruins, he applied himself to his great work. He
+quickly perceived, as a man of his inventiveness was
+sure to perceive, the superiority of letters of metal
+over those of wood. He invented various coloured
+inks, at once oily and dry, for printing with; brushes
+and rollers for transferring the ink to the face of the
+types; "forms," or cases, for keeping together the
+types arranged in pages; and a press for bringing
+the inked types and the paper in contact.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 403px;">
+<a href="images/fig-p022-1200.png">
+<img src="images/fig-p022-600.png" width="403" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</a>
+<span class="caption">GUTENBERG IN THE OLD MONASTERY.<br />
+<span class="pageref">Page 22.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+Day and night, whenever he could spare an
+instant from his professed occupations, he devoted
+himself to the development of his great design. At
+night he could hardly sleep for thinking of it, and
+his hasty snatches of slumber were disturbed by
+agitating dreams. Tradition has preserved the story
+of one of these for us as he afterwards told it to his
+friends. He dreamt that, as he sat feasting his
+eyes upon the impression of his first page of type,
+he heard two voices whispering at his ear&mdash;the one
+soft and musical, the other harsh, dull, and bitter in
+its tones. The one bade him rejoice at the great
+work he had achieved; unveiled the future, and
+showed the men of different generations, the peoples
+of distant lands, holding high converse by means of
+his invention; and cheered him with the hope of an
+immortal fame. "Ay," put in the other voice,
+"immortal he might be, but at what a price! Man,
+more often perverse and wicked than wise and good,
+would profane the new faculty this art created, and
+the ages, instead of blessing, would have cause to
+curse the man who gave it to the world. Therefore
+let him regard his invention as a seductive but fatal
+dream, which, if fulfilled, would place in the hands
+of man, sinful and erring as he was, only another
+instrument of evil." Gutenberg, whom the first
+voice had thrown into an ecstasy of delight, now
+shuddered at the thought of the fearful power to corrupt
+and to debase his art would give to wicked men, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+awoke in an agony of doubt. He seized his
+mallet, and had almost broken up his types and
+press, when he paused to reflect that, after all, God's
+gifts, although sometimes perilous and capable of
+abuse, were never evil in themselves, and that to give
+another means of utterance to the piety and reason
+of mankind was to promote the spread of virtue and
+intelligence, which were both divine. So he closed
+his ears to the suggestions of the tempter, and persisted
+in his work.</p>
+
+<p>Gutenberg had scarcely completed his printing
+machine, and got it into working order, when the
+jealousy and distrust of his associates in the nominal
+business he carried on, brought him into trouble with
+the authorities of Strasburg. He could have saved
+himself by the disclosure of all the secrets of his
+invention; but this he refused to do. His goods
+were confiscated; and he returned penniless, with a
+heavy heart, to his native town Mentz. There, in
+partnership with a wealthy goldsmith named John
+Fust, and his son-in-law Schoeffer, he started a
+printing office; from which he sent out many works,
+mostly of a religious character. The enterprise
+throve; but misfortune was ever dogging Gutenberg's
+steps, and he had but a brief taste of prosperity.
+The priests looked with suspicion upon the
+new art, which enabled people to read for themselves
+what before they had to take on trust from them.
+The transcribers of books,&mdash;a large and influential
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+guild,&mdash;were also hostile to the invention, which
+threatened to deprive them of their livelihood.
+These two bodies formed a league against the printers;
+and upon the head of poor Gutenberg were emptied
+all the vials of their wrath. Fust and Schoeffer,
+with crafty adroitness, managed to conciliate their
+opponents, and to offer up their partner as a sacrifice
+for themselves. By the zeal of his enemies,
+and the treachery of his friends, Gutenberg was
+driven out of Mentz. After wandering about for
+some time in poverty and neglect, Adolphus, the
+Elector of Nassau, became his patron; and at his
+court Gutenberg set up a press, and printed a number
+of works with his own hands. Though poor,
+his last years were spent in peace; and when he
+died, he had only a few copies of the productions
+of his press to leave to his sister.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, at Strasburg, some of his former
+associates pieced together the revelations that had
+fallen from him, while at the old monastery, as to
+his invention; and not only worked it with success,
+but claimed all the credit of its origin. In the
+same way, Fust and Schoeffer, at Mentz, grew rich
+through the invention of the man they had betrayed,
+and tried to rob of his fame.</p>
+
+<p>There is a curious, but not very well authenticated
+story about a visit Fust made to Paris to push the
+sale of his Bibles. "The tradition of the Devil and Dr.
+Faustus," writes D'Israeli in the "Curiosities of
+Litera<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>ture,"
+"was said to have been derived from the odd
+circumstances in which the Bibles of the first printer,
+Fust, appeared to the world. When Fust had discovered
+this new art, and printed off a considerable
+number of copies of the Bible to imitate those which
+were commonly sold as MSS., he undertook the sale
+of them at Paris. It was his interest to conceal this
+discovery and to pass off his printed copies for MSS.
+But, enabled to sell his Bibles at sixty crowns, while
+the other scribes demanded five hundred, this raised
+universal astonishment; and still more when he produced
+copies as fast as they were wanted, and even
+lowered his price. The uniformity of the copies
+increased the wonder. Informations were given in
+to the magistrates against him as a magician; and
+on searching his lodgings, a great number of copies
+were found. The red ink, and Fust's red ink is
+peculiarly brilliant, which embellished his copies, was
+said to be his blood; and it was solemnly adjudged
+that he was in league with the Infernal. Fust at
+length was obliged, to save himself from a bonfire,
+to reveal his art to the Parliament of Paris, who
+discharged him from all prosecution in consideration
+of the wonderful invention."</p>
+
+<p>The edition of the Bible, which was one of the
+very first productions of Gutenberg and Fust's press,
+is called the Mazarin, in consequence of the first
+known copy having been discovered in the famous
+library formed by Cardinal Mazarin. It seems to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+have been printed as early as August 1456, and is
+a truly admirable specimen of typography; the
+characters being very clear and distinct, and the
+uniformity of the printing perfectly remarkable.
+A copy in the Royal Library at Paris is bound in
+two volumes, and every complete page consists of
+two columns, each containing forty-two lines. The
+reader will recognize the appropriateness of the fact
+that from the first printing press the first important
+work produced should be a copy of God's Word.
+It sanctified the new art which was to be so fruitful
+of good and evil results&mdash;the good superabounding,
+and clearly visible&mdash;the evil little, and destined,
+perhaps, to be directed eventually to good&mdash;for successive
+generations of mankind. It was a fitting
+forerunner of the long generation of books which
+have since issued so ceaselessly from the printing
+press; books, of the majority of which we may say,
+with Milton, that "they contain a potency of life in
+them to be as active as those souls were whose progeny
+they are; to preserve, as in a vial, the purest
+efficacy and extraction of the living intellects that
+feed them."</p>
+
+<p>Gutenberg's career was dashed with many lights
+and shadows, but it closed in peace. In 1465, the
+Archbishop-elector of Mentz appointed him one of
+his courtiers, with the same allowance of clothing
+as the remainder of the nobles attending his court,
+and all other privileges and exemptions. It is
+pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>bable
+that from this time he abandoned the practice
+of his new invention. The date of his death is
+uncertain; but there is documentary evidence extant
+which proves that it occurred before February
+24, 1468. He was interred in the church of the
+Recollets at Mentz, and the following epitaph was
+composed by his kinsman Adam Gelthaus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center"><img src="images/title-p028.png" alt="&quot;D. O. M. S." title="" /></p>
+
+<p>"Joanni Gesnyfleisch, artis impressoriae repertori, de
+omni natione et lingua optime merito, in nominis sui memoriam
+immortalem Adam Gelthaus posuit. Ossa ejus
+in ecclesia D. Francisci Moguntina feliciter cubant."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="WILLIAM_CAXTON" id="WILLIAM_CAXTON"></a>II.&mdash;WILLIAM CAXTON.</h2>
+
+
+<p>During the last thirty or forty years of the fifteenth
+century, while printing was becoming gradually more
+and more practised on the Continent, and the presses
+of Mentz, Bamberg, Cologne, Strasburg, Augsburg,
+Rome, Venice, and Milan, were sending forth numbers
+of Bibles, and various learned and theological works,
+chiefly in Latin, an English merchant, a man of substance
+and of no little note in Chepe, appeared at
+the court of the Duke of Burgundy at Bruges, to
+negotiate a commercial treaty between that sovereign
+and the king of England; which accomplished, the
+worthy ambassador seems to have liked the place
+and the people so well, and to have been so much
+liked in return, that for some years afterwards he took
+up his residence there, holding some honourable, easy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+appointment in the household of the Duchess of
+Burgundy. This was William Caxton, who here
+ripened, if he did not acquire, his love of literature
+and scholarship, and began, from hatred of idleness,
+to take pen in hand himself.</p>
+
+<p>"When I remember," says he, in his preface to
+his first work, a translation of a fanciful "Recueil
+des Histoires de Troye," "that every man is bounden
+by the commandment and counsel of the wise man
+to eschew sloth and idleness, which is mother and
+nourisher of vices, and ought to put himself into
+virtuous occupation and business, then I, having no
+great charge or occupation, following the said counsel,
+took a French book, and read therein many strange
+marvellous histories. And for so much as this book
+was new and late made, and drawn into French, and
+never seen in our English tongue, I thought in myself,
+it should be a good business to translate it into
+our English, to the end that it might be had as well
+in the royaume of England as in other lands, and
+also to pass therewith the time; and thus concluded
+in myself to begin this said work, and forthwith
+took pen and ink, and began boldly to run forth, as
+blind Bayard, in this present work."</p>
+
+<p>While at work upon this translation, Caxton found
+leisure to visit several of the German towns where
+printing presses were established, and to get an
+insight into the mysteries of the art, so that by the
+time he had finished the volume, he was able to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+print it. At the close of the third book of the
+"Recuyell," he says: "Thus end I this book which
+I have translated after mine author, as nigh as God
+hath given me cunning, to whom be given the laud
+and praise. And for as much as in the writing of
+the same my pen is worn, mine hand weary and not
+steadfast, mine eyen dimmed with overmuch looking
+on the white paper, and my courage not so prone
+and ready to labour as it hath been, and that age
+creepeth on me daily, and feebleth all the body; and
+also because I have promised to divers gentlemen
+and to my friends, to address to them as hastily as
+I might, this said book, therefore I have practised
+and learned, at my great charge and dispense, to
+ordain this said book in print, after the manner and
+form you may here see; and is not written with pen
+and ink as other books are, to the end that every man
+may have them at once. For all the books of this
+story, named the "Recuyell of the Historyes of
+Troye," thus imprinted as ye here see, were begun in
+one day, and also finished in one day" (that is, in
+the same space of time).</p>
+
+<p>By the year 1477, Caxton had returned to London,
+and set up a printing establishment within the precincts
+of Westminster Abbey; had given to the
+world the three first books ever printed in England,&mdash;"The
+Game and Play of the Chesse" (March
+1474); "A boke of the hoole Lyf of Jason" (1475);
+and "The Dictes and Notable Wyse Sayenges of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+Phylosophers" (1477),&mdash;and was fairly started in
+the great work of supplying printed books to his
+countrymen, which, as a placard in his largest type
+sets forth, if any one wanted, "emprynted after the
+forme of this present lettre whiche ben well and
+truly correct, late hym come to Westmonster, in to
+the Almonesrye, at the reed pale, and he shal have
+them good chepe." From the situation of the first
+printing office, the term chapel is applied to such
+establishments to this day.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 390px;">
+<a href="images/fig-p030-1200.png">
+<img src="images/fig-p030-600.png" width="390" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</a>
+<span class="caption">WILLIAM CAXTON.<br />
+<span class="pageref">Page 30.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Caxton published between sixty and seventy different
+works during the seventeen years of his career as
+a printer, all of them in what is called black letter, and
+the bulk of them in English. He had always a view
+to the improvement of the people in the works he
+published, and though many of his productions may
+seem to us to be of an unprofitable kind, it is clear
+that in the issue of chivalrous narratives, and of
+Chaucer's poems (to whom, says the old printer,
+"ought to be given great laud and praising for his
+noble making and writing"), he was aiming at the
+diffusion of a nobler spirit, and a higher taste than
+then prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>In 1490, Caxton, an old, worn man, verging on
+fourscore years of age, wrote, "Every man ought to
+intend in such wise to live in this world, by keeping
+the commandments of God, that he may come to a
+good end; and then, out of this world full of
+wretchedness and tribulation, he may go to heaven,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+unto God and his saints, unto joy perdurable;" and
+passed away, still labouring at his post. He died
+while writing, "The most virtuous history of the
+devout and right renouned Lives of Holy Fathers
+living in the desert, worthy of remembrance to all
+well-disposed persons."</p>
+
+<p>Wynkyne de Worde filled his master's place in the
+almonry of Westminster; and the guild of printers
+gradually waxed strong in numbers and influence.
+In Germany they were privileged to wear robes
+trimmed with gold and silver, such as the nobles
+themselves appeared in; and to display on their
+escutcheon, an eagle with wings outstretched over
+the globe,&mdash;a symbol of the flight of thought
+and words throughout the world. In our own
+country, the printers were men of erudition and
+literary acquirements; and were honoured as became
+their mission.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="THE_PRINTING_MACHINE" id="THE_PRINTING_MACHINE"></a>
+III.&mdash;THE PRINTING MACHINE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Between the rude screw-press of Gutenberg or
+Caxton, slow and laboured in its working, to the
+first-class printing machine of our own day, throwing
+off its fifteen or eighteen thousand copies of a large
+four-page journal in an hour, what a stride has been
+taken in the noble art! Step by step, slowly but
+surely, has the advance been made,&mdash;one improvement
+suggested after another at long intervals,
+and by various minds. With the perfection of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+printing press, the name of Earl Stanhope is chiefly
+associated; but, although when he had put the
+finishing touches to its construction, immensely superior
+to all former machines, it was unavailable for
+rapid printing. In relation to the demand for literature
+and the means of supplying it, the world had,
+half a century ago, reached much the same deadlock
+as in the days when the production of books
+depended solely on the swiftness of the transcriber's
+pen, and when the printing press existed only in the
+fervid brain and quick imagination of a young German
+student. Not only the growth, but the spread of
+literature, was restricted by the labour, expense,
+and delay incident to the multiplication of copies;
+and the popular appetite for reading was in that
+transition state when an increased supply would
+develop it beyond all bounds or calculation, while a
+continuance of the starvation supply would in all
+likelihood throw it into a decline from want of
+exercise.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of things when a revolution in
+the art of printing was effected which, in importance,
+can be compared only to the original discovery of
+printing. In fact, since the days of Gutenberg to
+the present hour, there has been only one great
+revolution in the art, and that was the introduction
+of steam printing in 1814. The neat
+and elegant, but slow-moving Stanhope press, was
+after all but little in advance of its rude prototype
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+of the fifteenth century, the chief features of which
+it preserved almost without alteration. The steam
+printing machine took a leap ahead that placed it at
+such a distance from the printing press, that they are
+hardly to be recognised as the offspring of the same
+common stock. All family resemblance has died out,
+although the printing machine is certainly a development
+of the little screw press.</p>
+
+<p>Of the revolution of 1814, which placed the
+printing machine in the seat of power, <i>vice</i> the press
+given over to subordinate employment, Mr. John
+Walter of the <i>Times</i> was the prominent and leading
+agent. But for his foresight, enterprise, and perseverance,
+the steam machine might have been even
+now in earliest infancy, if not unborn.</p>
+
+<p>Familiar as the invention of the steam printing
+machine is now, in the beginning of the present
+century it shared the ridicule which was thrown
+upon the project of sailing steam ships upon the sea,
+and driving steam carriages upon land. It seemed
+as mad and preposterous an idea to print off 5000
+impressions of a paper like the <i>Times</i> in one hour,
+as, in the same time, to paddle a ship fifteen miles
+against wind and tide, or to propel a heavily laden
+train of carriages fifty miles. Mr. Walter, however,
+was convinced that the thing could be done, and lost
+no time in attempting it. Some notion of the
+difficulties he had to overcome, and the disappointments
+he had to endure, while engaged in this
+enter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>prise,
+may be gathered from the following extracts
+from the biography of Mr. Walter, which appeared in
+the <i>Times</i> at the time of his death in July 1847:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"As early as the year 1804, an ingenious compositor,
+named Thomas Martyn, had invented a self-acting
+machine for working the press, and had produced
+a model which satisfied Mr. Walter of the
+feasibility of the scheme. Being assisted by Mr.
+Walter with the necessary funds, he made considerable
+progress towards the completion of his work,
+in the course of which he was exposed to much personal
+danger from the hostility of the pressmen, who
+vowed vengeance against the man whose inventions
+threatened destruction to their craft. To such a
+length was their opposition carried, that it was found
+necessary to introduce the various pieces of the
+machine into the premises with the utmost possible
+secresy, while Martyn himself was obliged to shelter
+himself under various disguises in order to escape
+their fury. Mr. Walter, however, was not yet permitted
+to reap the fruits of his enterprise. On the
+very eve of success he was doomed to bitter disappointment.
+He had exhausted his own funds in
+the attempt, and his father, who had hitherto assisted
+him, became disheartened, and refused him any
+further aid. The project was, therefore, for the time
+abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Walter, however, was not the man to be
+deterred from what he had once resolved to do. He
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+gave his mind incessantly to the subject, and courted
+aid from all quarters, with his usual munificence.
+In the year 1814 he was induced by a clerical friend,
+in whose judgment he confided, to make a fresh experiment;
+and, accordingly, the machinery of the
+amiable and ingenious K&oelig;nig, assisted by his young
+friend Bower, was introduced&mdash;not, indeed, at first
+into the <i>Times</i> office, but into the adjoining premises,
+such caution being thought necessary upon the
+threatened violence of the pressmen. Here the
+work advanced, under the frequent inspection and
+advice of the friend alluded to. At one period these
+two able mechanics suspended their anxious toil, and
+left the premises in disgust. After the lapse, however,
+of about three days, the same gentleman discovered
+their retreat, induced them to return, showed
+them, to their surprise, their difficulty conquered,
+and the work still in progress. The night on which
+this curious machine was first brought into use in its
+new abode was one of great anxiety, and even alarm.
+The suspicious pressmen had threatened destruction
+to any one whose inventions might suspend their
+employment. 'Destruction to him and his traps.'
+They were directed to wait for expected news from
+the Continent. It was about six o'clock in the
+morning when Mr. Walter went into the press-room,
+and astonished its occupants by telling them that
+'The <i>Times</i> was already printed by steam! That
+if they attempted violence, there was a force ready
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+to suppress it; but that if they were peaceable, their
+wages should be continued to every one of them till
+similar employment could be procured,'&mdash;a promise
+which was, no doubt, faithfully performed; and
+having so said, he distributed several copies among
+them. Thus was this most hazardous enterprise
+undertaken and successfully carried through, and
+printing by steam on an almost gigantic scale given
+to the world."</p>
+
+<p>On that memorable day, the 29th of November
+1814, appeared the following announcement,&mdash;"Our
+journal of this day presents to the public the practical
+result of the greatest improvement connected with
+printing since the discovery of the art itself. The
+reader now holds in his hands one of the many
+thousand impressions of the <i>Times</i> newspaper which
+were taken off last night by a mechanical apparatus.
+That the magnitude of the invention may be justly
+appreciated by its effects, we shall inform the public
+that after the letters are placed by the compositors,
+and enclosed in what is called a form, little more
+remains for man to do than to attend and watch this
+unconscious agent in its operations. The machine is
+then merely supplied with paper; itself places the
+form, inks it, adjusts the paper to the form newly
+inked, stamps the sheet, and gives it forth to the
+hands of the attendant, at the same time withdrawing
+the form for a fresh coat of ink, which itself
+again distributes, to meet the ensuing sheet, now
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+advancing for impression; and the whole of these
+complicated acts is performed with such a velocity and
+simultaneousness of movement, that no less than
+1100 sheets are impressed in one hour."</p>
+
+<p>K&oelig;nig's machine was, however, very complicated,
+and before long, it was supplanted by that of Applegath
+and Cowper, which was much simpler in construction,
+and required only two boys to attend it&mdash;one
+to lay on, and the other to take off the sheets.
+The vertical machine which Mr. Applegath subsequently
+invented, far excelled his former achievement;
+but it has in turn been superseded by the
+machine of Messrs. Hoe of New York. All these
+machines were first brought into use in the <i>Times'</i>
+printing office; and to the encouragement the proprietors
+of that establishment have always afforded
+to inventive talent, the readiness with which they
+have given a trial to new machines, and the princely
+liberality with which they have rewarded improvements,
+is greatly due the present advanced state of
+the noble craft and mystery.</p>
+
+<p>The printing-house of the <i>Times</i>, near Blackfriars
+Bridge, forms a companion picture to Gutenberg's
+printing-room in the old abbey at Strasburg, and
+illustrates not only the development of the art, but
+the progress of the world during the intervening
+centuries. Visit Printing-House Square in the day-time,
+and you find it a quiet, sleepy place, with
+hardly any signs of life or movement about it, except
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+in the advertisement office in the corner, where
+people are continually going out and in, and the
+clerks have a busy time of it, shovelling money
+into the till all day long. But come back in the
+evening, and the place will wear a very different
+aspect. All signs of drowsiness have disappeared,
+and the office is all lighted up, and instinct with
+bustle and activity. Messengers are rushing out and
+in, telegraph boys, railway porters, and "devils" of
+all sorts and sizes. Cabs are driving up every few
+minutes, and depositing reporters, hot from the
+gallery of the House of Commons or the House of
+Lords, each with his budget of short-hand notes to
+decipher and transcribe. Up stairs in his sanctum the
+editor and his deputies are busy preparing or selecting
+the articles and reports which are to appear in the
+next day's paper. In another part of the building the
+compositors are hard at work, picking up types, and
+arranging them in "stick-fulls," which being emptied
+out into "galleys," are firmly fixed therein by little
+wedges of wood, in order that "proofs" may be
+taken of them. The proofs pass into the hands of
+the various sets of readers, who compare them with
+the "copy" from which they were set up, and mark
+any errors on the margin of the slips, which then
+find their way back to the compositors, who correct
+the types according to the marks. The "galleys"
+are next seized by the persons charged with the
+"making-up" of the paper, who divide them into
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+columns of equal length. An ordinary <i>Times</i> newspaper,
+with a single inside sheet of advertisements,
+contains seventy-two columns, or 17,500 lines, made
+up of upwards of a million pieces of types, of which
+matter about two-fifths are often written, composed,
+and corrected after seven o'clock in the evening. If
+the advertisement sheet be double, as it frequently
+is, the paper will contain ninety-six columns. The
+types set up by the compositors are not sent to the
+machine. A mould is taken of them in a composition
+of brown paper, by means of which a "stereotype"
+is cast in metal, and from this the paper is
+printed. The advertisement sheet, single or double,
+as the case may be, is generally ready for the press
+between seven or eight o'clock at night. The rest
+of the paper is divided into two "forms,"&mdash;that is,
+columns arranged in pages and bound together
+by an iron frame, one for each side of the sheet.
+Into the first of these the person who "makes up"
+the paper endeavours to place all the early news,
+and it is ready for press usually about four o'clock.
+The other "form" is reserved for the leading articles,
+telegrams, and all the latest intelligence, and does
+not reach the press till near five o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>The first sight of Hoe's machine, by several of
+which the <i>Times</i> is now printed, fills the beholder
+with bewilderment and awe. You see before you a
+huge pile of iron cylinders, wheels, cranks, and
+levers, whirling away at a rate that makes you
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+giddy to look at, and with a grinding and gnashing
+of teeth that almost drives you deaf to listen to.
+With insatiable appetite the furious monster devours
+ream after ream of snowy sheets of paper, placed in
+its many gaping jaws by the slaves who wait on it,
+but seems to find none to its taste or suitable to its
+digestion, for back come all the sheets again, each
+with the mark of this strange beast printed on one
+side. Its hunger never is appeased,&mdash;it is always
+swallowing and always disgorging, and it is as much
+as the little "devils" who wait on it can do, to put
+the paper between its lips and take it out again.
+But a bell rings suddenly, the monster gives a gasp,
+and is straightway still, and dead to all appearance.
+Upon a closer inspection, now that it is at rest, and
+with some explanation from the foreman you begin
+to have some idea of the process that has been going
+on before your astonished eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The core of the machine consists of a large drum,
+turning on a horizontal axis, round which revolve
+ten smaller cylinders, also on horizontal axes, in close
+proximity to the drum. The stereotyped matter is
+bound, like a malefactor on the wheel, to the central
+drum, and round each cylinder a sheet of paper is
+constantly being passed. It is obvious, therefore, that
+if the type be inked, and each of the cylinders be
+kept properly supplied with a sheet of paper, a single
+revolution of the drum will cause the ten cylinders to
+revolve likewise, and produce an impression on one
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+side of each of the sheets of paper. For this purpose
+it is necessary to have the type inked ten times during
+every revolution of the drum; and this is managed
+by a very ingenious contrivance, which, however, is
+too complicated for description here. The feeding of
+the cylinders is provided for in this way. Over each
+cylinder is a sloping desk, upon which rests a heap
+of sheets of white paper. A lad&mdash;the "layer-on"&mdash;stands
+by the side of the desk and pushes forward the
+paper, a sheet at a time, towards the tape fingers of
+the machine, which, clutching hold of it, drag it into
+the interior, where it is passed round the cylinders,
+and printed on the outer side by pressure against the
+types on the drum. The sheet is then laid hold of
+by another set of tapes, carried to the other end of
+the machine from that at which it entered, and
+there laid down on a desk by a projecting flapper of
+lath-work. Another lad&mdash;the "taker-off"&mdash;is in
+attendance to remove the printed sheets, at certain
+intervals. The drum revolves in less than two
+seconds; and in that time therefore ten sheets&mdash;for
+the same operation is performed simultaneously by the
+ten cylinders&mdash;are sucked in at one end and disgorged
+at the other printed on one side, thus giving about
+20,000 impressions in an hour.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the latest marvel of the "noble craft and
+mystery" of printing; but it is not to be supposed
+that the limits of production have even now been
+reached. The greater the supply the greater has
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+grown the demand; the more people read, the more
+they want to read; and past experience assures us
+that ingenuity and enterprise will not fail to expand
+and multiply the powers of the press, so that the
+increasing appetite for literature may be fully met.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>We have briefly alluded to stereotyping; but
+some fuller notice seems requisite of a process so
+valuable and important, without which, indeed, the
+rapid multiplication of copies of a newspaper, even
+by a Hoe's six-cylinder machine, would be impossible.
+If stereotyping had not been invented, the
+printer would require to "set up" as many "forms"
+of type as there are cylinders in the machine he
+uses; an expensive and time-consuming operation
+which is now dispensed with, because he can resort
+to "casts." There is yet another advantage gained
+by the process; "casts" of the different sheets of a
+book can be preserved for any length of time; and
+when additional copies or new editions are needed,
+these "casts" can at once be sent to the machine,
+and the publisher is saved the great expense of
+"re-setting."</p>
+
+<p>The reader is well aware that while many books
+disappear with the day which called them forth, so
+there are others for which the demand is constant.
+This was found to be the case soon after the invention
+of printing, and the plan then adopted was the
+expensive and cumbrous one of setting up the whole
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+of the book in request, and to keep the type standing
+for future editions. The disadvantages of this
+plan were obvious&mdash;a large outlay for type, the
+amount of space occupied by a constantly increasing
+number of "forms," and the liability to injury from
+the falling out of letters, from blows, and other accidents.
+As early as the eighteenth century attempts
+seem to have been made to remedy these inconveniences
+by cementing the types together at the
+bottom with lead or solder to effect their greater
+preservation. Canius, a French historian of printing,
+states that in June 1801 he received a letter
+from certain booksellers of Leyden, with a copy of
+their stereotype Bible, the plates for which were
+formed by soldering together the bottom of common
+types with some melted substance to the thickness
+of about three quires of writing-paper; and, it is
+added, "These plates were made about the beginning
+of the last century by an artist named Van du Mey."</p>
+
+<p>This, however, was not true stereotyping; whose
+leading principle is to dispense with the movable
+types&mdash;to set them again, as it were, at liberty&mdash;by
+making up perfect fac-similes in type-metal of the
+various combinations into which they may have
+entered. These fac-similes being made, the type is set
+free, and may be distributed, and used for making up
+fresh pages; which may once more furnish, so to speak,
+the punches to the mould into which the type-metal
+is poured for the purpose of effecting the fac-simile.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+The inventor of this ingenious process of casting
+plates from pages of type was William Ged, a goldsmith
+of Edinburgh, in 1735. Not possessing
+sufficient capital to carry out his invention, he
+visited London, and sought the assistance of the
+London stationers; from whom he received the most
+encouraging words, but no pecuniary assistance. But
+Ged was a man not readily discomfited, and applying
+at length to the Universities and the King's
+printer, he obtained the effective patronage he
+needed. He "stereotyped" some Bibles and
+Prayer-books, and the sheets worked off from
+his plates were admitted equal in point of appearance
+and accuracy to those printed from the type
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>But every benefactor of his kind is doomed to
+meet with the opposition of the envious, the ignorant,
+or the prejudiced. "The argument used by
+the idol-makers of old, 'Sirs, ye know that by this
+craft we have our wealth,' and, 'This our craft is in
+danger to be set at nought,' was, as is usual in such
+cases, urged against this most useful and important
+invention. The compositors refused to set up works
+for stereotyping, and even those which were set up,
+however carefully read and corrected, were found
+to be full of gross errors. The fact was, that when
+the pages were sent to be cast, the compositors or
+pressmen, bribed, it is said, by a typefounder, disturbed
+the type, and introduced false letters and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+words. Poor Ged died, and left the dangerous
+secret of his art (which he did not disclose during
+his life-time) to his son, who, after many struggles
+for success, failed as his father had done before him."
+There is a tradition current, however, that he joined
+the Jacobite rebellion, was arrested, imprisoned,
+tried, and sentenced, but was eventually spared in
+consideration of the value of his father's admirable
+invention.</p>
+
+<p>That invention, after being forgotten for nearly
+half a century, was revived by a Dr. Tilloch, and
+taken up, improved, and extended by the ingenious
+Earl Stanhope. It is now practised in the following
+manner:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The type employed differs slightly from that in
+common use. The letter should have no shoulder,
+but should rise in a straight line from the foot; the
+spaces, leads, and quadrats are of the same height
+as the stem of the letter; the object being to diminish
+the number and depth of the cavities in the page,
+and thus lessen the chances of the mould breaking
+off and remaining in the form. Each page is corrected
+with the utmost care, and "imposed" in a
+small "chase" with metal furniture (or frame-work),
+which rises to a level with the type. Of course the
+number of pages in the form will vary according to
+the size of the book; a sheet being folded into sixteen
+leaves, twelve, eight, four, or two for 16mo,
+12mo, 8vo, quarto, or folio.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+Having our pages of type in complete order, we
+now proceed to rub the surface with a soft brush
+which has been lightly dipped into a very thin oil.
+Plumbago is sometimes preferred. A brass rectangular
+frame of three sides, with bevelled borders
+adapted to the size of the pages, is placed upon the
+chase so as to enclose three sides of the type, the
+fourth side being formed by a single brass edge,
+having the same inward sloping level as the other
+three sides. The use of this frame is to determine
+the size and thickness of the cast, which is next
+taken in plaster-of-paris&mdash;two kinds of the said
+plaster being used; the finer is mixed, poured over
+the surface of the type, and gently worked in with
+a brush so as to insure its close adhesion to the
+exclusion of bubbles of air; the coarser, after being
+mixed with water, is simply poured and spread over
+the previous and finer stratum.</p>
+
+<p>The superfluous plaster is next cleared away; the
+mould soon sets; the frame is raised; and the
+mould comes off from the surface of the type, on
+which it has been prevented from encrusting itself
+by the thin film of oil or plumbago.</p>
+
+<p>The next step is to dress and smoothen the
+plaster-mould, and set it on its edge in one of the
+compartments of a sheet-iron rack contained in an
+oven, and exposed, until perfectly dry, to a temperature
+of about 400&deg;. This occupies about two hours.
+A good workman, it is said, will mould ten octavo
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+sheets, or one hundred and sixty pages in a day:
+each mould generally contains a couple of octavo
+pages.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px;">
+<img src="images/fig-p048.png" width="250" height="188" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>In the state to which it is now brought, the
+mould is exceedingly friable, and requires to be
+handled with becoming care. With the face downwards
+it is placed upon the flat cast-iron <i>floating-plate</i>,
+which, in its turn, is set at the bottom of a
+square cast-iron tray, with upright edges sloping
+outwards, called the "dipping pan." It has a cast-iron
+lid, secured by a screw and shackles, not unlike
+a copying machine. This pan having been
+heated to 400&deg;, it is plunged into an iron pot containing
+the melted alloy, which hangs over a furnace,
+the pan being slightly inclined so as to permit
+the escape of the air. A small space is left between
+the back or upper surface of the mould, and the lid
+of the dipping-pan, and the fluid metal on entering
+into the pan through the corner openings, <i>floats</i> up the plaster
+together with the iron plate (hence called the <i>floating-plate</i>) on
+which the mould is set, with this effect, that the metal
+flows through the notches cut in the edge of the
+mould, and fills up every part of it, forming a layer
+of metal on its face corresponding to the depth of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+the border, while on the back is left merely a thin
+metallic film.</p>
+
+<p>The dipping-pan, says Tomlinson, is suspended,
+plunged in the metal, and removed by means of a
+crane; and when taken out, is set in a cistern of
+water upon supports so arranged that only the
+bottom of the pan comes in contact with the surface
+of the water. The metal thus <i>sets</i>, or solidifies,
+from below, and containing fluid above, maintains a
+fluid pressure during the contraction which accompanies
+the cooling.</p>
+
+<p>As it thus shrinks in dimensions, molten metal is
+poured into the corners of the pan for the purpose of
+maintaining the fluid pressure on the mould, and
+thus securing a good and solid cast. For if the pan
+were allowed to cool more slowly, the thin metallic
+film at the back of the inverted plaster mould
+would probably solidify first, and thus prevent the
+fluid pressure which is necessary for filling up all
+the lines of the mould.</p>
+
+<p>Tomlinson concludes his description of these interesting
+processes by informing us that an experienced
+and skilled workman will make five dips,
+each containing two octavo pages, in the course of
+an hour, or, as already stated, at the rate of nearly
+ten octavo sheets a day.</p>
+
+<p>When the pan is opened, the cake of metal and
+plaster is removed, and beaten upon its edges with
+a mallet, to clear away all superfluous metal. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+stereotype plate is then taken by the <i>picker</i>, who
+planes its edges square, "turns" its back flat upon
+a lathe until the proper thickness is obtained, and
+removes any minute imperfections arising from
+specks of dirt and air-bubbles left among the letters
+in casting the mould. Damaged letters are cut out,
+and separate types soldered in as substitutes. After
+all this anxious care to obtain perfection, the plate
+is pronounced ready for working, and when made
+up with the other plates into the proper form, it
+may be worked either at the hand-press or by
+machine.</p>
+
+<p>Other modes of stereotyping have been introduced,
+but not one has attained to the popularity of
+the method we have just described.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/footer-050.png" width="150" height="168" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="The_Steam_Engine" id="The_Steam_Engine"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p051.png" alt="The Steam Engine." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+<ol class="chapterTOC">
+  <li> &mdash; THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; JAMES WATT.</li>
+</ol>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p053.png" alt="The Steam Engine." title="" /></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">"It is said that ideas produce revolutions and truly they do&mdash;not spiritual ideas
+only, but even mechanical."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="THE_MARQUIS_OF_WORCESTER" id="THE_MARQUIS_OF_WORCESTER"></a>
+I.&mdash;THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>As the last century was drawing to its close, two
+great revolutions were in progress, both of which
+were destined to exercise a mighty influence upon
+the years to come,&mdash;the one calm, silent, peaceful,
+the other full of sound and fury, bathed in blood,
+and crowned with thorns,&mdash;the one the fruit of long
+years of patient thought and work, the other the
+outcome of long years of oppression, suffering, and
+sin,&mdash;the one was Watt's invention of the steam
+engine, the other the great popular revolt in France.
+These are the two great events which set their mark
+upon our century, gave form and colour to its character,
+and direction to its aims and aspirations. In
+the pages of conventional history, of course, the
+French revolution, with its wild phantasmagoria of
+retribution, its massacres and martyrdoms, will no
+doubt have assigned to it the foremost rank as the
+great feature of the era,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For ever since historians writ,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">And ever since a bard could sing,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Doth each exalt with all his wit</span><br />
+<span class="i2">The noble art of murdering."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+But those who can look below the mere surface of
+events, and whose fancy is not captivated by the
+melo-drama of rebellion, and the pageantry of war,
+will find that Watt's steam machine worked the
+greatest revolution of modern times, and exercised
+the deepest, as well as widest and most permanent
+influence over the whole civilized world.</p>
+
+<p>Like all great discoveries, that of the motive
+power of steam, and the important uses to which it
+might be applied, was the work, not of any one
+mind, but of several minds, each borrowing something
+from its predecessor, until at last the first
+vague and uncertain Idea was developed into a
+practical Reality. Known dimly to the ancients,
+and probably employed by the priests in their juggleries
+and pretended miracles, it was not till within
+the last three centuries that any systematic attempt
+was made to turn it to useful account.</p>
+
+<p>But before we turn our attention to the persons
+who made, and, after many failures and discouragements,
+<i>successfully</i> made this attempt, it will be
+advisable we should say something as to the principle
+on which their invention is founded.</p>
+
+<p>The reader knows that gases and vapours, when
+imprisoned within a narrow space, do struggle as
+resolutely to escape as did Sterne's starling from his
+cage. Their force of pressure is enormous, and if
+confined in a closed vessel, they would speedily
+rend it into fragments. Let some water boil in a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+pipkin whose lid fits very tightly; in a few minutes
+the vapour or steam arising from the boiling water,
+overcoming the resistance of the lid, raises it, and
+rushes forth into the atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>Take a small quantity of water, and pour it into
+the hollow of a ball of metal. Then with the aid
+of a cork, worked by a metallic screw, close the
+opening of the ball hermetically, and place the ball
+in the heart of a glowing fire. The steam formed
+by the boiling water in the inside of the metallic
+bomb, finding no channel of escape, will burst
+through the bonds that sought to confine it, and
+hurl afar the fragments with a loud and dangerous
+explosion.</p>
+
+<p>These well-known facts we adduce simply as a
+proof of the immense mechanical power possessed
+by steam when enclosed within a limited area. Now,
+the questions must have occurred to many, though
+they were themselves unable to answer them,&mdash;Why
+should all this force be wasted? Can it not
+be directed to the service and uses of man? In the
+course of time, however, human intelligence <i>did</i>
+discover a sufficient reply, and <i>did</i> contrive to
+utilize this astonishing power by means of the
+machine now so famous as the Steam Engine.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take a boiler full of water, and bring it
+up to boiling point by means of a furnace. Attach
+to this boiler a tube, which guides the steam of
+the boiler into a hollow metallic cylinder,
+tra<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>versed
+by a piston rising and sinking in its interior.
+It is evident that the steam rushing through the
+tube into the lower part of the cylinder, and
+underneath the piston, will force the piston, by its
+pressure, to rise to the top of the cylinder. Now
+let us check for a moment the influx of the steam
+<i>below</i> the piston, and turning the stopcock, allow
+the steam which fills that space to escape outside;
+and, at the same time, by opening a second tube,
+let in a supply of steam <i>above</i> the piston: the pressure
+of the steam, now exercised in a downward direction,
+will force the piston to the bottom of its course,
+because there will exist beneath it no resistance
+capable of opposing the pressure of the steam. If
+we constantly keep up this alternating motion, the
+piston now rising and now falling, we are in a
+position to profit by the force of steam. For if the
+lever, attached to the rod of the piston at its
+lower end, is fixed by its upper to a crank of the
+rotating axle of a workshop or factory, is it not
+clear that the continuous action of the steam will
+give this axle a continuous rotatory movement?
+And this movement may be transmitted, by means
+of bands and pulleys, to a number of different
+machines or engines all kept at work by the power
+of a solitary engine.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, is the principle on which the inventions
+of Papin, the Marquis of Worcester, Newcomen,
+and James Watt have been based.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+The great astronomer Huyghens conceived the
+idea of creating a motive machine by exploding a
+charge of gunpowder under a cylinder traversed by
+a piston: the air contained in this cylinder, dilated
+by the heat resulting from the combustion
+of the powder, escaped into the
+outer air through a valve, whereupon a
+partial void existed beneath the piston, or,
+rather, the air considerably rarified; and
+from this moment the pressure of the
+atmospheric air falling on the upper part
+of the piston, and being but imperfectly
+counterpoised by the rarified air beneath
+the piston, precipitated this piston to the
+bottom of the cylinder. Consequently, said Huyghens, if to the said
+piston were attached a chain or cord coiling around a pulley, one might
+raise up the weights placed at the extremity of the cord,
+and so produce a genuine mechanical effect.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/fig-p057.png" width="300" height="553" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption">GENERAL PRINCIPLE OF THE STEAM ENGINE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But Experiment, the touchstone of Physical Truth,
+soon revealed the deficiencies of an apparatus such
+as Huyghens had suggested. The air beneath the
+piston was not sufficiently rarified; the void produced
+was too imperfect. Evidently gunpowder
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+was not the right agent. What was? Denis Papin
+answered, Steam. And the first Steam Engine ever
+invented was invented by this ingenious Frenchman.</p>
+
+<p>Papin was born at Blois on the 22nd of August
+1645. He died about 1714, but neither the exact
+date nor the place of his death is known. The lives
+of most men of genius are heavy with shadows, but
+Papin's career was more than ordinarily characterized
+by the incessant pursuit of the evil spirits of adversity
+and persecution. A Protestant, and devoutly
+loyal to his creed, he fled from France with thousands
+of his co-religionists, when Louis XIV. unwisely
+and unrighteously revoked the Edict of
+Nantes, which permitted the Huguenots to worship
+God after their own fashion. And it was abroad,
+in England, Italy, and Germany, that he realized
+the majority of his inventions, among which that of
+the Steam Engine is the most conspicuous.</p>
+
+<p>In 1707 Papin constructed a steam engine on the
+principle we have already described, and placed it
+on board a boat provided with wheels. Embarking
+at Cassel on the river Fulda, he made his way to
+M&uuml;nden in Hanover, with the design of entering
+the waters of the Weser, and thence repairing to
+England, to make known his discovery, and test its
+capabilities before the public. But the harsh and
+ignorant boatmen of the Weser would not permit
+him to enter the river; and when he indignantly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+complained, they had the barbarity to break his
+boat in pieces. This was the crowning misfortune
+of Papin's life. Thenceforward he seems to have
+lost all heart and hope. He contrived to reach
+London, where the Royal Society, of which he was
+a member, allowed him a small pittance.</p>
+
+<p>In 1690 this ingenious man had devised an
+engine in which atmospheric vapour instead of steam
+was the motive agent. At a later period, Newcomen,
+a native of Dartmouth in Devonshire, conceived
+the idea of employing the same source of
+power.</p>
+
+<p>But, previously, the value of steam, if employed
+in this direction, had occurred to the Marquis
+of Worcester, a nobleman of great ability and a
+quick imagination, who, for his loyalty to the cause
+of Charles I., had been confined in the Tower of
+London as a prisoner. On one occasion, while sitting
+in his solitary chamber, the tight cover of a
+kettle full of boiling water was blown off before his
+eyes; for mere amusement's sake he set it on
+again, saw it again blown off, and then began to
+reflect on the capabilities of power thus accidentally
+revealed to him, and to speculate on its application
+to mechanical ends. Being of a quick, ingenious
+turn of mind, he was not long in discovering how
+it could be directed and controlled. When he published
+his project&mdash;"An Admirable and Most Forcible
+Way to Drive up Water by Fire"&mdash;he was abused
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+and laughed at as being either a madman or an impostor.
+He persevered, however, and actually had
+a little engine of some two horse power at work
+raising water from the Thames at Vauxhall; by
+means of which, he writes, "a child's force bringeth
+up a hundred feet high an incredible quantity of
+water, and I may boldly call it the most stupendous
+work in the whole world." There is a fervent
+"Ejaculatory and Extemporary Thanksgiving
+Prayer" of his extant, composed "when first with
+his corporeal eyes he did see finished a perfect trial
+of his water-commanding engine, delightful and useful
+to whomsoever hath in recommendation either
+knowledge, profit, or pleasure." This and the rest
+of his wonderful "Centenary of Inventions," only
+emptied instead of replenishing his purse. He was
+reduced to borrow paltry sums from his creditors,
+and received neither respect for his genius nor
+sympathy for his misfortunes. He was before his
+age, and suffered accordingly.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>In 1698 his work was taken up by Thomas
+Savery, a miner, who, through assiduous labour and
+well-directed study, had become a skilful engineer.
+He succeeded in constructing an engine on the
+principle of the pressure of aqueous vapour, and
+this engine he employed successfully in pumping
+water out of coal mines. We owe to Savery the
+invention of a vacuum, which was suggested to him,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+it is said, in a curious manner: he happened to
+throw a wine-flask, which he had just drained, upon
+the fire; a few drops of liquor at the bottom of the
+flask soon filled it with steam, and, taking it off the
+fire, he plunged it, mouth downwards, into a basin
+of cold water that was standing on the table, when,
+a vacuum being produced, the water immediately
+rushed up into the flask.</p>
+
+<p>In tracing this lineage of inventive genius, we
+next come to Thomas Newcomen, a blacksmith, who
+carried out the principle of the piston in his Atmospheric
+Engine, for which he took out a patent in
+1705. It is but just to recognize that this engine
+was the first which proved practically and widely
+useful, and was, in truth, the actual progenitor of
+the present steam engine. It was chiefly used for
+working pumps. To one end of a beam moving
+on a central axis was attached the rod of the pump
+to be worked; to the other, the rod of the piston
+moving in the cylinder below. Underneath this
+cylinder was a boiler, and the two were connected
+by a pipe provided with a stop-cock to regulate the
+supply of steam. When the pump-rod was depressed,
+and the piston raised to the top of the cylinder,
+which was effected by weights hanging to the pump-end
+of the beam, the stop-cock was used to cut off
+the steam, and a supply of cold water injected into
+the cylinder through a water-pipe connected with
+the tank or cistern. The steam in the cylinder was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+immediately condensed; a vacuum created below
+the piston; the latter was then forced down by
+atmospheric pressure, bringing with it the end of
+the beam to which it was attached, and raising the
+other along with the pump-rod. A fresh supply of
+steam was admitted below the piston, which was raised
+by the counterpoise; and thus the motion was constantly
+renewed. The opening and shutting of the
+stop-cocks was at first managed by an attendant;
+but a boy named Potter, who was employed for this
+purpose, being fonder of play than work, contrived
+to save himself all trouble in the matter by fastening
+the handles with pieces of string to some of the
+cranks and levers. Subsequently, Beighton, an engineer,
+improved on this idea by substituting levers,
+acted on by pins in a rod suspended from the beam.</p>
+
+<p>Properly speaking, Newcomen's engine was not a
+steam, but an atmospheric engine; for though steam
+was employed, it formed no essential feature of the
+contrivance, and might have been replaced by an
+air-pump. All the use that was made of steam was
+to produce a vacuum underneath the piston, which
+was pressed down by the weight of the atmosphere,
+and raised by the counterpoise of the buckets at the
+other end of the beam. Watt, in bringing the
+expansive force of steam to bear upon the working
+of the piston, may be said to have really invented
+the steam engine. Half a century before the little
+model came into Watt's hands, Newcomen's engine
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+had been made as complete as its capabilities admitted
+of; and Watt struck into an entirely new
+line, and invented an entirely new machine, when
+he produced his Condensing Engine.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="JAMES_WATT" id="JAMES_WATT"></a>II.&mdash;JAMES WATT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>There are few places in our country where human
+enterprise has effected such vast and marvellous
+changes within the century as the country traversed
+by the river Clyde. Where Glasgow now stretches
+far and wide, with its miles of swarming streets, its
+countless mills, and warehouses, and foundries, its
+busy ship-building yards, its harbour thronged with
+vessels of every size and clime, and its large and
+wealthy population, there was to be seen, a hundred
+years ago, only an insignificant little burgh, as dull
+and quiet as any rural market-town of our own day.
+There was a little quay at the Broomielaw, seldom
+used, and partly overgrown with broom. No boat
+over six tons' burden could get so high up the river,
+and the appearance of a masted vessel was almost an
+event. Tobacco was the chief trade of the town;
+and the tobacco merchants might be seen strutting
+about at the Cross in their scarlet cloaks, and looking
+down on the rest of the inhabitants, who got their
+livelihood, for the most part, by dealing in grindstones,
+coals, and fish&mdash;"Glasgow magistrates," as herrings
+are popularly called, being in as great repute then as
+now. There were but scanty means of intercourse
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+with other places, and what did exist were little
+used, except for goods, which were conveyed on the
+backs of pack-horses. The caravan then took two
+days to go to Edinburgh&mdash;you can run through now
+between the two cities in little more than an hour.
+There is hardly any trade that Glasgow does not
+prosecute vigorously and successfully. You may see
+any day you walk down to the Broomielaw, vessels
+of a thousand tons' burden at anchor there, and the
+custom duties which were in 1796 little over &pound;100,
+have now reached an amount exceeding one million!</p>
+
+<p>Glasgow is indebted, in a great part, for the
+gigantic strides which it has made, to the genius,
+patience, and perseverance of a man who, in his
+boyhood, rather more than a hundred years ago,
+used to be scolded by his aunt for wasting his
+time, taking off the lid of the kettle, putting it on
+again, holding now a cup, now a silver spoon over
+the steam as it rose from the spout, and catching
+and counting the drops of water it fell into. James
+Watt was then taking his first elementary lessons in
+that science, his practical application of which in
+after life was to revolutionize the whole system of
+mechanical movement, and place an almost unlimited
+power at the disposal of the industrial classes.</p>
+
+<p>When a boy, James Watt was delicate and sickly,
+and so shy and sensitive that his school-days were a
+misery to him, and he profited but little by his
+attendance. At home, though, he was a great reader,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+and picked up a great deal of knowledge for himself,
+rarely possessed by those of his years. One day a
+friend was urging his father to send James to school,
+and not allow him to trifle away his time at home.
+"Look how the boy is occupied," said his father,
+"before you condemn him." Though only six years
+old, he was trying to solve a geometrical problem on the
+floor with a bit of chalk. As he grew older he took to
+the study of optics and astronomy, his curiosity being
+excited by the quadrants and other instruments in
+his father's shop. By the age of fifteen he had twice
+gone through De Gravesande's Elements of Natural
+Philosophy, and he was also well versed in physiology,
+botany, mineralogy, and antiquarian lore. He was
+further an expert hand in using the tools in his
+father's workshop, and could do both carpentry and
+metal work. After a brief stay with an old mechanic
+in Glasgow, who, though he dignified himself with
+the name of "optician," never rose beyond mending
+spectacles, tuning spinets, and making fiddles and
+fishing tackle, Watt went at the age of eighteen to
+London, where he worked so hard, and lived so
+sparingly in order to relieve his father from the
+burden of maintaining him, that his health suffered,
+and he had to recruit it by a return to his native
+air. During the year spent in the metropolis, however,
+he managed to learn nearly all that the members
+of the trade there could teach, and soon showed
+himself a quick and skilful workman.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+In 1757 we find the sign of "James Watt, Mathematical
+Instrument Maker to the College," stuck up
+over the entrance to one of the stairs in the quadrangle
+of Glasgow College. But though under the
+patronage of the University, his trade was so poor,
+that thrifty and frugal as he was, he had a hard
+struggle to live by it. He was ready, however, for
+any work that came to hand, and would never let a
+job go past him. To execute an order for an organ
+which he accepted, he studied harmonics diligently,
+and though without any ear for music, turned out a
+capital instrument, with several improvements of his
+own in its action; and he also undertook the manufacture
+of guitars, violins, and flutes. All this while
+he was laying up vast stores of knowledge on
+all sorts of subjects, civil and military engineering,
+natural history, languages, literature, and art; and
+among the professors and students who dropped into
+his little shop to have a chat with him, he soon came
+to be regarded as one of the ablest men about the
+college, while his modesty, candour, and obliging
+disposition gained him many good friends.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 402px;">
+<a href="images/fig-p067-1200.png">
+<img src="images/fig-p067-600.png" width="402" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</a>
+<span class="caption">JAMES WATT.<br />
+<span class="pageref">Page 67.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Among his multifarious pursuits, Watt had experimented
+a little in the powers of steam; but it was
+not till the winter of 1763-4, when a model of Newcomen's
+engine was put into his hands for repair,
+that he took up the matter in earnest. Newcomen's
+engine was then about the most complete invention
+of its kind; but its only value was its power of
+pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>ducing
+a ready vacuum, by rapid condensation on
+the application of cold; and for practical purposes
+was neither cheaper nor quicker than animal power.
+Watt, having repaired the model, found, on setting
+it agoing, that it would not work satisfactorily.
+Had it been only a little less clumsy and imperfect,
+Watt might never have regarded it as more than
+the "fine plaything," for which he at first took it;
+but now the difficulties of the task roused him to
+further efforts. He consulted all the books he could
+get on the subject, to ascertain how the defects could
+be remedied; and that source of information exhausted,
+he commenced a series of experiments, and
+resolved to work out the problem for himself. Among
+other experiments, he constructed a boiler which
+showed by inspection the quantity of water evaporated
+in a given time, and thereby ascertained the
+quantity of steam used in every stroke of the engine.
+He found, to his astonishment, that a small quantity
+of water in the form of steam heated a large quantity
+of water injected into the cylinder for the purpose of
+cooling it; and upon further examination, he ascertained
+the steam heated six times its weight of well
+water up to the temperature of the steam itself (212&deg;).
+After various ineffectual schemes, Watt was forced to
+the conclusion that, to make a perfect steam engine,
+two apparently incompatible conditions must be fulfilled&mdash;the
+cylinder must always be as hot as the
+steam that came rushing into it, and yet, at each
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+descent of the piston, the cylinder must become sufficiently
+cold to condense the steam. He was at his
+wit's end how to accomplish this task, when, as he
+was taking a walk one afternoon, the idea flashed
+across his mind that, as steam was an elastic vapour,
+it would expand and rush into a previously exhausted
+place; and that, therefore, all he had to do to meet
+the conditions he had laid down, was to produce a
+vacuum in a separate vessel, and open a communication
+between this vessel and the cylinder of the
+steam-engine at the moment when the piston was
+required to descend, and the steam would disseminate
+itself and become divided between the cylinder and
+the adjoining vessel. But as this vessel would be
+kept cold by an injection of water, the steam would
+be annihilated as fast as it entered, which would
+cause a fresh outflow of the remaining steam in the
+cylinder, till nearly the whole of it was condensed,
+without the cylinder itself being chilled in the operation.
+Here was the great key to the problem; and
+when once the idea of separate condensation was
+started, many other subordinate improvements, as he
+said himself, "followed as corollaries in rapid succession,
+so that in the course of one or two days the
+invention was thus far complete in his mind".</p>
+
+<p>It cost him ten long weary years of patient speculation
+and experiment, to carry out the idea, with
+little hope to buoy him up, for to the last he used
+to say "his fear was always equal to his
+hope,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>&mdash;and
+with all the cares and embarrassments of his
+precarious trade to perplex and burden him. Even
+when he had his working model fairly completed,
+his worst difficulties&mdash;the difficulties which most distressed
+and harassed the shy, sensitive, and retiring
+Watt&mdash;seemed only to have commenced. To give
+the invention a fair practical trial required an outlay
+of at least &pound;1000; and one capitalist, who had
+agreed to join him in the undertaking, had to give
+it up through some business losses. Still Watt toiled
+on, always keeping the great object in view,&mdash;earning
+bread for his family (for he was married by this
+time), by adding land-surveying to his mechanical
+labours, and, in short, turning his willing hand to
+any honest job that offered.</p>
+
+<p>He got a patent in 1769, and began building a
+large engine; but the workmen were new to the
+task, and when completed, its action was spasmodic
+and unsatisfactory. "It is a sad thing," he then
+wrote, "for a man to have his all hanging by a
+single string. If I had wherewithal to pay for the
+loss, I don't think I should so much fear a failure;
+but I cannot bear the thought of other people becoming
+losers by my scheme, and I have the happy
+disposition of always painting the worst." And just
+then, to make matters still more gloomy, he learned
+that some rascally linen-draper in London was plagiarizing
+the great invention he had brought forth
+in such sore and protracted travail. "Of all things
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+in the world," cried poor Watt, sick with hope deferred,
+and pressed with little carking cares on every
+side, "there is nothing so foolish as inventing."</p>
+
+<p>When nearly giving way to despair, and on the
+point of abandoning his invention, Watt was fortunate
+enough to fall in with Matthew Boulton, one of
+the great manufacturing potentates of Birmingham,
+an energetic, far-seeing man, who threw himself into
+the enterprise with all his spirit; and the fortune of
+the invention was made. An engine, on the new
+principle, was set up at Soho; and there Boulton
+and Watt sold, as the former said to Boswell, "what
+all the world desires to have, <span class="smcap">Power</span>;"&mdash;the infinite
+power that animates those mighty engines, which&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"England's arms of conquest are,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The trophies of her bloodless war:</span><br />
+<span class="i6">Brave weapons these.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Victorious over wave and soil,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">With these she sails, she weaves, she tills,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Pierces the everlasting hills,</span><br />
+<span class="i6">And spans the seas."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Watt's engine, once fairly started, was not long in
+making its way into general use. The first steam-engine
+used in Manchester was erected in 1790;
+and now it is estimated that in that district, within
+a radius of ten miles, there are in constant work
+more than fifty thousand boilers, giving a total power
+of upwards of one million horses. And the united
+steam power of Great Britain is considered equal to
+the manual labour of upwards of four hundred millions
+of men, or more than double the number of males on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+the face of the earth. From the factory at Soho,
+Watt's improved engines were dispersed all over the
+country, especially in Cornwall&mdash;the firm receiving
+the value of a third part of the coal saved by the
+use of the new machine. In one mine, where there
+were three pumps at work, the proprietors thought
+it worth while, it is said, to purchase the rights of
+the inventors, at the price of &pound;2500 yearly for each
+engine. The saving, therefore, on the three engines,
+in fuel alone, must have been at least &pound;7500 a year.</p>
+
+<p>In the first year of the present century, Watt
+withdrew himself entirely from business; but though
+he lived in retirement, he did not let his busy mind
+get rusty or sluggish for want of exercise. At one
+time he took it into his head that his faculties were
+declining, and though upwards of seventy years of age,
+he resolved to test his mental powers by taking up
+some new subject of study. It was no easy matter
+to find one quite new to him, so wide and comprehensive
+had been his range of study; but at length the
+Anglo-Saxon tongue occurred to him, and he immediately
+applied himself to master it, the facility with
+which he did so, dispelling all doubt as to the failing
+of his stupendous intellect. He thus busied himself
+in various useful and entertaining pursuits, till close
+upon his death, which took place in 1819.</p>
+
+<p>Extraordinary as was Watt's inventive genius, his
+wide range of knowledge, theoretic and practical, was
+equally so. Great as is the "idea" with which his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+name is chiefly associated, he was not a man of one
+idea, but of a thousand. There was hardly a subject
+which came under his notice which he did not master;
+and, as was said of him, "it seemed as if every subject
+casually started by him had been that he had
+been occupied in studying." He had no doubt a
+rapid faculty of acquiring knowledge; but he owed
+the versatility and copiousness of his attainments
+above all to his unwearied industry. He was always
+at work on something or other, and he may truly be
+called one of those who&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Could Time's hour-glass fall,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And by incessant labour gather all."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In a recent volume of memoirs by Mrs. Schimmel
+Pennick, we find the following graphic sketch of
+this extraordinary man:&mdash;"He was one of the most
+complete specimens of the melancholic temperament.
+His head was generally bent forward or leaning on
+his hand in meditation, his shoulders stooping, and
+his chest falling in, his limbs lank and unmuscular,
+and his complexion sallow. His utterance was slow
+and impassioned, deep and low in tone, with a broad
+Scotch accent; his manners gentle, modest, and unassuming.
+In a company where he was not known,
+unless spoken to, he might have tranquilly passed
+the whole time in pursuing his own meditations.
+When he entered the room, men of letters, men of
+science, many military men, artists, ladies, and even
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+little children, thronged around him. I remember a
+celebrated Swedish artist being instructed by him that
+rat's whiskers made the most pliant painting-brushes;
+ladies would appeal to him on the best modes of
+devising grates, curing smoking chimneys, warming
+their houses, and obtaining fast colours."</p>
+
+<p>His reading was singularly extensive and diversified.
+He perused almost every work that came in
+his way, and used to say that he never opened a
+book, no matter what its subject or worth, without
+learning something from it. He had a vivid imagination,
+was passionately fond of fiction, and was a
+very gifted story-teller himself. When a boy, staying
+with his aunt in Glasgow, he used every night to
+enthral the attention of the little circle with some
+exciting narrative, which they would not go to bed
+till they had heard the end of; and kept them in
+such a state of tremor and excitement, that his aunt
+used to threaten to send him away.</p>
+
+<p>Since Watt's time, innumerable patents have been
+taken out for improvements in the steam engine;
+but his great invention forms the basis of nearly all of
+them, and the alterations refer rather to details than
+principles of action. The application of steam to
+locomotive purposes, however, led to the construction
+of the high pressure engine, in which the cumbrous
+condensing apparatus is dispensed with, and motion
+imparted to the piston by the elastic power of the
+steam being greater than that of the atmosphere.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="The_Manufacture_of_Cotton" id="The_Manufacture_of_Cotton"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p075.png" alt="The Manufacture of Cotton." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+<ol class="chapterTOC">
+  <li> &mdash; KAY AND HARGREAVES.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; SAMUEL CROMPTON.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; DR. CARTWRIGHT.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; SIR ROBERT PEEL.</li>
+</ol>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p077.png" alt="The Manufacture of Cotton." title="" /></h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Are not our greatest men as good as lost? The men who walk daily among us,
+clothing us, warming us, feeding us, walk shrouded in darkness, mere mythic
+men."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="KAY_AND_HARGREAVES" id="KAY_AND_HARGREAVES"></a>I.&mdash;KAY AND HARGREAVES.</h2>
+
+
+<p>On the 3d of May 1734, there was a hanging at
+Cork which made a good deal more noise than such
+a very ordinary event generally did in those days.
+There was nothing remarkable about the malefactor,
+or the crime he had committed. He was a very
+commonplace ruffian, and had earned his elevation to
+the gallows by a vulgar felony. What was remarkable
+about the affair was, that the woollen weavers
+of Cork, being then in a state of great distress from
+want of work, dressed up the convict in cotton garments,
+and that the poor wretch, having once been a
+weaver himself, "employed" the last occasion he
+was ever to have of addressing his fellow creatures,
+by assuring them that all his misdeeds and misfortunes
+were to be traced to the "pernicious practice
+of wearing cottons." "Therefore, good Christians,"
+he continued, "consider that if you go on to suppress
+your own goods, by wearing such cottons as I am
+now clothed in, you will bring your country into
+misery, which will consequently swarm with such
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+unhappy malefactors as your present Object is; and
+the blood of every miserable felon that will hang
+after this warning from the gallows will lie at your
+doors."</p>
+
+<p>All which sayings were no doubt greatly applauded
+by the disheartened weavers on the spot, and much
+taken to heart by the citizens and gentry to whom
+they were addressed.</p>
+
+<p>This is only one out of the many illustrations
+which might be drawn from the chronicles of those
+days, of the prejudice and discouragement cotton had
+to contend against on its first appearance in this
+country. Prohibited over and over again, laid under
+penalties and high duties, treated with every sort of
+contumely and oppression, it had long to struggle
+desperately for the barest tolerance; yet it ended
+by overcoming all obstacles, and distancing its
+favoured rival wool. Returning good for evil, cotton
+now sustains one-sixth of our fellow-countrymen,
+and is an important mainstay of our commerce and
+manufactures.</p>
+
+<p>First imported into Great Britain towards the
+middle of the seventeenth century, cotton was but
+little used for purposes of manufacture till the middle
+of the eighteenth. The settlement of some Flemish
+emigrants in Lancashire led to that district becoming
+the principal seat of the cotton manufacture;
+and probably the ungenerous nature of its soil induced
+the people to resort to spinning and weaving
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+to make up for the unprofitableness of their agricultural
+labours.</p>
+
+<p>A nobler monument of human skill, enterprise,
+and perseverance, than the invention of cotton-spinning
+machinery is hardly to be met with; but it
+must also be owned that its history, encouraging
+as it is in one aspect, is in another sad and humiliating
+to the last degree. It is difficult at first
+to credit the uniform ingratitude and treachery
+which the various inventors met with from the very
+men whom their contrivances enriched. "There is
+nothing," said James Watt in the crisis of his fortunes,
+worn with care, and sick with hope deferred&mdash;"there
+is nothing so foolish as inventing;" and with
+far more reason the inventors of cotton-spinning
+machines could echo the mournful cry. It is sad to
+think that so proud a chapter of our history should
+bear so dark a stain.</p>
+
+<p>In 1733 the primitive method still prevailed of
+spinning between the finger and thumb, only one
+thread at a time; and weaving up the yarn in a
+loom, the shuttle of which had to be thrown from
+right to left and left to right by both hands alternately.
+In that year, however, the first step was
+made in advance, by the invention of the fly-shuttle,
+which, by means of a handle and spring, could be
+jerked from side to side with one hand. This contrivance
+was due to the ingenuity of John Kay, a
+loom-maker at Colchester, and proved his ruin. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+weavers did their best to prevent the use of the
+shuttle,&mdash;the masters to get it used, and to cheat
+the inventor out of his reward. Poor Kay was soon
+brought low in the world by costly law-suits, and
+being not yet tired of inventing, devised a rude
+power-loom. In revenge a mob of weavers broke
+into his house, smashed all his machines, and would
+have smashed him too, had they laid hands on him.
+He escaped from their clutches, to find his way to
+Paris, and to die there in misery not long afterwards.
+Kay was the first of the martyrs in this branch of
+invention. James Hargreaves was the next.</p>
+
+<p>The use of the fly-shuttle greatly expedited the
+process of weaving, and the spinning of cotton soon
+fell behind. The weavers were often brought to a
+stand-still for want of weft to go on with, and had
+to spend their mornings going about in search of it,
+sometimes without getting as much as kept them
+busy for the rest of the day. The scarcity of yarn
+was a constant complaint; and many a busy brain
+was at work trying to devise some improvement on
+the common hand-wheel. Amongst others, James
+Hargreaves, an ingenious weaver at Standhill, near
+Blackburn, who had already improved the mode of
+cleaning and unravelling the cotton before spinning,
+took the subject into consideration. One day, when
+brooding over it in his cottage, idle for want of weft,
+the accidental overturning of his wife's wheel suggested
+to him the principle of the spinning-jenny.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+Lying on its side, the wheel still continued in motion&mdash;the
+spindle being thrown from a horizontal into
+an upright position; and it occurred to him that all
+he had got to do was to place a number of spindles
+side by side. This was in 1764, and three years
+afterwards Hargreaves had worked out the idea, and
+constructed a spinning frame, with eight spindles and
+a horizontal wheel, which he christened after his wife
+Jenny, whose wheel had first put him in the right
+track. Directly the spinners of the locality got
+knowledge of this machine that was to do eight
+times as much as any one of them, they broke into
+the inventor's cottage, destroyed the jenny, and compelled
+him to fly for the safety of his life to Nottingham.
+He took out a patent, but the manufacturers
+leagued themselves against them. Sole, friendless,
+penniless, he could make no head against their
+numbers and influence, relinquished his invention,
+and died in obscurity and distress ten years after he
+had the misfortune to contrive the spinning-jenny.</p>
+
+<p>The history of the cotton manufacture now becomes
+identified with the lives of Arkwright, Crompton,
+and Cartwright&mdash;the inventors of the water-frame,
+the mule, and the power-loom.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="SIR_RICHARD_ARKWRIGHT" id="SIR_RICHARD_ARKWRIGHT"></a>II.&mdash;SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Somewhere about the year 1752, any one passing
+along a certain obscure alley in Preston, then a mere
+village compared with the prosperous town into
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+which it has since expanded, might have observed
+projecting from the entrance to the underground flat
+of one of the houses, a blue and white pole, with a
+battered tin plate dangling at the end of it, the
+object of which was to indicate that if he wanted his
+hair cut or his chin shaved, he had only to step down
+stairs, and the owner of the sign would be delighted
+to accommodate him. But either people in that
+quarter had little or no superfluous hair to get rid
+of, or they had it taken off elsewhere; for Dicky
+Arkwright, the barber in the cellar, for whom the
+pole and plate stood sponsor in the upper world, had
+few opportunities of displaying his talents, and spent
+most of his time whetting his razors on a long piece
+of leather, one end of which was nailed to the wall,
+while the other was drawn towards him, and keeping
+the hot water and the soap ready for the customers
+who seldom or never came. This sort of thing did
+not suit Dick's notions at all; for he was of an active
+temperament, and besides feeling very dull at being
+so much by himself all day, he pulled rather a long
+face when he counted out the scanty array of coppers
+in the till after shutting up shop for the night. As
+he sat one night, before tumbling into his truckle
+bed that stood in a recess in one corner of the dingy
+little room, meditating on the hardness of the times,
+a bright idea struck him; and the next morning the
+attractions of the sign-pole were enhanced by a
+staring placard, bearing the urgent invitation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+COME TO THE<br />
+SUBTERRANEOUS BARBER!<br />
+HE SHAVES FOR A PENNY!!<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Now twopence, as we believe all those who have
+investigated the subject are agreed, was the standard
+charge for a clean shave at that period; and as soon
+as this innovation got wind, we can fancy how indignant
+the fraternity were at the unprincipled conduct
+of one of their number; how they denounced
+the reprobate, and prophesied his speedy ruin, over
+their pipes and beer in the parlour of the "Duke of
+Marlborough," which they patronized out of respect
+for that hero's enormous periwig,&mdash;in their eyes his
+chief title to immortality, and a bright example for
+the degenerate age, when people had not only taken
+to wearing their own hair, but were even beginning
+to leave off dusting it with flour! And to make
+matters worse, here was a low fellow offering to shave
+for a penny. A number of people, tickled with the
+originality of the placard, and not unmindful of the
+penny saved, began to patronize the "Subterraneous
+barber," and he soon drew so many customers away
+from the higher-priced shops, that they were obliged
+to come down, after a while, to a penny as well.
+Not to be outdone, Arkwright lowered his charge to
+a halfpenny, and still retained his rank as the cheapest
+barber in the place.</p>
+
+<p>Arkwright's parents had been very poor people;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+and as he was the youngest of a family of thirteen,
+it may be readily supposed that all the school learning
+he got was of the most meagre kind,&mdash;if, indeed,
+he ever was at school at all, which is very doubtful.
+He was of a very ardent, enterprising temperament,
+however, and when once he took a thing in hand,
+stubbornly persevered in carrying it through to the
+end. About the year 1760, being then about thirty
+years of age, Arkwright got tired of the shaving,
+which brought him but a very scanty and precarious
+livelihood, and resolved to try his luck in a business
+where there was more scope for his enterprise and
+activity. He therefore began business as an itinerant
+dealer in hair, travelling up and down the country
+to collect it, dressing it himself, and then disposing
+of it in a prepared state to the wig-makers. As he
+was very quick in detecting any improvements that
+might be made in the process of dressing, he soon
+acquired the reputation amongst the wig-makers of
+supplying a better article than any of his rivals, and
+drove a very good trade. He had also picked up or
+discovered for himself the secret of dyeing the hair
+in a particular way, by which he not only augmented
+his profits, but enlarged the circle of his customers.
+He throve so well, that he was able to lay by a little
+money and to marry. He was very fond of spending
+what leisure time he had in making experiments
+in mechanics; and for a while was very much taken
+up with an attempt to solve the attractive problem
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+of perpetual motion. No doubt he soon saw the
+hopelessness of the effort; but although he left the
+question unsolved, the bent thus given to his thoughts
+was fruitful of most valuable consequences.</p>
+
+<p>Living in the midst of a manufacturing population,
+Arkwright was accustomed to hear daily complaints
+of the continual difficulty of procuring sufficient weft
+to keep the looms employed; while the exportation
+of cotton goods gave rise to a growing demand for
+the manufactured article. The weavers generally
+had the weft they used spun for them by their wives
+or daughters; and those whose families could not
+supply the necessary quantity, had their spinning
+done by their neighbours; and even by paying, as
+they had to do, more for the spinning than the price
+allowed by their masters, very few could procure
+weft enough to keep themselves constantly at work.
+It was no uncommon thing, we learn, for a weaver
+to walk three or four miles in a morning, and call
+on five or six spinners, before he could collect weft
+to serve him for the rest of the day. Arkwright
+must have been constantly hearing of this difficulty,
+and of the restrictions it placed on the manufacture
+of cotton goods; and being a mechanical genius, was
+led to think how it might be lessened, if not got rid
+of altogether. The idea of having an automaton
+spinner, instead of one of flesh and blood, had occurred
+before then to more than one speculator; but the
+thing had never answered, and no models or
+descrip<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>tions
+of the machines proposed were preserved. One
+inventor had, indeed, destroyed his own machine,
+after having constructed it and found it to work, for
+fear that if it came into use it would deprive the poor
+spinners of their livelihood,&mdash;in reality its effect
+would have been to provide employment and food
+for thousands more than at that time got a miserable
+living from their spinning-wheels.</p>
+
+<p>While Arkwright was intent on the discovery of
+perpetual motion, he fell in with a clockmaker of the
+name of Kay, who assisted him in making wheels
+and springs for the contrivance he was trying to
+complete. This led to an intimate connection between
+them; and when Arkwright had given up the
+perpetual motion affair, and applied his thoughts to
+the invention of some machine for producing cotton
+weft more rapidly than by the simple wheel, Kay
+continued to help him in making models. Arkwright
+soon became so engrossed in his new task, and so
+confident of ultimate success, that he began to neglect
+his regular business. All his thoughts, and nearly
+all his time, were given up to the great work he had
+taken in hand. His trade fell off; he spent all his
+savings in purchasing materials for models, and
+getting them put together, and he fell into very distressed
+circumstances. His wife remonstrated with
+him, but in vain; and one day, in a rage at what
+she considered the cause of all their privations, she
+smashed some of his models on the floor. Such an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+outrage was more than Arkwright could bear, and
+they separated.</p>
+
+<p>In 1768, Arkwright, having completed the model
+of a machine for spinning cotton thread, removed to
+Preston, taking Kay with him. At this time he
+had hardly a penny in the world, and was almost in
+rags. His poverty, indeed, was such, that soon after
+his arrival in Preston, a contested election for a
+member of Parliament having taken place, he was
+so tattered and miserable in his appearance, that the
+party with whom he voted had to give him a decent
+suit of clothes before he could be seen at the polling-booth.
+He had got leave to set up his machine in
+the dwelling-house attached to the Free Grammar
+School; but, afraid of suffering from the hostility of
+the spinners, as the unfortunate Hargreaves had
+done some time before, he and Kay thought it best to
+leave Lancashire, and try their fortune in Nottingham.</p>
+
+<p>Poor and friendless, it may easily be supposed
+that Arkwright found it a hard matter to get any
+one to back him in a speculation which people then
+regarded as hazardous, if not illusory. He got a
+few pounds from one of the bankers in the town;
+but that was soon spent, and further advances were
+refused. Nothing daunted, Arkwright tried elsewhere
+for help, and at length succeeded in convincing Messrs.
+Need and Strutt,<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+large stocking-weavers in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+place, of the value of his invention, and inducing
+them to enter into partnership with him. In 1769
+he took out a patent for the machine, as its inventor,
+and a mill, worked by horse-power, was erected for
+spinning cotton by the new machine. Two years
+after, he and his partner set up another mill in Derbyshire,
+worked by a water-wheel; and in 1775 he
+took out another patent for some improvements on
+his original scheme.</p>
+
+<p>The machinery which he patented consisted of a
+number of different contrivances; but the chief of
+these, and the one which he particularly claimed
+entirely as his own invention (for he frankly admitted
+that some of the other parts were only developments
+of other inventors), was what is called the water-frame
+throstle for drawing out the cotton from a coarse to
+a finer and harder twisted thread, and so rendering
+it fit to be used for the warp, or longitudinal threads
+of the cloth, which were formed of linen, as well as
+the weft. This apparatus was a combination of the
+carding and spinning machinery; and the principle of
+having two pairs of rollers, one revolving faster than
+the other, was now for the first time applied to machinery.</p>
+
+<p>In a year or two the success of Arkwright's inventions
+was fairly established. The manufacturers
+were fully alive to its importance; and Arkwright
+now reaped the reward of all the toil and danger he
+had undergone in the shape of a diligent and
+per<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>sistent
+attempt to rob him of his monopoly, which
+was carried on for a number of years, and was at
+length successful. Some of the manufacturers, who
+were greedy to profit by the new machinery without
+paying the inventor, got hold of Kay, who had
+quarrelled with Arkwright some time before, and
+found him a willing instrument in their hands. It
+would take too long to go over all the law processes
+which Arkwright had now to engage in to defend
+his rights. Kay got up a story that the real inventor
+was a poor reed maker named Highs, who had once
+employed him to make a model, the secret of which
+he had imparted to Arkwright; and this was a capital
+excuse for using the new machinery in defiance of
+the patent, although the evidence at the various trials
+is now held completely to vindicate Arkwright's title
+as inventor. One law plea was lost to him, on account
+of some technical omission in the specifications;
+another restored to him the enjoyment of his monopoly;
+and a third trial destroyed the patent, which
+Arkwright never took any steps to recover.</p>
+
+<p>Besides trying to defraud Arkwright of his patent-rights,
+the rival manufacturers, with jealous inconsistency,
+did their best to discountenance the use of
+the yarns he made, although much superior in quality
+to what was then in use. But Arkwright not only
+surmounted this obstacle, but turned it to good
+account, for it set him to manufacturing the yarn
+into stockings and calicoes, the duty on which being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+soon after lowered, in spite of the strenuous opposition
+of the manufacturers, turned out a very profitable
+speculation.</p>
+
+<p>For the first five years Arkwright's mills yielded
+little or no profit; but after that, the adverse tide
+against which he had struggled so bravely changed,
+and he followed a prosperous and honourable career
+till his death, which happened in 1792. He was
+knighted, not for being, as he was, a benefactor to
+his country, but because, in his capacity of high
+sheriff, he chanced to read some trumpery address to
+the king. He left behind a fortune of about half a
+million sterling.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+The founder of the family of Strutt of Belper, afterwards ennobled.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="SAMUEL_CROMPTON" id="SAMUEL_CROMPTON"></a>III.&mdash;SAMUEL CROMPTON.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Excellent as was the yarn produced by the spinning-jenny
+and the water-frame, compared with the
+old hand-spun stuff, it was coarse and full of knots;
+and when a demand arose for imitations of the fine
+India muslins, the weavers found they could produce
+but a very poor piece of work with such rough
+materials.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who were inconvenienced for want of
+a better sort of yarn was young Samuel Crompton,
+who lived with his widowed mother and two sisters
+in an old country house called Hall-in-the-Wood, near
+what was then the little rural town of Bolton in the
+Moors. When Samuel was only five years old his
+father died, and left his widow with the three
+chil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>dren
+on her hands, to struggle through the world as
+best she could. A hard-working, energetic, God-fearing
+woman, she buckled to the fight with a stout
+heart and a resolute will. Her husband had been
+both farmer and weaver, like most of the men in
+that quarter; and she did her best to fill his place,
+looking after the little farm and the three cows, and
+working at the loom, the yarn for which she taught
+the bairns to spin. Whatever she took in hand she
+did with might and main, and the result was, her
+webs were the best woven, her butter the richest,
+her honey the purest, her home-made wines the finest
+flavoured of any in the district. Small as her means
+were, she gave her boy the best education that could
+be got in Bolton&mdash;first at a day-school, and afterwards,
+when he was old enough to take his place by
+day between the treadles, at a night-school. Rigid in
+her sense of duty, and resolute to do her own share
+of the work, she exacted the same from others, and
+kept her lad tightly to the loom. Every day he
+had to do a certain quantity of work; and there
+was no looking her in the face unless each evening
+saw it done, and well done too. Anxious to satisfy
+his mother, and yet get time for his favourite amusement
+of fiddle-making and fiddle-playing, Sam grew
+quickly sensitive of the imperfections of the machinery
+he had to work with. "He was plagued to deeath,"
+he used to say, "wi' mendin' the broken threeads;"
+and could not help thinking many a time whether
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+the jenny could not be improved so as to spin more
+quickly, and produce a better thread. By the time
+he came to man's estate, in 1774, his thoughts had
+settled so far into a track, that he was able to begin
+making a contrivance of his own, which he hoped
+would accomplish the object he had in view. He
+had a few common tools which had belonged to his
+father, but his own clasp-knife served nearly every
+purpose in his ready hands. He had his "bits of
+things" filed at the smithy, and to get money for
+materials, he fiddled at the theatre for 1s. 6d. a
+night. Every minute he could spare from the task-work
+of the day was spent in his little room over
+the porch of the hall in forwarding his invention.
+As it advanced, he grew more and more engrossed
+with it, and often the dawn found him still at work
+on it. The good folks down in Bolton were sorely
+puzzled to think what light it was that was so often
+seen glimmering at uncanny hours up at the old hall.
+The story went abroad that the place was haunted,
+and that the ghost of some former resident, uneasy
+from the sorrows or the sins of his past life, kept
+watch and ward till cock crow, with a spectral lamp.
+The mystery was cleared up at last. It was discovered
+that the ghost was only Sam Crompton "fashing
+himself over bits of wood and iron;" and Sam was
+pointed out as a "conjuror"&mdash;the cant term for
+inventor&mdash;when he walked through the town.</p>
+
+<p>The five years of labour and anxiety bore fruit in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+1779, when the "mule-jenny" with its spindle carriage
+was finished and set to work. As its name
+indicates, it was an ingenious cross between the
+jenny and the water-frame, combining the best
+features of both with several novel ones, which
+rendered it a very valuable machine.</p>
+
+<p>Just as Crompton had put the finishing touches
+to his mule, the weavers and spinners broke out in
+open riot at Blackburn, and scoured the country with
+the cry, "Men, not machines;" breaking every machine
+they could lay hands on. To keep himself out
+of trouble and save his mule, Crompton took it to
+pieces, and hid it in the roof of the hall. When the
+storm had swept past, he brought it out, put it
+together, and began to use it in his daily work.
+The fine yarn he turned out made quite a sensation,
+and the fame of his invention spread far and wide.
+People came from all quarters to get a sight of it;
+and when denied admittance, brought ladders and
+harrows, and climbed up to the window of the room
+where it stood. One pertinacious fellow actually
+ensconced himself for several days in the cockloft, from
+which he watched Crompton at work in the room
+below, through a gimlet hole he bored in the ceiling.
+Crompton lost all patience with this constant espionage.
+"Why couldn't folk let him enjoy his machine
+by himself?" he asked. A friend, whose advice he
+asked, urged him not to think of taking out a patent,
+but to make a present of his invention to the
+com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>munity
+at large. Save me from my friends, Crompton
+might well have cried. Simple, guileless fellow
+that he was, he acted on his "friend's" advice, and
+on a number of manufacturers putting down their
+names for subscriptions varying from a guinea to a
+crown, threw open the invention to the world. When
+the time came for the subscriptions to be called in,
+some of the manufacturers actually were base enough
+to refuse payment of the paltry sums they had promised,
+and overwhelmed with abuse the man by the
+fruit of whose brain they were making their fortunes.
+When all the money was collected, it amounted to
+only &pound;60, just as much as built Crompton a new
+machine, with no more than four spindles.</p>
+
+<p>Shy, simple, confiding, innocent of the cunning
+ways of the world, sadly backward in the study of
+mankind, and perhaps somewhat ungenial and unpractised
+to boot, Crompton, from the time when
+one would have thought he had set his foot on the
+first round of the ladder of fortune, went stumbling
+on from one misfortune to another, ill-used on every
+side, and unsuccessful in every effort to get on in the
+world. Wheedled out of his patent rights, cheated
+of the money promised him, his workmen lured away
+from him as soon as he had taught them the construction
+of the mule, he grew morbid and distrustful
+of everyone. He would have no more workmen;
+and as the production of his machines was thus restricted
+to the labours of his own hands, he could
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+not compete with the large factories, who drew all
+the customers away from him. Peel, the father of
+the statesman, offered him first a lucrative place of
+trust, and afterwards a partnership; but he would
+not listen to him. He grew more wretched and
+discouraged every day. In despair he cut up his
+spinning machines, and hacked to pieces with an axe
+a carding machine he had invented, exclaiming
+bitterly, "They shall not have this too."</p>
+
+<p>He then retired into comparative obscurity at
+Oldham, where he drudged away at weaving, farming,
+cow-keeping, and overseeing the poor, and found
+it no easy matter withal to support his family, for
+he had married some years before. Afterwards he
+re-appeared at Bolton as a small manufacturer; and
+there was a brief interval of sunshine. The muslin
+trade was very brisk, and the weavers walked about
+with five-pound notes stuck in their hats, and dressed
+out in ruffled shirts and top boots, like fine gentlemen.
+While this lasted Crompton found abundant
+sale for his superior yarn. But trade grew depressed,
+and the gloom settled over Crompton's life to its
+close.</p>
+
+<p>The idea was started of getting Parliament to do
+something for him; but he was too independent to
+supplicate government officials in person. Spencer
+Perceval, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was willing
+to befriend him; but Crompton's ill luck was at
+his heels. On the 11th of May 1812, Crompton
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+was talking with Peel and another gentleman in the
+lobby of the House of Commons, when Perceval
+walked up to them, saying, "You will be glad to
+know we mean to propose &pound;20,000 for Crompton.
+Do you think it will be satisfactory?" Crompton
+walked away out of delicacy not to hear the answer.
+An instant afterwards there was a great shout, and
+a rush of people in alarm. Perceval lay bathed in
+his own blood, slain by the bullet of the assassin
+Bellingham. Crompton had lost his friend.</p>
+
+<p>When the subject of a grant to the inventor of
+the spinning-mule was brought up in the House a
+few days afterwards by Lord Stanley (now Lord
+Derby), only &pound;5000 was proposed. No one thought
+of increasing it. "Let's give the man a &pound;100 a-year,"
+said an honourable member; "it's as much as he
+can drink." So the vote was agreed to; though at
+that very time the duty accruing to the revenue from
+the cotton wool imported to be spun upon the mule
+was &pound;300,000 a-year, or more than &pound;1000 a working
+day. The impulse which this invention gave to
+the cotton manufactures of Great Britain, and the
+commercial prosperity to which it led, enabled the
+country to bear the heavy drain of the war taxes; and
+it has been said, with no little truth, that Crompton
+contributed as much as Wellington to the downfall of
+Napoleon. As soon as it became known, the mule-spindle
+took the lead in cotton-spinning machines.
+In 1811 above 4,600,000 mule-spindles, made by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+his pattern, were in use. At the present time it is
+calculated that there are upwards of 30,000,000
+in use in Great Britain; and the increase goes on at
+the rate of above 1,000,000 a-year. In France
+there were in 1850 about 3,000,000 spindles on
+Crompton's principle; and one firm of mule makers
+(Hibbert, Platt, and Company, of Oldham), make
+mules at the rate of 500,000 spindles a-year. The
+immense impetus given to trade, money, civilization,
+and comfort by this invention is almost incalculable.</p>
+
+<p>The grant of &pound;5000 was soon swallowed up in
+the payment of his debts, and in meeting the losses
+of his business. "Nothing more was ever done for
+him. The king, who was fond of patronizing merit,
+took no notice of him; his eldest son was promised
+a commission, which he did not get; and some time
+after, when struggling through life on only &pound;100
+a-year, the post of sub-inspector of the factories in
+Bolton became vacant; though he applied for the
+office, for which he was eminently qualified, he was
+passed over in favour of the natural son of one of
+the ex-secretaries of state&mdash;a man who did not know
+a mule from a spinning-jenny."<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></p>
+
+<p>Crompton spent his last days in poverty and
+privation, and died at the age of seventy-four, in
+1827.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a>
+Athen&aelig;um.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="DR_CARTWRIGHT" id="DR_CARTWRIGHT"></a>IV.&mdash;DR. CARTWRIGHT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In the summer of 1784 a number of gentlemen
+were chatting, after dinner, in a country house at
+Matlock in Derbyshire. Some extensive cotton-mills
+had recently been set up in the neighbourhood, and
+the conversation turned upon the wonderful inventions
+which had been introduced for spinning cotton.
+There were one or two gentlemen present connected
+with the "manufacturing interest," who were very
+bitter against Arkwright and his schemes.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all very well," said one of the grumblers,
+"but what will all this rapid production of yarn lead
+to? Putting aside the ruin of the poor spinners,
+who will be starved because they haven't as many
+arms as these terrible machines, you'll find that it will
+end in a great deal more yarn being spun than can
+be woven into cloth, and in large quantities of yarn
+being exported to the Continent, where it will be
+worked up by foreign weavers, to the injury of our
+home manufacture. That will be the short and the
+long of it, mark my words."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but, sir," remarked a grave, portly, middle-aged
+gentleman of clerical appearance, after a few
+minutes' reflection, "when you talk of the impossibility
+of the weaving keeping up with the spinning,
+you forget that machinery may yet be applied to the
+former as well as the latter. Why may there not
+be a loom contrived for working up yarn as fast as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+the spindle produces it. That long-headed fellow
+Arkwright must just set about inventing a weaving
+machine."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff and nonsense," returned the "practical
+man" pettishly, as though it were hardly worth
+while noticing the remarks of such a dreamer. "You
+might as well bid Arkwright grow the cloth ready
+made. Weaving by machinery is utterly impossible.
+You must remember how much more complex a process
+it is than spinning, and what a variety of movements
+it involves. Weaving by machinery is a mere
+idle vision, my dear sir, and shows you know nothing
+about the operation."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I must confess my ignorance on the subject
+of weaving," replied the clergyman; "but surely it
+can't be a more complex matter than moving the
+pieces in a game of chess. Now, there's an automaton
+figure now exhibiting in London, which
+handles the chess men, and places them on the proper
+squares of the board, and makes the most intricate
+moves, for all the world as if it were alive. If that
+can be done, I don't see why weaving should baffle
+a clever mechanist. A few years ago we should
+have laughed at the notion of doing what Arkwright
+has done; and I'm certain that before many years
+are over, we shall have 'weaving Johnnies,' as well
+as 'spinning Jennies.'"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cartwright, for that was the clergyman's name,
+confidently as he foretold that machine-weaving
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+would be devised before long, little dreamt at that
+moment that he was himself to bring about the
+fulfilment of his own prediction. A quiet, country
+clergyman, of literary tastes, a scholar, and poetaster,
+he had spent his life hitherto in the discharge of his
+ministerial duties, writing articles and verses, and
+had never given the slightest attention to mechanics,
+theoretical or practical. He had never so much as
+seen a loom at work, and had not the remotest notion
+of the principle or mode of its construction. But
+the chance conversation at the Matlock dinner table
+suddenly roused his interest in the subject. He
+walked home meditating on what sort of a process
+weaving must be; brooded over the subject for days
+and weeks,&mdash;was often observed by his family striding
+up and down the room in a fit of abstraction, throwing
+his arms from side to side like a weaver jerking
+the shuttles,&mdash;and at last succeeded in evolving,
+as the Germans would say, from "the depths of his
+moral consciousness," the idea of a power-loom.
+With the help of a smith and a carpenter, he set
+about the construction of a number of experimental
+machines, and at length, after five or six months'
+application, turned out a rude, clumsy piece of work,
+which was the basis of his invention.</p>
+
+<p>"The warp," he says, "was laid perpendicularly,
+the reed fell with the force of at least half a hundredweight,
+and the springs which threw the shuttle were
+strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+In short, it required the strength of two powerful
+men to work the machine at a slow rate, and only
+for a short time. This being done, I then condescended
+to see how other people wove; and you
+will guess my astonishment when I compared their
+easy modes of operation with mine. Availing myself
+of what I then saw, I made a loom in its general
+principles nearly as they are now made. But it was
+not till the year 1787 that I completed my invention."</p>
+
+<p>Having given himself to the contrivance of a loom
+that should be able to keep pace in the working up
+of the yarn with the jenny which produced it, solely
+from motives of philanthropy, he felt bound, now
+that he had devised the machine, to prove its utility,
+and bring it into use. To have stopped with the
+work of invention, would, he conceived, have been to
+leave the work half undone; and, therefore, at no slight
+sacrifice of personal inclination, and to the rupture of
+all old ties, associations, and ways of life, he quitted
+the ease and seclusion of his parsonage, abandoned
+the pursuits which had formerly been his delight,
+and devoted himself to the promotion of his invention.
+He set up weaving and spinning factories at
+Doncaster, and, bent on the welfare of his race, began
+the weary, painful struggle that was to be his ruin,
+and to end only with his life. "I have the worst
+mechanical conception any man can have," wrote
+his friend Crabbe, "but you have my best wishes.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+May you weave webs of gold." Alas! the good
+man wove for himself rather a web of dismal sack-cloth,
+sore and grievous to his peace, like the harsh
+shirts of hair old devotees used to vex their flesh
+with for their sins. The golden webs were for other
+folk's wear,&mdash;for those who toiled not with their
+brain as he had done, but who reaped what they
+had not sown.</p>
+
+<p>He had invented a machine that was to promote
+industry, and save the English weavers from being
+driven from the field, as was beginning to be the
+case, by foreign weavers; and masters and men were
+up in arms against him as soon as his design was
+known. His goods were maliciously damaged,&mdash;his
+workmen were spirited away from him,&mdash;his patent
+right was infringed. Calumny and hatred dogged
+his steps. After a succession of disasters, his prospects
+assumed a brighter aspect, when a large Manchester
+firm contracted for the use of four hundred
+looms. A few days after they were at work, the
+mill that had been built to receive them stood a
+heap of blackened ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Still, he would not give up till all his resources
+were exhausted,&mdash;and surely and not slowly that
+event drew nigh. The fortune of &pound;30,000 with
+which he started in the enterprise melted rapidly
+away; and at length the day came when, with an
+empty purse, a frame shattered with anxiety and
+toil, but with a brave, stout heart still beating in his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+breast, Cartwright turned his back upon his mills,
+and went off to London to gain a living by his pen.
+As he turned from the scene of his misfortunes, he
+exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"With firm, unshaken mind, that wreck I see,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Nor think the doom of man should be reversed for me."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The lion that has once eaten a man has ever after,
+it is said, a wild craving after human blood. And
+it would seem that the faculty of invention, once
+aroused, its appetite for exercise is constant and insatiable.
+Cartwright having discovered his dormant
+powers, could no more cease to use them than to eat.
+A return to his quiet literary ways, fond as he still
+was of such pursuits, was impossible. An inventor
+he was, and an inventor he must continue till his
+eye was glazed, and his brain numbed in death.
+When a clergyman he set himself to study medicine,
+and acquired great skill and knowledge in the science,
+solely for the benefit of the poor parishioners, and now
+he gave himself up to the labours of invention with
+the same benevolent motives. Gain had not tempted
+him to enter the arena,&mdash;discouragement and ruin
+were not to drive him from it. The resources of his
+ingenuity seemed inexhaustible, and there was no
+limit to its range of objects. Wool-combing machines,
+bread and biscuit baking machines, rope-making
+machines, ploughs, and wheel carriages, fire-preventatives,
+were in turn invented or improved by
+him. He predicted the use of steam-ships, and
+steam-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>carriages,&mdash;and
+himself devised a model of the former
+(with clock-work instead of a steam-engine), which a
+little boy used to play with on the ponds at Woburn,
+that was to grow up into an eminent statesman&mdash;Lord
+John Russell. To the very last hour of his
+life his brain was teeming with new designs. He
+went down to Dover in his eightieth year for warm
+sea-bathing, and suggested to his bathman a way of
+pumping up the water that saved him the wages of
+two men; and almost the day before his death, he
+wrote an elaborate statement of a new mode he had
+discovered of working the steam-engine. Moved by
+an irresistible impulse to promote the "public weal,"
+he truly fulfilled the resolution he expressed in verse,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"With mind unwearied, still will I engage,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">In spite of failing vigour and of age,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Nor quit the combat till I quit the stage."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In 1808 he was rewarded by Parliament for his
+invention of the power-loom, and the losses it brought
+upon him, by a grant of &pound;10,000. He died in
+October 1823.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="SIR_ROBERT_PEEL" id="SIR_ROBERT_PEEL"></a>V.&mdash;SIR ROBERT PEEL.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Cartwright's power-loom was afterwards taken in
+hand and greatly improved by other ingenious persons&mdash;mechanics
+and weavers. "The names of many
+clever mechanics," says a writer in the <i>Quarterly
+Review</i>, "who contributed to advance it, step by
+step, through failure and disappointment, have long
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+been forgotten. Some broke their hearts over their
+projects when apparently on the eve of success. No
+one was more indefatigable in his endeavours to
+overcome the difficulties of the contrivance than
+William Radcliffe, a manufacturer at Mellor, near
+Manchester, whose invention of the dressing-machine
+was an important step in advance. With the assistance
+of an ingenious young weaver in his employment,
+named Johnson, he also brought out the dandy-loom,
+which effects almost all that can be done for
+the hand-loom as to motion. Radcliffe was not, however,
+successful as a manufacturer; he exhausted his
+means in experiments, of which his contemporaries
+and successors were to derive the benefit; and after
+expending immense labour, and a considerable fortune
+in his improvements, he died in poverty in Manchester
+only a few years ago."</p>
+
+<p>To the Peel family the cotton manufacture is
+greatly indebted for its progress. Robert Peel, the
+founder of the family, developed the plan of printing
+calico, and his successors perfected it in a variety of
+ways. While occupied as a small farmer near Blackburn,
+he gave a great deal of attention to the subject,
+and made a great many experiments. One day,
+when sketching a pattern on the back of a pewter
+dinner-plate, the idea occurred to him, that if colour
+were rubbed upon the design an impression might
+be printed off it upon calico. He tested the plan at
+once. Filling in the pattern with colour on the back
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+of the plate, and placing a piece of calico over it, he
+passed it through a mangle, and was delighted with
+seeing the calico come out duly printed. This was
+his first essay in calico-printing; and he soon worked
+out the idea, patented it, and starting as a calico-printer,
+succeeded so well, that he gave up the farm
+and devoted himself entirely to that business. His
+sons succeeded him; and the Peel family, divided
+into numerous firms, became one of the chief pillars
+of the cotton manufacture.</p>
+
+<p>To such perfection has calico-printing now been
+brought, that a mile of calico can be printed in an
+hour, or three cotton dresses in a minute; and so
+extensive is the production of that article, that one
+firm alone&mdash;that of Hoyle&mdash;turns out in a year
+more than 10,000 miles of it, or more than sufficient
+to measure the diameter of our planet.</p>
+
+<p>It was a favourite saying of old Sir Robert Peel, in
+regard to the importance of commercial wealth in a
+national point of view, "that the gains of individuals
+were small compared with the national gains arising
+from trade;" and there can be no doubt that the
+success of the cotton trade has contributed essentially
+to the present affluence and prosperity of the United
+Kingdom. It has placed cheap and comfortable
+clothing within the reach of all, and provided well-paid
+employment for multitudes of people; and the
+growth of population to which it has led, and consequent
+increase in the consumption of the various
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+necessaries and luxuries of life, have given a stimulus
+to all the other branches of industry and commerce.
+From one of the most miserable provinces in the
+land, Lancashire has grown to be one of the most
+prosperous. Within a hundred and fifty years the
+population has increased tenfold, and land has risen
+to fifty times its value for agricultural, and seventy
+times for manufacturing purposes. From an insignificant
+country town and a little fishing village have
+sprung Manchester and Liverpool; and many other
+towns throughout the country owe their existence to
+the same source. These are the great monuments
+to the achievements of Arkwright, Crompton, Peel,
+and the other captains of industry who wrought this
+mighty change, and the best trophies of their genius
+and enterprise.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/footer-107.png" width="300" height="141" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="The_Railway_and_the_Locomotive" id="The_Railway_and_the_Locomotive"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p109.png" alt="The Railway and the Locomotive." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+<ol class="chapterTOC">
+  <li> &mdash; "THE FLYING COACH."</li>
+  <li> &mdash; THE STEPHENSONS: FATHER AND SON.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; THE GROWTH OF RAILWAYS.</li>
+</ol>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p111.png" alt="The Railway and the Locomotive" title="" /></h2>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="THE_FLYING_COACH" id="THE_FLYING_COACH"></a>I.&mdash;"THE FLYING COACH."</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is the grey dawn of a fine spring morning in the
+year 1669, and early though it be, there are many
+folks astir and gathering in clusters before the
+ancient, weather-stained front of All Souls' College,
+Oxford. The "Flying Coach" which has been so
+much talked about, and which has been solemnly
+considered and sanctioned by the heads of the University,
+is to make its first journey to the metropolis
+to-day, and to accomplish it between sunrise and
+sunset. Hitherto the journey has occupied two days,
+the travellers sleeping a night on the road; and the
+new undertaking is regarded as very bold and
+hazardous. A buzz rises from the knots of people as
+they discuss its prospects,&mdash;some very sanguine, some
+very doubtful, not a few very angry at the presumption
+of the enterprise. But six o'clock is on the
+strike&mdash;all the passengers are seated, some of them
+rather wishful to be safe on the pavement again&mdash;the
+driver has got the reins in his hand&mdash;the guard
+sounds his bugle, and off goes the "Flying Coach"
+at a rattling pace, amidst the cheering of the crowd
+and the benedictions of the university "Dons," who
+have come down to honour the event with their
+pre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>sence.
+Learned, liberal-minded men these "Dons"
+are for the times they live in; but only fancy what
+they would think if some old seer, whose meditation
+and research had</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Pierced the future, far as human eye could see,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Seen the vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be,"</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>were to come forth and tell them, that before two
+centuries were over men would think far less of
+travelling from Oxford to London in one hour
+than they then did of doing so in a day, by
+means of a machine of iron, mounted upon wheels,
+which should rush along the ground, and drag a load,
+which a hundred horses could not move, as though it
+were a feather. Roger Bacon had prophesied as
+much four centuries before; the Marquis of Worcester
+was propounding the same theory at that very
+day, and yet who can blame them if they treated the
+notion as the falsehood of an impostor, or the hallucination
+of a lunatic?</p>
+
+<p>In these days when railways traverse the country in
+every direction, and are still multiplying rapidly, when
+no two towns of the least size and consideration are
+unprovided with this mode of mutual communication&mdash;when
+we step into a railway carriage as readily
+as into an omnibus, and breakfasting comfortably in
+London, are whisked off to Edinburgh, almost in time
+for the fashionable dinner hour,&mdash;it requires no little
+effort to realize the incredulity and contempt with
+which the idea of superseding the stage-coach by the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+steam locomotive, and having lines of iron railways
+instead of the common highways, was regarded for
+many years after the beginning of the present century.
+Even after the practicability of the project had
+been proved, and steam-engines had been seen puffing
+along the rails, with a train of carriages attached,
+even so late as 1825, we find one of the leading
+periodicals&mdash;the <i>Quarterly Review</i>&mdash;denouncing the
+gross exaggeration of the powers of the locomotive
+which its promoters were guilty of, and predicting
+that though it might delude for a time, it must end
+in the mortification of all concerned. The fact was,
+said the writer, that people would as soon suffer themselves
+to be fired off like a Congreve rocket, as trust
+themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at
+such a rate&mdash;the rate of eighteen miles an hour,
+which people now-a-days, accustomed to dash along in
+express trains at two or three times that speed, would
+deem a perfect snail-pace.</p>
+
+<p>The "railway" had the start of the locomotive by
+a couple of centuries, and derives its parentage from
+the clumsy wooden way-leaves or tram-roads which
+were laid down to lessen the labour of dragging the
+coal-waggons to and from the place of shipment in the
+Newcastle colleries. These were in use from the
+beginning of the seventeenth century, but it was not
+till the beginning of the nineteenth that the locomotive
+steam-engine made its appearance. Watt
+himself took out a patent for a locomotive in 1784,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+but nothing came of it; and the honour of having
+first proved the practicability of applying steam to
+the purposes of locomotion is due to a Cornishman
+named Trevithick, who devised a high-pressure engine
+of very ingenious construction, and actually set it to
+work on one of the roads in South Wales. At first,
+therefore, there was no alliance between the engine
+and the rail; and though afterwards Trevithick
+adapted it to run on a tram-way, something went
+wrong with it, and the idea was for the time
+abandoned. There was a long-headed engine-man
+in one of the Newcastle collieries about this time, in
+whose mind the true solution of the problem was
+rapidly developing, but Trevithick had nearly forestalled
+him. The stories of these two men afford a
+most instructive lesson. A man of undoubted talent
+and ingenuity, with influential friends both in Cornwall
+and London, Trevithick had a fair start in life,
+and every opportunity of distinguishing himself. But
+he lacked steadiness and perseverance, and nothing
+prospered with him. He had no sooner applied himself
+to one scheme than he threw it up, and became
+engrossed in another, to be abandoned in turn for
+some new favourite. He was always beginning some
+novelty, and never ending what he had begun, and
+the consequence was an almost constant succession of
+failures. He was always unhappy and unsuccessful.
+If now and then a gleam of success did brighten on
+his path, it was but temporary, and was speedily
+ab<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>sorbed
+in the gloom of failure. He found a man of
+capital to take up his high-pressure engine, got his
+locomotive built and set to work, brought his ballast
+engine into use, and stood in no want of praise and
+encouragement; and yet, one after another his schemes
+went wrong. Not one of them did well, because he
+never stuck to any of them long enough. "The
+world always went wrong with him," he said himself.
+"He always went wrong with the world," said
+more truly those who knew him. His haste, impatience,
+and want of perseverance ruined him.
+After actually witnessing his steam engine at work
+in Wales, dragging a train of heavy waggons at the
+rate of five miles an hour, he lost conceit of his invention,
+went away to the West Indies, and did not
+return to England till Stephenson had solved the
+difficulty of steam locomotion, and was laying out the
+Stockton and Darlington Railway. The humble
+engine-man, without education, without friends, without
+money, with countless obstacles in his way, and
+not a single advantage, save his native genius and resolution,
+had won the day, and distanced his more
+favoured and accomplished rival. It was reserved
+for <span class="smcap">George Stephenson</span> to bring about the alliance
+of the locomotive and the railroad&mdash;"man and
+wife," as he used to call them&mdash;whose union, like that
+of heaven and earth in the old mythology, was to
+bear an offspring of Titanic might&mdash;the modern railway.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="THE_STEPHENSONS_FATHER_AND_SON" id="THE_STEPHENSONS_FATHER_AND_SON"></a>
+II.&mdash;THE STEPHENSONS: FATHER AND SON.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Towards the close of the last century, a bare-legged
+herd-laddie, about eight years old, might have been
+seen, in a field at Dewley Burn, a little village not
+far from Newcastle, amusing himself by making
+clay-engines, with bits of hemlock-stalk for imaginary
+pipes. The child is father of the man; and in after
+years that little fellow became the inventor of the
+passenger locomotive, and as the founder of the
+gigantic railway system which now spreads its fibres
+over the length and breadth, not only of our own
+country, but of the civilized world, the true hero of
+the half-century.</p>
+
+<p>The second son of a fireman to one of the colliery
+engines, who had six children and a wife to support
+on an income of twelve shillings a-week, George
+Stephenson had to begin work while quite a child.
+At first he was set to look after a neighbour's cows,
+and keep them from straying; and afterwards he was
+promoted to the work of leading horses at the
+plough, hoeing turnips, and such like, at a salary of
+fourpence a-day. The lad had always been fond of
+poking about in his father's engine house; and his
+great ambition at this time was to become a fireman
+like his father. And at length, after being employed
+in various ways about the colliery, he was, at the
+age of fourteen, appointed his father's assistant at a
+shilling a-day. The next year he got a situation as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+fireman on his own account; and "now," said he,
+when his wages were advanced to twelve shillings a-week&mdash;"now
+I'm a made man for life."</p>
+
+<p>The next step he took was to get the place of
+"plugman" to the same engine that his father attended
+as fireman, the former post being rather the
+higher of the two. The business of the plugman,
+the uninitiated may be informed, is to watch the
+engine, and see that it works properly&mdash;the name
+being derived from the duty of plugging the tube at
+the bottom of the shaft, so that the action of the
+pump should not be interfered with by the exposure
+of the suction-holes. George now devoted himself
+enthusiastically to the study of the engine under his
+care. It became a sort of pet with him; and he was
+never weary of taking it to pieces, cleaning it,
+putting it together again, and inspecting its various
+parts with admiration and delight, so that he soon
+made himself thoroughly master of its method of
+working and construction.</p>
+
+<p>Eighteen years old by this time, George Stephenson
+was wholly uneducated. His father's small
+earnings, and the large family he had to feed, at a
+time when provisions were scarce and at war prices,
+prevented his having any schooling in his early
+years; and he now set himself to repair his deficiencies
+in that respect. His duties occupied him twelve
+hours a-day, so that he had but little leisure to himself;
+but he was bent on improving himself,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+and after the duties of the day were over, went
+to a night-school kept by a poor teacher in the
+village of Water-row, where he was now situated, on
+three nights during the week, to take lessons in
+reading and spelling, and afterwards in the science
+of pot-hooks and hangers as well; so that by the
+time he was nineteen he was able to read clearly, and
+to write his own name. Then he took to arithmetic,
+for which he showed a strong predilection. He
+had always a sum or two by him to work out while
+at the engine side, and soon made great progress.</p>
+
+<p>The next year he was appointed brakesman at
+Black Collerton Colliery, with six shillings added to
+his wages, which were now nearly a pound a-week,
+and he was always making a few shillings extra by
+mending his fellow-workmen's shoes, a job at which
+he was rather expert. Busy as he was with his
+various tasks, he found time to fall in love. Pretty
+Fanny Henderson, a servant at a neighbouring farm,
+caught his fancy; and getting her shoes to mend, it
+cost him a great effort to return them to the comely
+owner after they were patched up. He carried them
+about with him in his pocket for some time, and would
+pull them out, and then gaze fondly at them with
+as much emotion as the old story tells us the sight
+of the dainty glass slipper, which Cinderella dropped
+at the ball, excited in the breast of the young prince.
+Bent upon taking up house for himself, with Fanny
+as presiding genius, Stephenson now began to save
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+up, and declared himself a "rich man" when he put
+his first guinea in the box.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of spending the Saturday afternoon with
+his fellow-workmen in the public-house, Stephenson
+employed himself in taking the engine to pieces, and
+cleaning it; but besides his attention to work, he was
+also remarkable for his skill at putting and wrestling,
+in which he beat most of his comrades. And he was
+not without pluck either, as he let a great hulking
+fellow, who was the bully of the village, know to his
+cost, by giving him such a drubbing as made him a
+"sadder and wiser man" for some time afterwards.
+He still continued his attendance at the night-school,
+till he had got out of the master as much instruction
+in arithmetic as he was able to supply.</p>
+
+<p>By the time he was of age he had saved up
+enough to take a little cottage and furnish it comfortably,
+though, of course, very humbly; and in the
+winter of 1802, Fanny, now Mrs. George Stephenson,
+rode home from church on horseback, seated on
+a pillion behind her husband, with her arms round
+his waist; and very proud and happy, we may be
+sure, he was that day, as the neighbours came to
+their doors to wish him "God speed" in his new
+mode of life.</p>
+
+<p>Having learned all he could from the village
+teacher, George Stephenson now began to study
+mensuration and mathematics at home by himself;
+but he also found time to make a number of
+experi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>ments
+in the hope of finding out the secret of perpetual
+motion, and to make shoe-lasts and shoes, as
+well as mend them. At the end of 1803 his only
+son, Robert, was born; and soon after the family
+removed to Killingworth, seven miles from Newcastle,
+where George got the place of brakesman.
+They had not been settled long here when Fanny
+died&mdash;a loss which affected George deeply, and attached
+him all the more intensely to the offspring of
+their union. At this time everything seemed to go
+wrong with him. As if his wife's death was not
+grief enough, his father met with an accident which
+deprived him of his eye-sight, and shattered his
+frame; George himself was drawn for the militia,
+and had to pay a heavy sum of money for a substitute;
+and with his father, and mother, and his own
+boy to support, at a time when taxes were excessive
+and food dear, he had only a salary of &pound;50 or &pound;60
+a-year to meet all claims. He was on the verge of
+despair, and would have emigrated to America,
+if, fortunately for our country, he had not been
+unable to raise sufficient money for his passage. So
+he had to stay in the old country, where a bright
+and glorious future awaited him, dark and desperate
+as the prospect then appeared.</p>
+
+<p>He still went on making models and experiments,
+and perfecting his knowledge of his own
+engine. To add to his earnings he also took to
+clock-cleaning, with the view of saving up enough
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+to give his boy the best education it was in his
+power to bestow. "In the earlier period of my
+career," he used afterwards to say, "when Robert
+was a little boy, I saw how deficient I was in education,
+and I made up my mind that he should not
+labour under the same defect, but that I would put
+him to a good school, and give him a liberal training.
+I was, however, a poor man, and how do you think
+I managed? I betook myself to mending my neighbours'
+clocks and watches at nights, after my daily
+labour was done, and thus I procured the means of
+educating my son." George began by teaching his
+son to work with him; and when the little chap
+could not reach so high as to put a clock-hand on,
+would set him on a chair for the purpose, and very
+proud Robert was whenever he could "help father"
+in any of his jobs.</p>
+
+<p>About this time a new pit having been sunk in
+the district where he worked, the engine fixed for
+the purpose of pumping the water out of the shaft
+was found a failure. This soon reached George's
+ears. He walked over to the pit, carefully examined
+the various parts of the machinery, and turned the
+matter over in his mind. One day when he was
+looking at it, and almost convinced that he had discovered
+the cause of the failure, one of the workmen
+came up, and asked him if he could tell what was wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said George; "and I think I could alter it,
+and in a week's time send you to the bottom."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+George offered his services to the engineer. Every
+expedient had been tried to repair the engine, and
+all had failed. There could be no harm, if no good,
+in Stephenson trying his hand at it. So he got
+leave, and set to work. He took the engine entirely
+to pieces, and in four days had repaired it thoroughly,
+so that the workmen could get to the bottom
+and proceed with their labours. George Stephenson's
+skill as an engine-doctor began to be noised
+abroad, and secured him the post of engine-wright
+at Killingworth, with a salary of &pound;100 a-year.
+Robert was now old enough to go to school, and was
+sent to one in Newcastle, to which, dressed in a suit
+of coarse grey stuff cut out by his father, he rode
+every day upon a donkey. Robert spent much of
+his spare time in the Literary and Philosophical
+Institute of Newcastle; and would sometimes take
+home a volume from the library, which father and
+son would eagerly peruse together. Occasionally
+they tried chemical experiments together; and now
+and then Robert would try his hand by himself. On
+one occasion he electrified the cows in an adjacent
+enclosure by means of an electric kite, making the
+bewildered animals dash madly about the field, with
+their tails erect on end; and another time he administered
+a severe electric shock to his father's
+Galloway pony, which nearly knocked it over, and
+drew down upon him the affected wrath of his father,
+who, coming out at the instant, shook his whip at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+him and called him a mischievous scoundrel, though
+pleased all the while at the lad's ingenuity and
+enterprise. As an early proof of the former, there
+still stands over the cottage door at Killingworth a
+sun-dial, constructed by Robert when he was thirteen
+years old, with some little help from his father.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of constructing a steam-engine to run on
+the colliery tram-roads leading to the shipping-place
+was now receiving considerable attention from the
+engineering community. Several schemes had been
+propounded, and engines actually made; but none
+of them had been brought into use. A mistaken
+notion prevailed that the plain round wheels of an
+engine would slip round without catching hold of
+the rails, and that thus no progress would be made;
+but George Stephenson soon became convinced that
+the weight of the engine would of itself be sufficient
+to press the wheels to the rails, so that they could
+not fail to bite. He turned the subject over and
+over in his mind, tested his conceptions by countless
+experiments, and at length completed his
+scheme. Money for the construction of a locomotive
+engine on his plan having been supplied by Lord
+Ravensworth, one was made after many difficulties,
+and placed upon the tram-road at Killingworth,
+where it drew a load of 30 tons up a somewhat
+steep gradient at the rate of four miles an hour.
+Still there was very little saving in cost, and little
+advance in speed as compared with horse-power; but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+in a second one, which Stephenson quickly set about
+constructing, he turned the waste steam into the
+chimney to increase the draught, and thus puff the
+fuel into a brisker flame, and create a larger volume
+of steam to propel the locomotive. The fundamental
+principles of the engine thus formed remain in operation
+to this day; and it may in truth be termed the
+progenitor of the great locomotive family.</p>
+
+<p>In 1821 George Stephenson got the appointment
+of engineer, with &pound;300 of salary, to the Stockton and
+Darlington Railway Company, in the Act of Parliament
+for which power was given to use locomotive
+engines, if needful, either for the conveyance of goods
+or passengers. When the line was opened, it was
+worked partly by horses and partly by locomotive
+and stationary engines. This led to a partnership
+between Mr. Edward Pease of Darlington, the chief
+projector of the line, and Stephenson, in a locomotive
+manufactory in Newcastle,&mdash;for many years the only
+one of the kind in existence.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, young Robert Stephenson, having spent
+a year or two in gaining a practical acquaintance with
+the machinery and working of a colliery, went to the
+University of Edinburgh, where he spent a session
+in attending the courses of lectures on chemistry,
+natural philosophy, and geology. He made the best
+of his opportunities; and that he might profit to the
+utmost by the lectures, he studied short-hand, and
+took them all down <i>verbatim</i>, transcribing his notes
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+every evening before he went to bed. Robert brought
+home the prize for mathematics, and showed he had
+made so much progress at college that, though the
+&pound;80 which the session cost was a large sum to his
+father at that time, George never failed, then or afterwards,
+to declare that it was one of the best investments
+he had ever made.</p>
+
+<p>After a year or two in his father's locomotive
+factory, Robert spent two or three years in charge
+of the machinery of a mining company in Columbia,
+and returned to England at the close of 1827,
+to find the great question, "Whether locomotives
+can be successfully and profitably applied to
+passenger traffic?" hotly agitated, his father, almost
+alone, taking the side of the travelling, against that
+of the fixed engines, and insisting that the wheel
+and the rail were clearly and closely part of one
+system.</p>
+
+<p>The success of the Darlington line induced the
+Liverpool merchants to project a line between that
+town and Manchester; and George Stephenson was
+almost unanimously chosen engineer, though it was
+still undetermined whether the new line should be
+worked by steam or horse power. But, apart from
+that question, a great, and, as it appeared to most of
+the engineers of the time, an insurmountable difficulty
+existed in the quagmire of Chat Moss,&mdash;an
+enormous mass of watery pulp, which rose in height
+in wet, and sank in dry weather like a sponge, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+over whose treacherous depths it was pronounced
+impossible to form a firm road. It was perfect madness
+to think of such a thing, said the engineers, and
+none of them would support Stephenson's scheme;
+but he resolved to see what could be done. Truck-load
+after truck-load of stuff was emptied into the
+moss, and still the insatiable bog kept gaping as
+though it had not had half a feed. The directors,
+alarmed, would have abandoned the project, had they
+not been so deeply involved that they were obliged
+to let Stephenson continue. But he never doubted
+himself&mdash;not for a moment. He only pushed on the
+works more vigorously; and, before six months were
+over, the directors found themselves whirling along
+over the very bog they expected all their capital was
+to be fruitlessly sunk to the bottom of. Still, no decision
+had been come to as to whether locomotive or
+fixed engines were to be adopted; and the Stephensons
+were still battling bravely in favour of the locomotive
+against a host of opponents. Robert did his
+father good service by the able and pithy pamphlets
+which he wrote on the subject; and at length their
+perseverance was rewarded by the directors consenting
+to employ a locomotive, if they could get one
+that would run at the rate of ten miles an hour, and
+not weigh more than six tons, including tender; and
+offering a reward of &pound;500 for the best engine fulfilling
+these conditions. George Stephenson and his
+son set to work immediately, and the product of their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+united skill and ingenuity was the celebrated <i>Rocket</i>,
+which carried off the prize, and attained a speed of
+twenty-nine miles on the opening day. The practicability
+and success of the locomotive was now
+beyond a doubt; from that day forward public
+opinion began to turn. Of course, for many a long
+year afterwards there were not wanting numbers of
+bigoted men of the old school who cried down the
+new-fangled system, and would hear of no means of
+transit but the stage-coach and the canal-boat. But
+shrewd folk, like the old Duke of Bridgewater, whose
+faculties were sharpened by their pockets being in
+danger, could not help crying out, "There's mischief
+in these tram-ways! I wish the canals mayn't
+suffer;" and, within ten years of the day when the
+<i>Rocket</i> went puffing triumphantly along the Liverpool
+and Manchester line, most sensible people had
+become convinced of the importance of the locomotive
+railway, and scarcely a principal town in the country
+but was supplied with a line.</p>
+
+<p>The Stephensons had fought a hard fight for their
+proteg&eacute;, "rail and wheel," and now they were to reap
+the fruits of their enterprise and foresight. To nearly
+all the most important of the new lines George Stephenson
+acted as engineer; and thus, in the course of two
+years, above 321 miles of railway were constructed
+under his superintendence, at a cost of &pound;11,000,000
+sterling. Robert at first left his father to attend to
+the laying out of railways, and directed his attention
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+to the improvement of the locomotive in all its details,
+experimenting incessantly, and trying now one
+new device, now another. "It was astonishing,"
+says Mr. Smiles, "to observe the rapidity of the improvements
+effected,&mdash;every engine turned out of
+Stephenson's workshops exhibiting an advance upon
+its predecessor in point of speed, power, and working
+efficiency.</p>
+
+<p>By this time George had taken up his residence at
+Tapton House, near Chesterfield, where he continued
+to reside for the remainder of his life. Close by were
+some extensive coal-pits, which he had taken in lease,
+and from which he supplied London with the first
+coals sent by railway. He was now a man of wealth
+and fame, known and honoured throughout his own
+country, and in many foreign ones, and blessed with
+many a staunch, true friend. More than once he was
+offered knighthood by Sir Robert Peel, but declined
+the honour. As he grew up in years, he gradually
+abandoned his railway business to the charge of his
+son, and settled down into a quiet country gentleman
+of agricultural tastes. He was very fond of gardening
+and farming, and spent many a long day superintending
+the operations in the fields. When a boy,
+he had always been very fond of taming birds and
+rabbits, and had once had flocks of robins, which, in
+the hard winter, used to come hopping round his feet
+for crumbs. And now, in his old age, he had special
+pets among his dogs and horses, and was proud of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+his superior breed of rabbits. There was scarcely a
+nest on his estate that he was not acquainted with;
+and he used to go round from day to day to look at
+them, and see that they were kept uninjured.</p>
+
+<p>The year before his death he visited Sir Robert
+Peel at Drayton Manor. Dr. Buckland, the geologist,
+was of the party. One Sunday, as they were
+returning from church, they observed a train speeding
+along the valley in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Buckland," said Mr. Stephenson, "I have
+a poser for you. Can you tell me what is the power
+that is driving that train?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the other, "I suppose it is one of
+your big engines."</p>
+
+<p>"But what drives the engine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you say to the light of the sun?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can that be?" asked the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing else," said the engineer. "It is
+light bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands
+of years&mdash;light, absorbed by plants and vegetables,
+being necessary for the condensation of carbon during
+the process of their growth, if it be not carbon in
+another form; and now, after being buried in the
+earth for long ages in fields of coal, that latent light
+is again brought forth and liberated, made to work
+as in that locomotive, for great human purposes."</p>
+
+<p>On the 12th of August 1848, this great, good
+man&mdash;one of the truest heroes that ever lived, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+one of the greatest benefactors of our country&mdash;passed
+from among us, leaving his son, Robert, to
+develop and extend the great work of which he had
+laid the foundation.</p>
+
+<p>Among one of the first railways of any extent of
+which Robert Stephenson had the laying out, was
+the London and Birmingham; and it is related, as
+an illustration of his conscientious perseverance in
+executing the task, that in the course of the examination
+of the country he walked over the whole of the
+intervening districts upwards of twenty times. Many
+other lines, in England and abroad, were executed
+by him in rapid succession; and it was stated a few
+years ago, that the lines of railway constructed
+under his superintendence had involved an outlay
+of &pound;70,000,000 sterling.</p>
+
+<p>The three great works, however, with which his
+name will always be most intimately associated, and
+which are the grandest monuments of his genius, are
+the High Level Bridge at Newcastle, the Britannia
+Bridge across the Menai Straits, and the Victoria
+Bridge across the St. Lawrence at Montreal. The
+first two are sufficiently well known&mdash;the one
+springing across the valley of the Tyne, between the
+busy towns of Newcastle and Gateshead; the other
+spanning, in mid air, a wide arm of the sea, at such
+a height that vessels of large burden in full sail can
+pass beneath. The third great effort of Robert
+Stephenson's prolific brain he did not live to see the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+completion of. The Victoria Bridge at Montreal is
+constructed on the same principle as the Britannia
+Bridge, but on a much larger scale. "The Victoria
+Bridge," says Mr. Smiles, "with its approaches, is
+only sixty yards short of two miles in length. In
+its gigantic strength and majestic proportions, there
+is no structure to compare with it in ancient or
+modern times. It consists of not less than twenty-five
+immense tubular bridges joined into one; the
+great central span being 332 feet, the others, 242
+feet in length. The weight of the wrought iron on
+the bridge is about 10,000 tons, and the piers are
+of massive stone, containing some 8000 tons each
+of solid masonry."</p>
+
+<p>After the completion of the Britannia Bridge, and
+again after the opening of the High Level Bridge,
+Robert Stephenson was offered the honour of knighthood,
+which, like his father before him, he respectfully
+declined. In 1857 he received the title of
+D.C.L. from the University of Oxford; and for
+many years before his death he represented Whitby
+in Parliament. He was passionately fond of yachting,
+and almost immediately after a trip to Norway
+in the summer of 1859, he was seized with a mortal
+illness, and died in the beginning of October. On
+the 14th October he was buried in Westminster,
+amongst the illustrious dead of England.</p>
+
+<p>No man could be more beloved than Robert
+Stephenson was by a wide circle of friends, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+none better deserved it. "In society," writes one
+who had opportunities of intercourse with him, "he
+was simply charming and fascinating in the highest
+degree, from his natural goodness of heart and the
+genial zest with which he relished life himself and
+participated its enjoyment with others. He was
+generous and even princely in his expenditure&mdash;not
+upon himself, but on his friends. On board the
+<i>Titania</i>, or at his house in Gloucester Square, his
+frequent and numerous guests found his splendid
+resources at all times converted to their gratification
+with a grace of hospitality which, although sedulous,
+was never oppressive. There was nothing of the
+patron in his manner, or of the Olympic condescension
+which is sometimes affected by much lesser men.
+A friend (and how many friends he had!) was at
+once his equal, and treated with republican freedom,
+yet with the most high-bred courtesy and happy
+considerateness.... His payment of half the
+debt of &pound;6000, which weighed like an incubus on
+an institution at Newcastle, is generally known; but
+his private charities were as boundless as his nature
+was generous, and as quietly performed as that nature
+was unostentatious. Such, then, was Robert Stephenson,
+as complete a character in the multifarious relations
+of life as probably any man has met or will
+meet in the course of his experience. Not unlike,
+or rather exceedingly <i>like</i>, his father in some respects,
+especially in the easy, unimposing manner in which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+he went about his life's work, he was hardly to be
+accounted his father's inferior, except perhaps in the
+heroic quality of combativeness. Father and son,
+independently of each other, and both in conjunction,
+have left grand and beneficent results to posterity, and
+both recall to us Monckton Milnes's men of old, who</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Went about their gravest tasks</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Like noble boys at play.'"</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="THE_GROWTH_OF_RAILWAYS" id="THE_GROWTH_OF_RAILWAYS"></a>
+III.&mdash;THE GROWTH OF RAILWAYS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was about the year 1818 that Thomas Gray
+of Nottingham, travelling in the north of England,
+happened to visit one of the collieries. As he stood
+watching a train of loaded waggons being propelled
+by steam along the tram-road which led from the
+mouth of the pit to the wharf where the coals were
+shipped, the idea flashed through his mind that the
+same system was applicable to the ordinary purposes
+of locomotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Why!" he exclaimed to the engineer who was
+showing him over the place,&mdash;"why are there not
+tram-roads laid down all over England so as to
+supersede our common roads, and steam engines
+employed to drag waggons full of goods, and carriages
+full of passengers along them, instead of horse-power?"</p>
+
+<p>"Propose that to the nation," replied his companion,
+"and see what you will get by it. Why,
+sir, you would be worried to death for your pains."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+Gray was not to be balked, however. The idea
+took firm possession of his mind, and became the one
+great subject of his thoughts and conversation. He
+talked about it to everybody whom he met, and who
+had patience to listen to him, wrote letters and
+memorials to public men, and afterwards appealed
+to the people at large. He was laughed at as a whimsical,
+crochetty fellow, and no one gave any serious
+attention to his views. Mr. Jones of Gromford
+Manor, and Mr. Pease of Darlington, also distinguished
+themselves by their agitation in favour of railways,
+at a time when they were regarded with suspicion
+and alarm. The growing trade of Liverpool and
+Manchester, and other large towns, however, spoke
+more imperatively and forcibly in favour of the new
+project than any amount of individual agitation.
+The means of communication between the various
+manufacturing towns had fallen far behind their
+wants; and it was at length felt that some new
+system must be adopted. The railroad and the
+locomotive got a trial; and before long the carriers'
+carts and the stage coaches were driven off the road
+for want of custom, although the conveyance of goods
+and passengers throughout the country went on
+multiplying an hundred-fold. One can fancy the
+astonishment and awe with which the country-folk
+watched the progress of the first railway train through
+their peaceful acres,&mdash;how old and young left their
+work and rushed out to see the marvellous
+spectacle,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>&mdash;how
+the "oldest inhabitants" shook their heads,
+and muttered about changed times,&mdash;how the horses
+in the field trembled with fear, and threw up their
+heels at their iron rival as it went snorting past&mdash;a
+strange, iron monster, the handicraft of man,
+able to drag the heaviest burdens, and yet outstrip
+<i>Flying Childers</i> or <i>Eclipse</i>, as fresh at the end of a
+journey as at the beginning, and never to be tired out
+by any toil, if only kept in meat and drink. Just
+as in the days of Charles the First, honest, short-sighted
+folk prophesied the ruin of the empire and
+a judgment upon the use of coaches, and bewailed
+the misfortunes of the hundreds of able-bodied men
+who would be thrown out of employment; so in the
+early days of the railroad, great fears were entertained
+that the horses' occupation would be gone,
+and that the noble breed would quickly become
+extinct. There was no measure to the lamentations
+over the ruin of that great institution of English
+life&mdash;the stage-coach, with its gallant driver and
+guard, and spanking team.</p>
+
+<p>The extension of the railway system is one of the
+wonders of our time. The few score miles of railroad
+planted in 1825 have put forth offshoots and
+branches, till now a mighty net-work of some ten
+thousand miles in all, is spread over the three kingdoms,
+with many fresh shoots in bud. Up to the end
+of 1834, when not a hundred miles of railway were
+open, the annual average of travellers by coach was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+some six millions a year; ten years afterwards there
+were more than four times that number, and to-day
+the annual average is more than a hundred millions!
+The number of persons employed upon the working
+railroads of the United Kingdom amount to about
+one hundred and thirty thousand, while nearly half as
+many find employment in the construction of new lines.</p>
+
+<p>A few facts, stated by the late Mr. Robert Stephenson,
+illustrate in a very striking manner the gigantic
+proportion of the railway system of Great Britain:&mdash;The
+railway has pierced the earth with tunnels to
+the extent of more than fifty miles, and there are
+about twelve miles of viaducts in the vicinity of
+London alone. The earthworks which have been
+thrown up would measure 550,000,000 cubic yards,
+beside which St. Paul's would shrink to a pigmy, for
+it would form a pyramid a mile and a half high,
+with a base larger than the whole of St. James's
+Park. Every moment four tons of coal flashes into
+steam twenty tons of water&mdash;as much water as
+would suffice to supply the domestic and other wants
+of a town the size of Liverpool, and as much coal as
+equals half the consumption of the metropolis. The
+wear and tear is so great that twenty thousand tons
+of iron have to be replaced annually, and three hundred
+thousand trees, or as much as five thousand
+acres could produce, have to be felled for sleepers.</p>
+
+<p>When George Stephenson was planning the
+Liverpool and Manchester line, the directors
+en<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>treated
+him, when they went to Parliament, not to
+talk of going at a faster rate than ten miles an hour,
+or he "would put a cross on the concern." George
+was sanguine, however, and spoke of fifteen miles
+an hour, to the astonishment of the committee, who
+began to think him crazy. The average speed is
+now twenty-five miles an hour, and a mile a
+minute can be done, if need be. The wind is hard
+pushed to keep ahead of a good engine at its fullest
+speed.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a>
+The express trains on the "broad gauge"
+of the Great Western travel at the rate of fifty-one
+miles an hour, or forty-three, including stoppages. To
+attain this rate, a speed of sixty miles an hour is
+adopted midway between some of the stations, and
+even seventy miles an hour have been reached in certain
+experimental trips. The engines on this line can
+draw a passenger-train weighing one hundred and
+twenty tons at a speed of sixty miles an hour, the
+engine and tender themselves weighing an additional
+fifty-two tons. The ordinary luggage-trains weigh
+some six hundred tons each. The locomotive, however,
+goes on the principle that the labourer is
+worthy of his hire; if it works hard, it eats voraciously.
+At ordinary mail speed the engine consumes
+about twenty lbs. of coke per mile; so that,
+costing &pound;2500 to begin with, and spending an
+allowance of &pound;2000 a year&mdash;as much as an
+under-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>secretary
+of state&mdash;the locomotive is rather an
+extravagant customer&mdash;only, it works very hard for
+the money, and earns it over and over again. With
+all its strength and size, the locomotive is a much
+more delicate concern than would be supposed; the
+5416 different pieces of which it is composed must
+be put together as carefully as a watch, and, though
+guaranteed to go two years without a doctor, exacts
+the most devoted attention from its guardians to
+keep it in order.</p>
+
+<p>It would fill a volume of huge dimensions to
+dilate on all the phases of the social revolution
+which the modern railway has wrought in our own
+and other countries; how it is daily annihilating
+time and space, and making the Land's End and
+John o'Groat's House next door neighbours; rubbing
+down old prejudices and jealousies, both national
+and provincial, promoting commerce, developing
+manufacture, transforming poor little villages into
+flourishing towns, and industrious towns into mighty
+cities; carrying civilization into the heart of the
+jungle and the desert, and, with its twin-brother, the
+steam-ship, joining hands and hearts in peace and
+amity all the world over. After the wonders of the
+last thirty years, who can doubt that our children, at
+the close of the century, will regard us as little less
+backward than we now do our fathers at its dawn?</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> The wind is calculated to travel at the rate of eighty-two feet in a
+second; the pace of a steam-engine, at the rate of sixty miles an hour,
+would be rather more.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="The_Lighthouse" id="The_Lighthouse"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p139.png" alt="The Lighthouse." title="" /></h2>
+
+<ol class="chapterTOC">
+  <li> &mdash; THE EDDYSTONE.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; THE BELL ROCK.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; THE SKERRYVORE.</li>
+</ol>
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary"><img src="images/title-p141.png" alt="The Lighthouse." title="" /></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Far in the bosom of the deep,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep:</span><br />
+<span class="i0">A ruddy gleam of changeful light,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Bound on the dusky brow of night;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The seaman bids my lustre hail,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And scorns to strike his timorous sail."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Scott.</span></span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="THE_EDDYSTONE" id="THE_EDDYSTONE"></a>I.&mdash;THE EDDYSTONE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When worthy Mr. Phillips, the Liverpool Quaker,
+taking thought in what way he could best benefit
+his fellow-creatures, built the beacon on the Smalls
+Rock in 1772, he could hardly have made a happier
+selection of "a great good to serve and save
+humanity." There are few enterprises more heroic
+or beneficent than those connected with the construction
+and management of lighthouses. From
+first to last, from the rearing of the column on the
+rock to the monotonous, nightly vigil in attendance
+on the lamps&mdash;from the setting to the rising of the
+sun&mdash;the valour, intrepidity, and endurance, of all
+concerned are called into play, and the wild perils
+and stirring adventures they experience impart to
+the story of their labours a thrilling and romantic
+interest. In the case of the Smalls Lighthouse,
+for instance, Whiteside, the self-taught engineer, and
+his party of Cornish miners had no sooner landed,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+and got a long iron shaft worked a few feet into the
+rock, than a storm arose that drove away their
+cutter, and kept them clinging with the tenacity of
+despair to the half-fastened rod for three days and
+two nights, when the wind fell and the sea calmed,
+and they were rescued, rather dead than alive,
+numbed from their long immersion in the water,
+which rose almost to their necks, and exhausted from
+want of food. And after the lighthouse had been
+erected, the engineer and some of his men again
+found themselves, as a paper in a bottle they had
+cast into the sea revealed to those on shore, in a
+"most dangerous and distressed condition on the
+Smalls," cut off from the mainland by the stormy
+weather, without fuel, and almost at the end of
+their stock of food and water&mdash;in which alarming
+situation they had to remain some time before their
+friends could get out to their relief. Most sea-girt
+beacons have their own legends of similar perils and
+fortitude; and the narratives of the erection of the
+three great lighthouses of Eddystone, Inchcape, and
+Skerryvore, which may be selected as the types of
+the rest, are full of incidents as exciting as any
+"hair breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly
+breach."</p>
+
+<p>About fourteen miles south from Plymouth, and
+ten from the Ram's Head, on the Cornish coast, lies
+a perilous reef of rocks, against which the long rolling
+swell of the Atlantic waves dashes with appalling
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+force, and breaks up into those swirling eddies from
+which the reef is named&mdash;the Eddystone. Upon
+these treacherous crags many a gallant vessel has
+foundered and gone down within sight of the shore
+it had scarcely quitted or was just about to reach; and
+situated in the midst of a much frequented track,
+the rapid succession of calamities at the Eddystone
+was not long in awakening men's minds to the
+necessity of some warning light. The exposure of
+the reef to the wild fury of the Atlantic, and the
+small extent of the surface of the chief rock, however,
+rendered the construction of a lighthouse in
+such a situation a work of great and (as it was long
+considered) insuperable difficulty. The project was
+long talked of before any one was found daring
+enough to attempt the task; and when at length in
+1696 Henry Winstanley stepped forward to undertake
+it, he might have been thought of all others
+the very last from whose brain so serious a conception
+would have emanated. The great hobby of his
+life had been to fill his house at Littlebury, in Essex,
+with mechanical devices of the most absurd and
+fantastic kind. If a visitor, retiring to his bedroom,
+kicked aside an old slipper on the floor, purposely
+thrown in his way, up started a ghost of hideous
+form. If, startled at the sight, he fell back into an arm
+chair placed temptingly at hand, a pair of gigantic
+arms would instantly spring forth and clasp him a
+prisoner in their rude embrace. Tired of these
+disagree<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>able
+surprises, the astonished guest perhaps took
+refuge in the garden, and sought repose in a pleasant
+arbour by the side of a canal; but he had
+scarcely seated himself, when he found himself suddenly
+set adrift on the water, where he floated about
+till his whimsical host came to his relief. Such was
+the man who now entered upon one of the most
+formidable engineering enterprises in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Although Winstanley's lighthouse was but a slight
+affair compared with its successors, it occupied six
+years in the erection&mdash;the frequent rising of the sea
+over the rock, and the difficulty and danger of passing
+to and from it greatly retarding the operations, and
+rendering them practicable only during a short
+summer season. For ten or fourteen days after a
+storm had passed, and when all was calm elsewhere,
+the ground-swell from the Atlantic was often so
+heavy among these rocks that the waves sprang
+two hundred feet, and more, in the air, burying the
+works from sight. The first summer was spent in
+boring twelve holes in the rock, and fixing therein
+twelve large irons as a holdfast for the works that
+were to be reared. The next season saw the commencement
+of a round pillar, which was to form the
+steeple of the tower, as well as afford protection to
+the workmen while at their labours. When Winstanley
+bade farewell to the rock for that year, the tower had
+risen to the height of twelve feet; and resuming
+operations next spring, he built at it till it reached
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+the height of eighty feet. Having got the apartments
+fit for occupation, and the lantern set up,
+Winstanley determined to take up his abode there
+with his men, in order that no time might be lost
+in going to and from the rock. The first night they
+spent on the rock a great storm arose, and for
+eleven days it was impossible to hold any communication
+with the shore. "Not being acquainted with
+the height of the sea's rising," writes the architect,
+"we were almost drowned with wet, and our provisions
+in as bad a condition, though we worked
+night and day as much as possible to make shelter for
+ourselves." The storm abating, they went on shore
+for a little repose; but soon returning, set to work
+again with undiminished energy.</p>
+
+<p>On the 14th November of the same year (1698),
+Winstanley lighted his lantern for the first time. A
+long spell of boisterous weather followed, and it was
+not till three days before Christmas that they were
+able to quit their desolate abode, being "almost at the
+last extremity for want of provisions; but by good
+Providence then two boats came with provisions
+and the family that was to take care of the light;
+and so ended this year's work."</p>
+
+<p>It was soon found that the sea rose to a much
+greater height than had been anticipated, the lantern,
+although sixty feet above the rock, being often "buried
+under water." Winstanley was, therefore, under the
+necessity of enlarging the tower and carrying it to a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+greater elevation. The fourth season, accordingly,
+was spent in encasing the tower with fresh outworks,
+and adding forty feet to its height. This proved
+too high for its strength to bear; and in the course
+of three years the winds and waves had made sad
+havoc in the unstable fabric.</p>
+
+<p>In November 1703, Winstanley went out to the
+rock himself, accompanied by his workmen, to institute
+the repairs. As he was putting off in the boat
+from Plymouth, a friend who had for some time
+before been watching the condition of the lighthouse
+with much anxiety, mentioned to him his suspicion
+that it was in a bad way, and could not last long.
+Winstanley, full of faith in the stability of his work,
+replied that "he only wished to be there in the
+greatest storm that ever blew under the face of the
+heavens, that he might see what effect it would have
+on his structure." And with these words he shoved
+off from the beach, and made for the rock.</p>
+
+<p>With the last gleams of daylight, before the night
+fell and shrouded it from view, the tower was seen
+rising proudly from the midst of the waters. Before
+the dawn it had disappeared for ever, and the waves
+were lashing fiercely round the bare bleak ledge of
+the fatal rock. Poor Winstanley had had his presumptuous
+wish only too fully realized. The storm
+of the 26th November was one of the most fearful
+that ever ravaged our shores. The whole coast
+suffered severely from its fury, and when the
+morn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>ing
+came, not a sign remained of the lighthouse,
+architect, or workmen, save a fragment of chain-cable
+wedged firmly into a crevice of the rock. The disappearance
+of the warning light was quickly followed
+by the wreck of a large homeward-bound man-of-war,
+and the loss of nearly all her crew, upon the
+rocks.</p>
+
+<p>This first Eddystone lighthouse was a strange,
+fantastic looking structure, deficient in every element
+of stability, and the wonder was not that it fell in
+pieces as it did, but that it was able to withstand so
+long the boisterous weather of the Channel. But if
+of little merit as an architect, Winstanley at least
+deserves respect, as Smeaton remarks, for the heroism
+he displayed in undertaking "a piece of work that
+before had been looked on as impossible."</p>
+
+<p>For four years the Eddystone remained bare and
+untenanted, till, in the summer of 1706, the erection
+of a new lighthouse was commenced under the superintendence
+of John Rudyerd, by profession a silk-mercer
+in Ludgate Hill, but by natural genius an
+engineer of considerable merit. With such skill and
+energy did he apply himself to the work, that before
+two summers were over his tower was completed,
+and its friendly light beamed over the troubled
+waters and sunken crags. Rudyerd's lighthouse was
+entirely of wood, weighted at the base by a few
+courses of mason work, and 92 feet in height. In
+form, it was a smooth, solid cone of elegant
+simpli<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>city,
+unbroken by any of those ornamental outworks,
+which offered the wind and sea so many points to
+lay hold of, in Winstanley's whimsical pagoda.
+Smeaton speaks of Rudyerd's tower as a masterly
+performance; and had it not been destroyed by fire,
+forty-six years after its erection, there seems little
+reason to suppose it might not have been standing
+to this day,&mdash;although no doubt the ravages of the
+worm in the wood would have demanded frequent
+repairs. On the 2d December 1755, some fishermen
+who happened to be on the beach very early in the
+morning preparing their nets, were startled by the
+sight of volumes of smoke issuing from the lighthouse.
+They instantly gave the alarm, and a boat
+was quickly manned for the relief of the sufferers.
+It did not reach the rock till about ten o'clock, and
+the fire had then been raging for eight hours. It
+was first discovered by the light-keeper upon watch
+who, going into the lantern about two o'clock in
+the morning to snuff the candles, found the place
+filled with smoke. He opened the door of the lantern
+into the balcony, and a mass of flame immediately
+burst from the inside of the cupola. He lost no
+time in seizing the buckets of water kept at hand,
+and dashing them over the fire, but without effect.
+His two companions were asleep, and it was some
+time before they heard his shouts for assistance.
+When at length they did bestir themselves, all the
+water in the house was exhausted. The
+light-keeper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>&mdash;an
+old man in his ninety-fourth year&mdash;urged them
+to replenish the buckets from the sea; but the difficulty
+of lowering the buckets to such a depth, and
+their confusion and terror at the sudden catastrophe
+and their impending fate, destroyed their presence
+of mind, and rendered them quite powerless. The
+old man did his best to prevent the advance of the
+flames; but, exhausted by the unavailing labour, and
+severely injured by the melting lead from the roof,
+he had to desist. As the fire spread from point to
+point, with rapid strides descending from the summit
+to the base, the poor wretches fled before it, retreating
+from room to room, till at last they were driven
+to seek shelter from the blazing timbers and red hot
+bars, in a cleft of the rock. There they were found
+by their preservers, crouching together half dead with
+suffering and fright. It was with the greatest difficulty
+that they were got into the boat; and they
+had no sooner reached the shore than one of them,
+crazed by the terrors he had undergone, ran away,
+and was never heard of more. The old man lingered
+on for a few days in great agony, and died from the
+injuries he had received.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the fate of the second lighthouse on the
+Eddystone,&mdash;one element revenging, as it were, the
+conquest over another.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the fatality which seemed to attend
+these lighthouses, the lessees of the Eddystone&mdash;for
+it was then in private hands, and did not come into
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+the hands of the Trinity House till many years after&mdash;resolved
+to make another attempt; and this time
+they selected as the architect one of the ablest
+professional men of the day, and with sagacious
+liberality, adopted his advice to build it of stone and
+granite.</p>
+
+<p>Smeaton truly belonged to the class of heaven-born
+engineers. From his earliest years the bent of his
+genius unmistakably revealed itself. Before he was
+six years old, he one day terrified his parents by
+climbing to the top of a barn to fix up some contrivance
+he had put together, after the fashion of a
+windmill; and another time he constructed a pump
+that raised water, after watching some workmen
+sinking one. And as he grew older, his efforts took
+a more ambitious range, and were all equally remarkable
+for their originality and success. His father
+destined him for the bar; but his inclination for
+engineering was so irresistible, that he allowed him
+to resign all chance of the woolsack, and set up
+in business as a mathematical instrument maker.
+He gradually advanced to the profession of civil
+engineering,&mdash;which he was the first man in England
+to pursue, and which he may be said to have
+created.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1756 he commenced the construction of
+the great work which may be regarded as the monument
+of his fame. Having decided that his lighthouse
+should be of stone, the next point to be settled
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+was its form. His thoughts, he tells us in his book,
+instinctively reverted to the analogy between a
+lighthouse shaft and the trunk of a stately oak. He
+remarked the spreading roots taking a broad, firm
+grip of the soil, the rise of the swelling base, gradually
+lessening in girth in a graceful curve, till a preparation
+being required for the support of the spreading
+boughs, a renewed swelling of diameter takes
+place; and he held that cutting off the branches we
+have, in the trunk of an oak, a type of such a
+lighthouse column as is best adapted to resist the
+influence of the winds and waves. Whether or not
+Smeaton arrived at the form of his lighthouse, which
+has since become the model for all others, from this
+fanciful analogy, its appearance rising from the rock
+presents a strong resemblance to a noble tree stripped
+of its boughs and foliage.</p>
+
+<p>Smeaton commenced the undertaking by visiting
+the rock in the spring of 1756, accurately measuring
+its very irregular surface, and in order to ensure
+exactness in his plans, making a model of it. In
+the summer of the same year he prepared the foundation
+by cutting the surface of the rock in regular
+steps or trenches, into which the blocks of stone were
+to be dovetailed. The first stone was laid in June
+1757, and the last in August 1759. Of that period
+there were only 431 days when it was possible to
+stand on the rock, and so small a portion even of
+these was available for carrying on the work, that it is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+calculated the building in reality occupied but six
+weeks. The whole was completed without the
+slightest accident to any one; and so well were all
+the arrangements made, that not a minute was lost
+by confusion or delay amongst the workmen.</p>
+
+<p>The tower measures 86 feet in height, and 26
+feet in diameter at the level of the first entire course,
+the diameter under the cornice being only 15 feet.
+The first twelve feet of the structure form a solid
+mass of masonry,&mdash;the blocks of stone being held
+together by means of stone joggles, dovetailed joints,
+and oaken tree-nails. All the floors of the edifice are
+arched; to counteract the possible outburst of which,
+Smeaton bound the courses of his stone work together
+by belts of iron chain, which, being set in grooves
+while in a heated state, by the application of hot
+lead, on cooling, of course, tightened their clasp on
+the tower. Throughout the whole work the greatest
+ingenuity is displayed in obtaining the greatest
+amount of resistance, and combining the two great
+principles of strength and weight,&mdash;technically speaking,
+cohesion and inertia.</p>
+
+<p>On the 16th October 1759, the warning light
+once more, after an interval of four years, shone
+forth over the troubled waters from the dangerous
+rock; but it was but a feeble illumination at the
+best, for it came from only a group of tallow candles.
+It was better than nothing, certainly; but the exhibition
+of a few glimmering candles was but a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+paltry conclusion to so stupendous an undertaking.
+For many years, however, no stronger light gleamed
+from the tower, till, in 1807, when it passed from
+the hands of private proprietors into the charge of
+the Trinity House, the mutton dips were supplanted
+by Argand burners, with silvered copper reflectors.</p>
+
+<p>Imperfect, however, as used to be the lighting apparatus,
+the Eddystone Beacon has always been a great
+boon to all those "that go down to the sea in great
+ships," and has robbed these perilous waters of much
+of their terror. We can readily sympathize with the
+exultation of the great engineer who reared it, when
+standing on the Hoe at Plymouth, he spent many
+an hour, with his telescope, watching the great
+swollen waves, in powerless fury, dash against his
+tower, and "fly up in a white column, enwrapping
+it like a sheet, rising at the least to double the
+height of the tower, and totally intercepting it from
+sight." It is now more than a hundred years since
+Smeaton's Lighthouse first rose upon the Eddystone;
+but, in spite of the many furious storms which have
+put its stability to rude and searching proof, it still
+lifts its head proudly over the waves, and shows no
+signs of failing strength.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="THE_BELL_ROCK" id="THE_BELL_ROCK"></a>II.&mdash;THE BELL ROCK.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Inch Cape, or Bell Rock, is a long, narrow
+reef on the east coast of Scotland, at the mouth of
+the Frith of Tay, and some dozen of miles from the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+nearest land. At high water the whole ledge is
+buried out of sight; and even at the ebb the highest
+part of it is only three or four feet out of the water.
+In the days of old, as the tradition goes, one of the
+abbots of Arbroath, among many good works, exhibited
+his piety and humanity by placing upon a
+float attached to the perilous reef a large bell, so
+suspended as to be tolled by the rising and falling
+of the waves.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"On a buoy, in the storm it floated and swung,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">And over the waves its warning rung."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Many a storm-tossed mariner heard the friendly
+knell that warned him of the nearness of the fatal
+rock, and changed his course before it was too late,
+with blessings on the good old monk who had hung
+up the bell; but after some years, one of the pirates
+who infested the coast cut it down in wanton cruelty,
+and was one of the first who suffered from the loss.
+Not long after, he perished upon this very rock,
+which a dense fog shrouded from sight, and no bell
+gave timely warning of.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And even in his dying fear,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">One dreadful sound did the rover hear;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">A sound as if with the Inch Cape Bell,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The devil below was ringing his knell."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>After the lapse of many years, two attempts were
+made to raise a beacon of spars upon the rock; but
+one after the other they fell a prey to the angry
+waves, and were hardly set up before they disappeared.
+It was not till the beginning of the century
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+that the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses took
+up the idea of erecting a lighthouse on this reef, the
+most dangerous on all the coast. Several years
+elapsed before they got the sanction of Parliament
+to the undertaking, and 1807 arrived before it was
+actually entered upon.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert Stevenson, to whom the work was
+intrusted as engineer, had from a very early age
+been employed in connection with lighthouses. He
+went almost directly from school to the office of Mr.
+Thomas Smith of Edinburgh, and when that gentleman
+was appointed engineer to the Northern Lighthouse
+Commissioners, became his assistant, and
+afterwards successor. When only nineteen, Mr.
+Stevenson superintended the construction of the
+lighthouse on the island of Little Cumbray; and
+during the time he was engineer to the Commissioners,
+which post he held till 1842, he erected no
+fewer than forty-two lighthouses, and introduced a
+great many valuable improvements into the system.
+His reputation, however, will be chiefly perpetuated
+as the architect of the Bell Rock Lighthouse.</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th August 1807, Mr. Stevenson and his
+men landed on the rock, to the astonishment and
+discomposure of the seals who had, from time immemorial,
+been in undisturbed possession of it, and
+now floundered off into the water on the approach
+of the usurpers. The workmen at once set about
+preparing the rock for the erection of a temporary
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+pyramid on which a barrack-house was to be placed
+for the reception of the workmen. They could only
+work on the rock for a few hours at spring-tide.
+As soon as the flood-tide began to rise around them,
+putting out the fire of the smith's forge, and gradually
+covering the rock, they had to gather up their
+tools and retreat to a floating barrack moored at a
+considerable distance, in order to reach which they
+had to row in small boats to the tender, by which
+they were then conveyed to their quarters. The
+operations of this first season were particularly trying
+to the men, on account of their having to row
+backwards and forwards between the rock and the
+tender at every tide, which in rough weather was a
+very heavy pull, and having often after that to work
+on the rock knee deep in water, only quitting it for
+the boats when absolutely compelled by the swelling
+waves. Sometimes the sea would be so fierce for
+days together that no boat could live in it, and the
+men had, therefore, to remain cooped up wearily on
+board the floating barrack.</p>
+
+<p>One day in September, when the engineer and
+thirty-one men were on the rock, the tender broke
+from its moorings, and began to drift away from the
+rock, just as the tide was rising. Mr. Stevenson,
+perched on an eminence above the rest, surveying
+them at their labours, was the first, and for a while,
+the men being all intent on their work, the only one,
+who observed what had happened. He said nothing,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+but went to the highest point of the rock, and kept
+an anxious watch on the progress of the vessel and
+the rising of the sea. First the men on the lower
+tier of the works, then by degrees those above them,
+struck work on the approach of the water. They
+gathered up their tools and made towards the spot
+where the boats were moored, to get their jackets and
+stockings and prepare for quitting the rock. What
+their feelings were when they found only a couple of
+boats there, and the tender drifting off with the other
+in tow, may be conceived. All the peril of their
+situation must have flashed across their minds as
+they looked across the raging sea, and saw the distance
+between the tender and the rock increasing
+every moment, while all around them the water rose
+higher and higher. In another hour, the waves
+would be rolling twelve feet and more above the
+crag on which they stood, and all hope of the tender
+being able to work round to them was being quickly
+dissipated. They watched the fleeting vessel and
+the rising tide, and their hearts sank within them,
+but not a word was uttered. They stood silently
+counting their numbers and calculating the capacity
+of the boats; and then they turned their eyes
+upon their trusted leader, as if their last hope
+lay in his counsel. Stevenson never forgot the
+appalling solemnity of the moment. One chance,
+and but a slender one, of escape alone occurred to
+him. It was that, stripping themselves of their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+clothes, and divesting the two boats, as much as
+possible, of everything that weighted and encumbered
+them, so many men should take their seats in
+the boats, while the others hung on by the gunwales;
+and that they should then work their way, as best
+they could, towards either the tender or the floating
+barrack. Stevenson was about to explain this to his
+men, but found that all power of speech had left
+him. The anxiety of that dreadful moment had
+parched his throat, and his tongue clave to the roof
+of his mouth. He stooped to one of the little pools
+at his feet to moisten his fevered lips with the salt
+water. Suddenly a shout was raised, "A boat! A
+boat!" and through the haze a large pilot boat could
+dimly be discerned making towards the rock. The
+pilot had observed the <i>Smeaton</i> drifting off, and,
+guessing at once the critical position of the workmen
+on the rock, had hastened to their relief.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning when the bell sounded on board the
+barrack for the return to the rock, only eight out of
+the twenty-six workmen, beside the foreman and seamen,
+made their appearance on deck to accompany
+their leader. Mr. Stevenson saw it would be useless
+to argue with them then. So he made no remark,
+and proceeded with the eight willing workmen to
+the rock, where they spent four hours at work. On
+returning to the barrack, the eighteen men who had
+remained on board appeared quite ashamed of their
+cowardice; and without a word being said to them,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+were the first to take their places in the boats when
+the bell rang again in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>At length the barrack was completed, and the
+men were then relieved from the toil of rowing
+backwards and forwards between the tender and the
+rock, as well as from the constant sickness which tormented
+them on board the floating barrack. They
+were now able to prolong their labours, when the tide
+permitted, into the night. At such times the rock
+assumed a singularly picturesque and romantic aspect&mdash;its
+surface crowded with men in all variety of
+attitudes, the two forges and numerous torches lighting
+up the scene, and throwing a lurid gleam across
+the waters, and the loud dong of the anvils mingling
+with the dashing of the breakers.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th July 1808, the site having been
+properly excavated, the first stone of the lighthouse
+was laid by the Duke of Argyle; and by the end of
+the second season some five or six feet of building
+had been erected, and were left to the mercy of the
+waves till the ensuing spring. The third season's
+operations raised the masonry to a height of thirty
+feet above the sea, and the fourth season saw the
+completion of the tower. On the first night in
+February of the succeeding year (1811) the lamp
+was lit, and beamed forth across the waters.</p>
+
+<p>The Bell Rock Tower is 100 feet in height, 42 feet
+in diameter at the base, and 15 feet at the top. The
+door is 30 feet from the base, and the ascent is by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+a massive bronze ladder. The "light" is revolving,
+and presents a white and red light alternately, by
+means of shades of red glass arranged in a frame.
+The machinery which causes the revolution of the
+lamp is also applied to the tolling of two large bells,
+in order to give warning to the mariner of his
+approach to the rock in foggy weather, thus reviving
+the traditional practice from which the rock takes
+its name.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="THE_SKERRYVORE" id="THE_SKERRYVORE"></a>III.&mdash;THE SKERRYVORE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Having crept upon deck about four in the
+morning, I find we are beating to windward off the
+Isle of Tyree, with the determination on the part of
+Mr. Stevenson that his constituents should visit a
+reef of rocks called Skerry Vhor, where he thought
+it would be essential to have a lighthouse. Loud
+remonstrances on the part of the commissioners, who
+one and all declare they will subscribe to his opinion,
+whatever it may be, rather than continue this dreadful
+buffeting. Quiet perseverance on the part of Mr.
+Stevenson, and great kicking, bouncing, and squabbling
+upon that of the yacht, who seems to like the
+idea of Skerry Vhor as little as the commissioners.
+At length, by dint of exertion, came in sight of this
+long range of rocks (chiefly under water), on which
+the tide breaks in a most tremendous style. There
+appear a few low broad rocks at one end of the reef
+which is about a mile in length. These are never
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+entirely under water, though the surf dashes over
+them. We took possession of it in the name of the
+commissioners, and generously bestowed our own
+great names on its crags and creeks. The rock was
+carefully measured by Mr. Stevenson. It will be a
+most desolate position for a lighthouse&mdash;the Bell
+Rock and Eddystone a joke to it, for the nearest land
+is the wild island of Tyree, at 14 miles distance."</p>
+
+<p>Such is an entry in the diary of Sir Walter Scott's
+Yacht Tour, on the 27th August 1814; but although
+the necessity of a lighthouse on the Skerry Vhor, or,
+as it is now generally called, Skerryvore, was fully
+acknowledged by the authorities, it was not till
+twenty-four years afterwards that the undertaking
+was actually commenced, under the superintendence
+of Mr. Alan Stevenson, the son of the eminent engineer
+who erected the Bell Rock Lighthouse.</p>
+
+<p>In the execution of this great work, if the son
+had, as compared with his father, certain advantages
+in his favour, he had also various disadvantages to
+contend with at Skerryvore from which the engineer
+of the Bell Rock was free. Mr. Alan Stevenson
+had steam power at his command, and the benefit
+of all the experience derived from the experiments
+of his predecessors in similar operations; but at
+the same time, the rock on which he had to work
+was at a greater distance from the land, and separated
+from it by a more dangerous passage than that of
+either the Bell or the Eddystone; and the geological
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+formation of which the rock is composed, was much
+more difficult to work upon. The Skerryvore is
+distant from Tyree, the nearest inhabited island,
+about 11 miles; even in fine weather the intervening
+passage is a trying one, and in rough weather no
+ship can live in such a sea, studded as it is with
+treacherous rocks. The sandstone of the Bell Rock
+is worn into rugged inequalities, which favoured the
+operations of the engineer; but the action of the
+waves on the igneous formation of the Skerryvore
+has given it all the smoothness and slippery polish
+of a mass of dark coloured glass. Indeed, the foreman
+of the masons, on first visiting the rock, not
+unjustly compared the operation of ascending it to
+that of "climbing up the neck of a bottle."</p>
+
+<p>The 7th August 1838 was the first day of entire
+work on the rock, and with succeeding ones was
+spent in the erection of a temporary barrack of wood,
+for the men to lodge in on the rock. It was completed
+before the season closed; but one of the first
+heavy gales in November wrenched it from its holdings,
+and swept it into the sea, leaving nothing to
+mark the site but a few broken and twisted stanchions,
+attached to one of which was a portion of a great beam
+which had been shaken and rent, by dashing against
+the rocks, into a bundle of ribands. Thus in one night
+were obliterated the results of a whole season's toil,
+and with them, the hopes the men cherished of
+having a dwelling on the rock, instead of on board
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+the brig, where they suffered intensely from the
+miseries of constant sickness.</p>
+
+<p>The excavation of the foundations occupied the
+whole of the summer season of 1839, from the 6th
+May to the 3d September. The hard, nitrified rock
+held out stoutly against the assaults of both iron
+and gunpowder; and much time was spent in hollowing
+out the basin in which the lighthouse was to
+be fixed. From the limited extent of the rock and
+the absence of any place of shelter, the blasting was
+an operation of considerable danger, as the men had
+no place to run to, and it had to be managed with
+great caution. Only a small portion of the rock
+could be blown up at a time, and care had to be
+taken to cover the part over with mats and nettings
+made of old rope to check the flight of the stones.
+The excavation of the flinty mass occupied nearly
+two summers.</p>
+
+<p>The operations of 1840 included, much to the
+delight of the workmen, the reconstruction of the
+barrack, to which they were glad to remove from
+the tossing vessel. The second edifice was more
+substantial than the first, and proved more enduring.
+Rude and narrow as it was, it offered, after the discomforts
+of the vessel, almost a luxurious lodging to
+its hardy inmates.</p>
+
+<p>"Packed 40 feet above the weather-beaten rock,
+in this singular abode," writes the engineer, Mr.
+Alan Stevenson, "with a goodly company of thirty
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+men, I have spent many a weary day and night, at
+those times when the sea prevented any one going down
+to the rock, anxiously looking for supplies from the
+shore, and earnestly longing for a change of weather
+favourable to the recommencement of the works. For
+miles around nothing could be seen but white foaming
+breakers, and nothing heard but howling winds and
+lashing waves. Our slumbers, too, were at times fearfully
+interrupted by the sudden pouring of the sea
+over the roof, the rocking of the house on its pillars,
+and the spurting of water through the seams of the
+doors and windows; symptoms which, to one suddenly
+aroused from sound sleep, recalled the appalling fate
+of the former barrack, which had been engulphed in
+the foam not twenty yards from our dwelling, and
+for a moment seemed to summon us to a similar
+fate. On two occasions in particular, these sensations
+were so vivid as to cause almost every one to
+spring out of bed; and some of the men fled from
+the barrack by a temporary gangway to the more
+stable, but less comfortable shelter afforded by the
+bare walls of the lighthouse tower, then unfinished,
+where they spent the remainder of the night in the
+darkness and the cold."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of their anxiety to get on with the work,
+and their intrepidity in availing themselves of every
+opportunity, these gallant men were often forced by
+stress of weather into an inactivity which we may
+be sure they felt sadly irksome and against the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+grain. "At such seasons," says Mr. Stevenson,
+"much of our time was spent in bed, for there alone
+we had effectual shelter from the winds and the
+spray which reached every cranny in the walls of
+our barrack." On one occasion they were for fourteen
+days without communication with the shore, and
+when at length the seas subsided, and they were
+able to make the signal to Tyree that a landing at
+the rock was practicable, scarcely twenty-four hours'
+stock of provisions remained on the rock. In spite
+of hardships and perils, however, the engineer declares
+that "life on the Skerryvore Rock was by no means
+destitute of its peculiar pleasures. The grandeur of
+the ocean's rage&mdash;the deep murmur of the waves&mdash;the
+hoarse cry of the sea birds, which wheeled continually
+over us, especially at our meals&mdash;the low
+moaning of the wind&mdash;or the gorgeous brightness of
+a glossy sea and a cloudless sky&mdash;and the solemn
+stillness of a deep blue vault, studded with stars, or
+cheered by the splendours of the full moon,&mdash;were
+the phases of external things that often arrested our
+thoughts in a situation where, with all the bustle
+that sometimes prevailed, there was necessarily so
+much time for reflection. Those changes, together
+with the continual succession of hopes and fears connected
+with the important work in which we were
+engaged, and the oft recurring calls for advice or
+direction, as well as occasional hours devoted to
+reading and correspondence, and the pleasures of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+news from home, were more than sufficient to reconcile
+me to&mdash;nay, to make me really enjoy&mdash;an uninterrupted
+residence, on one occasion, of not less than
+five weeks on that desert rock."</p>
+
+<p>The Skerryvore Lighthouse was at length successfully
+completed. The height of the tower is 138
+feet 6 inches, of which the first 26 feet is solid. It
+contains a mass of stone work of more than double
+the quantity of the Bell Rock, and nearly five times
+that of the Eddystone. The entire cost, including
+steam tug and the building of a small harbour at
+Hynish for the reception of the little vessel that
+now attends the lighthouse, was &pound;86,977. The
+light is revolving, and reaches its brightest state once
+every minute. It is produced by the revolution of
+eight great annular lenses around a central light, with
+four wicks, and can be seen from the deck of a vessel
+at the distance of 18 miles. Mr. Alan Stevenson
+sums up his deeply interesting narrative in the following
+words: "In such a situation as the Skerryvore,
+innumerable delays and disappointments were
+to be expected by those engaged in the work; and
+the entire loss of the fruit of the first season's labour
+in the course of a few hours, was a good lesson in
+the school of patience, and of trust in something
+better than an arm of flesh. During our progress,
+also, cranes and other materials were swept away
+by the waves; vessels were driven by sudden gales
+to seek shelter at a distance from the rocky shores
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+of Mull and Tyree; and the workmen were left on
+the rock desponding and idle, and destitute of many
+of the comforts with which a more roomy and
+sheltered dwelling, in the neighbourhood of friends,
+is generally connected. Daily risks were run in
+landing on the rock in a heavy surf, in blasting the
+splintery gneiss, or by the falling of heavy bodies
+from the tower on a narrow space below, to which
+so many persons were necessarily confined. Yet had
+we not any loss of either life or limb; and although
+our labours were prolonged from dawn to night, and
+our provisions were chiefly salt, the health of the
+people, with the exception of a few slight cases of
+dysentery, was generally good throughout the six
+successive summers of our sojourn on the rock. The
+close of the work was welcomed with thankfulness
+by all engaged in it; and our remarkable preservation
+was viewed, even by many of the most thoughtless,
+as, in a peculiar manner, the gracious work of
+Him by whom the very hairs of our heads are all numbered!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/footer-167.png" width="300" height="122" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="Steam_Navigation" id="Steam_Navigation"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p169.png" alt="Steam Navigation." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+<ol class="chapterTOC">
+  <li> &mdash; JAMES SYMINGTON.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; ROBERT FULTON.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; HENRY BELL.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; OCEAN STEAMERS.</li>
+</ol>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p171.png" alt="Steam Navigation." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="JAMES_SYMINGTON" id="JAMES_SYMINGTON"></a>I.&mdash;JAMES SYMINGTON.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Of the many triumphs of enterprise achieved by the
+agency of that tremendous power which James Watt
+tamed and put in harness for his race, perhaps the
+greatest and most momentous is that which has reversed
+the old proverb, that "time and tide wait for
+no man," given ten-fold meaning to the truth that
+"seas but join the regions they divide," and enabled
+our ships to dash across the trackless deep in spite
+of opposing elements,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Against wind, against tide,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Steadying with upright keel,"</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>in a fraction of the time, and with a fraction of the
+cost and peril of the old mode of naval locomotion.
+How amply realized has been James Bell's prediction
+more than half a century ago, "I will venture to
+affirm that history does not afford an instance of
+such rapid improvement in commerce and civilization,
+as that which will be effected by steam vessels!"</p>
+
+<p>Towards the close of the last century, a number
+of ingenious minds were in travail with the scheme
+of steam navigation. The Marquis de Jouffroy in
+France, and Fitch and Rumsey in America, were
+successful in experiments of its feasibility; but it is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+to the efforts of Miller and Symington in Scotland,
+followed up by those of Fulton and Bell, that we are
+chiefly and more immediately indebted for the practical
+development of the project.</p>
+
+<p>Having a natural bent for mechanical contrivances,
+and abundance of leisure and money to indulge his
+tastes, Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, in Dumfriesshire,
+somewhere about the year 1785, was full of schemes
+for driving ships by means of paddle-wheels,&mdash;by no
+means a novel idea, for it was known to the Romans,
+if not to the Egyptians, and had often been tried
+before.</p>
+
+<p>All he aimed at originally was, to turn the wheels
+by the power of men or horses; and this he managed
+to do successfully enough. Single, double, and treble
+boats were often to be seen driving along Dalswinton
+Lake, moved by paddle-wheels instead of oars. On
+one occasion, at Leith, one of the double boats, sixty
+feet long, propelled by two wheels, each of which
+was turned by a couple of men, was matched against
+a Custom-house boat, which was reckoned a fast
+sailer. The paddle-wheels did duty very well;
+but the men were soon knocked up with turning
+them, and the want of some other motive power
+was strongly felt. A young man named Taylor,
+who was tutor to Mr. Miller's boys, is said to have
+suggested the use of steam; but whether this be so
+or not, it was not till Miller met with James
+Symington that the idea assumed a practical form.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+In 1786 James Symington, then joint-engineer
+with his brother George, to the Wanlockhead Mines,
+was struck with the idea which, as we have seen,
+several other ingenious minds were also busy with
+about the same time,&mdash;of rendering the steam-engine
+available for locomotion both on land and sea.
+After much study and reflection, he succeeded in
+embodying the idea in a working model. It was
+supported on four wheels, which were moved in any
+direction by means of a small steam-engine, and
+could carry 16 cwt., besides coals, water, &amp;c. It
+was exhibited in Edinburgh in the summer of 1786,
+and made a considerable sensation. Mr. Miller, fond
+of all such inventions, did not fail to get a sight of
+Symington's locomotive engine, the first time he
+was in town. He was delighted with its ingenuity
+and completeness, and procured an interview with
+the author. Of course, Miller was full of his
+own experiments, and told Symington the whole
+story of his efforts to propel vessels by paddle-wheels,
+and the want of some stronger, and more constant
+power than that of men to turn the capstan, upon
+which the motion of the wheels depended. Symington
+at once expressed the opinion he had formed,&mdash;that
+steam was equally available for vessels as for
+carriages, and showed him how the steam-engine
+which he had devised for his locomotive could be
+applied to the paddle-wheels. Miller was so much
+struck by his statements, which he illustrated by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+reference to the model, that he determined to have
+an engine made on the same plan, and fitted into
+one of his double boats. Accordingly, an engine
+was built under Symington's directions and superintendence,
+sent to Dalswinton, and put together in
+October 1788. The engine, in a strong oak frame,
+was placed in the one half of a double pleasure-boat,
+the boiler occupying the other half, and the
+paddle-wheels being fixed in the middle.</p>
+
+<p>The autumn was withering into winter, the yellow
+leaves were swirling to the ground with every little
+breath of wind, and the boughs were beginning to
+show forth bare and grim, when the little boat was
+launched upon the bosom of Dalswinton Loch. At
+length all the preparations were finished, and on the
+14th November Mr. Miller had the delight of seeing
+the vessel gliding over the mimic waves of the lake
+at the rate of five miles an hour. The company on
+board the boat on that memorable occasion were&mdash;Mr.
+Miller himself, of course, nervous with pleasure
+and exultation; Taylor, the tutor; Alexander Nasmyth
+(the well-known landscape painter, and father
+of the man who, in the next generation, was to
+invent the wonderful steam-hammer, that knocks
+masses of iron about like putty, and can yet so
+moderate its force as to crack a nut without bruising
+the kernel); a brisk stripling with strongly marked
+features, by name Harry Brougham, afterwards to
+be Lord Chancellor of England, and perhaps the most
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+many-sided genius of his time; and&mdash;last and
+greatest of the group&mdash;there was one of Mr. Miller's
+tenants, the farmer of Ellisland,&mdash;Robert Burns, the
+great bard of Scotland, enjoying to the full, no
+doubt, the novelty of the expedition, but, we must
+suppose, unconscious of its import and grand future
+consequences, since he has accorded it no commemorative
+verse. "Many a time," says Mr. James
+Nasmyth, son of the distinguished painter, "I have
+heard my father describe the delight which this first
+and successful essay at steam navigation yielded the
+party in question. I only wish Burns had immortalized
+it in fit, clinking rhyme, for, indeed, it was a
+subject worthy of his highest muse."</p>
+
+<p>The experiment was next tried on a large scale
+with a canal boat, on the Forth and Clyde Canal,
+but one of the wheels broke. Not to be balked,
+Symington had stronger wheels made, and the next
+time the steam was put on, the vessel went off at the
+rate of seven miles an hour. The experiment was
+several times repeated with success. The vessel,
+however, was so slight, that many more trips would
+have knocked it to pieces; and it was therefore
+dismantled. The fitting up of these vessels, and the
+working of them, formed a heavy drain upon Mr.
+Miller's purse; and having laid satisfactory proof
+before the world that the thing could be done,
+he relinquished the enterprise, and left it to be
+worked out by others. Just then, however, no one
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+came forward to fill his place; and for some years
+the idea slumbered.</p>
+
+<p>In 1801 Symington could not afford to indulge
+in further efforts at his own expense, but he found
+a patron in Lord Dundas, who commissioned him to
+construct a steam-tug for dragging canal boats. A
+stout, serviceable tug was built; and a series of
+experiments entered upon to test her efficiency,
+which cost upwards of &pound;3000. One bleak, stormy
+spring-day in 1802, the people on the banks of the
+Forth and Clyde Canal might have been seen
+staring with wonder, at the short, stumpy little
+tug pushing gallantly on at the rate of three or
+four miles an hour, with a strong wind right in her
+teeth, that no other vessel could make head against,
+and two loaded vessels (each of more than 70
+tons burden) in tow. By itself, the tug could do
+six miles an hour without any great strain. The
+company made some objection, however, about the
+banks of the canal being injured, and the tug fell
+into disuse. It served an important end, though, in
+giving both Fulton and Bell a basis for their operations,
+and must be considered the parent of our
+modern steam-craft.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="ROBERT_FULTON" id="ROBERT_FULTON"></a>II.&mdash;ROBERT FULTON.</h2>
+
+
+<p>After Dr. Cartwright, the inventor of the power-loom,
+had retired penniless from his manufacturing
+enterprises, and had taken up his abode in London,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+one of the constant visitors at his modest residence
+in Marylebone Fields, was a thin, sharp-featured
+American, about twenty-eight years of age, an artist
+by profession, and formerly student of Benjamin
+West, who, however, was now much more interested
+in the art of engineering than the art of painting.
+From an early age he had shown a taste for
+mechanics, and was fond of spending his play-hours
+at school loitering about workshops and factories,
+watching the men at their work, and studying the
+machines and instruments they used. This sojourn
+in England had brought him into contact with the
+Duke of Bridgewater, the great canal projector, and
+Lord Stanhope, well known for his improvements in
+the printing press and other contrivances, in whose
+company his boyish bent towards mechanics was
+revived, and became quite a passion with him. He
+threw aside his brushes and palette, and applied himself
+to his favourite pursuit with heart and soul.
+Having formed the acquaintance of Cartwright, he
+became a daily visitor at his house, and the enthusiastic,
+good-natured doctor and he would sit debating
+for hours the great problem: "Whether it were
+practicable to move vessels by steam?" Fulton,
+eager, restless, vivacious, with pencil in hand, was perpetually
+sketching plans of paddle-wheels; while the
+doctor, calm, dignified, and earnest, equally engrossed
+in the subject, was contriving various modes of
+bringing steam to act upon them. Neither of them
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+had any doubt that the thing could be done, but the
+"how" long baffled them; and even though the
+doctor constructed "the model of a boat, which,
+being wound up like a clock, moved on the water in
+a highly satisfactory manner," nothing practical
+came of their cogitations till some years after.</p>
+
+<p>While on a visit to Paris, Fulton was struck with
+the injury which standing navies of men-of-war inflicted
+on the mercantile marine, and gave his whole
+attention, as he says, "to find out the means of
+destroying such engines of oppression, by some method
+which would put it out of the power of any nation
+to maintain such a system, and compel every government
+to adopt the simple principles of education,
+industry, and a free circulation of its produce." The
+means presented itself to his mind in the shape of
+an explosive shell, called the torpedo, by which any
+ship of war could be blown to pieces; and for six
+or seven years he occupied himself in fruitless
+attempts to get first the government of France, and
+then that of England, to take up his project. He
+did not abandon his schemes with regard to steam-vessels,
+however; but, under the auspices of Mr.
+Livingstone, the American ambassador, made several
+experiments. One vessel of considerable size broke
+through the middle when the engines were placed
+on board, but a second one was rather more successful,
+though but a slow rate of movement was
+attained. His project came under the notice of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+Napoleon, then First Consul, who did not fail to
+appreciate its value. "It was," he said, "capable
+of changing the face of the world;" and he directed
+a commission to inquire into its merits. Nothing
+came of it, however.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after, Fulton visited Scotland, and got an
+introduction to Symington, whom he pressed for a
+sight of his boat. Symington generously consented,
+and gave him a short sail on board the steam-tug.
+Fulton made no concealment of his intention of starting
+steamboats in his own country, whither he was
+about to return, and asked Symington to allow him
+to make a few notes of his observations on board.
+Symington had no objections; and, therefore, he
+says, "Fulton pulled out a memorandum book, and
+after putting several pointed questions respecting
+the general construction and effect of the machine,
+which I answered in a most explicit manner, he
+jotted down particularly everything then described,
+with his own remarks upon the boat while moving
+with him on board along the canal." Fulton was
+very liberal in his promises not to forget his assistance,
+if he got steamboats established in America;
+but Symington never heard anything more of him.</p>
+
+<p>Fulton was at New York in 1806, and busy
+getting a steamboat put together. It was a costly
+undertaking, and he had little spare cash of his own;
+so he offered shares in the concern to his friends, but
+no one would have anything to do with so ridiculous
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+a scheme, as they thought. "My friends," says
+Fulton, "were civil, but shy. They listened with
+patience to my explanations, but with a settled cast
+of incredulity on their countenances. I felt the full
+force of the lamentation of the poet,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Truths would you teach, to save a sinking land,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">All shun, none aid you, and few understand.'</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As I had occasion to pass daily to and from the building-yard
+while my boat was in progress, I have often
+loitered, unknown, near the idle groups of strangers,
+gathering in little circles, and heard various inquiries
+as to the object of this new vehicle. The language
+was uniformly that of scorn, sneer, or ridicule. The
+loud laugh rose at my expense, the dry jest, the wise
+calculation of losses and expenditure, the dull, but
+endless repetition of 'the Fulton Folly.' Never did
+a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or a
+warm wish, cross my path."</p>
+
+<p>Let them laugh that win. The success which
+shortly attended Fulton's scheme turned the tables
+upon those who had mocked at him. The <i>Clermont</i>
+was completed in August 1807, and the
+day arrived when the trial was to be made on the
+Hudson river. "To me," wrote Fulton, "it was a
+most trying and interesting occasion. I wanted
+some friends to go on board to witness the first
+successful trip. Many of them did me the favour
+to attend as a mark of personal respect; but it was
+manifest they did it with reluctance, fearing to be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+partners of my mortification, and not of my triumph.
+The moment arrived in which the word was to be
+given for the vessel to move. My friends were in
+groups on the deck. There was anxiety mixed with
+fear among them. They were silent, sad, and weary.
+I read in their looks nothing but disaster, and almost
+repented of my efforts. The signal was given, and
+the boat moved on a short distance, and then stopped
+and became immovable. To the silence of the preceding
+moment now succeeded murmurs of discontent
+and agitation, and whispers and shrugs. I could
+hear distinctly repeated&mdash;'I told you so; it is a
+foolish scheme; I wish we were well out of it.' I
+elevated myself on a platform, and stated that I
+knew not what was the matter; but if they would
+be quiet, and indulge me for half an hour, I would
+either go on or abandon the voyage. I went below,
+and discovered that a slight misadjustment was the
+cause. It was obviated. The boat went on; we
+left New York; we passed through the Highlands;
+we reached Albany! Yet even their imagination
+superseded the force of fact. It was doubted if it
+could be done again, or if it could be made, in any
+case, of any great value."</p>
+
+<p>The simple-minded country folk on the banks of
+the Hudson were almost frightened out of their wits
+at the awful apparition which they saw gliding along
+the river, and which, especially when seen indistinctly
+looming through the night, looked to their bewildered
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+eyes, "a monster moving on the water, defying the
+winds and tide, and breathing flames and smoke."
+Pine-wood was used for fuel, and whenever the fire
+was stirred, a great burst of sparks issued from the
+chimney. "This uncommon light," says Colden, the
+biographer of Fulton, "first attracted the attention
+of the crews of other vessels. Notwithstanding the
+wind and tide were adverse to its approach, they
+saw with astonishment that it was rapidly coming
+towards them; and when it came so near that the
+noise of the machinery and paddles were heard, the
+crews in some instances shrunk beneath their decks
+from the terrific sight, and others left their vessels to
+go on shore; while others, again, prostrated themselves,
+and besought Providence to protect them from
+the approach of the horrible monster which was
+marching on the tides, and lighting its path by the
+fires which it vomited."</p>
+
+<p>With the novelty of the spectacle its terror died
+away, and people soon got tired of rushing out to
+see the remarkable machine that had once seemed so
+miraculous to them. The <i>Clermont</i> soon began to
+travel regularly as a passage-boat between Albany
+and New York, other steam-vessels were constructed
+on its model, and by degrees the steam marine of
+America grew into the host it is at present. Thirty
+years after the first experiment on the Hudson, it
+was calculated 1300 steamboats had been built in
+the States.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+Fulton did not live long to enjoy his triumphs.
+He died in 1815, having been actively engaged in
+promoting steam navigation to his last hours.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="HENRY_BELL" id="HENRY_BELL"></a>III.&mdash;HENRY BELL.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The honour which in America attached to Fulton
+as the man who first brought the steamboat into
+use, and to the River Hudson as being the scene of
+the experiment, in our own country fell (in a somewhat
+less degree, being subsequent), to Henry Bell,
+and the River Clyde.</p>
+
+<p>Brought up as a millwright, Bell, from want of
+funds to start in business, was obliged for many
+years to gain his living as a common carpenter in
+Glasgow, where he was noted among the trade as
+being very fond of "schemes," and suspected on that
+account by narrow-minded folk of being not very
+reliable in the lower branches of his craft. Scheme
+after scheme issued from his fertile mind; but he
+was rash and hasty in working them out, and few
+proved of much worth. Steam navigation being one
+of the vexed problems of the time, had every fascination
+for his peculiar genius; and he seems to have
+been brooding over it as the last century was closing,
+and the present opening upon the world. When
+Fulton visited Symington's invention, Bell appears
+to have accompanied him, and to have afterwards
+corresponded with him on the subject. "This," he
+says, "led me to think of the absurdity of writing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+my opinions to other countries, and not putting it
+in practice myself in my own country; and from
+these considerations I was roused to set on foot a
+steamboat, for which I made a number of different
+models before I was satisfied." Having removed to
+the little village of Helensburgh, on the banks of the
+Clyde, and there established a hotel and bath-house,
+which his wife managed, he endeavoured to work
+the passage-boats by which visitors were brought to
+the place, by means of paddle-wheels worked by the
+hand, instead of oars; but the plan did not succeed
+very well, for the same reason that led to Mr. Miller's
+abandonment of it&mdash;the inefficiency of manual power,
+which could not be applied with sufficiently sustained
+and continuous force. He therefore gave it
+up, and turned his attention to the employment of
+steam power for the same purpose. Of course, he
+was laughed at for his pains; and Henry Bell's project
+for having steamers on the Clyde became a
+standing joke among the frequenters of the watering-place.
+Even after the permanent success of Fulton's
+scheme was known, people would not moderate their
+incredulity; but Bell's faith, which had never wavered,
+was now confirmed, and he set about the work with
+redoubled energy.</p>
+
+<p>In 1811, Bell, having procured the necessary
+funds, had a steam-boat built of twenty-five tons
+and four horse power. He named it the <i>Comet</i>,
+because a comet had just then appeared in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+north-west of Scotland. The <i>Comet</i> began to run
+regularly between Glasgow and Helensburgh in
+January 1812, and continued to ply successfully
+during the summer of that year. At first, however,
+she brought rather loss than gain to her projector.
+People were shy of trusting themselves
+on board, and parties interested in the stage-coaches
+and sailing vessels, spread all sorts of
+absurd reports about her. It was not till she had
+gone for some time without accident, that tourists began
+to think they might as well save their money
+and their time by patronizing the new mode of conveyance.
+In the second year Bell took the <i>Comet</i>
+off the Clyde, and sent her on a tour round the open
+coasts of the three kingdoms. Before long the safety
+and utility of steam navigation was admitted on
+all hands, and numerous rival enterprises were on
+foot. In 1820 the <i>Comet</i> was lost between Glasgow
+and Fort William; and in the following year
+another of Bell's vessels was burnt to the water-edge&mdash;two
+misfortunes that carried &pound;3000 out of
+his pocket. His rivals, with abundant capital, soon
+drove him out of the field, and Bell sank into poverty
+and neglect. A small annuity from the Clyde trustees,
+and a subscription among his friends, to keep
+him from starving, were all the rewards he ever received
+for his enterprise and perseverance. He died
+in 1830 in the sixty-fourth year of his age.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="OCEAN_STEAMERS" id="OCEAN_STEAMERS"></a>IV.&mdash;OCEAN STEAMERS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In the quarter of a century which elapsed between
+1812, when the <i>Comet</i> first began to churn the
+waters of the Clyde, and 1837, steam navigation
+progressed steadily and surely. At first, content
+with plying along rivers and quiet bays, steamers
+by-and-by ventured out upon the open sea. We
+owe the regular establishment of deep-sea packets to
+the courage and enterprise of Mr. David Napier of
+Glasgow, "who," says Mr. Scott Russell, "has effected
+more for the improvement of steam navigation than
+any other man." He was quick to appreciate the
+capabilities of steam-vessels, and saw that they were
+fit for something more than mere inland voyages.
+Before starting one of them upon the open sea, however,
+he carefully estimated the danger to be encountered
+and the difficulties to be overcome. He
+took passage at the worst season of the year in one
+of the sailing vessels which formerly plied between
+Glasgow and Belfast, and which often required a
+week to perform a journey that is now done by
+steam in a few hours.</p>
+
+<p>Stationing himself on an elevated part of the deck,
+he kept a close watch on the movements of the vessel,
+observing the tossing to which she was subjected
+by the waves, the extent of the dip when she sank
+into a trough, the height of elevation when lifted on
+the summit of a wave, and calculating in his mind
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+how all this would tell on the paddle-wheels.
+Through the roughest of the storm, when the vessel
+was pitching worst, and the wind blowing at its
+fiercest, he kept his place on deck, regardless of the
+drenching spray and the blast that almost carried
+him off his legs. When at length he had satisfied
+himself by the observation of his own eyes and
+inquiries of the captain and crew, that there was nothing
+in the voyage which a steamer could not encounter,
+he retired contentedly to his cabin, leaving
+everybody astonished at his strange curiosity respecting
+the effect of rough weather on the ship.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after David Napier started the <i>Rob
+Roy</i> steam-packet between Greenock and Belfast,
+and afterwards between Dover and Calais. In the
+course of two or three years more he had established
+steam communication between Holyhead and Dublin,
+Liverpool and Greenock, and various other parts.
+The length of each unbroken passage was then considered
+the great difficulty; but as steamers got
+improved both in form and machinery, passages
+of greater length were successfully accomplished.
+Steamers traversed in all directions the German
+Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and, in short,
+all the waters on the eastern side of the Atlantic;
+and were in use upon all the rivers and lakes of any
+size in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>At length, in 1836, the startling project was set
+on foot of superseding the far-famed New York and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+Liverpool packet ships by a fleet of steam-ships.
+Before this the <i>Savannah</i>, a steam vessel of 300 tons,
+had, in 1819, crossed from New York to Liverpool
+in twenty-six days, partly with sails and partly with
+steam; and another steam vessel had, in 1825, made
+the voyage from England to Calcutta; but one
+swallow does not make a summer, and many learned
+folks, on both sides of the Atlantic, shook their heads
+doubtfully at the daring scheme of regular steam
+communication across 13,000 miles of ocean. The
+experiment was to be made, however; and on the
+4th April 1838, the <i>Sirius</i>, of 700 tons and 320
+horse power, sailed from Cork for the far West.
+Four days after the <i>Great Western</i> followed in her
+wake from Bristol.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the excitement in New York as the
+time drew nigh when the <i>Sirius</i> was considered due.
+For days together the Battery was crowded with
+anxious watchers, from the first breaking of the cold,
+grey dawn till night dropped its dark curtain on the
+scene. At that time a telescope was a thing to be
+begged, borrowed, or stolen,&mdash;to be got, somehow or
+other, if only for a minute,&mdash;and a man who possessed
+one was to be looked up to, made much of, and, if
+possible, coaxed out of the loan of it. All day long
+a hundred telescopes swept the sea. The ocean
+steamer was the great topic of the hour, and "any
+appearance of her?" the constant question when two
+people met. On St. George's day, the 23d April, a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+dim, dusky speck on the far horizon grew under the
+eye of the thousands of breathless watchers into a
+long train of smoke, beneath which, as the hours wore
+on, appeared the black prow of a huge steam-boat.
+There she was, long looked for come at last; and with
+the American colours at the fore, and the flag of Old
+England rustling at the stern, the <i>Sirius</i> swept into
+the harbour amidst the cheers of the multitude, the
+ringing of the city bells, and the firing of salutes.
+The excitement reached its climax, and the shouting
+and firing grew deafening, when, some few hours later
+on the same auspicious day, the <i>Great Western</i> came
+to anchor alongside of her rival.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-two years have passed since then, and the
+marvel of 1838 has become a mere everyday affair.
+There are some fourteen different lines of steamers,
+comprising more than fifty vessels, running between
+the United States and Europe, to say nothing of
+the magnificent steam fleets of the Peninsular and
+Oriental, the Royal West India, British and North
+American, Pacific, Australian, South Western, and
+other companies.</p>
+
+<p>The employment of iron in the construction of
+ships, thus securing at once lightness and strength,
+and the invention of the screw propeller, in 1836,
+by Mr. J. P. Smith, a farmer at Hendon, by means
+of which a vessel can combine all the qualities of a
+first-rate sailing ship with the use of steam power,
+gave a great impulse to steam navigation, which is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+still making steady and continuous progress. From
+one steam vessel in 1812 the number in the kingdom
+has risen successively to 20 in 1820, 824 in
+1840, and over 2000 in 1860. During 1858, 153
+steamers were built in the United Kingdom, of which
+112 were of iron. It is interesting to observe the
+advance in size of the steam vessels from their first
+introduction on the Clyde.</p>
+
+<table>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>Length.</td>
+  <td>Breadth.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>1812. Comet</td>
+  <td>40 feet</td>
+  <td>10-1/2 feet.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>1825. Enterprise (built expressly to go to India, coaling at intermediate stations)</td>
+  <td>122  "</td>
+  <td>27  "</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>1835. Tagus (for Mediterranean)</td>
+  <td>182  "</td>
+  <td>28  "</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>1838. Great Western (the first ship built expressly for Transatlantic service)</td>
+  <td>236  "</td>
+  <td>35-1/2  "</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>1844. Great Britain (the first large screw ship, and largest iron ship up to that time)</td>
+  <td>322  "</td>
+  <td>51  "</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>1853. Himalaya (iron)</td>
+  <td>370  "</td>
+  <td>43-1/2  "</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>1856. Persia (do.)</td>
+  <td>390  "</td>
+  <td>45  "</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>1859. Great Eastern (do.)</td>
+  <td>680  "</td>
+  <td>83  "</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In the interval between 1812 and 1870 the number
+of steamers in the United Kingdom has increased
+from one to nearly three thousand; and the ocean-going
+steamer of 1870 is nearly six times the length
+of that of 1825, and seventeen times the length
+of the <i>Comet</i>, while the difference in tonnage is still
+greater. How Fulton or Bell would open their eyes
+at the sight of a vast moving city, such as the Big
+Ship, an eighth of a mile in length, propelled by both
+paddle-wheels and screw, each worked by four huge
+engines!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="Iron_Manufacture" id="Iron_Manufacture"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p191.png" alt="Iron Manufacture." title="" /></h2>
+
+<ul class="chapterTOC">
+  <li>HENRY CORT.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p193.png" alt="Iron Manufacture." title="" /></h2>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="HENRY_CORT" id="HENRY_CORT"></a>HENRY CORT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The multifarious use of iron in our day has given
+its name to the age. We have got far beyond the
+primitive applications of that metal&mdash;every day it
+is supplanting some other substance, and there is no
+saying where the wide-spread and varied service we
+exact from it will stop. The invention of the steam-engine,
+and the improvement of manufacturing
+machines, would be comparatively valueless, unless
+we had at command a cheap and abundant supply
+of iron for their construction. The land is covered
+with a net-work of iron rails, traversed by iron
+steeds&mdash;gulfs and valleys are spanned by iron arches
+and iron tubes&mdash;huge ships of iron ride upon the
+deep. Even stones and bricks are being discarded
+for this all-useful substance, and of iron we are building
+houses, palaces, theatres, churches, and spacious
+domes. There is no end to its uses.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, it is only between seventy and eighty
+years ago since Britain, the richest of all countries
+in native ore, was dependent upon others for her
+supply of the manufactured metal. We wanted but
+little iron in those days, compared with the present
+demand, and yet that little we could not furnish
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+ourselves with. As much as a million and a half
+a-year went out of our pockets to purchase wrought
+iron from Sweden alone, and we were good customers
+to Russia as well. All the iron that our country
+could then produce was some 17,000 tons. The
+man who showed us how to turn our own ore to
+account, who rendered us independent of all other
+countries for our supply, and made us the great purveyors
+of wrought iron to the world, who opened up
+to us this great source of national wealth, was
+Henry Cort of Gosport.</p>
+
+<p>The great difficulty which he solved was how to
+get wrought iron out of the crude iron as it came
+from the smelting furnace, without using charcoal.
+With but a small tract of country, densely peopled,
+we had but a scant supply of wood at our command.
+The great forests which once overspread the land were
+gradually vanishing, partly before the spread of population
+and the growth of towns, and partly from the
+inroads made on them by the demand for timber.
+Formerly, the first transformation of the ore into pig
+iron (the crude form of the manufactured metal) was
+effected by means of wood; and the consumption was
+so great that an Act was passed in 1581 restraining
+its use. Soon afterwards Lord Dudley discovered
+that coal would answer the purpose just as well, and
+obtained a patent of monopoly. He reaped but little
+profit from his invention, however, for his iron-works
+were destroyed by a mob; and it was not till a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+century afterwards, when people got more alarmed
+at the growing scarcity of timber, and the increased
+demand for it, that the plan was generally adopted.
+This was one step in the right direction, but another
+yet remained to be made, for the manufacture was
+still hampered in our country by the want of wood
+for the second process&mdash;the conversion of crude
+into malleable iron, in which state alone it is fit for
+service.</p>
+
+<p>About the year 1785, Henry Cort, iron-master,
+of Gosport, after many years of patient and wearisome
+research, of anxious thought, and indefatigable
+experiment, in which he spent a private fortune
+of some &pound;20,000, perfected a couple of inventions
+of priceless value. The first was the process
+of converting pig iron into wrought iron by the
+flame of pit coal in a puddling furnace, thus dispensing
+with the use of charcoal,&mdash;the cost and
+scarcity of which had before formed such a dead
+weight on the trade, and placed us at such a disadvantage
+compared with Sweden and Russia. The
+second was a further process for drawing the iron
+into bars by means of grooved rollers. Till then,
+this operation had to be performed with hammer
+and anvil, and was very tedious and laborious. The
+new system not only reduced the cost and labour of
+producing iron to one-twentieth of what they were
+previously, but greatly improved the quality of the
+article produced.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+It is not easy to estimate all that Henry Cort's
+inventions have done for this country. Without
+them we should have lost an overflowing and inexhaustible
+source of national wealth, and, moreover,
+large sums would have been taken out of the country
+in the purchase of wrought metal; we should never
+have been able to give full scope to the great mechanical
+inventions brought forth towards the close
+of the last, and the opening of the present century;
+we should have been debarred from taking rank as
+the great engineers and engine-makers for the rest
+of the world. The direct gain to this country from
+the inventions of Henry Cort, which enabled us to
+work up our own iron, has been calculated as equal
+by this time to not less than a hundred millions;
+and it is hardly possible to exaggerate the benefits
+which it has conferred. Lord Sheffield's prophecy,
+that the adoption of these processes would be worth
+more to Britain than a dozen colonies, may be said
+to have been fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>Like many another benefactor of his country, Cort
+got little good out of his invention for himself. He
+took out a patent for his process, and arranged with
+the leading iron-masters to accept a royalty of ten
+shillings a ton for the use of them. With a large
+fortune in prospect, his purse was just then exhausted
+by the expenses he had incurred in experiments and
+researches; and he had to look out for a capitalist
+to aid him in working the patent on his own account.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+As ill luck would have it, he entered into partnership
+with a certain Adam Jellicoe, then deputy-paymaster
+of the navy. Jellicoe was considered a man of substance,
+and a "thoroughly respectable" character.
+He was to advance the ready money, and to receive
+in return half of the profits of the trade, Cort assigning
+to him, by way of collateral security, his patent
+rights. For a year or two all went well. The
+patent was everywhere adopted, and Cort's own iron
+works drove a lucrative and growing trade. He
+seemed in a fair way of getting back the fortune he
+had spent in bringing out the inventions, doubled or
+trebled, as he well deserved. The respectable Jellicoe
+was seized with a mortal sickness: at his death his
+desk was filled by another, his books were examined,
+and it turned out that he had been robbing the
+government for many a year back, and was a large
+defaulter. Cort, of course, had nothing to do with
+this villany, but he had to pay the penalty of it.
+As Jellicoe's partner he was responsible, in those
+days of unlimited liability, for all Jellicoe's debts;
+but that was not the worst of it. The treasurer of
+the navy was not content to exact only the payment
+of Jellicoe's defalcations, as he had no doubt a right
+to do, but confiscated the whole of Cort's patent
+rights, business, and property, which would have paid
+the debt seven or eight times over, had it been fairly
+valued.</p>
+
+<p>This incident has never been properly cleared up,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+but what glimpses of its secret passages have been
+obtained, seem to indicate clearly enough that poor
+Cort was the victim, not of one, but of two or more
+swindlers. To the day of his death he never could
+obtain a distinct account of the proceedings; and
+when, after his death, a Royal Commission was appointed
+to inquire into the matter, the treasurer of
+the navy and his deputy took care, a week or two
+before the Commission met, to indemnify each other
+by a joint release, and to burn their accounts for
+upwards of a million and a half of public money, for
+the application of which they were responsible, as
+well as all papers relating to Cort's case. When the
+Commission met, and the treasurer and his deputy
+were called before it, they refused to answer questions
+which would criminate themselves.</p>
+
+<p>His connection with Jellicoe was, of course, the
+ruin of Henry Cort. He had no means of re-establishing
+himself in business; he was robbed of all
+income from his patents; and he died ruined and
+broken-hearted ten years after, leaving a family of
+nine children, without a sixpence in the world. Four
+of these children now survive&mdash;old, infirm, and indigent&mdash;only
+saved from being dependent upon parish
+bounty by pensions, amounting in the aggregate to
+&pound;90 per annum. Well may it be said, "There
+should be more gratitude in our Iron Age to the
+children of <span class="smcap">Henry Cort</span>."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="The_Electric_Telegraph" id="The_Electric_Telegraph"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p199.png" alt="The Electric Telegraph." title="" /></h2>
+
+<ol class="chapterTOC">
+  <li> &mdash; MR. COOKE.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; PROFESSOR WHEATSTONE.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.</li>
+</ol>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p201.png" alt="The Electric Telegraph." title="" /></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Speak the word and think the thought,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Quick 'tis as with lightning caught&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Over, under lands or seas,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">To the far antipodes;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Here again, as soon as gone,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Making all the earth as one;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Moscow speaks at twelve o'clock,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">London reads ere noon the shock."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="MR_COOKE" id="MR_COOKE"></a>I.&mdash;MR. COOKE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Of all the marvels of our time, the most marvellous is
+the subjugation of the electric fluid, that potent elemental
+force,&mdash;twin brother of the fatal lightning,&mdash;to
+be our submissive courier, to bear our messages from
+land to land, and "put a girdle round about the earth
+in forty minutes." The Prospero that tamed this Ariel
+was no individual genius, but "two single gentlemen
+rolled into one." The idea of employing the electric
+current for the conveyance of signals between distant
+points, can be traced pretty far back in date; but
+to Mr. Cooke and Professor Wheatstone is undoubtedly
+due the credit of having made the electric
+telegraph an actual and accomplished fact, and rendered
+it practicable for everyday uses.</p>
+
+<p>Having served for a number of years as an officer
+in our Indian army, Mr. Cooke came back to Europe
+to recruit his health in the beginning of 1836, and
+took up his abode at Heidelberg. He found
+agree<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>able
+occupation for his leisure in the study of
+anatomy, and in the construction of anatomical
+models for his father's museum at Durham, where he
+was a professor in the university. Entirely self-taught
+in this delicate art, Mr. Cooke applied himself
+to it with characteristic ardour, and attained remarkable
+skill. One day he happened to witness some
+experiments which were made by Professor M&ouml;ncke,
+to illustrate the feasibility of electric signalling.
+A current of electricity was passed through a long
+wire, and set a magnetic needle at the end quivering
+under its influence. The experiment was a very
+simple one, and not at all novel; but Cooke had
+never paid any attention to the subject before, and
+was much struck with what he saw. He became
+strongly impressed with the possibility of employing
+electricity in the transmission of telegraphic intelligence
+between distant places. From the day he
+witnessed the experiments in Professor M&ouml;ncke's classroom,
+he forsook the dissecting knife, threw aside
+his modelling tools, and applied himself to the realization
+of his conception. With such ardour and
+devotion did he labour, and such skill and ingenuity
+did he bring to the work, that within three weeks
+he had constructed a telegraph with six wires, forming
+three complete metallic currents, and influencing
+three needles, by the varied inclination of which
+twenty-six different signals were designated. In
+that short time he had also invented the detector, by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+which injuries to the wires, whether from water,
+fracture, or contact with substances capable of diverting
+the current, were readily traced, and the alarum,
+by which notice is given at one end of the wire that
+a message is coming from the other. Both these
+contrivances were of the utmost value,&mdash;indeed,
+without them electric telegraphy would be impracticable,&mdash;and
+are still in use. Possessing more of a
+mechanical than a scientific genius, Mr. Cooke bestowed
+more of his time and ingenuity on the perfection
+of a telegraph to be worked by clock
+mechanism, set in action by the withdrawal of a
+detent by an electro magnet than in the completion
+of the electric telegraph pure and simple.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after having invented his telegraph, he
+came over to London, and spent the rest of the year
+in making a variety of instruments, and in efforts to
+get his telegraph introduced on the Liverpool and
+Manchester Railway. He found an obstacle to the
+complete success of his mechanical telegraph, in the
+difficulty of transmitting to a distance sufficient
+electric power to work the electro magnet upon
+which its action depended. A friend advised him
+to consult Professor Wheatstone, then known to be
+deeply engaged in electrical experiments, with a
+view to telegraphy; and accordingly, an interview
+between them took place in February 1837.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="PROFESSOR_WHEATSTONE" id="PROFESSOR_WHEATSTONE"></a>II.&mdash;PROFESSOR WHEATSTONE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Charles Wheatstone, F.R.S., and Professor of
+Experimental Philosophy in King's College at the
+time of that interview, had made considerable advances
+in the scientific part of the enterprise. At
+the commencement of his career as a maker and
+seller of musical instruments in London, he was led
+to investigate the science of sound; and from his
+researches in that direction, he was led&mdash;much as
+Herschel was led&mdash;to devote himself to optics, and to
+study the philosophy of light. He was the first to
+point out the peculiarity of binocular vision, and to
+describe the stereoscope, which has since become so
+popular an instrument. Gradually, however, his
+thoughts and researches came to be steadfastly
+directed to the application of electricity to the communication
+of signals. In determining the rate at
+which the electric current travels through a wire he
+had laid down, he made an important stride towards
+the end in view. He proved by a series of most
+ingenious experiments, that one spark of electricity
+leaps on before another, and that its progress is a
+question of time. He found that electricity travels
+through a <i>copper</i> wire as fast as, if not faster, than
+light, that is, at the rate of 200,000 miles in a
+second; but through an <i>iron</i> wire, electricity
+moves at the rate of only 15,400 miles in a second.
+In 1836 Mr. Wheatstone had begun experiments in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+the vaults of King's College, with four miles of wire,
+properly insulated, and was working out the details
+of a telegraph, the scientific principles of which he
+had already laid down. He had discovered an
+original method of converting a few wires into a
+considerable number of circuits, so that the greatest
+number of signals could be transmitted by a limited
+number of wires, by the deflection of magnetic
+needles. Mr. Wheatstone, however, was somewhat
+backward in the mechanical parts of the scheme, and
+the meeting between him and Cooke was therefore of
+the greatest benefit to both, and an admirable illustration
+of the old proverb, that two heads are better
+than one. Had they never been brought together,&mdash;had
+they kept on working out their own ideas
+apart&mdash;each would, no doubt, have been able to produce
+an electric telegraph; but a great deal of time
+would have been lost, and their respective efforts
+less complete and valuable than the one they effected
+in conjunction. Cooke wanted sound, scientific
+knowledge; Wheatstone wanted mechanical ingenuity;
+and their union supplied mutual deficiencies.
+A partnership was immediately formed between
+them. Before their combined genius all difficulties
+vanished; and in the June of the same year they
+were able to take out a patent for a telegraph with
+five wires and five needles. Their respective shares
+in its invention are clearly marked out by Sir J.
+Brunel and Professor Daniell, who, as arbiters
+be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>tween
+the two upon that delicate question, gave the
+following award in 1841:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Whilst Mr. Cooke is entitled to stand alone as
+the gentleman to whom this country is indebted for
+having practically introduced and carried out the
+electric telegraph as a useful undertaking, promising
+to be a work of national importance; and Professor
+Wheatstone is acknowledged as the scientific man
+whose profound and successful researches had already
+prepared the public to receive it as a project
+capable of practical application,&mdash;it is to the
+united labours of two gentlemen so well qualified
+for mutual assistance, that we must attribute the
+rapid progress which this important invention has
+made during the five years since they have been
+associated."</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after the taking out of a patent, wires
+were laid down between Euston Square Terminus
+and Camden Town Station, on the North-Western
+Railway; and the new telegraph was subjected to
+trial. Late in the evening of the 25th July 1837,
+in a dingy little room in one of the Euston Square
+offices, Professor Wheatstone sat alone, with a hand
+on each handle of the signal instrument, and an
+anxious eye upon the dial, with its needles as yet in
+motionless repose. In another little room at the
+Camden Town Station, Mr. Cooke was seated in a
+similar position before the instrument at the other
+end of the wires, along with Mr., now Sir Charles
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+Fox, Robert Stephenson, and some other gentlemen.
+It was a trying, agitating moment for the two inventors,&mdash;how
+Wheatstone's pulse must have throbbed,
+and his heart beat, as he jerked the handle, broke
+the electric current, and sent the needles quivering
+on the dial; in what suspense he must have spent
+the next few minutes, holding his breath as though
+to hear his fellow's voice, and almost afraid to
+look at the dial lest no answer should be made; with
+what a thrill of joy must each have seen the needles
+wag knowingly and spell out their precious message,&mdash;the
+"All's well; thank God," that flashed from
+heart to heart, along the line of senseless wire.
+"Never," said Wheatstone, "did I feel such a tumultuous
+sensation before, as when all alone in the still
+room I heard the needles click; and as I spelled
+the words, I felt all the magnitude of the invention
+now proved to be practicable beyond cavil or
+dispute."</p>
+
+<p>A few days before this trial of the telegraph in
+London, Steinheil, of Munich, is said to have had
+one of his own invention at work there; and it is a
+difficult question to decide whether he or Cooke and
+Wheatstone were the first inventors. It is, however,
+a question of no consequence, as each worked independently.
+Since the first English electric telegraph
+was patented, there have been a thousand and one
+other contrivances of a similar kind taken out; but
+it may be doubted whether, for practical purposes,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+the original apparatus, with the improvements which
+its own inventors have made on it, is not still the
+best of them all.</p>
+
+<p>From being used merely to carry railway messages,
+the telegraph was brought into the service of the
+general public; the advantages of such almost instantaneous
+communication were readily appreciated;
+and eight years after Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone
+took out their patent, lines of telegraph to the extent
+of 500 miles were in operation in England upon the
+original plan. In 1855 telegraphic correspondence
+had become so general, that the Electric Telegraph
+Company was started to supply the demand. In
+that establishment the Needle Telegraph of Wheatstone
+and Cooke is the one generally used, with the
+Chemical Recording Telegraph of Bain for special
+occasions. By means of the latter, blue lines of
+various lengths, according to an alphabet, are drawn
+upon a ribbon of paper, and as many as 20,000
+words can be sent in an hour, though the ordinary
+rate is 100 per minute. In the purchase of patent
+rights alone, the Company have spent &pound;170,000,
+and they are every year adding to the length of
+their wires. In June 1850 they had 6730 miles
+of wires, and despatched 29,245 messages a year.
+In December 1853 they had 24,340 miles of wires,
+and despatched 212,440 messages a-year. Their
+lines now extend over a much larger mileage, and
+convey a greatly increased number of messages. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+Magnetic Telegraph Company have also a large extent
+of wires, and do a considerable business.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="THE_SUBMARINE_TELEGRAPH" id="THE_SUBMARINE_TELEGRAPH"></a>III.&mdash;THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The land telegraph having had such success, the
+next step was to carry the wires across the deep, and
+link continent to continent,&mdash;an all-important step
+for an island kingdom such as ours, with its legion of
+distant colonies. The success of a submerged cable
+between Gosport and Portsmouth, and of one across
+the docks at Hull, proved the feasibility of a water
+telegraph, at least on a small scale, and it was not
+long before more ambitious attempts were made.
+On the 28th of August 1850, a cable, 30 miles long,
+in a gutta percha sheathing, was stretched at the
+bottom of the straits between Dover and Cape
+Grisnez, near Calais. Messages of congratulation
+sped along this wire between England and France;
+and although a ridge of rocks filed the cable asunder
+on the French coast, the suspension of communication
+was only temporary. The link has once more been
+established, and is in daily use. The first news sent
+by the wire to England was of the celebrated <i>coup
+d'etat</i> of the 2d December, which cleared the way
+for Louis Napoleon's ascent of the throne. Numerous
+other cables have since been sunk beneath the
+waters; complete telegraphic communication has just
+been established between England and India, and
+will, no doubt, before long be extended to Australia.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+The greatest enterprise of this kind, however, still
+remains unaccomplished&mdash;that is, the laying of the
+Atlantic cable. A company was started in 1856 to
+carry out this great enterprise, the governments of
+Great Britain and the United States engaging to assist
+them, not only with an annual subsidy of &pound;10,000
+a-year for twenty-five years, but to furnish the men
+and ships required for laying the cable from one side
+of the Atlantic to the other. The chief difficulty
+which engaged the attention of Mr. Wildman Whitehouse
+and the other agents of the notable enterprise
+was the enormous size of the cable which, it was
+thought, would be necessary. The general belief at
+that time was, that the greater the distance to be traversed,
+the larger must be the wire along which the
+electric current was to pass, and that the rate of speed
+would be in proportion to the size of the conductor.
+Mr. Whitehouse, however, thought it would be as well
+to begin by making sure that this was really the
+case, and that a monster cable was essential; and
+after some three thousand separate observations and
+experiments, was delighted to find that the difficulty
+which stared them in the face was imaginary. Instead
+of a large cable transmitting the current faster
+than a small one, he ascertained beyond a doubt,
+that the bigger the wire, the slower was the passage
+of the electricity. It would be needful, therefore,
+to make the cable only strong enough to stand the
+strain of its own weight, and heavy enough to sink
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+to the bottom. A single wire would have been
+quite sufficient, but a strand of seven wires of the
+finest copper was used for the cable, so that the
+fracture of one of them might not interfere with the
+communication,&mdash;as long as one wire was left intact
+the current would proceed. A triple coating of
+gutta percha, to keep the sea from sucking out the
+electricity, and a thick coating of iron wire, to sink
+the cable to the bottom and give it strength, were
+added to the copper rope, and then the cable was
+complete. No less than 325,000 miles of iron and
+copper wire were woven into this great cable,&mdash;as
+much as might be wound thirteen times round the
+globe; and its weight was about a ton per mile.
+The length of the cable was 18,947 miles&mdash;some
+600 miles being allowed to come and go upon, in
+case of accidents.</p>
+
+<p>The end of July 1857 was selected for the sailing
+of the ships that were to lay the cable, as fogs and
+gales were then out of season, and no icebergs to be
+met with. On the 8th of August, the <i>Agamemnon</i>
+(English) and <i>Niagara</i> (American), with four smaller
+steamers to attend them, and each with half of the
+mighty cable in her hold, got up their steam and
+left Valentia Harbour. One end of the cable was
+carried by a number of boats from the <i>Niagara</i> on
+shore, where the Lord-Lieutenant was in waiting
+to receive it, and place it in contact with the batteries,
+which were arranged in a little tent upon the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+beach. A slight accident to the cable for a little
+while delayed the departure of the ships; but by the
+10th they had got 200 miles out to sea, and so far
+the cable had been laid successfully. Messages passed
+and repassed between the ships and the shore. The
+next day the engineer discovering that too much
+cable was being paid out, telegraphed to the people
+on board to put a greater grip on it; the operation
+was clumsily managed, and the cable snapped, sinking
+to a depth of 12,000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>Not disheartened, however, the Company replaced
+the lost portion of the cable; the Government again
+furnished ships and men, and the cable was actually
+laid at the bottom of the Atlantic from Valentia Bay
+to Trinity Harbour.</p>
+
+<p>Addresses of congratulation passed between the
+Queen and the President of the States, and numerous
+messages were transmitted. But gradually the signals
+grew fainter and more faint, till they ceased
+altogether. The cable was stricken dumb. A little
+to the north of the fiftieth parallel of latitude, at the
+bottom of the Atlantic, where the plateau is unbroken
+by any great depression, some 1500 miles of the disabled
+cable were lying, on a soft bed of mud, which
+was constantly thickening, at a depth of from 10,000
+to 15,000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>The importance of telegraphic communication between
+England and the United States was, however,
+so obvious that its projectors were not to be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+daunted by the failure they had sustained. Nor
+was it altogether a failure. They had proved that
+a cable <i>could</i> be laid, and messages flashed through
+it. What was wanted was evidently a stronger
+cable, which should be less liable to injury, and more
+perfect in its insulation of the telegraphic wires.</p>
+
+<p>From 1858 to 1864, the Company were engaged
+in the difficult task of raising fresh funds, and in
+endeavouring to secure grants from the British and
+American Governments. Their men of science,
+meanwhile, were devising improvements in the form
+of cable, and contriving fresh apparatus to facilitate
+its submersion. Eventually the Telegraph Construction
+and Maintenance Company, an union of
+the Gutta Percha Company with the celebrated firm
+of Glass and Elliott, constructed an entirely new
+cable, which was not only costlier, but thicker and
+stronger than the preceding one. The conductor,
+three hundred pounds per mile, and one-seventh of
+an inch thick, consisted of seven No. 18 copper
+wires, each one-twentieth of an inch in thickness.
+The core or heart of the cable, says a writer in
+"Chambers's Encyclop&aelig;dia," was formed of four
+layers of gutta percha alternating with four of
+Chatterton's compound (a solution of gutta percha in
+Stockholm tar); the wire and conductor being seven
+hundred pounds per mile, and nine-twentieths of
+an inch thick. Outside this was a coating of hemp
+or jute yarn, saturated with a preservative
+com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>position;
+while the sheath consisted of ten iron
+wires, each previously covered with five tarred
+Manilla yarns. The whole cable was an inch and
+one eighth thick, weighed thirty-five and three-quarter
+hundredweights per mile, and was strong enough
+to endure a breaking strain of seven tons and three-quarters.
+During the various processes of manufacture,
+the electrical quality of the cable was tested to
+an unusual extent. The portions of finished core
+were tested by immersion in water at various temperatures;
+next submitted to a pressure of six hundred
+pounds to the square inch, to imitate the ocean
+pressure at so great depth; then the conducting
+power of the copper wire was tested by a galvanometer;
+and various experiments were also made on
+the insulating property of the gutta percha. The
+various pieces having been thus severely put to the
+proof, they were spliced end to end, and the joints
+or splicings tested. In a word, nothing was left
+undone that could insure the success or guarantee
+the stability of the new cable.</p>
+
+<p>When completed, the cable measured two thousand
+three hundred miles, and weighed upwards of
+four thousand tons. It was felt that such a burden
+could only be intrusted to Brunel's "big ship," the
+<i>Great Eastern</i>. For this purpose three huge iron
+tanks were built, in the fore, middle, and aft holds
+of the vessel, each from fifty to sixty feet in diameter,
+and each twenty and a half feet in depth;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+and in these the cable was deposited in three vast
+coils.</p>
+
+<p>On the 23rd of July 1865, the <i>Great Eastern</i> left
+Valentia, the submarine cable being joined end to
+end to a more massive shore cable, which was hauled
+up the cliff at Foilhummerum Bay, to a telegraph-house
+at the top. The electric condition of the
+cable was continually tested during the ship's voyage
+across the Atlantic; and more than once its
+efficiency was disturbed by fragments of wire piercing
+the gutta percha and destroying the insulation.
+At length on August 2nd, the cable snapped by
+overstraining, and the end sank to the bottom in
+two thousand fathoms water, at a distance of one
+thousand and sixty-four miles from the Irish coast.
+Attempts were made to recover it by dredging. A
+five-armed grapnel, suspended to the end of a stout
+iron-wire rope five miles long, was flung overboard;
+and when it reached the bottom, the <i>Great Eastern</i>
+steamed to and fro in the direction where the lost
+cable was supposed to be lying; but failure followed
+upon failure, and the cable was never once hooked.
+There remained nothing to be done but for the <i>Great
+Eastern</i> to return to England with the news of her
+non-success, and leaving (including the failure of
+1857-8) nearly four thousand tons of electric cable
+at the bottom of the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>The promoters of ocean telegraphy, however, were
+determined to be resolute to the end. A new
+Com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>pany
+was formed, new capital was raised, and a
+third cable manufactured, differing in some respects
+from the former. The outside jacket was made of
+hemp instead of jute; the iron wires of the sheath
+were galvanized, and the Manilla hemp which
+covered them was not tarred. Chiefly through the
+absence of the tar, the weight of the cable was
+diminished five hundred pounds per mile; while its
+strength or breaking strain was increased. A sufficient
+quantity of this improved cable was made to
+cross the Atlantic, with all due allowance for slack;
+and also a sufficient quantity of the 1865 cable to
+remedy the disaster of that year.</p>
+
+<p>On July 13th, 1866, the <i>Great Eastern</i> once
+more set forth on her interesting voyage, accompanied
+by the steamers <i>Terrible</i>, <i>Medway</i>, and
+<i>Albany</i>, to assist in the submersion of the cable,
+and to act as auxiliaries whenever needed. The
+line of route chosen lay about midway between those
+of the 1858 and 1865 cables, but at no great distance
+from either. The <i>Great Eastern</i> exchanged
+telegrams almost continuously with Valentia as she
+steamed towards the American continent; and great
+were the congratulations when she safely arrived in
+the harbour of Heart's Content, Newfoundland, on
+the 27th.</p>
+
+<p>Operations were next commenced to recover the
+end of the 1865 cable, and complete its submergence.
+The <i>Albany</i>, <i>Medway</i>, and <i>Terrible</i> were despatched
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+on the 1st of August, to the point where, "deep
+down beneath the darkling waves," the cable was
+supposed to be lying, and on the 9th or 10th they
+were joined by the <i>Great Eastern</i>, when grappling
+was commenced, and carried on through the remainder
+of the month. The cable was repeatedly
+caught, and raised to a greater or less height from
+the ocean bed; but something or other snapped or
+slipped every time, and down went the cable again.
+At last, after much trial of patience, the end of the
+cable was safely fished up on September 1st; and
+electric messages were at once sent through to
+Valentia, just as well as if the cable had not had
+twelve months' soaking in the Atlantic. An additional
+length having been spliced to it, the laying
+recommenced; and on the 8th the squadron entered
+Heart's Content, having thus succeeded in laying a
+second line of cable from Ireland to America.</p>
+
+<p>The two cables, the old and the new, continued
+to work very smoothly during the winter of 1866
+and 1867; but in May 1867, the new cable was
+damaged by an iceberg, which drifted across it at a
+distance of about three miles from the Newfoundland
+shore. The injury was soon repaired; but again, in
+July 1867, the same cable broke at about fifty miles
+from Newfoundland.</p>
+
+<p>The earlier cable continued to work for several
+years, but both cables gave way towards the close of
+the autumn of 1870. No special inconvenience was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+felt, however, as two years ago a French line of
+cable was laid down between Europe and America;
+the <i>Great Eastern</i> being again employed, and the
+operations being conducted under the superintendence
+of English electricians. The two British cables
+will probably be repaired in the spring of the present
+year (1871).</p>
+
+<p>Submarine cables have multiplied recently, and
+almost every ocean flows over the mysterious wires
+which flash intelligence beneath the rolling waters
+from point to point of the civilized world. By a
+telegraph-cable, which is partly submarine, the
+India Office in Westminster is united with the
+Governor-General and his Council at Calcutta.
+There is also communication between Singapore and
+Australia, and the network of ocean telegraphy is
+being so rapidly extended that, before long, the
+British Government in the metropolis will be enabled
+to convey its instructions in a few hours to the
+administrative authorities in every British colony.
+And thus the words which the poet puts into the
+mouth of "Puck" will be nearly realized in a sense
+the poet never dreamed of&mdash;"I'll put a girdle round
+about the world in forty minutes."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/footer-218.png" width="300" height="98" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="The_Silk_Manufacture" id="The_Silk_Manufacture"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p219.png" alt="The Silk Manufacture." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+<ol class="chapterTOC">
+  <li> &mdash; JOHN LOMBE.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; WILLIAM LEE.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; JOSEPH MARIE JACQUARD.</li>
+</ol>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p221.png" alt="The Silk Manufacture." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="JOHN_LOMBE" id="JOHN_LOMBE"></a>I.&mdash;JOHN LOMBE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In the reign of the Emperor Justinian, a couple of
+Persian monks, on a religious mission to China,
+brought away with them a quantity of silkworms'
+eggs concealed in a piece of hollow cane, which they
+carried to Constantinople. There they hatched the
+eggs, reared the worms, and spun the silk,&mdash;for the
+first time introducing that manufacture into Europe,
+and destroying the close monopoly which China had
+hitherto enjoyed. From Constantinople the knowledge
+and the practice of the art gradually extended
+to Greece, thence to Italy, and next to Spain. Each
+country, as in turn it gained possession of the secret,
+strove to preserve it with jealous care; but to little
+purpose. A secret that so many thousands already
+shared in common, could not long remain so, although
+its passage to other countries might be for a time
+deferred. France and England were behind most of
+the other states of Europe in obtaining a knowledge
+of the "craft and mystery." The manufacture of
+silk did not take root in France till the reign of
+Francis I.; and was hardly known in England till
+the persecutions of the Duke of Parma in 1585
+drove a great number of the manufacturers of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+Antwerp to seek refuge in our land. James I. was
+very anxious to promote the breed of silkworms, and
+the production of silken fabrics. During his reign a
+great many mulberry-trees were planted in various
+parts of the country&mdash;among others, that celebrated
+one in Shakspeare's garden at Stratford-on-Avon&mdash;and
+an attempt was made to rear the worm in our
+country, which, however, the ungenial climate frustrated.
+Silk-throwsters, dyers, and weavers were
+brought over from the Continent; and the manufacture
+made such progress that, by 1629, the silk-throwsters
+of London were incorporated, and thirty
+years after employed no fewer than 40,000 hands.
+The emigration from France consequent on the
+revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) added not
+only to the numbers engaged in the trade, but
+to the taste, skill, and enterprise with which it was
+conducted. It is not easy to estimate how deeply
+France wounded herself by the iniquitous persecution
+of the Protestants, or how largely the emigrants
+repaid by their industry the shelter which Britain
+afforded them.</p>
+
+<p>Although the manufacture had now become fairly
+naturalized in England, it was restricted by our
+ignorance of the first process to which the silk was
+subjected. Up till 1718, the whole of the silk used
+in England, for whatever purpose, was imported
+"thrown," that is, formed into threads of various
+kinds and twists. A young Englishman named
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+John Lombe, impressed with the idea that our
+dependence on other countries for a supply of thrown
+silk prevented us from reaping the full benefit of the
+manufacture, and from competing with foreign
+traders, conceived the project of visiting Italy, and
+discovering the secret of the operation. He accordingly
+went over to Piedmont in 1715, but found
+the difficulties greater than he had anticipated. He
+applied for admittance at several factories, but was
+told that an examination of the machinery was
+strictly prohibited. Not to be balked, he resolved,
+as a last resort, to try if he could accomplish by
+stratagem what he had failed to do openly. Disguising
+himself in the dress of a common labourer,
+he bribed a couple of the workmen connected with
+one of the factories, and with their connivance
+obtained access in secret to the works. His visits
+were few and short; but he made the best use of his
+time. He carefully examined the various parts of the
+machinery, ascertained the principle of its operation,
+and made himself completely master of the whole
+process of throwing. Each night before he went
+to bed he noted down everything he had seen, and
+drew sketches of parts of the machinery. This plot,
+however, was discovered by the Italians. He and
+his accomplices had to fly for their lives, and not
+without great difficulty escaped to a ship which conveyed
+them to England.</p>
+
+<p>Lombe had not forgotten to carry off with him
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+his note-book, sketches, and a chest full of machinery,
+and on his return home lost no time in practising the
+art of "throwing" silk. On a swampy island in the
+river Derwent, at Derby, he built a magnificent mill,
+yet standing, called the "Old Silk Mill." Its erection
+occupied four years, and cost &pound;30,000. It was
+five storeys in height, and an eighth of a mile in
+length. The grand machine numbered no fewer
+than 13,384 wheels. It was said that it could
+produce 318,504,960 yards of organzine silk thread
+daily; but the estimate is no doubt exaggerated.</p>
+
+<p>While the mill was building, Lombe, in order to
+save time and earn money to carry on the works,
+opened a manufactory in the Town Hall of Derby.
+His machinery more than fulfilled his expectations,
+and enabled him to sell thrown silk at much lower
+prices than were charged by the Italians. A thriving
+trade was thus established, and England relieved
+from all dependence on other countries for "thrown"
+silk.</p>
+
+<p>The Italians conceived a bitter hatred against
+Lombe for having broken in upon their monopoly
+and diminished their trade. In revenge, therefore,
+according to William Hutton, the historian of Derby,
+they "determined <i>his</i> destruction, and hoped that of
+his works would follow." An Italian woman was
+despatched to corrupt her two countrymen who
+assisted Lombe in the management of the works.
+She obtained employment in the factory, and gained
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+over one of the Italians to her iniquitous design.
+They prepared a slow poison, and administered it in
+small doses to Lombe, who, after lingering three or
+four years in agony, died at the early age of twenty-nine.
+The Italian fled; the woman was seized and
+subjected to a close examination, but no definite
+proof could be elicited that Lombe had been poisoned.
+Lombe was buried in great state, as a mark of respect
+on the part of his townsmen. "He was," says
+Hutton, "a man of quiet deportment, who had
+brought a beneficial manufactory into the place,
+employed the poor, and at advanced wages,&mdash;and
+thus could not fail to meet with respect; and his
+melancholy end excited much sympathy."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="WILLIAM_LEE" id="WILLIAM_LEE"></a>II.&mdash;WILLIAM LEE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In the Stocking Weavers' Hall, in Redcross Street,
+London, there used to hang a picture, representing a
+man in collegiate costume in the act of pointing to
+an iron stocking-frame, and addressing a woman
+busily knitting with needles by hand. Underneath
+the picture appeared the following inscription: "In
+the year 1589, the ingenious William Lee, A.M., of
+St. John's College, Cambridge, devised this profitable
+art for stockings (but, being despised, went to
+France), yet of iron to himself, but to us and to
+others of gold; in memory of whom this is here
+painted." As to who this William Lee was, and
+the way in which he came to invent the
+stocking-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>frame,
+there are conflicting stories, but the one most
+generally received and best authenticated is as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>William Lee, a native of Woodborough, near Nottingham,
+was a fellow of one of the Cambridge Colleges.
+He fell in love with a young country lass, married
+her, and consequently forfeited his fellowship. A
+poor scholar, with much learning, but without money
+or the knowledge of any trade, he found himself in
+very embarrassed circumstances. Like many another
+"poor scholar," he might exclaim:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"All the arts I have skill in,</span><br />
+<span class="i4">Divine and humane;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Yet all's not worth a shilling;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Alas! poor scholar, whither wilt thou go?"</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>His wife, however, was a very industrious woman, and
+by her knitting contributed to their joint support. It
+is said&mdash;but the story lacks authentic confirmation&mdash;that
+when Lee was courting her, she always appeared
+so much more occupied with her knitting than with
+the soft speeches he was whispering in her ear, that
+her lover thought of inventing a machine that would
+"facilitate and forward the operation of knitting," and
+so leave the object of his love more leisure to converse
+with him. "Love, indeed," says Beckmann,
+"is fertile in invention, and gave rise, it is said, to the
+art of painting; but a machine so complex in its
+parts, and so wonderful in its effects, would seem to
+require longer and greater reflection, more judgment,
+and more time and patience than could be expected
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+of a lover." But afterwards, when Lee, in his painfully
+enforced idleness, sat many a long hour watching
+his wife's nimble fingers toiling to support him,
+his mind again recurred to the idea of a machine
+that would give rest to her weary fingers. His
+cogitations resulted in the contrivance of a stocking-frame,
+which imitated the movements of the fingers
+in knitting.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 363px;">
+<a href="images/fig-p226-1200.png">
+<img src="images/fig-p226-600.png" width="363" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</a>
+<span class="caption">WILLIAM LEE, THE INVENTOR OF THE STOCKING-FRAME.<br />
+<span class="pageref">Page 226.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Although the invention of this loom gave a great
+impulse to the manufacture of silk stockings in
+England, and placed our productions in advance of
+those of other countries, Lee reaped but little profit
+from it. He met with neglect both from Queen
+Elizabeth and James I.; and, not succeeding as a
+manufacturer on his own account, went to France,
+where he did very well until after the assassination
+of Henri IV., when he shared the persecutions of the
+Protestants, and died in great distress in Paris.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="JOSEPH_MARIE_JACQUARD" id="JOSEPH_MARIE_JACQUARD"></a>III.&mdash;JOSEPH MARIE JACQUARD.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Joseph Marie Jacquard, the inventor of the loom
+which bears his name, and to whom the extent and
+prosperity of the silk manufacture of our time is
+mainly due, was born at Lyons in 1752, of humble
+parents, both of whom were weavers. His father
+taught him to ply the shuttle; but for education of
+any other sort, he was left to his own devices. He
+managed to pick up some knowledge of reading and
+writing for himself; but his favourite occupation
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+was the construction of little models of houses,
+towers, articles of furniture, and so on, which he
+executed with much taste and accuracy. On being
+apprenticed to a type-founder, he exhibited his aptitude
+for mechanical contrivances by inventing a
+number of improved tools for the use of the workmen.
+On his father's death he set up as a manufacturer
+of figured fabrics; but although a skilful
+workman, he was a bad manager, and the end of the
+undertaking was, that he had to sell his looms to pay
+his debts. He married, but did not receive the dowry
+with his wife which he expected, and to support his
+family had to sell the house his father had left him,&mdash;the
+last remnant of his little heritage. The invention
+of numerous ingenious machines for weaving,
+type-founding, &amp;c., proved the activity of his genius,
+but produced not a farthing for the maintenance of
+his wife and child. He took service with a lime-maker
+at Brest, while his wife made and sold straw
+hats in a little shop at Lyons. He solaced himself
+for the drudgery of his labours by spending his
+leisure in the study of machines for figure-weaving.
+The idea of the beautiful apparatus which he afterwards
+perfected began to dawn on him, but for the
+time it was driven out of his mind by the stirring
+transactions of the time. The whirlwind of the
+Revolution was sweeping through the land. Jacquard
+ardently embraced the cause of the people, took part
+in the gallant defence of Lyons in 1793, fled for his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+life on the reduction of the city, and with his son&mdash;a
+lad of sixteen&mdash;joined the army of the Rhine.
+His boy fell by his side on the field of battle, and
+Jacquard, destitute and broken-hearted, returned to
+Lyons. His house had been burned down; his wife
+was nowhere to be heard of. At length he discovered
+her in a miserable garret, earning a bare
+subsistence by plaiting straw. For want of other
+employment he shared her labours, till Lyons began
+to rise from its ruins, to recover its scattered population,
+and revive its industry. Jacquard applied
+himself with renewed energy to the completion of
+the machine of which he had, before the Revolution,
+conceived the idea; exhibited it at the National Exposition
+of the Products of Industry in 1801; and
+obtained a bronze medal and a ten years' patent.</p>
+
+<p>During the peace of Amiens, Jacquard happened
+to take up a newspaper in a <i>cabaret</i> which he frequented,
+and his eye fell on a translated extract from
+an English journal, stating that a prize was offered
+by a society in London for the construction of a
+machine for weaving nets. As a mere amusement
+he turned his thoughts to the subject, contrived a
+number of models, and at last solved the problem.
+He made a machine and wove a little net with it.
+One day he met a friend who had read the paragraph
+from the English paper. Jacquard drew the net
+from his pocket saying, "Oh! I've got over the
+difficulty! see, there is a net I've made." After that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+he took no more thought about the matter, and had
+quite forgotten it, when he was startled by a summons
+to appear at the Prefectal Palace. The prefect received
+him very kindly, and expressed his astonishment
+that his mechanical genius should so long have
+remained in obscurity. Jacquard could not imagine
+how the prefect had discovered his mechanical experiments,
+and began vaguely to dread that he had
+got into some shocking scrape. He stammered out
+a sort of apology. The prefect was surprised he
+should deny his own talent, and said he had been
+informed that he had invented a machine for weaving
+nets. Jacquard owned that he had.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, you're the right man, after all," said
+the prefect. "I have orders from the emperor to
+send the machine to Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you must give me time to make it,"
+replied Jacquard.</p>
+
+<p>In a week or two Jacquard again presented himself
+at the palace with his machine and a half manufactured
+net. The prefect was eager to see how it
+worked.</p>
+
+<p>"Count the number of loops in that net," said
+Jacquard, "and then strike the bar with your foot."</p>
+
+<p>The prefect did so, and was surprised and delighted
+to see another loop added to the number.</p>
+
+<p>"Capital!" cried he. "I have his majesty's
+orders, M. Jacquard, to send you and your machine
+to Paris."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+"To Paris! How can that be? How can I
+leave my business here?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no help for it; and not only must you
+go to Paris, but you must start at once, without an
+hour's delay."</p>
+
+<p>"If it must be, it must. I will go home and
+pack up a little bundle, and tell my wife about my
+journey, I shall be ready to start to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow won't do; you must go to-day. A
+carriage is waiting to take you to Paris; and you
+must not go home. I will send to your house for
+any things you want, and convey any message to your
+wife. I will provide you with money for the journey."</p>
+
+<p>There was no help for it, so Jacquard got into the
+carriage, along with a gendarme who was to take
+charge of him, and wondered, all the way to Paris,
+what it all meant. On reaching the capital he was
+taken before Napoleon, who received him in a very
+condescending manner. Carnot, who was also present,
+could not at first comprehend the machine, and
+turning to the inventor, exclaimed roughly, "What,
+do you pretend to do what is beyond the power of
+man? Can you tie a knot in a stretched string?"
+Jacquard, not at all disconcerted, explained the construction
+of his machine so simply and clearly, as to convince
+the incredulous minister that it accomplished
+what he had hitherto deemed an impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>Jacquard was now employed in the Conservatory
+of Arts and Manufactures to repair and keep in order
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+the models and machines. At this time a magnificent
+shawl was being woven in one of the government
+works for the Empress Josephine. Very
+costly and complicated machinery was employed, and
+nearly &pound;1000 had already been spent on it. It
+appeared to Jacquard that the shawl might be
+manufactured in a much simpler and less expensive
+manner. He thought that the principle of a machine
+of Vaucousin's might be applied to the operation,
+but found it too complex and slow. He brooded over
+the subject, made a great many experiments, and at
+last succeeded in contriving an improved apparatus.</p>
+
+<p>He returned to Lyons to superintend the introduction
+of his machine for figure-weaving and the
+manufacture of nets. The former invention was
+purchased for the use of the people, and was brought
+into use very slowly. The weavers of Lyons denounced
+Jacquard as the enemy of the people, who
+was striving to destroy their trade, and starve themselves
+and families, and used every effort to prevent
+the introduction of his machine. They wilfully
+spoiled their work in order to bring the new process
+into discredit. The machine was ordered to be
+destroyed in one of the public squares. It was
+broken to pieces,&mdash;the iron-work was sold for old
+metal, and the wood-work for faggots. Jacquard
+himself had on one occasion to be rescued from the
+hands of a mob who were going to throw him into
+the Rhone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+Before Jacquard's death in 1835, his apparatus
+had not only made its way into every manufactory
+in France, but was used in England, Switzerland,
+Germany, Italy, and America. Even the Chinese
+condescended to avail themselves of this invention of
+a "barbarian."</p>
+
+<p>Jacquard's apparatus is, strictly speaking, not a
+loom, but an appendage to one. It is intended to
+elevate or depress, by bars, the warp threads for the
+reception of the shuttle, the patterns being regulated
+by means of bands of punched cards acting on needles
+with loops and eyes. At first applied to silk weaving
+only, the use of this machine has since been
+extended to the bobbin net, carpets, and other fancy
+manufactures. By its agency the richest and most
+complex designs, which could formerly be achieved
+only by the most skilful labourers, with a painful
+degree of labour, and at an exorbitant cost, are now
+produced with facility by the most ordinary workmen,
+and at the most moderate price.</p>
+
+<p>Of late years the silk manufacture has greatly
+improved, both in character and extent. The products
+of British looms exhibited at the Great Exhibition
+of 1862 vied with those of the Continent.
+Every year upwards of &pound;2,300,000 worth of silk is
+brought to England; and the silk manufacture
+engages some &pound;55,000,000 of capital, and employs
+eleven to twelve hundred thousand of our population.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="The_Potters_Art" id="The_Potters_Art"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p235.png" alt="The Potter's Art." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+<ol class="chapterTOC">
+  <li> &mdash; LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; BERNARD PALISSY.</li>
+  <li> &mdash; JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.</li>
+</ol>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p237.png" alt="The Potter's Art." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="LUCA_DELLA_ROBBIA" id="LUCA_DELLA_ROBBIA"></a>I.&mdash;LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>There can be little doubt as to the antiquity of
+the pottery manufacture. It probably had its origin
+in that of bricks, which at a very early date men
+made for purposes of construction; but it is not impossible
+that he had previously contrived to fabricate
+the commoner articles of domestic economy, such as
+pans and dishes, of sun-dried clay.</p>
+
+<p>Bricks, as everybody knows, are fashioned out of
+a coarse clay, such as we meet with in very numerous
+localities. After mixing up with water a kind of
+paste out of these clayey earths, the moulder works
+up the paste into the shape of bricks, and they are
+then exposed to the heat of the kiln. Sometimes
+it was thought sufficient to dry these bricks in the
+rays of a burning sun; but, so dried, their solidity is
+very inconsiderable. Baked bricks owe their redness
+of colour to the oxide of iron which they contain.
+They are either moulded with the hand or
+cast in rectangular frames of wood, dusted with sand.
+To bake them, they are piled up in huge stacks, in
+which intervals are left for storing and kindling the
+fuel. They are also baked in kilns.</p>
+
+<p>The commoner pottery wares are manufactured
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+with the coarse impure clays, which are allowed to
+rot in trenches for several years to render them more
+plastic. Flower-pots, sugar-pans, vases, and other
+and more graceful articles, are moulded on the
+potter's wheel.</p>
+
+<p>Now, this potter's wheel is one of the most
+ancient instruments of human industry, one of the
+earliest inventions by which man utilized and economized
+his labour. It consists of a large disc of
+wood, to which a rotatory motion is given by the
+workman's foot. A second and smaller disc, on
+which is placed the paste for working, is fixed upon
+the upper extremity of the vertical axis to which the
+larger and inferior disc is attached. Seated on his
+bench, the workman places in the centre of the disc
+a certain quantity of soft moist clay, and turning
+the wheel with his foot, moulds the said paste with
+both hands, until it assumes the desired shape. You
+can imagine no prettier spectacle than that of a skilful
+potter causing the clay, under his nimble fingers,
+to assume the most varied forms. It seems as if by
+miracle the vase was created suddenly, and the rude
+clay sprang into a life and beauty of its own.</p>
+
+<p>The Campanian potteries, improperly but commonly
+called the Etruscan, and the ancient Greek
+wares, belong to the class of soft and lustrous potteries
+which are no longer manufactured. The
+Etruscan vases are the most remarkable specimens
+of the ancient potter's art; pure, simple, and elegant
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+in form, they cannot be surpassed by any efforts of
+the modern potter. The paste of which they are
+made is very fine and homogeneous, coated with a
+peculiar glassy lustre, which is thin but tenacious,
+red or black, and formed of silica rendered fusible
+by an alkali. They were baked at a low temperature.
+In this ware, which was in vogue between
+500 and 320 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, the Aretine and Roman
+pottery originated. The former was manufactured
+at Arezzo or Arretium.</p>
+
+<p>The knowledge of glazes, which was acquired by
+the Egyptians and Assyrians, seems to have been
+handed down to the Persians, Moors, and Arabs.
+Fayences, and enamelled bricks and plaques, were
+commonly used among them in the twelfth century,
+and among the Hindus in the fourteenth. The celebrated
+glazed tiles, or <i>azulejos</i>, which contribute so
+much to the beauty of the Alhambra, were introduced
+into Spain by the Moors about 711 <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> In
+Italy, it is supposed, they were made known as early
+as the conquest of Majorca by the Pisans, in
+1115 <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> But Brongniart places their introduction
+three centuries later, or in 1415, and says this
+peculiar kind of ware was called <i>Majolica</i>, from Majorica
+or Majorca. This, however, seems to have
+been the Italian enamelled fayence, which was used
+for subjects in relief by the celebrated Florentine
+sculptor, Luca della Robbia.</p>
+
+<p>Robbia had been bred to the trade of a
+goldsmith<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>&mdash;in
+those days a trade of great distinction and opulence&mdash;but
+his artistic tastes could not be controlled,
+and he abandoned it to become a sculptor. A man of
+a singularly enthusiastic and ardent nature, he applied
+himself arduously to his new work. He worked
+all day with his chisel, and sat up, even through the
+night, to study. "Often," says Vasari, "when his
+feet were frozen with cold in the night time, he kept
+them in a basket of shavings to warm them, that he
+might not be compelled to discontinue his drawings."
+Such devotion could hardly fail to secure success.
+Luca was recognised as one of the first sculptors of the
+day, and executed a number of great works in bronze
+and marble. On the conclusion of some important
+commissions, he was struck with the disproportion
+between the payment he received and the time and
+labour he had expended; and, abandoning marble
+and bronze, resolved to work in clay. Before he
+could do that, however, it was necessary to discover
+some means of rendering durable the works which
+he executed in that material. Applying himself to
+the task with characteristic zeal and perseverance,
+he at length succeeded in discovering a mode of protecting
+such productions from the injuries of time, by
+means of a glaze or enamel, which conferred not only
+an almost eternal durability, but additional beauty on
+his works in terra cotta. At first this enamel was
+of a pure white, but he afterwards added the further
+invention of colouring it. The fame of these
+produc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>tions
+spread over Europe, and Luca found abundant
+and profitable employment during the rest of his
+days, the work being carried on, after his death, by
+brothers and descendants.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="BERNARD_PALISSY" id="BERNARD_PALISSY"></a>II.&mdash;BERNARD PALISSY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The next great master in the art was Bernard
+Palissy,&mdash;a man distinguished not only for his
+artistic genius, but for his philosophical attainments,
+his noble, manly character, and zealous piety. Born
+of poor parents about the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, Bernard Palissy was taken as apprentice by
+a land-surveyor, who had been much struck with the
+boy's quickness and ingenuity. Land-surveying, of
+course, involved some knowledge of drawing; and thus
+a taste for painting was developed. From drawing
+lines and diagrams he went on to copy from the
+great masters. As this new talent became known
+he obtained employment in painting designs on glass.
+He received commissions in various parts of the
+country, and in his travels employed his mind in the
+study of natural objects. He examined the character
+of the soils and minerals upon his route, and the
+better to grapple with the subject, devoted his attention
+to chemistry. At length he settled and married
+at Staines, and for a time lived thriftily as a
+painter.</p>
+
+<p>One day he was shown an elegant cup of Italian
+manufacture, beautifully enamelled. The art of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+enamelling was then entirely unknown in France,
+and Palissy was at once seized with the idea, that if
+he could but discover the secret it would enable him
+to place his wife and family in greater comfort. "So,
+therefore," he writes, "regardless of the fact that I
+had no knowledge of clays, I began to seek for these
+enamels as a man gropes in the dark. I reflected
+that God had gifted me with some knowledge of
+drawing, and I took courage in my heart, and besought
+him to give me wisdom and skill."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 388px;">
+<a href="images/fig-p242-1200.png">
+<img src="images/fig-p242-600.png" width="388" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</a>
+<span class="caption">PALISSY THE POTTER.<br />
+<span class="pageref">Page 242.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>He lost no time in commencing his experiments.
+He bought a quantity of earthen pots, broke them
+into fragments, and covering them with various
+chemical compounds, baked them in a little furnace
+of his own construction, in the hope of discovering
+the white enamel, which he had been told was the
+key to all the rest. Again and again he varied the
+ingredients of the compositions, the proportions in
+which they were mixed, the quality of the clay on
+which they were spread, the heat of the furnace to
+which they were subjected; but the white enamel
+was still as great a mystery as ever. Instead of
+discouraging, each new defeat seemed to confirm his
+hope of ultimate success and to increase his perseverance.
+Painting and surveying he no longer practised,
+except when sheer necessity compelled him to resort
+to them to provide bread for his family. The discovery
+of the enamel had become the great mission
+of his life, and to that all other occupations must be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+sacrificed. "Thus having blundered several times at
+great expense and through much trouble, with sorrows
+and sighs, I was every day pounding and grinding
+new materials and constructing new furnaces, which
+cost much money, and consumed my wood and my
+time." Two years had passed now in fruitless effort.
+Food was becoming scarce in the little household, his
+wife worn and shrewish, the children thin and sickly.
+But then came the thought to cheer him,&mdash;when the
+enamel was found his fortune would be made, there
+would then be an end to all his privations, anxieties,
+and domestic unhappiness, Lisette would live at ease,
+and his children lack no comfort. No, the work
+must not be given up yet. His own furnace was
+clumsy and imperfect,&mdash;perhaps his compositions
+would turn out better in a regular kiln. So more
+pots were bought and broken into fragments, which,
+covered with chemical preparations, were fired at a
+pottery in the neighbourhood. Batch after batch
+was prepared and despatched to the kiln, but all
+proved disheartening failures. Still with "great
+cost, loss of time, confusion, and sorrow," he persevered,
+the wife growing more shrewish, the children
+more pinched and haggard. By good luck at this
+time came the royal commissioners to establish the
+gabelle or tax in the district of Saintonge, and
+Palissy was employed to survey the salt marshes.
+It was a very profitable job, and Palissy's affairs
+began to look more flourishing. But the work was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+no sooner concluded, than the "will o' the wisp," as
+his wife and neighbours held it, was dancing again
+before his eyes, and he was back, with redoubled
+energy, to his favourite occupation, "diving into the
+secret of enamels."</p>
+
+<p>Two years of unremitting, anxious toil, of grinding
+and mixing, of innumerable visits to the kiln,
+sanguine of success, with ever new preparations; of
+invariable journeys home again, sad and weary, for
+the moment utterly discouraged; of domestic bickerings;
+of mockery and censure among neighbours, and
+still the enamel was a mystery,&mdash;still Palissy, seemingly
+as far from the end as ever, was eager to prosecute
+the search. He appeared to have an inward conviction
+that he would succeed; but meanwhile the
+remonstrances of his wife, the pale, thin faces of his
+bairns, warned him he must desist, and resume the
+employments that at least brought food and clothing.
+There should be one more trial on a grand scale,&mdash;if
+that failed, then there should be an end of his
+experiments. "God willed," he says, "that when I
+had begun to lose my courage, and was gone for the
+last time to a glass-furnace, having a man with me
+carrying more than three hundred pieces, there was
+one among those pieces which was melted within
+four hours after it had been placed in the furnace,
+which trial turned out white and polished, in a way
+that caused me such joy as made me think I was
+become a new creature." He rushed home, burst
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+into his wife's chamber, shouting, "I have found
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>From that moment he was more enthusiastic than
+ever in his search. He had discovered the white
+enamel. The next thing to be done was to apply it.
+He must now work at home and in secret. He set
+about moulding vessels of clay after designs of his
+own, and baked them in a furnace which he had
+built in imitation of the one at the pottery. The
+grinding and compounding of the ingredients of the
+enamel cost him the labour, day and night, of another
+month. Then all was ready for the final process.</p>
+
+<p>The vessels, coated with the precious mixture, are
+ranged in the furnace, the fire is lit and blazes
+fiercely. To stint the supply of fuel would be to
+cheat himself of a fortune for the sake of a few pence,
+so he does not spare wood. All that day he diligently
+feeds the fire, nor lets it slacken through the
+night. The excitement will not let him sleep even
+if he would. The prize he has striven for through
+these weary years, for which he has borne mockery
+and privation, is now all but within his grasp; in
+another hour or two he will have possessed it.</p>
+
+<p>The grey dawn comes, but still the enamel melts
+not. His boy brings him a portion of the scanty
+family meal. There shall soon be an end to that
+miserable fare! More faggots are cast on the fire.
+The night falls, and the sun rises on the third day
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+of his tending and watching at the furnace door, but
+still the powder shows no signs of melting. Pale,
+haggard, sick at heart with anxiety and dread, worn
+with watching, parched and fevered with the
+heat of the fire, through another, and yet another
+and another day and night, through six days and six
+nights in all, Bernard Palissy watches by the glaring
+furnace, feeds it continually with wood, and still
+the enamel is unmelted. "Seeing it was not possible
+to make the said enamel melt, I was like a man
+in desperation; and although quite stupified with
+labour, I counselled to myself that in my mixture
+there might be some fault. Therefore I began
+once more to pound and grind more materials, all
+the time without letting my furnace cool. In this
+way I had double labour, to pound, grind, and maintain
+the fire. I was also forced to go again and
+purchase pots in order to prove the said compound,
+seeing that I had lost all the vessels which I had
+made myself. And having covered the new pieces
+with the said enamel, I put them into the furnace,
+keeping the fire still at its height."</p>
+
+<p>By this time it was no easy matter to "keep the
+fire at its height." His stock of fuel was exhausted;
+he had no money to buy any more, and yet fuel must
+be had. On the very eve of success&mdash;alas! an eve
+that so seldom has a dawn&mdash;it would never do to
+lose it all for want of wood, not while wood of any
+kind was procurable. He rushed into the garden,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+tore up the palings, the trellis work that supported
+the vines, gathered every scrap of wood he could find,
+and cast them on the fire. But soon again the deep
+red glow of the furnace began to fade, and still it had
+not done its work. Suddenly a crashing noise was
+heard; his wife, the children clinging to her gown,
+rushed in. Palissy had seized the chairs and table,
+had torn the door from its hinges, wrenched the
+window frames from their sockets, and broken them
+in pieces to serve as fuel for the all-devouring fire.
+Now he was busy breaking up the very flooring of
+the house. And all in vain! The composition would
+not melt.</p>
+
+<p>"I suffered an anguish that I cannot speak, for I
+was quite exhausted and dried up by the heat of the
+furnace. Further to console me, I was the object of
+mockery; even those from whom solace was due,
+ran, crying through the town that I was burning
+my floors. In this way my credit was taken from
+me, and I was regarded as a madman," if not, as he
+tells us elsewhere, as one seeking ill-gotten gains, and
+sold to the evil one for filthy lucre.</p>
+
+<p>He made another effort, engaged a potter to assist
+him, giving the clothes off his own back to pay him,
+and afterwards receiving aid from a friendly neighbour,
+and this time proved that his mixture was of the right
+kind. But the furnace having been built with mortar
+which was full of flints, burst with the heat, and
+the splinters adhered to the pottery. Sooner than
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+allow such imperfect specimens of his art to go forth
+to the world, Palissy destroyed them, "although some
+would have bought them at a mean price."</p>
+
+<p>Better days, however, were at hand for himself
+and family. His next efforts were successful. An
+introduction to the Duke of Montmorency procured
+him the patronage of that nobleman, as well as of the
+king. He now found profitable employment for
+himself and food for his family. "During the space
+of fifteen or sixteen years in all," he said afterwards,
+"I have blundered on at my business. When I
+had learned to guard against one danger, there came
+another on which I had not reckoned. All this
+caused me such labour and heaviness of spirit, that
+before I could render my enamels fusible at the
+same degrees of heat, I verily thought I should be at
+the door of my sepulchre.... But I have found
+nothing better than to observe the counsel of God,
+his edicts, statutes, and ordinances; and in regard to
+his will, I have seen that he has commanded his followers
+to eat bread by the labour of their bodies,
+and to multiply their talents which he has committed
+to them."</p>
+
+<p>When the Reformation came, Palissy was an earnest
+reformer, on Sunday mornings assembling a
+number of simple, unlearned men for religious worship,
+and exhorting them to good works. Court
+favour exempted him from edicts against Protestants,
+but could not shield him from popular prejudice.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+His workshops at Saintes were destroyed; and to save
+his life and preserve the art he had invented, the
+king called him to Paris as a servant of his own.
+Thus he escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
+Besides being a skilful potter, Palissy was a naturalist
+of no little eminence. "I have had no other book
+than heaven and earth, which are open to all," he
+used to say; but he read the wondrous volume well,
+while others knew it chiefly at second-hand, and
+hence his superiority to most of the naturalists of
+the day. He was in the habit of lecturing to the
+learned men of the capital on natural history and
+chemistry. When more than eighty years of age he
+was accused of heresy, and shut up in the Bastille.
+The king, visiting him in prison, said, "My good
+man, if you do not renounce your views upon religious
+matters, I shall be constrained to leave you
+in the hands of my enemies." "Sire," replied
+Palissy, "those who constrain you, a king, can never
+have power over me, because I know how to die."
+Palissy died in prison, aged and exhausted, in 1590,
+at the age of eighty.</p>
+
+<p>Before his death his wares had become famous,
+and were greatly prized. The enamel, which he
+went through so much toil and suffering to discover,
+was the foundation of a flourishing national manufacture.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></div>
+<h2><a name="JOSIAH_WEDGWOOD" id="JOSIAH_WEDGWOOD"></a>III.&mdash;JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Josiah Wedgwood, whose name in connection with
+pottery-ware has become a household word amongst
+us, was the younger son of a potter at Burslem, in
+Staffordshire, who had also a little patch of ground
+which he farmed. When Josiah was only eleven
+years old, his father died, and he was thus left dependent
+upon his elder brother, who employed him
+as a "thrower" at his own wheel. An attack of smallpox,
+in its most malignant form, soon after endangered
+his life, and he survived only by the sacrifice
+of his left leg, in which the dregs of the disease had
+settled, and which had to be cut off. Weak and
+disabled, he was now thrown upon the world to seek
+his own fortune. At first it was very uphill work
+with him, and he found it no easy matter to provide
+even the most frugal fare. He was gifted, however,
+with a very fine taste in devising patterns for articles
+of earthenware, and found ready custom for plates,
+knife-handles, and jugs of fanciful shape. He worked
+away industriously himself, and was able by degrees
+to employ assistance and enlarge his establishment.
+The pottery manufactures of this country were then
+in a very primitive condition. Only the coarsest
+sort of articles were made, and any attempt to give
+elegance to the designs was very rare indeed. All
+the more ornamental and finer class of goods came
+from the Continent. Wedgwood saw no reason why
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+we should not emulate foreigners in the beauty of
+the forms into which the clay was thrown, and
+made a point of sending out of his own shop articles
+of as elegant a shape as possible. This feature in
+his productions was not overlooked by customers,
+and he found a growing demand for them. The
+coarseness of the material was, however, a great
+drawback to the extension of the trade in native
+pottery; and it seemed almost like throwing good
+designs away to apply them to such rude wares.
+Wedgwood saw clearly that if earthenware was ever
+to become a profitable English manufacture, something
+must be done to improve the quality of the
+clay. He brooded over the subject, tested all the
+different sorts of earth in the district, and at length
+discovered one, containing silica, which, black in
+colour before it went into the oven, came out of it a
+pure and beautiful white. This fact ascertained, he
+was not long in turning it to practical account, by
+mixing flint powder with the red earth of the potteries,
+and thus obtaining a material which became
+white when exposed to the heat of a furnace. The
+next step was to cover this material with a transparent
+glaze; and he could then turn out earthenware
+as pure in quality as that from the Continent.
+This was the foundation not only of his own fortune,
+but of a manufacture which has since provided profitable
+employment for thousands of his countrymen,
+besides placing within the reach of even the humblest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+of them good serviceable earthenware for household
+use.</p>
+
+<p>The success of his white stoneware was such, that
+he was able to quit the little thatched house he had
+formerly occupied, and open shop in larger and more
+imposing premises. He increased the number of his
+hands, and drove an extensive and growing trade.
+He was not content to halt after the discovery of the
+white stoneware. On the contrary, the success he
+had already attained only impelled him to further
+efforts to improve the trade he had taken up, and
+which now became quite a passion with him. When
+he devoted himself to any particular effort in connection
+with it, his first thought was always how to
+turn out the very best article that could be made&mdash;his
+last thought was whether it would pay him or
+not. He stuck up for the honour of old England,
+and maintained that whatever enterprise could be
+achieved, that English skill and enterprise was competent
+to do. Although he had never had any education
+himself worth speaking of, his natural shrewdness and
+keen faculty of observation supplied his deficiencies
+in that respect; and when he applied himself, as he
+now did, to the study of chemistry, with a view to
+the improvement of the pottery art, he made rapid
+and substantial progress, and passed muster creditably
+even in the company of men of science and
+learning. He contributed many valuable communications
+to the Royal Society, and invented a
+ther<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>mometer
+for measuring the higher degrees of heat
+employed in the various arts of pottery.</p>
+
+<p>Again his premises proved too confined for his
+expanding trade, and he removed to a larger establishment,
+and there perfected that cream-coloured
+ware with which Queen Charlotte was so delighted,
+that she ordered a whole service of it, and commanding
+that it should be called after her&mdash;the Queen's
+Ware, and that its inventor should receive the title
+of the "Royal Potter."</p>
+
+<p>A royal potter Wedgwood truly was; the very
+king of earthenware manufactures, resolute in his
+determination to attain the highest degree of perfection
+in his productions, indefatigable in his labours,
+and unstinting in his outlay to secure that end. He
+invented altogether seven or eight different kinds of
+ware; and succeeded in combining the greatest delicacy
+and purity of material, and utmost elegance of
+design, with strength, durability, and cheapness.
+The effect of the improvements he successively introduced
+into the manufacture of earthenware is thus
+described by a foreign writer about this period:
+"Its excellent workmanship, its solidity, the advantage
+which it possesses of sustaining the action of
+fire, its fine glaze, impenetrable to acids, the beauty
+and convenience of its form, and the cheapness of its
+price, have given rise to a commerce so active and so
+universal, that in travelling from Paris to Petersburg,
+from Amsterdam to the furthest port of Sweden,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+and from Dunkirk to the extremity of the south of
+France, one is served at every inn with Wedgwood
+ware. Spain, Portugal, and Italy are supplied with
+it, and vessels are loaded with it for the East Indies,
+the West Indies, and the continent of America."
+Wedgwood himself, when examined before a committee
+of the House of Commons in 1785, some thirty
+years after he had begun his operations, stated that
+from providing only casual employment to a small
+number of inefficient and badly remunerated workmen,
+the manufacture had increased to an extent that
+gave direct employment to about twenty thousand
+persons, without taking into account the increased
+numbers who earned a livelihood by digging coals for
+the use of the potteries, by carrying the productions
+from one quarter to another, and in many other
+ways.</p>
+
+<p>Wedgwood did not confine himself to the manufacture
+of useful articles, though such, of course, formed
+the bulk of his trade, but published beautiful imitations
+of Egyptian, Greek, and Etruscan vases, copies
+of cameos, medallions, tablets, and so on. Valuable
+sets of old porcelain were frequently intrusted to
+him for imitation, in which he succeeded so well that
+it was difficult to tell the original from the counterfeit,
+except sometimes from the superior excellence
+and beauty of the latter. When the celebrated Barberini
+Vase was for sale, Wedgwood, bent upon
+making copies of it, made heavy bids against the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
+Duchess of Portland for it; and was only induced to
+desist by the promise, that he should have the loan of
+it in order that he might copy it. Accordingly, the
+duchess had the vase knocked down to her at eighteen
+hundred guineas, and Wedgwood made fifty copies
+of it, which he sold at fifty guineas each, and was
+thus considerably out of pocket by the transaction.
+He did it, however, not for the sake of profit, but to
+show what an English pottery could accomplish.</p>
+
+<p>Besides copying from antique objects, Wedgwood
+tried to rival them in the taste and elegance of original
+productions. He found out Flaxman when he
+was an unknown student, and employed him, upon
+very liberal terms, to design for him; and thus the
+articles of earthenware which he manufactured proved
+of the greatest value in the art education of the
+people. We owe not a little of the improved taste
+and popular appreciation and enjoyment of the fine
+arts in our own day to the generous enterprise of
+Josiah Wedgwood, and his talented designs.</p>
+
+<p>In order to secure every access from the potteries
+to the eastern and western coasts of the island,
+Wedgwood proposed, and, with the aid of others
+whom he induced to join him, carried out the Grand
+Trunk Canal between the Trent and the Mersey. He
+himself constructed a turnpike road ten miles in
+length through the potteries, and built a village
+for his work-people, which he called Etruria, and
+where he established his works. He died there in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+1795, at the age of sixty-five, leaving a large fortune
+and an honoured name, which he had acquired
+by his own industry, enterprise, and generosity.</p>
+
+<p>A remarkable memorial to the genius and artistic
+labours of Wedgwood was erected in 1863, and
+some reference to it should undoubtedly be made
+in these pages.</p>
+
+<p>It is a twofold memorial: a bronze statue at
+Stoke-upon-Trent, and a memorial institute, erected
+close to the birth-place of the Great Potter at Burslem.
+The foundation-stone was laid on the 26th of October
+by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., then Chancellor
+of the Exchequer, in the presence of a very large
+and enthusiastic assemblage. The Chancellor delivered
+a public address, which in eloquent terms did
+homage to Wedgwood's great mental qualities and
+his services to his country.</p>
+
+<p>He described as his most signal and characteristic
+merit, the firmness and fulness of his perception of
+the true law of what we term industrial art, or, in
+other words, of the application of the higher art to
+industry&mdash;the law which teaches us to aim first at
+giving to every object the greatest possible degree
+of fitness and convenience for its purpose, and next
+at making it the article of the highest degree of
+beauty, which compatibly with that fitness and convenience
+it will bear&mdash;which does not substitute the
+secondary for the primary end, but recognizes as
+part of the business the study to harmonize the two.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+Mr. Gladstone observed, that to have a strong
+grasp of this principle, and to work it out to its results
+in the details of a vast and varied manufacture,
+was a praise high enough for any man, at any time
+and in any place. But he thought it was higher
+and more peculiar in the case of Wedgwood than it
+could be in almost any other case. For that truth
+of art which he saw so clearly, and which lies at the
+root of excellence, is one of which England, his
+country, has not usually had a perception at all corresponding
+in strength and fulness with her other
+rare endowments. She has long taken a lead among
+the European nations for the cheapness of her manufactures,
+not so for their beauty. And if the day
+should arrive when she shall be as eminent for
+purity of taste as she is now for economy of production,
+the result will probably be due to no other
+single man in so remarkable a degree as to Josiah
+Wedgwood.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>We conclude with a lively extract from the Chancellor's
+exhaustive and interesting address:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Wedgwood," he says, "in his pursuit of beauty,
+did not overlook exchangeable value or practical usefulness.
+The first he could not overlook, for he had
+to live by his trade; and it was by the profit derived
+from the extended sale of his humbler productions
+that he was enabled to bear the risks and
+charges of his higher works. Commerce did for him
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+what the King of France did for S&egrave;vres, and the Duke
+of Cumberland for Chelsea, it found him in funds.
+And I would venture to say that the lower works of
+Wedgwood are every whit as much distinguished by
+the fineness and accuracy of their adaptation to their
+uses as his higher ones by their successful exhibition
+of the finest arts. Take, for instance, his common
+plates, of the value of, I know not how few, but
+certainly of a very few pence each. They fit one
+another as closely as cards in a pack. At least, I
+for one have never seen plates that fit like the plates
+of Wedgwood, and become one solid mass. Such
+accuracy of form must, I apprehend, render them
+much more safe in carriage....</p>
+
+<p>"Again, take such a jug as he would manufacture
+for the wash-stand table of a garret. I have seen
+these made apparently of the commonest material
+used in the trade. But instead of being built up,
+like the usual and much more fashionable jugs of
+modern manufacture, in such a shape that a crane
+could not easily get his neck to bend into them, and
+the water can hardly be poured out without risk of
+spraining the wrist, they are constructed in a simple
+capacious form, of flowing curves, broad at the top,
+and so well poised that a slight and easy movement
+of the hand discharges the water. A round cheese-holder
+or dish, again, generally presents in its upper
+part a flat space surrounded by a curved rim; but the
+cheese-holder of Wedgwood will make itself known
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+by this&mdash;that the flat is so dead a flat, and the
+curve so marked and bold a curve; thus at once
+furnishing the eye with a line agreeable and well-defined,
+and affording the utmost available space for
+the cheese. I feel persuaded that a Wiltshire cheese,
+if it could speak, would declare itself more comfortable
+in a dish of Wedgwood's than in any other
+dish."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The worthiest successor to Wedgwood whom
+England has known was the late Herbert Minton,
+who was scarcely less distinguished than his predecessor
+for perseverance, patient effort, and artistic
+sentiment. We owe to him in a great measure the
+revival of the elegant art of manufacturing encaustic
+tiles.</p>
+
+<p>The principal varieties of ceramic ware now in use
+are:&mdash;1. Porcelain, which is composed, in England,
+of sand, calcined bones, china-clay, and potash; and,
+at Dresden, of kaolin, felspar, and broken biscuit-porcelain;
+2. Parian, which is used in a liquid
+state, and poured into plaster-of-paris moulds;
+3. Earthenware, the <i>Fayence</i> of the Italians, and the
+<i>Delft</i> of the Dutch, made of various kinds of clay,
+with a mixture of powdered calcined flint; and,
+4. Stoneware, composed of several kinds of plastic
+clay, mixed with felspar and sand, and occasionally
+a little lime.</p>
+
+<p>It is estimated that our English potteries not only
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+supply the demand of the United Kingdom, but export
+ware to the value of nearly a million and a
+half annually. The establishments are about 190
+in number; employ 75,000 to 80,000 operatives;
+and export 90,000,000 pieces.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 180px;">
+<img src="images/footer-260.png" width="180" height="180" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="The_Miners_Safety_Lamp" id="The_Miners_Safety_Lamp"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p261.png" alt="The Miner's Safety Lamp." title="" /></h2>
+
+<ul class="chapterTOC">
+  <li>SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p263.png" alt="The Miner's Safety Lamp." title="" /></h2>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="SIR_HUMPHREY_DAVY" id="SIR_HUMPHREY_DAVY"></a>SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"What's that? Is the house coming down?" cried
+Mr. Borlase, the surgeon-apothecary of Penzance,
+jumping out of his cozy arm-chair, as a tremendous
+explosion shook the house from top to bottom, making
+a great jingle among the gallipots in the shop
+below, and rousing him from a comfortable nap.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, sir," said Betty, the housemaid, putting
+her head into the room, "here's that boy Davy been
+a-blowing of hisself up agen. Drat him, he's
+always up to some trick or other! He'll be the death
+of all of us some day, that boy will, as sure as my
+name's Betty."</p>
+
+<p>"Bring him here directly," replied her master,
+knitting his brow, and screwing his mild countenance
+into an elaborate imitation of that of a judge he once
+saw at the assizes, with the black cap on, sentencing
+some poor wretch to be hanged. "Really, this sort
+of thing won't do at all."</p>
+
+<p>Only, it must be owned, Mr. Borlase had said that
+many times before, and put on the terrible judicial
+look too, and yet "that boy Davy" was at his tricks
+again as much as ever.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+"I'll bring as much as I can find of him, sir,"
+said Betty, gathering up her apron, as if she fully
+expected to discover the object of her search in a
+fragmentary condition.</p>
+
+<p>Presently there was heard a shuffling in the passage,
+and a somewhat ungainly youth, about sixteen
+years of age, was thrust into the room, with the due
+complement of legs, arms, and other members, and
+only somewhat the grimier about the face for the explosion.
+His fingers were all yellow with acids, and
+his clothes plentifully variegated with stains from the
+same compounds. At first sight he looked rather a
+dull, loutish boy, but his sharp, clear eyes somewhat
+redeemed his expression on a second glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Here he is, sir," cried Betty triumphantly, as
+though she really had found him in pieces, and took
+credit for having put him cleverly together again.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Humphrey," said Mr. Borlase, "what have
+you been up to now? You'll never rest, I'm afraid,
+till you have the house on fire."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! if you please, sir, I was only experimenting
+in the garret, and there's no harm done."</p>
+
+<p>"No harm done!" echoed Betty; "and if there
+isn't it's no fault of yours, you nasty monkey. I
+declare that blow up gave me such a turn you could
+ha' knocked me down with a feather, and there's a
+smell all over the house enough to pison any one."</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do, Betty," said her master, finding the
+grim judicial countenance rather difficult to keep up,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+and anxious to pronounce sentence before it quite
+wore off. "I'll tell you what it is, young Davy,
+this sort of thing won't do at all. I must speak to
+Mr. Tonkine about you; and if I catch you at it
+again, you'll have to take yourself and your experiments
+somewhere else. So I warn you. You had
+much better attend to your work. It was only the
+other day you gave old Goody Jones a paperful of
+cayenne instead of cinnamon; and there's Joe Grimsly,
+the beadle, been here half a dozen times this day
+for those pills I told you to make up, and they're
+not ready yet. So just you take yourself off, mind
+your business, and don't let me have any more nonsense,
+or it'll be the worse for you."</p>
+
+<p>And so the culprit gladly backed out of the room,
+not a whit abashed by the reprimand, for it was no
+novelty, to begin his experiments again and again,
+and one day, by way of compensation for keeping
+his master's household in constant terror of being
+blown up, to make his name familiar as a household
+word, by the invention of a little instrument that
+would save thousands and thousands from the fearful
+consequences of coal-pit explosions.</p>
+
+<p>The Mr. Tonkine that his master referred to was
+the self-constituted protector of the Davy family.
+Old Davy had been a carver in the town, and dying,
+left his widow in very distressed circumstances, when
+this generous friend came forward and took upon
+himself the charge of the widow and her children.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+Young Humphrey, on leaving school, had been placed
+with Mr. Borlase to be brought up as an apothecary;
+but he was much fonder of rambling about the country,
+or experimenting in the garret which he had
+constituted his laboratory, than compounding drugs
+behind his master's counter. As a boy he was not
+particularly smart, although he was distinguished
+for the facility with which he gleaned the substance
+of any book that happened to take his fancy, and
+for an early predilection for poetry. As he grew
+up, the ardent, inquisitive turn of his mind displayed
+itself more strongly. He was very fond of spending
+what leisure time he had in strolling along the rocky
+coast searching for sea-drift and minerals, or reading
+some favourite book.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There along the beach he wandered, nourishing a youth sublime,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">With the fairy-tales of science, and the long result of time."</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In after life he used often to tell how when tired
+he would sit down on the crags and exercise his
+fancy in anticipations of future renown, for already
+the ambition of distinguishing himself in his favourite
+science had seized him. "I have neither riches, nor
+power, nor birth," he wrote in his memorandum-book,
+"to recommend me; yet if I live, I trust I
+shall not be of less service to mankind and my
+friends than if I had been born with all these advantages."
+He read a great deal, and though without
+much method, managed, in a wonderfully short
+time, to master the rudiments of natural philosophy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+and chemistry, to say nothing of considerable acquaintance
+with botany, anatomy, and geometry; so
+that though the pestle and mortar might have a
+quieter time of it than suited his master's notions,
+Humphrey was busy enough in other ways.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a href="images/fig-p267-1200.png">
+<img src="images/fig-p267-600.png" width="NNN" height="NNN" alt="" title="" />
+</a>
+<span class="caption">HUMPHREY&#39;S EXPERIMENTS ON THE DIFFUSION OF HEAT.<br />
+<span class="pageref">Page 267.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In his walk along the beach, the nature of the air
+contained in the bladders of sea-weed was a constant
+subject of speculation with him; and he used to sigh
+over the limited laboratory at his command, which
+prevented him from thoroughly investigating the
+matter. But one day, as good luck would have it,
+the waves threw up a case of surgical instruments
+from some wrecked vessel, somewhat rusty and sand
+clogged, but in Davy's ingenious hands capable of
+being turned to good account. Out of an old syringe,
+which was contained in the case, he managed to construct
+a very tolerable air pump; and with an old
+shade lamp, and a couple of small metal tubes, he
+set himself to work to discover the causes of the
+diffusion of heat. At first sight the want of
+proper instruments for carrying on his researches
+might appear rather a hindrance to his progress
+in the paths of scientific discovery; but, in
+truth, his subsequent success as an experimentalist
+has been very properly attributed, in no
+small degree, to that necessity which is the parent
+of invention, and which forced him to exercise his
+skill and ingenuity in making the most of the
+scanty materials at his command. "Had he,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
+says one of his biographers, "in the commencement
+of his career been furnished with all those appliances
+which he enjoyed at a later period, it is more than
+probable that he might never have acquired that
+wonderful tact of manipulation, that ability of suggesting
+expedients, and of contriving apparatus, so
+as to meet and surmount the difficulties which must
+constantly arise during the progress of the philosopher
+through the unbeaten track and unexplored
+regions of science!"</p>
+
+<p>While Davy was thus busily engaged qualifying
+himself for the distinguished career that awaited
+him, Gregory Watt, the son of the celebrated James
+Watt, being in delicate health, came to Penzance for
+change of air, and lodged with Mrs. Davy. At first
+he and Humphrey did not get on very well together,
+for the latter had just been reading some metaphysical
+works, and was very fond of indulging in crude
+and flippant speculations on such subjects, which
+rather displeased the shy invalid. But one day
+some chance remark of Davy's gave token of his extensive
+knowledge of natural history and chemistry,
+and thenceforth a close intimacy sprang up between
+them, greatly to the lad's advantage, for Watt's
+scientific knowledge set him in a more systematic
+groove of study, and encouraged him to concentrate
+his energies on his favourite pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>Another useful friend Davy also found in Mr. Gilbert,
+afterwards President of the Royal Society.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+Passing along one day, Mr. Gilbert observed a youth
+making strange contortions of face as he hung over
+the hutch gate of Borlase's house; and being told by
+a companion that he was "the son of Davy the
+carver," and very fond of making chemical experiments,
+he had a talk with the lad, and discovering
+his talents, was ever afterwards his staunch friend
+and patron.</p>
+
+<p>Through his two friends, Mr. Gilbert and Mr.
+Watt, Davy formed the acquaintance of Dr. Beddoes,
+who was just setting up at Bristol, under the title of
+Pneumatic Institution, an establishment for investigating
+the medical properties of different gases; and
+who, appreciating his abilities, gave him the superintendence
+of the new institution.</p>
+
+<p>Although only twenty years of age at this time,
+Davy was well abreast of the science of the day, and
+soon applied his vigorous and searching intellect to
+several successful investigations. His first scientific
+discovery was the detection of siliceous earth in the
+outer coating of reeds and grasses. A child was
+rubbing two pieces of bonnet cane together, and he
+noticed that a faint light was emitted; and on
+striking them sharply together, vivid sparks were
+produced just as if they had been flint and steel.
+The fact that when the outer skin was peeled off
+this property was destroyed, showed that it was confined
+to the skin, and on subjecting it to analysis
+silex was obtained, and still more in reeds and grasses.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+As superintendent of Dr. Beddoe's institution, his
+attention was, of course, chiefly directed to the subject
+of gases, and with the enthusiasm of youth, he
+applied himself ardently to the investigation of their
+elements and effects, attempting several very dangerous
+experiments in breathing gases, and more than
+once nearly sacrificing his life. In the course of
+these experiments he found out the peculiar properties
+of nitrous oxide, or, as it has since been
+popularly called, "laughing gas," which impels any
+one who inhales it to go through some characteristic
+action,&mdash;a droll fellow to laugh, a dismal one to weep
+and sigh, a pugnacious man to fight and wrestle, or a
+musical one to sing.</p>
+
+<p>At twenty-two years of age, such was the reputation
+he had acquired, that he got the appointment of
+lecturer at the Royal Institution, which was just then
+established, and found himself in a little while not
+only a man of mark in the scientific, but a "lion" in
+the fashionable world. Natural philosophy and
+chemistry had begun to attract a good deal of attention
+at that time; and Davy's enthusiasm, his clear
+and vivid explanations of the mysteries of science,
+and the poetry and imagination with which he invested
+the dry bones of scientific facts, caught the
+popular taste exactly. His lecture-room became a
+fashionable lounge, and was crowded with all sorts
+of distinguished people. The young lecturer became
+quite the rage, and was petted and feted as the lion
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+of the day. It was only six years back that he was
+the druggist's boy in a little country town, alarming
+and annoying the household with his indefatigable
+experiments. He could hardly have imagined, as one
+of his day-dreams at the sea-side, that his fame would
+be acquired so quickly.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all the flatteries and attentions
+which were showered upon him, Davy stuck manfully
+to his profession; and if his reputation was
+somewhat artificial and exaggerated at the commencement,
+he amply earned and consolidated it by
+his valuable contributions to science during the rest
+of his career.</p>
+
+<p>The name of Humphrey Davy will always be best
+known from its association with the ingenious safety
+lamp which he invented, and which well entitles him
+to rank as one of the benefactors of mankind. It
+was in the year 1815 that Davy first turned his
+attention to this subject. Of frequent occurrence
+from the very first commencement of coal-mining,
+the number of accidents from fire-damp had been
+sadly multiplied by the increase of mining operations
+consequent on the introduction of the steam engine.
+The dreadful character of some of the explosions
+which occurred about this time, the appalling number
+of lives lost, and the wide-spread desolation in
+some of the colliery districts which they had occasioned,
+weighed heavily on the minds of all connected with
+such matters. Not merely were the feelings of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+humanity wounded by the terrible and constant
+danger to which the intrepid miners were exposed,
+but it began to be gravely questioned whether the
+high rate of wage which the collier required to pay
+him not only for his labour, but for the risk he ran,
+would admit of the mines being profitably worked.
+It was felt that some strenuous effort must be made
+to preserve the miners from their awful foe. Davy
+was then in the plenitude of his reputation, and a
+committee of coal-owners besought him to investigate
+the subject, and if possible provide some
+preventative against explosions. Davy at once
+went to the north of England, visited a number of
+the principal pits, obtained specimens of fire-damp,
+analyzed them carefully, and having discovered the
+peculiarities of this element of destruction, after
+numerous experiments devised the safety-lamp as its
+antagonist.</p>
+
+<p>The principles upon which this contrivance rests,
+are the modification of the explosive tendencies of
+fire-damp (the inflammable gas in mines) when mixed
+with carbonic acid and nitrogen; and the obstacle
+presented to the passage of an explosion, if it should
+occur, through a hole less than the seventh of an inch
+in diameter; and accordingly, while the small oil lamp
+in burning itself mixes the surrounding gas with carbonic
+acid and nitrogen, the cylinder of wire-gauze
+which surrounds it prevents the escape of any explosion.
+It is curious that George Stephenson, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+celebrated engineer, about the same time, hit on
+much the same expedient.</p>
+
+<p>To control a "power that in its tremendous effects
+seems to emulate the lightning and the earthquake,"
+and to enclose it in a net of the most slender texture,
+was indeed a grand achievement; and when we
+consider the many thousand lives which it has been
+the means of saving from a sudden and cruel death,
+it must be acknowledged to be one of the noblest
+triumphs, not only of science, but of humanity, which
+the world has ever seen. Honours were showered
+upon Davy, from the miners and coal-owners, from
+scientific associations, from crowned heads; but all
+must agree with Playfair in thinking that "it is
+little that the highest praise, and that even the voice
+of national gratitude when most strongly expressed,
+can add to the happiness of one who is conscious of
+having done such a service to his fellow-men."
+Davy himself said he "valued it more than anything
+he ever did." When urged by his friends to take
+out a patent for the invention, he replied,&mdash;"No, I
+never thought of such a thing. My sole object was
+to serve the cause of humanity, and if I have succeeded,
+I am amply rewarded by the gratifying
+reflection of having done so."</p>
+
+<p>The honours of knighthood and baronetage were
+successively conferred on Davy as a reward for his
+scientific labours; and the esteem of his professional
+brethren was shown in his election to the
+President-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>ship
+of the Royal Institution, in which, oddly enough,
+he was succeeded by his old friend Mr. Gilbert, who
+had first taken him by the hand, and whom he had
+got ahead of in the race of life.</p>
+
+<p>Davy died at Geneva before he had completed his
+fifty-first year, no doubt from over-exertion and the
+unhealthy character of the researches he prosecuted
+so recklessly. Assiduous as he was in his devotion
+to his favourite science, he found time also
+to master several continental languages; to keep
+himself well acquainted with, and also to contribute
+to the literature of the day; and to indulge his passion
+for fly-fishing, at which he was a keen and
+practised adept.</p>
+
+<p>Eminent as were the talents of Sir Humphrey
+Davy, and valuable as his discovery of the safety-lamp
+has proved, it is but fair to own that his credit
+to the latter has been very openly denied. Two
+persons of scientific celebrity have been put forward
+as the real inventors of the safety-lamp&mdash;namely,
+Dr. Reid Clanny of Newcastle, and the great railway-engineer,
+George Stephenson. Of Clanny's safety-lamp
+a description appeared in the <i>Philosophical
+Transactions</i> in 1813&mdash;that is, ten years before
+Sir Humphrey made his communication to the Royal
+Society. However, it was a complicated affair, which
+required the whole attention of a boy to work it,
+and was based on the principle of forcing in air
+through water by the agency of bellows.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+Stephenson's was a very different apparatus. In
+its general principle it resembled Davy's, the chief
+difference being, that he inserted a glass cylinder
+inside the wire-gauze cylinder, and inside the top of
+the glass cylinder a perforated metallic chimney&mdash;the
+supply of air being kept up through a triple
+circle of small holes in the bottom.</p>
+
+<p>Stephenson's claim has, of course, been disputed
+by the friends and admirers of Sir Humphrey Davy;
+but Mr. Smile has conclusively proved that his lamp,
+the "Geordy," was in use at the Killingworth
+collieries at the very time that Davy was conducting
+the experiments which led to his invention. It is not
+to be inferred, however, that Davy knew aught of
+what Stephenson had accomplished. It seems to be one
+of those rare cases in which two minds, working independently,
+and unknown each to the other, have
+both arrived simultaneously at the same result.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/footer-275.png" width="300" height="140" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="Penny_Postage" id="Penny_Postage"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p277.png" alt="Penny Postage." title="" /></h2>
+
+
+<ul class="chapterTOC">
+  <li>SIR ROWLAND HILL.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p279.png" alt="Penny Postage." title="" /></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"He comes, the herald of a noisy world,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">News from all nations lumb'ring at his back,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Births, deaths, and marriages; epistles wet</span><br />
+<span class="i0">With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Fast as the periods of his fluent quill;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Or charged with am'rous sighs of absent swains,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Or nymphs responsive."</span><br />
+<span class="smcap ralign">Cowper.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>The growth of the postal system is a sure measure
+of the progress of industry, commerce, education, and
+all that goes to make up the sum of civilization;
+and there is no more striking illustration to be found
+of the strides which our country has made in that
+direction since the century began than the introduction
+of a cheap and rapid delivery of letters, and
+the craving which it has at once satisfied and
+augmented. Nothing gives us so forcible an idea
+of the difference between the Britain of the
+present day and the Britain of the Stuart or even
+of the Georgian period, than the contrast between
+the postal communication of these times and of our
+own. The itch of writing is now so strong in us,
+we are so constantly writing or receiving letters, our
+appetite for them is so ravenous, that we wonder
+how people got on in the days when the postman
+was the exclusive messenger of the king, and when
+even majesty was so badly served that, as one old
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+postmaster<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a>
+wrote in self-exculpation of some delay,
+"when placards are sent (to order the immediate
+forwarding of some state despatches) the constables
+many times be fayne to take the horses oute of
+plowes and cartes, wherein," he gravely adds, "can
+be no extreme diligence." It was a sure sign that
+the country was going ahead when Cromwell (1656)
+found it worth while to establish posts for the people
+at large, and was able to farm out the post office for
+&pound;10,000 a year. The profits of that establishment
+were doubled by the time the Stuarts returned to
+the throne, and more than doubled again before the
+close of the seventeenth century. The country has
+kept on growing out of system after system, like a
+lad out of his clothes, and at different times has had
+new ones made to its measure. Brian Tuke's easy
+plan of borrowing farmers' horses on which to mount
+his emissaries, gave place to regular relays of post-boys
+and post-horses; and, in course of time, when
+the robbery of the mails by sturdy highwaymen had
+become almost the rule, and their safe conveyance
+the exception, post-boys were in turn supplanted by
+a system of stage-coaches, convoyed by an armed
+guard. This was thought a great advance; and so
+it was. A pushing, zealous man named Palmer
+originated the scheme. Amidst many other avocations,
+he found time to travel on the outside of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+stage-coaches, for the sake of talking with the coachmen
+and observing the routes, here, there, and everywhere
+all over England, and thus matured all the
+details of his plan from personal experience. "None
+but an enthusiast," said Sheridan in a rapture of
+admiration in the House of Commons, "could have
+conceived, none but an enthusiast could have practically
+entertained, none but an enthusiast could have
+carried out such a system."</p>
+
+<p>Still, in spite of the exactitude with which Palmer's
+scheme was declared to fit the wants of the country,
+it soon began to be grown out of like the rest. It
+became too short, too tight, too straitened every way,
+and impeded the circulation of correspondence,&mdash;no
+unimportant artery of our national system. The
+cost of postage was too high, the mode of delivery
+too slow, and the consequence was, that people
+either repressed their desire to write letters, or sent
+them through some cheaper and illegitimate channel.
+Sir Walter Scott knew a man who recollected the mail
+from London reaching Edinburgh with only a single
+letter. Of all the tens of thousands of the modern
+Babylon, only one solitary individual had got anything
+to say to anybody in the metropolis of the
+sister kingdom worth paying postage for. "We
+look back now," writes Miss Martineau, "with a
+sort of amazed compassion to the old crusading times,
+when warrior-husbands and their wives, grey-headed
+parents and their brave sons, parted with the
+know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>ledge
+that it must be months or years before they
+could hear of one another's existence. We wonder
+how they bore the depth of silence! And we feel
+the same now about the families of Polar voyagers.
+But, till a dozen years ago, it did not occur to many
+of us how like this was the fate of the largest class
+in our own country. The fact is, there was no full
+and free epistolary intercourse in the country, except
+between those who had the command of franks.
+There were few families in the wide middle class
+who did not feel the cost of postage a heavy item in
+their expenditure; and if the young people sent
+letters home only once a fortnight, the amount at
+the year's end was a rather serious matter. But it
+was the vast multitudes of the lower orders who
+suffered like the crusading families of old, and the
+geographical discoverers of all times. When once
+their families parted off from home it was a separation
+almost like that of death. The hundreds of
+thousands of apprentices, of shopmen, of governesses,
+of domestic servants, were cut off from family relations
+as if seas or deserts lay between them and
+home. If the shilling for each letter could be saved
+by the economy of weeks or months at first, the
+rarity of correspondence went on to increase the
+rarity; new interests hastened the dying out of old
+ones; and the ancient domestic affections were but
+too apt to wither away, till the wish for intercourse
+was gone. The young girl could not ease her heart
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+by pouring out her cares and difficulties to her mother
+before she slept, as she can now, when the penny
+and the sheet of paper are the only condition of the
+correspondence. The young lad felt that a letter
+home was a serious and formal matter, when it must
+cost his parents more than any indulgence they ever
+thought of for themselves; and the old fun and
+light-heartedness were dropped off from such domestic
+intercourse as there was. The effect upon the morals
+of this kind of restraint is proved beyond a doubt
+by the evidence afforded in the army. It was a
+well-known fact, that in regiments where the commanding
+officer was kind and courteous about franking
+letters for the privates, and encouraged them to
+write as often as they pleased, the soldiers were more
+sober and manly, more virtuous and domestic in
+their affections, than where difficulty was made by
+the indolence or stiffness of the franking officer."</p>
+
+<p>Under the costly postal system, the revenue of the
+post office did not, as it had hitherto done, and should
+have continued to do, keep pace with the progress
+of the country. The appetite for communication
+between distant friends or men of business was
+evidently either decaying, or finding vent in an unlawful
+way. The latter was chiefly the case. There
+were vast numbers of people separated from each
+other by long weary miles, too many to permit of
+visits, who could not resist writing to each other,&mdash;the
+doating parent to the child, the lover to his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
+mistress, the merchant to his agents, the lawyer to
+his clients. Those who could not afford postage,
+were the very class who could not get franks; for
+the principle was, that those who could best afford
+postage money should have plenty of franks, which
+were, of course, quite out of the way of poor, humble
+folks,&mdash;the fat sow had his ear well greased, the
+lean, starving one had to consume his own fat,
+like the bear, or go without. The consequence
+was, that those who were eager to write and
+could not get letters through the post, found other
+means of forwarding them to the evasion of the law.
+There was no limit to the exercise of ingenuity in
+this direction. Three or four letters were written
+on one piece of paper, to be cut up and distributed
+separately by one of the recipients; newspapers were
+turned into letters by underscoring or pricking with
+a pin the letters required to form the various words
+of the communication; some peculiarity in the style
+of address on the outside was arranged between
+correspondents, the sight of which was enough to
+indicate a message, and the letter was then rejected,
+having served its purpose; and so on, in a hundred
+other ways, fraudulent means were found of evading
+the law. Some carriers had a large and profitable
+business in smuggling letters. In many populous
+districts the number of letters conveyed by carriers
+at a penny each in an illegal way far exceeded those
+sent through the post. In Manchester, for every
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+letter that went by the postman, six went by the
+carrier; and in Glasgow the proportion was as one to
+ten. All this was notorious. The most honourable
+people saw no great harm in cheating the post to
+send a word of comfort or encouragement to an absent
+friend,&mdash;it was a vice that leaned to virtue's side. But
+it was a bad thing for the country that people should
+be driven to such devices, in obeying a natural and
+proper impulse. The man who began by smuggling
+letters, might end by smuggling tobacco or brandy; and
+the system was morally pernicious. All felt the evil,
+but remedy seemed impossible. As the urgency for
+a change grew to a head, the man came to effect it,&mdash;a
+man "of open heart, who could enter into family
+impulses; a man of philosophical ingenuity, who
+could devise a remedial scheme; a man of business,
+who could fortify such a scheme with impregnable
+accuracy"&mdash;that man was Rowland Hill.</p>
+
+<p>When quite a young man, on a pedestrian excursion
+through the lake district, Rowland Hill, passing
+a cottage door, observed the postman deliver a letter
+to a woman, and overheard her, after looking anxiously
+at the envelope, and then returning it, say she had
+no money to pay the postage. The man was about
+to put it back in his wallet and pass on, for it was an
+every-day thing for him to receive such a reply from
+the poor countryfolk, when Mr. Hill in his goodness
+of heart, out of compassion for the woman, stepped
+forward and paid the shilling, regardless of many
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+shakes of the head, and hints of remonstrance from
+her, which he interpreted as merely unwillingness to
+trespass on a stranger's bounty. As soon as the
+postman was out of sight she broke the seal, and
+showed him why she did not want him to pay for
+the letter. The sheet was a blank, and the envelope
+had served as a means of communication between
+her and her correspondent. It appeared that she
+had arranged with her brother, that as long as all
+went well with him he should send a blank sheet in
+that way once a quarter, and thus she had tidings
+of him without paying the postage.</p>
+
+<p>As he pursued his walk, Mr. Hill could not help
+meditating on the incident, which had made a deep
+impression on his mind. He could not blame the
+poor woman and her brother for the trick they had
+played upon the post office in order to correspond
+with each other; and yet he felt there must be something
+wrong in a system which put it out of their
+reach, and of others similarly circumstanced, to do
+so in a lawful manner. Every country post-master
+had a budget of touching stories of poor folk who
+were tantalized with the sight of a letter from some
+dear one, full, perhaps, of kind words and cheering
+news, or asking sympathy and condolence in misfortune,
+or transmitting money to help them in their
+straits; as well as of countless little frauds of the
+sort described, which they could not always harden
+themselves to circumvent and punish, so piteously
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
+eager did the poor souls appear to be to get word of
+their friends. And yet, in spite of all sorts of frauds,
+to people in humble life letters came like "angels'
+visits, few and far between."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hill asked himself whether there was no means
+of lessening the cost of postage, whether the government
+could not afford to charge a lower rate, or manage
+to get the work done more cheaply? Keeping his ears
+and eyes open, always on the alert to pick up a fact as
+regarded the present, or a hint for the future, examining
+the mode of carriage and delivery, the routes chosen,
+and the time occupied, Mr. Hill, after a while, arrived
+at the conviction, that the postage rates might not
+only be reduced, but that the transmission of letters
+might be more quickly performed by a remodelling
+of the system. He ascertained that the cost of mere
+transit incurred upon a letter sent from London to
+Edinburgh, a distance of 400 miles, was not more
+than a thirty-sixth part of a penny, and that, therefore,
+there was a margin, under the existing charge,
+of 11-35/36d. for extra expenses and profit. He observed
+that the twopenny posts of London and other large
+towns were found to answer very well, although
+people, being within easy distances of each other,
+did not need so much as in the country to correspond
+in writing, and that the carriers, in spite
+of the illegality of the traffic, had loads of letters to
+deliver at a penny each, and that penny paid them
+for their trouble, as well as their risk of detection.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+He therefore came to the conclusion, that what was
+wanted, and what it was quite possible to establish,
+was a uniform penny postage rate over the whole of
+the United Kingdom. He calculated that if that
+were adopted, the number of people then in the
+habit of writing letters would write a great many
+more than ever; that others, who had been precluded
+by the expense from corresponding, would
+come into the field; and that hundreds of letters
+forwarded illegally would now pass through the post,
+so that the number of letters sent by post would be
+increased fourfold, and the revenue, at first, perhaps
+a trifle curtailed, would soon mount up again.</p>
+
+<p>The post-office authorities were greatly shocked
+and disgusted at so audacious and utopian a proposal.
+But the public were greatly delighted with it, only
+doubting whether it was not too good news to be
+true. First by means of an anonymous pamphlet,
+then by direct and personal application to the
+government, Mr. Hill endeavoured to get his plans
+taken into consideration&mdash;no easy matter, for circumlocution
+officials had passed from contemptuous
+indifference to active hostility, as they gradually
+discovered how formidable an antagonist in the
+truth and accuracy of his calculations, the sincerity
+and earnestness of his purpose, they had to deal
+with. It was a great national cause Mr. Hill was
+fighting, and he was not to be put down. The
+people took his side, Parliament granted an inquiry,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+and the result was a report in favour of his scheme.
+On the 17th of August 1839&mdash;why is not the
+anniversary kept with rejoicings?&mdash;penny postage
+became the law of the land.</p>
+
+<p>During the last weeks of the year a uniform fourpenny
+rate was charged by way of accustoming
+people to the cheap system, and saving official feelings
+from the rude shock of a sudden descent from
+the respectable rate of a shilling, to the vulgar one
+of a penny. On the 10th January 1840 the penny
+system came into force. At first Mr. Hill availed
+himself of a suggestion thrown out some years before
+by Mr. Charles Knight, that the best way of collecting
+the penny postage on newspapers would be to
+have stamped covers; but subsequently stamped
+envelopes were done away with, and queen's heads
+introduced. The franking privilege, of course, died
+with the dear postage.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the adoption of the scheme, Mr. Hill
+received an appointment in the post office in order
+to superintend its working; but he had an uneasy
+berth of it. His plan was adopted only in part,&mdash;the
+postage rate was lowered, while the other compensating
+and essential features were thrown aside;
+official jealousy of reform showed itself in various
+attempts to thwart his efforts, and to fulfil its prediction
+of failure to the scheme. The consequence
+was, that the immediate results were not so satisfactory
+as could have been wished. The increase in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+the number of letters was certainly very great.
+During the last month of the old system the total
+number of letters passing through the post office was
+little more than two millions and a half, of which
+only a fifth were paid letters; while a twelvemonth
+after the introduction of the new system the total
+number of letters had risen to nearly six millions
+per month, of which the unpaid letters formed less
+than a twelfth part. Very heavy expenses, however,
+not connected with the new plan, had been incurred;
+and the consequence was, that the profits of the
+post office were only a fourth of what they had been.
+Advantage was taken of this to get Mr. Hill ousted
+from his post; but, after he had transferred his
+services for some years to the management of the
+London and Brighton Railway, the authorities were
+glad to receive him back again, to place the remodelling
+of the system in his hands, and to allow him to
+introduce the other parts of his scheme which had
+before been neglected. In this work Mr. Hill was
+busily engaged for a number of years, and most of
+his plans were gradually carried out with great advantage
+to the public. In 1846 a public testimonial
+of &pound;13,360 was presented to Mr. Hill in
+acknowledgment of his distinguished services to the
+country; and at a later date he was made a Knight
+of the Bath.</p>
+
+<p>Cheap postage has now been fairly tried, and
+must be pronounced a grand success. It has become
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+part and parcel of our national life, and has been
+found precious as the gift of a new faculty. We
+should miss the loss of cheap and rapid correspondence
+with our friends and acquaintances almost as
+much as the loss of speech or the loss of sight. The
+postman has now to find his way to the humblest,
+poorest districts, where twenty years back his knock
+was never heard; and what was once a rare luxury,
+has now come to be considered a common necessary
+of life. Instead of only seventy-six millions of
+letters passing through the post in a year, as in
+1838, the number has risen to between seven and
+eight hundred millions. On the average every individual
+in England receives twenty-eight letters
+a-year (in London the individual average is forty-six),
+in Scotland eighteen, and in Ireland nine.</p>
+
+<p>The gross revenue derived from these sources is
+over four millions; and some of the railway companies
+each make more money out of the conveyance
+of the mails in a year, than the annual revenue of
+the whole kingdom in the days of William and
+Mary.</p>
+
+<p>The moral and social effects of the cheap postage
+are incalculable. It has tended to strengthen and
+perpetuate domestic ties, to bring the most scattered
+and distant members of a family under the benign
+influences of home, and to foster feelings of friendship
+and sympathy between man and man. Upon
+the education and intelligence of the people, too, it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
+has had, concurrently with other causes, a marked
+effect. Many who looked upon the art of writing
+as only a temptation to forgery, were induced to
+take pen in hand and master the science of pot-hooks
+and hangers, for the sake of corresponding with their
+friends, and of being able to read the letters they
+received. In 1839 a third of the men and half of
+the women who were married, according to the
+registrar's returns, could not sign their own names;
+in 1857 that was the case with only a seventh of
+the men, and a fifth of the women; and not a little
+of this advanced education may be attributed to the
+impulse given by the introduction of cheap postage.</p>
+
+<p>Nor have the advantages derived from the post
+office by the great body of the public ended here.
+It has shown itself the most progressive department
+of the government, and has undertaken many
+benevolent branches of work which were never contemplated
+by Sir Rowland Hill. Thus it carries on
+an extensive savings-bank system, worked out by
+Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore, adopted by Mr. Gladstone
+when Chancellor of the Exchequer, and established
+by Act of Parliament in 1861. This valuable
+department, whose operations are now of a very
+extensive character, keeps a separate account for every
+depositor, acknowledges the receipt, and, on the
+requisite notice being furnished, sends out warrants
+authorizing post-masters to pay such sums as depositors
+may wish to withdraw. The deposits are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+handed over to the Commissioners for the reduction
+of the National Debt, and repaid to the depositors
+through the post office. The rate of interest payable
+to depositors is two and a half per cent. Each
+depositor has his savings-bank book, which is sent
+to him yearly for examination, and the increasing
+interest calculated and allowed.</p>
+
+<p>The post office now acts, too, as a life-insurance
+society, offering advantages to the operative which
+no other society can offer, and which the public are
+beginning to appreciate.</p>
+
+<p>In 1869 the entire telegraphic system of the
+United Kingdom passed into the hands of the post
+office, whose administrators have shown themselves
+anxious to offer increased facilities to the public for
+the transaction of business. The number of telegraphic
+stations has been greatly increased, and the
+rate reduced at which messages are flashed from one
+part of the island to the other.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, a recent innovation, made entirely in the
+interest of the public weal, is the introduction of
+<i>Halfpenny Post Cards</i>. On one side of these
+missives the sender writes the name and address of
+his correspondent; on the other, the communication
+intended for him. The card already bears a halfpenny
+stamp impressed, and nothing more remains
+to be done but to deposit it in the nearest office or
+pillar-post. We think, then, it may fairly be said
+that the post office has shown itself anxious to "keep
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+abreast" with the ever-increasing wants of the commercial
+classes of Great Britain.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>While these pages are passing through the press,
+the following particulars, apparently issued under
+official direction, have attracted our attention. We
+append them here, as they cannot fail to interest the
+reader:&mdash;"It appears that there are in the United
+Kingdom 6 miles 712 yards of <i>pneumatic tubes</i> in
+connection with the postal telegraphic system
+(1871). Of these, 4 miles 638 yards exist in
+London, and 2 miles 74 yards in the provinces&mdash;the
+latter being confined to Liverpool, Manchester,
+Birmingham, and Glasgow. Of the total length of
+tubes now existing, only 2 miles 1324 yards
+existed prior to the transfer of the telegraphs to the
+post office; so that no less than 3 miles 1148 yards
+have been laid since that date; or, in other words,
+the system has been considerably more than doubled
+in less than a year. The total length of new tubes
+ordered and in progress exceeds 3 miles, and when
+these are completed, the system will be nearly 10
+miles in length. All of the tubes in the provinces,
+and all but two of those in London, are worked on
+Clark's system. The two which form an exception
+are those between Telegraph Street and St. Martin's-le-Grand,
+which are worked on Siemens' system.
+The former are made of lead, with a diameter varying
+from 1-1/4 to 2-1/4 inches&mdash;the more frequent size
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+being 1-1/2 inches. The latter are made of iron, and
+have a diameter of 3 inches. The idea of iron tubes
+worked on Siemens' principle is derived, we believe,
+from Berlin, where the system is entirely of this
+description; and of the new tubes in progress, that
+from St. Martin's-le-Grand to Temple Bar will be
+of this kind. All of the tubes now in existence are
+worked in both directions by means of alternate
+pressure and vacuum; the motive power, in the
+shape of a steam-engine, being stationed at the
+central office, with which the out-stations have communication
+by this means. It is interesting to note
+the difference of time occupied by the different tubes
+in London in passing the "carriers" through from
+one end to the other&mdash;the speed being governed by
+the length and diameter of the tube, and by the
+circumstance whether it is carried in a straight line,
+or has to encounter sharp curves and bends on its
+way. The great advantage of this means of communication,
+for short distance, over the electric is,
+that the tubes are not liable to sudden blocks of
+work as the wires are, and that a dozen or more
+messages may be sent through, at one blow, if desired.
+For local telegraphs in great towns the
+pneumatic system is invaluable, and is certain to be
+greatly extended under the postal administration.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a>
+Brian Tuke, master of the post to King Henry VIII.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<a name="The_Overland_Route" id="The_Overland_Route"></a>
+<img src="images/title-p297.png" alt="The Overland Route." title="" /></h2>
+
+<ul class="chapterTOC">
+  <li>LIEUTENANT WAGHORN.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></div>
+<h2 class="primary">
+<img src="images/title-p299.png" alt="The Overland Route." title="" /></h2>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h2><a name="LIEUTENANT_WAGHORN" id="LIEUTENANT_WAGHORN"></a>LIEUTENANT WAGHORN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Worthy to stand on a par with, or at lowest, in the
+very next rank to, the men who originate great inventions,
+are those whose foresight and energy discover
+the means of extending their utility; and in shortening
+the journey between Europe and India, by the establishment
+of the overland route, Lieutenant Waghorn
+practically achieved as great a triumph over time and
+space, as if he had invented a machine for the purpose
+that would have traversed the old route in the
+same time.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1827 that Thomas Waghorn first promulgated
+the idea of steam communication between
+our Eastern possessions and the mother country. He
+was then twenty-seven years of age, and had just
+returned to Calcutta from rough and arduous service
+in the Arracan war. When a midshipman of barely
+seventeen, he had passed the "navigation" examination
+for lieutenant,&mdash;the youngest, it appears, who
+ever did so; but although, consequently, eligible for
+that rank, he had never reached it up to this time,
+in spite of the distinction he had acquired in various
+actions. His health had been so much shattered by
+a fever caught in Arracan, that he had to return to
+England; but he did not leave Calcutta without
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>
+communicating his design to the government there,
+and obtaining a letter of credence from Lord Combermere
+(then vice-president in council) to the East
+India Company, recommending him, in consequence
+of his meritorious conduct in the recent war, "as a
+fit and proper person to open steam navigation with
+India, <i>via</i> the Cape of Good Hope."</p>
+
+<p>The idea, however, was just then in advance of the
+time, and all Waghorn's agitation in its favour
+proved of no avail. In the meantime, the idea of
+saving the time spent in "doubling the Cape," by
+means of a route through the Mediterranean, across
+the Isthmus of Suez, and down the Red Sea, had
+occurred to him; and in 1829 he procured a commission
+from the East India Directory to report on
+the probability of Red Sea navigation, and at the
+same time to convey certain despatches to Sir John
+Malcolm, Governor of Bombay.</p>
+
+<p>He got notice of this mission on the 24th October,
+and was desired to be at Suez by the 8th December,
+in order to catch the steamer <i>Enterprise</i>, and proceed
+in her to India. He took only four days to
+make ready for the journey, and on the 28th left
+London on the top of the <i>Eagle</i> stage-coach from
+Gracechurch Street. Circumstances were anything but
+propitious all through this expedition of his; and yet
+he defied and disregarded them all. Bridges broke
+down at central points, falling avalanches had to be
+kept clear of, an accident disabled the steamer, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
+he had to go some hundred and thirty miles out of
+his way in consequence. In spite of all that, he
+dashed through five kingdoms, and reached Trieste in
+nine days, or little more than half the time occupied
+by the post-office mails on the same journey. Impatient
+of delay, he learned that an Austrian brig had
+left for Alexandria the night before, but the breeze
+had fallen, and she was still to be caught a glimpse
+of from the hill-tops. A fresh posting carriage was
+got out, and off he went in chase of the vessel,
+hoping to make up to her at Pesano, twenty miles
+down the Gulf of Venice. The calm still prevailed;
+and as he went dashing along he could catch sight, now
+and then, as the carriage passed some open part of
+the road and disclosed the sea, of the brig creeping
+lazily along. Every hour he gained on her; instead of
+a dull, black speck upon the horizon, he began to
+make out her hull, her sails, and rigging. He urged
+the post-boys with redoubled vehemence&mdash;kept them
+going at a furious pace. He was within three miles
+of the vessel&mdash;it was crawling, he was flying&mdash;another
+half hour would see him safe on board, and then
+heigh for India. But stay, surely that was the wind
+among the trees; could the breeze have risen? It
+had indeed. A strong northerly wind sprang up;
+gradually the sails of the brig swelled out before it,
+and poor Waghorn, with his panting, jaded horses,
+was left far behind. The chase was hopeless now&mdash;so
+he went back mournfully to Trieste&mdash;"exhausted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+in body with fatigue, and racked by disappointment
+after the previous excitement."</p>
+
+<p>The next ship, a Spanish one, was not to sail for
+three days. That was more than Waghorn could
+endure; he went to the captain, urged him, bribed
+him with fifty dollars to make it two days, instead
+of three, and succeeded. In eight and forty hours
+he was somewhat consoled for his former discouragement,
+to find himself at length at sea. In sixteen
+days he was at Alexandria, and after a rest of only
+five hours there, hired donkeys and was off to
+Rosetta. The donkeys were in the conspiracy
+against him, as well as the wind and the avalanches.
+The first day they trotted and walked
+along as brisk as may be, and our indefatigable
+traveller worked them well. It is well known
+that the donkey of the east is a paragon of wisdom,
+compared with his dunce of a brother in Europe;
+and upon a night's reflection, Mr. Waghorn's donkeys
+seem to have clearly perceived that he had no notion
+of easy stages, and was bent on keeping them going
+as fast as he could, and as long as daylight suffered.
+So the second day they managed to stumble, and limp,
+and fall down intentionally four or five times, and to
+put on a pitiful affectation of fatigue and weariness,&mdash;a
+common dodge, the drivers said, of those knowing
+animals.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately he was soon able to dispense with the
+deceitful donkeys; and embarking on the Nile, under
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>took
+to navigate the boat himself, in order to take
+soundings and make observations in regard to the
+route. After brief repose at Rosetta, he set out for
+Cairo on a <i>cang&eacute;</i>, a sort of boat of fifteen tons burthen,
+with two large latteen sails. The captain undertook
+to land him at Cairo in three days and four
+nights; but the boat went aground on a shoal, and
+after tacking for five days and nights, Waghorn lost
+all patience, and proceeded to his destination upon
+donkeys. He crossed the desert from Cairo to Suez
+in four days, on two of which he travelled seventy-four
+miles. He was thus able to keep his appointment
+and be at Suez by the 8th December, but there
+was no sign of the steamer. The wind was blowing
+right in her teeth; so after waiting two days, with
+feverish impatience, Mr. Waghorn determined to sail
+down the centre of the Red Sea, in an open boat, in
+the hope of meeting the steamer somewhere above
+Cossier. All the seamen of the locality held up
+their hands at the proposal of the mad Englishman,
+and tried to dissuade him. It was the opinion, he
+knew, of nautical authorities at the time, that the
+Red Sea was not navigable. But he could not rest
+quiet at Suez; he had important despatches to
+deliver; he was commissioned to inquire into the
+navigability of these waters; and out he would go in
+an open boat, let folk say what they would, and so
+he did.</p>
+
+<p>"He embarked," says the narrator of his "Life
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+and Labours," in <i>Household Words</i>,<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> "in an open
+boat, and without having any personal knowledge of
+the navigation of this sea, without chart, without
+compass, or even the encouragement of a single precedent
+for such an enterprise&mdash;his only guide the
+sun by day, and the north star by night&mdash;he sailed
+down the centre of the Red Sea. Of this most interesting
+and unprecedented voyage Mr. Waghorn
+gives no detailed account. All intermediate things
+are abruptly cut off with these very characteristic
+words: '<i>Suffice it</i> to say, <i>I arrived</i> at Juddah,
+620 miles in six and a half days, in that boat!' You
+get nothing more than the sum total. He kept a
+sailor's log-journal; but it is only meant for sailors
+to read, though now and then you obtain a glimpse
+of the sort of work he went through. Thus:
+'<i>Sunday, 13th</i>&mdash;Strong, N.W. wind, half a gale,
+but scudding under storm-sail. Sunset, anchored
+for the night. Jaffateen Islands out of sight to the
+N. Lost two anchors during the night,' &amp;c. The
+rest is equally nautical and technical. In one of the
+many scattered papers collected since the death of
+Mr. Waghorn, we find a very slight passing allusion
+to toils, perils, and privations, which, however, he
+calmly says, were 'inseparable from such a voyage
+under such circumstances,'&mdash;but not one touch of
+description from first to last. A more extraordinary
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+instance of great practical experience and knowledge,
+resolutely and fully carrying out a project which
+must of necessity have appeared little short of madness
+to almost everybody else, was never recorded.
+He was perfectly successful, so far as the navigation
+was concerned, and in the course he adopted, notwithstanding
+that his crew of six Arabs mutinied.
+It appears (for he tells us only the bare fact) they
+were only subdued on the principle known to philosophers
+in theory, and to high-couraged men, accustomed
+to command, by experience,&mdash;namely, that
+the one man who is braver, stronger, and firmer than
+any individual of ten or twenty men, is more than a
+match for the ten or twenty put together. He
+touched at Cossier on the 14th, not having fallen in
+with the <i>Enterprise</i>. There he was told by the
+governor that the steamer was expected every hour.
+Mr. Waghorn was in no state of mind to wait very
+long; so, finding she did not arrive, he again put to
+sea in his open boat, resolved, if he did not fall in
+with her, to proceed the entire distance to Juddah&mdash;a
+distance of 400 miles further. Of this further
+voyage he does not leave any record, even in his log,
+beyond the simple declaration that he 'embarked
+for Juddah&mdash;ran the distance in three days and
+twenty-one hours and a quarter&mdash;and on the 23d
+anchored his boat close to one of the East India
+Company's cruisers, the <i>Benares</i>.' But now comes
+the most trying part of his whole
+undertaking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>&mdash;the
+part which a man of his vigorously constituted
+impulses was least able to bear as the climax of his
+prolonged and arduous efforts, privations, anxieties,
+and fatigue. Repairing on board the <i>Benares</i> to
+learn the news, the captain informed him that, in
+consequence of being found in a defective state on
+her arrival at Bombay, 'the <i>Enterprise</i> was not
+coming at all.' This intelligence seems to have
+felled him like a blow, and he was immediately
+seized with a delirious fever. The captain and
+officers of the <i>Benares</i> felt great sympathy and interest
+in this sad result of so many extraordinary
+efforts, and detaining him on board, bestowed every
+attention on his malady."</p>
+
+<p>It was six weeks before he could proceed by
+sailing vessel to Bombay, where he arrived on the
+21st March, having, in spite of all the drawbacks in
+his way, accomplished the journey in four months and
+twenty-one days&mdash;quite an extraordinary rapidity
+at that time. Had he escaped the fever at Juddah,
+and fallen in with the <i>Enterprise</i> at the right time,
+nearly two months might have been saved.</p>
+
+<p>He had proved the practicability of the overland
+route, and he now devoted himself to its establishment.
+In an address to the Home Government and
+the East India Company, he thus expresses his
+views:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of myself, I trust I may be excused when I say,
+that the highest object of my ambition has ever
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+been an extensive usefulness; and my line of life&mdash;my
+turn of mind&mdash;my disposition, long ago impelled
+me to give all my leisure, and all my opportunities
+of observation, to the introduction of steam-vessels,
+and permanently establishing them as the means of
+communication between India and England including
+all the colonies on the route. The vast importance
+of three months' earlier information to his Majesty's
+government, and to the Honourable Company,&mdash;whether
+relative to a war or a peace&mdash;to abundant
+or to short crops&mdash;to the sickness or convalescence
+of a colony or district, and oftentimes even of an
+individual; the advantages to the merchant, by enabling
+him to regulate his supplies and orders
+according to circumstances and demands; the
+anxieties of the thousands of my countrymen in
+India for accounts, and further accounts, of their parents,
+children, and friends at home; the corresponding
+anxieties of those relatives and friends in this
+country;&mdash;in a word, the speediest possible transit of
+letters to the tens of thousands who at all times in
+solicitude await them, was, to my mind, a service of
+the greatest general importance; and it shall not be
+my fault if I do not, and for ever establish it."</p>
+
+<p>The scheme which he thus resolutely and enthusiastically
+declared his adoption of, he lived to carry
+out, but at the cost of years of weary advocacy,
+agitation for help, desperate attempts on his own
+account, or in conjunction with a few enterprising
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+associates, in the teeth of constant discouragement,
+official indifference, jealousy, and disguised hostility.
+The East India Company told him there was no
+need of steam navigation to the East at all, ordered
+him to mind his own business and return to field
+service, circulated reports of his insanity through
+their agents in Egypt when Waghorn went there to
+enlist the Pasha in his cause. The overland route,
+however, was no theory, but an undoubted fact.
+Waghorn never for a moment relaxed his grasp of it,
+or doubted its value; and in the end, after unheard
+of difficulties, disappointments, and opposition, into
+the long, painful story of which we need not enter,
+succeeded in establishing the overland route. When
+he left Egypt in 1841, he had provided English
+carriages, vans, and horses, for the conveyance of
+passengers across the desert, placed small steamers on
+the Nile and Alexandrian Canal, and built the eight
+halting-places on the desert between Cairo and
+Suez. He also set up the three hotels in the same
+quarter "in which every comfort, and even some
+luxuries, were provided and stored for the passing
+traveller,&mdash;among which should be mentioned iron
+tanks with good water, ranged in cellars beneath;&mdash;and
+all this in a region which was previously a
+waste of arid sands and scorching gravel, beset with
+wandering robbers and their camels. These wandering
+robbers he converted into faithful guides, as they
+are now found to be by every traveller; and even
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>
+ladies with their infants are enabled to cross and re-cross
+the desert with as much security as if they
+were in Europe."</p>
+
+<p>In acknowledgment of his services, Mr. Waghorn
+received the rank of lieutenant in the Royal Navy,
+a grant of &pound;1500, and an annuity of &pound;200 a-year
+from Government, and another annuity of &pound;200 from
+the East India Company; but he did not live long
+to enjoy his well-earned rewards. The care, and
+anxiety, and fatigue he had undergone had shattered
+his constitution. Through some misunderstanding
+or mismanagement on the part of the East India
+Company, rivals were allowed to step in and carry
+off the chief profits of the overland system, and his
+last years were embittered by various disputes with
+the authorities. He died in the end of 1849, by
+years only in the prime of life; but old, and worn
+by his labours before his time. Such was the
+career of the "pioneer of the Overland Route."</p>
+
+<p>But in connection with England's route to India,
+the name of Monsieur de Lesseps must never be forgotten,
+nor the great enterprise which, at so much
+cost, and in spite of so many obstacles, he successfully
+carried out&mdash;the Suez Canal. When he first
+projected it he met with most of the obstacles which
+are thrown in the way of great inventions. England,
+jealous of a scheme which seemed likely to throw
+into the hands of a foreign power the nearest route
+to her beloved India, stood sullenly aloof, and refused
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+to contribute moral or pecuniary support; while
+some of the most eminent English and foreign
+engineers openly declared that it could never be
+carried out. M. de Lesseps, however, was one of
+those men who, when they have seized a great idea,
+can never be thrown off it. It had taken full possession
+of his imagination, judgment, and intellect!
+he felt that it <i>could</i>, and he determined that it
+<i>should</i> be realized. He conquered every difficulty:
+he raised funds; he secured the support of his own
+government; and in 1856 he obtained from the
+Pasha of Egypt the exclusive privilege of constructing
+a ship-canal from Tyneh, near the ruins of the
+ancient Pelusium, to Suez.</p>
+
+<p>M. de Lesseps determined that his canal should be
+cut in a straight line, with an average width of
+330 feet, and at an uniform depth of 20 feet under
+low-water mark, while at each end was to be constructed
+a sluice-lock, 330 feet long by 70 wide.
+Further, at each end he proposed to execute a magnificent
+harbour; that at the Mediterranean end was
+to be extended five miles into the sea, so as to
+obtain a permanent depth of water for a ship drawing
+twenty-three feet, on account of the enormous
+quantity of mud annually silted up by the Nile;
+that at the Red Sea end was to be three miles long.</p>
+
+<p>In 1865 the great canal was begun. The
+Mediterranean entrance is at Port Said, about the
+middle of the narrow neck of land between Lake
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>
+Menzaleh and the sea, in the eastern part of the
+Delta. Thence it is carried for about twenty miles
+across Menzaleh Lake, being 112 yards wide at the
+surface, 26 yards at the bottom, and 26 feet deep.
+On each side an artificial bank rises some 15 feet
+high. The distance thence to Abu Ballah Lake is
+11 miles, through ground which varies from 15 to
+30 feet above the level of the sea. This lake being
+traversed, there is land again&mdash;a troublesome and
+shifty soil&mdash;to Timsah Lake, the canal being cut at
+a depth below the sea-level of 50 to 100 feet. On
+the shore of Timsah Lake has risen a new and busy
+town, the central point of the canal, and named
+Ismailia, in honour of the present Pasha of Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>A space of eight miles intervenes between the
+Timsah Lake and the Bitter Lakes, and in this
+space the cuttings are very deep and difficult. The
+soil being almost purely sand, the constant labour
+of powerful dredging machines is constantly required,
+to prevent the channel from filling up. The deepest
+cutting occurs at El Guisr, or Girsch, and is no less
+than 85 feet below the surface: at the water-level
+it is 112 yards wide, at the summit-level 173 yards.
+In traversing the Bitter Lakes the course of the canal
+is marked by embankments. From the southern
+end of these lakes to Suez, a distance of about thirteen
+miles, the cuttings are heavy and deep.</p>
+
+<p>After many discouraging failures, M. de Lesseps'
+great work was completed last year, and the formal
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+opening of the canal took place in the presence of
+the Prince and Princess of Wales, and a goodly
+number of princes, potentates, and distinguished
+personages. It is now open to navigation from end
+to end, and ships of considerable tonnage have successfully
+accomplished the passage. Whether the
+canal is a <i>commercial</i> success may still be doubted.
+The cost of further deepening and enlarging it, and
+of maintaining its banks and harbours, amounts to a
+sum which, as yet, the traffic charges are not at all
+likely to defray. But, in an engineering sense, the
+Suez Canal is one of the wonders of this wonderful
+nineteenth century.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/footer-312.png" width="150" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a>
+August 17, 1850.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+
+<div class="ads">
+<h3>
+<img src="images/title-ads1.png" alt="Beautifully Illustrated Works." title="" /></h3>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">EARTH AND SEA. From the French of <span class="smcap">Louis Figuier</span>.
+Translated, Edited, and Enlarged by <span class="smcap">W. H. Davenport Adams</span>, Illustrated
+with Two Hundred and Fifty Engravings by <span class="smcap">Freeman, Giacomelli,
+Yan D'Argent, Prior, Foulquier, Riou, Laplante</span>, and other Artists.
+Imperial 8vo. Handsomely bound in cloth and gold. Price 15s.</p>
+
+<p>This volume is founded upon M. Figuier's "<i>La Terre et Les Mers</i>," but so
+many additions have been made to the original, and its aim and scope have been
+so largely extended, that it may almost be called a new work. These additions
+and this extension were deemed necessary by the Editor, in order to render it
+more suitable for the British public, and in order to bring it up to the standard
+of geographical knowledge.</p>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">THE DESERT WORLD. From the French of <span class="smcap">Arthur Mangin</span>.
+Translated, Edited, and Enlarged by the Translator of "The Bird," by
+Michelet. With One Hundred and Sixty Illustrations by <span class="smcap">W. Freeman, Foulquier</span>,
+and <span class="smcap">Yan D'Argent</span>. Imperial 8vo, full gilt side and gilt edges.
+Price 12s. 6d.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Saturday Review.</span>&mdash;"<i>The illustrations are numerous, and extremely well
+cut. Two handsomer and more readable volumes than this and 'The Mysteries of
+the Ocean' it would be difficult to produce.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">THE MYSTERIES OF THE OCEAN. From the French of
+<span class="smcap">Arthur Mangin</span>. By the Translator of "The Bird." With One Hundred
+and Thirty Illustrations by <span class="smcap">W. Freeman</span> and <span class="smcap">J. Noel</span>. Imperial 8vo,
+full gilt side and gilt edges. Price 10s. 6d.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Pall Mall Gazette.</span>&mdash;"<i>Science walks to-day in her silver slippers. We have
+here another sumptuously produced popular manual from France. It is an account,
+complete in extent and tolerably full in detail, of the Sea. It is eminently
+readable.... The illustrations are altogether excellent; and the production of
+such a book proves at least that there are very many persons who can be calculated
+on for desiring to know something of physical science.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">THE BIRD. By <span class="smcap">Jules Michelet</span>, Author of "History of France,"
+&amp;c. Illustrated by Two Hundred and Ten Exquisite Engravings by
+<span class="smcap">Giacomelli</span>. Imperial 8vo, full gilt side and gilt edges. Price 10s. 6d.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Westminster Review.</span>&mdash;"<i>This work consists of an exposition of various
+ornithological matters from points of view which could hardly be thought of, except
+by a writer of Michelet's peculiar genius. With his argument in favour of
+the preservation of our small birds we heartily concur. The translation seems
+to be generally well executed; and in the matter of paper and printing, the book
+is almost an </i>ouvrage de luxe.<i> The illustrations are generally very beautiful.</i>"</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Art Journal.</span>&mdash;"<i>It is a charming book to read, and a most valuable
+volume to think over.... It was a wise, and we cannot doubt it will be a profitable,
+duty to publish it here, where it must take a place second only to that it occupies
+in the language in which it was written.... Certainly natural history
+has never, in our opinion, been more exquisitely illustrated by wood-engraving
+than in the whole of these designs by M. Giacomelli, who has treated the subject
+with rare delicacy of pencil and the most charming poetical feeling&mdash;a feeling perfectly
+in harmony with the written descriptions of M. Michelet himself.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="cb" />
+
+<h3>THE "SCH&Ouml;NBERG-COTTA" SERIES OF BOOKS.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><i>In Cloth Binding, 6s. 6d. each; in Morocco, 12s. each.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">CHRONICLES OF THE SCH&Ouml;NBERG-COTTA FAMILY.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">The Times.</span>&mdash;"<i>We are confident that most women will read it with keen
+pleasure, and that those men who take it up will not easily lay it down without
+confessing that they have gained some pure and ennobling thoughts from the
+perusal.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN: A Story of the
+Times of Whitefield and the Wesleys.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Glasgow Citizen.</span>&mdash;"<i>The various characters are well discriminated, and the
+story flows on naturally and pleasantly to the end.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS: A Story of the
+Civil Wars.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Daily Review.</span>&mdash;"<i>It is the most interesting of all the authoress' productions.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA: A Story of the Commonwealth
+and the Restoration.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Athen&aelig;um.</span>&mdash;"<i>A good deal of ingenuity has been employed for the purpose of
+grouping together many of the well-known characters of that day; and in spite
+of the general gravity of the narrative, there is evidence of a considerable sense of
+quiet humour both in the characters and in the language employed.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Eclectic.</span>&mdash;"<i>Very acceptable to many thousands, and only needing to be mentioned
+to be sought for and read.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN AND THE LIBERATORS OF
+HOLLAND; or, The Story of the Sisters Dolores and Costanza Cazalla.</p>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">SKETCHES OF CHRISTIAN LIFE IN ENGLAND IN THE
+OLDEN TIME.</p>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">DIARY OF BROTHER BARTHOLOMEW, WITH OTHER
+TALES AND SKETCHES OF CHRISTIAN LIFE IN DIFFERENT
+LANDS AND AGES.</p>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">WANDERINGS OVER BIBLE LANDS AND SEAS. With a
+Photograph, and other Illustrations.</p>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">WATCHWORDS FOR THE WARFARE OF LIFE (From the
+Writings of Luther). Translated and Arranged by the Author of "The
+Sch&ouml;nberg-Cotta Family."</p>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">POEMS. By the Author of "Chronicles of the Sch&ouml;nberg-Cotta
+Family." <span class="smcap">Contents</span>:&mdash;The Women of the Gospels&mdash;The Three Wakings&mdash;Songs
+and Hymns&mdash;Memorial Verses. Crown 8vo, gilt edges.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h3>VALUABLE WORKS.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="center">BY THE REV. J. C. RYLE, B.A.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE LAST CENTURY;
+or, England a Hundred Years Ago. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">J. C. Ryle</span>, B.A., Christ
+Church, Oxford, Author of "Expository Thoughts," &amp;c. Crown 8vo, cloth.
+Price 7s. 6d.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Pall Mall Gazette.</span>&mdash;"<i>Mr. Ryle has evidently a complete acquaintance
+with his subject, such as a mere critical historian would never be likely to acquire;
+and we believe there is no book existing which contains nearly the same amount
+of information upon it.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="center">BY THE REV. WILLIAM ARNOT.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">LAWS FROM HEAVEN FOR LIFE ON EARTH&mdash;<span class="smcap">Illustrations
+of the Book of Proverbs</span>. New Edition. Complete in One
+Volume. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 7s. 6d.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Family Treasury.</span>&mdash;"<i>A noble volume by one of the freshest and most vigorous
+writers of the present day."</i></p></div>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. Crown 8vo, cloth antique.
+Price 7s. 6d.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Rev. James Hamilton, D.D.</span>&mdash;"<i>The best family book on the Parables.</i>"</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Spurgeon.</span>&mdash;"<i>Mr. Arnot is the fittest man living to expound the Parables, for
+he is himself a great master of metaphorical teaching. In the valuable work before
+us there is, as is usual with the author, much striking originality, and much
+unparaded learning. The first will make it popular, the second will commend
+it to the thoughtful. Many writers have done well upon this subject, but in
+some respects, as far as space would permit him, our friend excels them all.
+'The Parables' will be a fit companion to 'The Proverbs,' and both books will be
+immortal.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="center">BY THE REV. A. A. HODGE, D.D.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">OUTLINES OF THEOLOGY. Edited by the Rev. <span class="smcap">W. H.
+Goold</span>, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church History, Edinburgh.
+Crown 8vo. Price 6s. 6d.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Spurgeon.</span>&mdash;"<i>We can best show our appreciation of this able Body of Divinity
+by mentioning that we have used it in our college with much satisfaction both to
+tutor and students. We intend to make it a class-book, and urge all young men
+who are anxious to become good theologians to master it thoroughly. Of course
+we do not endorse the chapter on baptism. To a few of the Doctor's opinions in
+other parts we might object, but as a Hand-book of Theology, in our judgment, it
+is like Goliath's sword&mdash;'there is none like it.'</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE ATONEMENT. Edited by the Rev. W. H. Goold, D.D.,
+Crown 8vo. Price 5s.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Extract from Letter by the Author to the Editor of this Edition.</span>&mdash;"<i>This
+work has been written with a view to meet the rationalistic speculations of
+the present day as to the nature of sin, the extent of human depravity and moral
+ability, the nature of our connection with Adam, the nature and extent of the
+Atonement, &amp;c. &amp;c. So much has been written that is positively false, or fatally
+defective, by Maurice, Jowett, Bushnell, and others, that it appeared high time
+that those who love the truth should rouse themselves to do what they can to defend
+and exalt it.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="center">BY THE REV. ISLAY BURNS, D.D.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST: With a Special
+View to the Delineation of Christian Faith and Life. With Notes, Chronological
+Tables, Lists of Councils, Examination Questions, and other Illustrative
+Matter. (From <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1 to <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 313.) Crown 8vo, cloth antique. Price 5s.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h3>
+<img src="images/title-ads2.png" alt="Beautifully Illustrated Books for the Young." title="" /></h3>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON; or, Adventures of a Shipwrecked
+Family on a Desolate Island. A New and Unabridged Translation.
+With an Introduction from the French of <span class="smcap">Charles Nodier</span>. Illustrated
+with upwards of Three Hundred Engravings. Crown 8vo, cloth extra. Price 6s.</p>
+
+<p>This is a new and <i>unabridged translation</i> of a work which has acquired a
+great and well-merited popularity from its happy combination of instruction
+and amusement, of the interest of romance with the discoveries of science.</p>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">PAUL AND VIRGINIA. From the French of <span class="smcap">Bernardin de
+Saint-Pierre</span>. An Entirely New Translation, with Botanical Notes, and
+upwards of Ninety Engravings. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 4s.</p>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">THE WORLD AT HOME: Pictures and Scenes from Far-off
+Lands. By <span class="smcap">Mary</span> and <span class="smcap">Elizabeth Kirby</span>. With upwards of One Hundred
+and Thirty Illustrations. Square 8vo. Cloth, richly gilt. Price 6s.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">The Times.</span>&mdash;"<i>An admirable collection of adventures and incidents in foreign
+lands, gleaned largely from foreign sources, and excellently illustrated.</i>"</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">British Quarterly Review.</span>&mdash;"<i>A very charming book; one of the best
+popular wonder-books for young people that we have seen. In language of singular
+simplicity, and with a very profuse use of very effective woodcuts, the distinctive
+features of far-off lands&mdash;their natural history, the manners and customs of
+their inhabitants, their physical phenomena, &amp;c.&mdash;are brought home to the fireside
+in a way to entrance alike the children of five or six years old, and the older
+folk who instruct them. No better book has appeared this season.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="center">BOOK FOR BOYS&mdash;ILLUSTRATED BY GUSTAVE DOR&Eacute;.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">GEOFFREY THE KNIGHT. A Tale of Chivalry of the Days
+of King Arthur. With Twenty Full-page Engravings by <span class="smcap">Gustave Dor&eacute;</span>.
+Post 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 4s.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">The Scotsman.</span>&mdash;"<i>'Geoffrey the Knight' appears now in perhaps the most
+attractive form it has yet assumed. Printed in the best style, it is still further
+enriched by a number of admirable engravings by Gustave Dor&eacute;, illustrating all
+the most thrilling adventures related.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">CATS AND DOGS; or, Notes and Anecdotes of Two Great
+Families of the Animal Kingdom. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Hugh Miller</span>. New Edition.
+With upwards of Forty Engravings. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges. Price
+3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">The Times.</span>&mdash;"<i>A full and well-written account of both the feline and the
+canine species. It is filled with spirited engravings, many of which, giving pictures
+of tiger and lion hunting, will have special attractions for the Gordon
+Cummings and Gerrards and Livingstones of the future, who are now in our
+school-rooms.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="center">NEW GIFT-BOOK FOR BOYS.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE PLAYGROUND AND THE PARLOUR. A Hand-Book
+of Boys' Games, Sports, and Amusements. By <span class="smcap">Alfred Elliott</span>. With
+One Hundred Illustrations. Post 8vo. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Illustrated Times.</span>&mdash;"<i>We have not for some time seen any Book of Sports
+better got up or more carefully compiled than this.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h3>BOOKS FOR BOYS.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">THE FOREST, THE JUNGLE, AND THE PRAIRIE; or,
+Scenes with the Trapper and the Hunter in Many Lands. By <span class="smcap">Alfred
+Elliott</span>. With Thirty Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 5s.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Daily News.</span>&mdash;"<i>An excellent volume, in which lessons in zoology are communicated
+whilst the reader accompanies the hunter in the jungles of India, the
+lairs of Africa, the prairies of America, and the plains of Ceylon.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="center">BY R. M. BALLANTYNE.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>New and Cheaper Editions.</i></p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE YOUNG FUR-TRADERS: A Tale of the Far North. With
+Illustrations. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">UNGAVA: A Tale of Esquimaux Land. With Illustrations.
+Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE CORAL ISLAND: A Tale of the Pacific. With Illustrations.
+Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">MARTIN RATTLER; or, A Boy's Adventures in the Forests of
+Brazil. With Illustrations. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE DOG CRUSOE AND HIS MASTER: A Tale of the
+Western Prairies. With Illustrations. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE GORILLA HUNTERS: A Tale of Western Africa. With
+Illustrations. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE WORLD OF ICE; or, Adventures in the Polar Regions.
+With Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">BY J. H. FYFE.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">MERCHANT ENTERPRISE; or, the History of Commerce
+from the Earliest Times. Caravans of Old&mdash;The Ph&oelig;nicians&mdash;Marts of
+the Mediterranean, &amp;c. With Eight Illustrations from designs by <span class="smcap">Clark
+Stanton</span>, Esq., R.S.A. Post 8vo, cloth extra. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">BRITISH ENTERPRISE BEYOND THE SEAS; or, The
+Planting of our Colonies. Illustrated. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND DISCOVERY. Illustrated.
+Post 8vo, cloth extra. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">BY W. H. G. KINGSTON.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>New Editions, Illustrated.</i></p>
+
+<p class="adscap">ROUND THE WORLD: A Tale for Boys. With Fifty-two
+Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth extra. Price 5s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">OLD JACK: A Sea Tale. With Sixty Engravings. Post 8vo,
+cloth extra. Price 5s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">MY FIRST VOYAGE TO SOUTHERN SEAS. With Forty-two
+Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth extra. Price 5s.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h3>BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Art Journal.</span>&mdash;"<i>Among
+the best Publishers of Books for the Young
+we must rank the names of the Messrs. Nelson.</i>"</p>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">AFAR IN THE FOREST; or, Pictures of Life and Scenery in
+the Wilds of Canada. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Traill</span>, Author of the "Canadian
+Crusoes," &amp;c. Illustrated. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">FAITHFUL AND TRUE; or, The Evans Family. By the
+Author of "Tony Starr's Legacy," &amp;c. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THINGS IN THE FOREST. By <span class="smcap">Mary and Elizabeth Kirby</span>. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE HISTORY OF A PIN. By F. M. S. Illustrated. Foolscap
+8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">OLD ROBIN AND HIS PROVERB. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Henry F. Brock</span>.
+Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">TRUTH IS ALWAYS BEST; or, A Fault Confessed is Half
+Redressed. By <span class="smcap">Mary and Elizabeth Kirby</span>. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">TRUTHS AND FANCIES FROM FAIRY LAND; or Fairy
+Stories with a Purpose. With Four Steel Plates. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">SCENES OF THE OLDEN TIME. By the Author of "Records
+of Noble Lives," "The Boy Makes the Man," &amp;c. With Four Steel Plates.
+Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">ALICE STANLEY, and other Stories. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">S. C. Hall</span>.
+With Four Steel Engravings. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE PLAYFELLOW, and other Stories. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">S. C. Hall</span>.
+With Four Steel Engravings. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE WAY OF THE WORLD, and other Tales. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">S. C. Hall</span>. With Four
+Steel Engravings. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">STORIES FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">James Wood</span>. With Four Steel
+Plates. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>New Illustrated Edition.</i></p>
+
+<p class="adscap">PAUL AND VIRGINIA. With Seventy Cuts. Royal 32mo,
+cloth, gilt edges. Price 1s.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h3>BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="adscap">ISABEL'S SECRET; or, A Sister's Love. By the Author of
+"The Story of a Happy Little Girl." Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">ANNA LEE: The Maiden&mdash;The Wife&mdash;The Mother.
+By <span class="smcap">T. S. Arthur</span>. Post 8vo,
+cloth. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">TRUE RICHES; or, Wealth without Wings. By <span class="smcap">T. S. Arthur</span>.
+With Five Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">WOODLEIGH HOUSE; or, The Happy Holidays. With Eight
+Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">MISSIONARY EVENINGS AT HOME. By H. L. L. Post 8vo,
+cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE GOLDEN MISSIONARY PENNY, and other Addresses to
+the Young. By the late Rev. <span class="smcap">James Bolton</span>, Kilburn. Foolscap 8vo,
+cloth. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">MARION'S SUNDAYS; or, Stories on the Commandments.
+With Engravings. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">ANNALS OF THE POOR. With Memoir of the Author. With
+Eight Plates printed in Colours. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.; or,
+cloth extra, gilt edges, price 3s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">NELLY NOWLAN'S EXPERIENCE, and other Stories. By
+Mrs. <span class="smcap">S. C. Hall</span>. Illustrated. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE STORY OF THE WHITE-ROCK COVE. A Tale for the
+Young. With Six Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth extra. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">FAR AND NEAR; or, Stories of a Christmas Tree. By <span class="smcap">Ita</span>.
+With Coloured Frontispiece. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE FLOWER OF THE FAMILY: A Tale of Domestic Life.
+Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE WORLD'S BIRTHDAY. By the Rev. Professor <span class="smcap">L. Gaussen</span>.
+With Plates. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">WOODRUFF; or, "Sweetest when Crushed." A Tale. By Mrs.
+<span class="smcap">Veitch</span>. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.</p>
+
+<p class="adscap">THE REGULAR SERVICE; or, the Story of Reuben Inch. By
+the Author of "Village Missionaries," "Under the Microscope," &amp;c.
+Illustrated. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<h3>THE A. L. O. E. SERIES OF BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED AND ELEGANTLY BOUND.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Church of England Sunday-School Magazine.</span>&mdash;"<i>With A. L. O. E.'s
+well-known powers of description and imagination, circumstances are described
+and characters sketched, which we believe many readers will recognize as their own.</i>"</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>Post 8vo, Cloth.</i></p>
+
+<p>CLAUDIA. A Tale. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>HEBREW HEROES. A Tale founded on Jewish History. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>ON THE WAY; or Places Passed by Pilgrims. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE TRIUMPH OVER MIDIAN. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>HOUSE BEAUTIFUL; or, The Bible Museum. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>RESCUED FROM EGYPT. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>PRIDE AND HIS PRISONERS. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE GOLDEN FLEECE. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE ROBY FAMILY. With Seven Illustrations. Gilt edges. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE ROBBERS' CAVE: A Story of Italy. With Seven Illustrations. Gilt
+edges, with beautifully illuminated side. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES. Vignette Title. Gilt edges. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>STORY OF A NEEDLE. With Seven Illustrations. Gilt edges, with
+beautifully illuminated side. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>MY NEIGHBOUR'S SHOES; or, Feeling for Others. Illustrated. Gilt edges,
+with beautifully illuminated side. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>Foolscap 8vo, Cloth.</i></p>
+
+<p>IDOLS IN THE HEART. A Tale. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE SILVER CASKET; or, Love not the World. A Tale. Illustrated. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p>WAR AND PEACE. A Tale of the Retreat from Cabul. Illustrated. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p>THE HOLIDAY CHAPLET. Illustrated. Cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p>THE SUNDAY CHAPLET. Illustrated. Cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 3s.</p>
+
+<p>MIRACLES OF HEAVENLY LOVE IN DAILY LIFE. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>WHISPERING UNSEEN; or, "Be ye Doers of the Word, and not Hearers Only."
+Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>PARLIAMENT IN THE PLAY-ROOM. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE MINE; or, Darkness and Light. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>FLORA; or, Self-Deception. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE CROWN OF SUCCESS; or, Four Heads to Furnish. Price 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>ZAIDA'S NURSERY NOTE-BOOK. A Book for Mothers. Price 2s.</p>
+
+<p>POEMS AND HYMNS. Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>RAMBLES OF A RAT. Illustrated. Price 2s.</p>
+
+<p>STORIES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS. Illustrated. Price 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>WINGS AND STINGS. 18mo Edition. Illustrated. Price 1s.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>New Editions, Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cloth Extra.</i></p>
+
+<p>THE YOUNG PILGRIM. A Tale Illustrating the Pilgrim's Progress. With
+Twenty-Seven Engravings. Price 4s.</p>
+
+<p>THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM. With Forty Engravings. Price 5s.</p>
+
+<p>EXILES IN BABYLON; or, Children of Light. Thirty-four Cuts. Price 5s.</p>
+
+<p>PRECEPTS IN PRACTICE. With Forty Engravings. Price 4s.</p>
+
+<p>THE GIANT-KILLER. With Forty Engravings. Price 4s.</p>
+
+<p>FAIRY KNOW-A-BIT. With Thirty-four Illustrations. Price 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<h4>T. NELSON AND SONS, LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK.</h4>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tnote">
+<h3>Transcriber's Note</h3>
+
+<p>Page numbers do not appear where there was a blank page in the original text.</p>
+
+<p>The following changes have been made to the original text:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Page 30: Changed double quotes to single quotes: 'Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,'</li>
+<li>Page 64: "reader." changed to "reader,"</li>
+<li>Page 65: "home," changed to "home."</li>
+<li>Page 128: Added closing quote: ... and working efficiency."</li>
+<li>Page 131: Added closing quote: ... of solid masonry."</li>
+<li>Page 136: "porportion" changed to "proportion"</li>
+<li>Page 166: "better then an arm" changed to "better than an arm"</li>
+<li>Page 187: "paddle-wheels Through" changed to "paddle-wheels. Through"</li>
+<li>Page 197: "a mortal sickness:" changed to "a mortal sickness;"</li>
+<li>Page 249: "own, Thus" changed to "own. Thus"</li>
+<li>Page 250: "condition Only" changed to "condition. Only"</li>
+<li>Page 295: Changed double quotes to single quotes: passing the 'carriers' through</li>
+<li>Page 295: Added closing quote: ... under the postal administration."</li>
+<li>Page 315: Added closing quote: ... present day."</li>
+<li>Page 316: "Dore" changed to "Doré"</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in
+Art and Science, by J. Hamilton Fyfe
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIUMPHS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 36768-h.htm or 36768-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/6/36768/
+
+Produced by Sharon Joiner, Jana Srna, Bill Keir, Erica
+Pfister-Altschul and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/36768-h/images/cover-800.jpg b/36768-h/images/cover-800.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..535de31
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/cover-800.jpg
diff --git a/36768-h/images/cover.jpg b/36768-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee784d0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/36768-h/images/dropcap-013.png b/36768-h/images/dropcap-013.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5ad77d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/dropcap-013.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-frontispiece-1200.png b/36768-h/images/fig-frontispiece-1200.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f6dda29
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-frontispiece-1200.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-frontispiece-600.png b/36768-h/images/fig-frontispiece-600.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a3c99fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-frontispiece-600.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p022-1200.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p022-1200.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9aced4c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p022-1200.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p022-600.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p022-600.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a5f9a6c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p022-600.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p030-1200.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p030-1200.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5eb8fae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p030-1200.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p030-600.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p030-600.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5b252a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p030-600.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p048.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p048.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f28918a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p048.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p057.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p057.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..22495c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p057.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p067-1200.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p067-1200.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2e10fb6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p067-1200.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p067-600.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p067-600.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f580a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p067-600.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p226-1200.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p226-1200.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c19e002
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p226-1200.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p226-600.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p226-600.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b722d3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p226-600.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p242-1200.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p242-1200.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4230007
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p242-1200.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p242-600.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p242-600.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b6dfdcd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p242-600.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p267-1200.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p267-1200.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..133c764
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p267-1200.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/fig-p267-600.png b/36768-h/images/fig-p267-600.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6f10249
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/fig-p267-600.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/footer-050.png b/36768-h/images/footer-050.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..698c36a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/footer-050.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/footer-107.png b/36768-h/images/footer-107.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..23c81d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/footer-107.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/footer-167.png b/36768-h/images/footer-167.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bd3d62f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/footer-167.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/footer-218.png b/36768-h/images/footer-218.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b9370eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/footer-218.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/footer-260.png b/36768-h/images/footer-260.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..24fd467
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/footer-260.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/footer-275.png b/36768-h/images/footer-275.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4738675
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/footer-275.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/footer-312.png b/36768-h/images/footer-312.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7d1ab8f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/footer-312.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/footer-vii.png b/36768-h/images/footer-vii.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e9bc52a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/footer-vii.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/footer-x.png b/36768-h/images/footer-x.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dddb8d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/footer-x.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/header-013.png b/36768-h/images/header-013.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0dd9100
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/header-013.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/header-ix.png b/36768-h/images/header-ix.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..66641f2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/header-ix.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/header-tp.png b/36768-h/images/header-tp.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a68abf5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/header-tp.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/header-v.png b/36768-h/images/header-v.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..af1585e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/header-v.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-ads1.png b/36768-h/images/title-ads1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae24c8b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-ads1.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-ads2.png b/36768-h/images/title-ads2.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..228ad9f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-ads2.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-contents.png b/36768-h/images/title-contents.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6d5850f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-contents.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p011.png b/36768-h/images/title-p011.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b949df0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p011.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p013.png b/36768-h/images/title-p013.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8b9a743
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p013.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p028.png b/36768-h/images/title-p028.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eda58b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p028.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p051.png b/36768-h/images/title-p051.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dd106ac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p051.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p053.png b/36768-h/images/title-p053.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..34a9974
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p053.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p075.png b/36768-h/images/title-p075.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..585e6c2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p075.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p077.png b/36768-h/images/title-p077.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0d39fd7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p077.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p109.png b/36768-h/images/title-p109.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..abe02df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p109.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p111.png b/36768-h/images/title-p111.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cc4ca7b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p111.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p139.png b/36768-h/images/title-p139.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ca94eec
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p139.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p141.png b/36768-h/images/title-p141.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4e2fcc8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p141.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p169.png b/36768-h/images/title-p169.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5d96518
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p169.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p171.png b/36768-h/images/title-p171.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..300c762
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p171.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p191.png b/36768-h/images/title-p191.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1326d2e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p191.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p193.png b/36768-h/images/title-p193.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..63dded1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p193.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p199.png b/36768-h/images/title-p199.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e2862d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p199.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p201.png b/36768-h/images/title-p201.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4a14b0b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p201.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p219.png b/36768-h/images/title-p219.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a4262e5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p219.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p221.png b/36768-h/images/title-p221.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0f2567
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p221.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p235.png b/36768-h/images/title-p235.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..efadb49
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p235.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p237.png b/36768-h/images/title-p237.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..22e2993
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p237.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p261.png b/36768-h/images/title-p261.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e9f477d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p261.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p263.png b/36768-h/images/title-p263.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9d66037
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p263.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p277.png b/36768-h/images/title-p277.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..465f5a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p277.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p279.png b/36768-h/images/title-p279.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4268a07
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p279.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p297.png b/36768-h/images/title-p297.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3bf2c40
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p297.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-p299.png b/36768-h/images/title-p299.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..096ee6e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-p299.png
diff --git a/36768-h/images/title-preface.png b/36768-h/images/title-preface.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d67154b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768-h/images/title-preface.png
diff --git a/36768.txt b/36768.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cb9f341
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7604 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art
+and Science, by J. Hamilton Fyfe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science
+
+Author: J. Hamilton Fyfe
+
+Release Date: July 17, 2011 [EBook #36768]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIUMPHS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sharon Joiner, Jana Srna, Bill Keir, Erica
+Pfister-Altschul and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRIUMPHS OF
+INVENTION AND DISCOVERY
+IN ART AND SCIENCE.
+
+[Illustration: GEORGE STEPHENSON'S HOME. Page 120.]
+
+
+
+
+    TRIUMPHS OF
+    INVENTION AND DISCOVERY
+    IN ART AND SCIENCE.
+
+    BY
+    J. HAMILTON FYFE.
+
+
+    "PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES NO LESS THAN WAR."
+
+
+    LONDON:
+    T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
+    EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
+
+    1871.
+
+
+
+
+Preface.
+
+    "_Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war._"--MILTON.
+
+
+It is not difficult to account for the pre-eminence, generally assigned
+to the victories of war over the victories of peace in popular history.
+The noise and ostentation which attend the former, the air of romance
+which surrounds them,--lay firm hold of the imagination, while the
+directness and rapidity with which, in such transactions, the effect
+follows the cause, invest them with a peculiar charm for simple and
+superficial observers. As Schiller says,--
+
+                      "Straight forward goes
+    The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path
+    Of the cannon ball. Direct it flies, and rapid,
+    Shattering that it _may_ reach, and shattering what it reaches.
+    My son! the road the human being travels,
+    That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow
+    The river's course, the valley's playful windings:
+    Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines,
+    Honouring the holy bounds of property!
+    And thus secure, though late, leads to its end."
+
+The path of peace is long and devious, now dwindling into a mere
+foot-track, now lost to sight in some dense thicket; and the heroes who
+pursue it are often mocked at by the crowd as poor, half-witted souls,
+wandering either aimlessly or in foolish chase of some Jack o' lantern
+that ever recedes before them. The goal they aim at seems to the common
+eye so visionary, and their progress towards it so imperceptible,--and
+even when reached, it takes so long before the benefits of their
+achievement are generally recognised,--that it is perhaps no wonder we
+should be more attracted by the stirring narratives of war, than by the
+sad, simple histories of the great pioneers of industry and science.
+
+Picturesque and imposing as deeds of arms appear, the victories of
+peace--the development of great discoveries and inventions, the
+performance of serene acts of beneficence, the achievements of social
+reform--possess a deeper interest and a truer romance for the seeing eye
+and the understanding heart. Wounds and death have to be encountered in
+the struggles of peace as well as in the contests of war; and peace has
+her martyrs as well as her heroes. The story of the cotton-spinning
+invention is at once as tragic and romantic as the story of the
+Peninsular war. There were "forlorn hopes" of brave men in both; but in
+the one case they were cheered by sympathy and association, in the other
+the desperate pioneers had to face a world of foes, "alone, unfriended,
+solitary, slow."
+
+The following pages contain sketches of some of the more momentous
+victories of peace, and the heroes who took part in them. The reader
+need hardly be reminded that this brief list does not exhaust the
+catalogue either of such events or persons, and that only a few of a
+representative character are here selected.
+
+In the present edition the different sections have been carefully
+revised, and the details brought down to the latest possible date.
+
+                                                                J. H. F.
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+THE ART OF PRINTING--
+    1. John Gutenberg,                                    13
+    2. William Caxton,                                    28
+    3. The Printing Machine,                              32
+
+THE STEAM ENGINE--
+    1. The Marquis of Worcester, and his Successors,      53
+    2. James Watt,                                        63
+
+THE MANUFACTURE OF COTTON--
+    1. Kay and Hargreaves,                                77
+    2. Sir Richard Arkwright,                             81
+    3. Samuel Crompton,                                   90
+    4. Dr. Cartwright,                                    98
+    5. Sir Robert Peel,                                  104
+
+THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE--
+    1. "The Flying Coach,"                               111
+    2. The Stephensons: Father and Son,                  116
+    3. The Growth of Railways,                           133
+
+THE LIGHTHOUSE--
+    1. The Eddystone,                                    141
+    2. The Bell Rock,                                    153
+    3. The Skerryvore,                                   160
+
+STEAM NAVIGATION--
+    1. James Symington,                                  171
+    2. Robert Fulton,                                    176
+    3. Henry Bell,                                       183
+    4. Ocean Steamers,                                   186
+
+IRON MANUFACTURE--
+    Henry Cort,                                          193
+
+THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH--
+    1. Mr. Cooke,                                        201
+    2. Professor Wheatstone,                             204
+    3. The Submarine Telegraph,                          209
+
+THE SILK MANUFACTURE--
+    1. John Lombe,                                       221
+    2. William Lee,                                      225
+    3. Joseph Marie Jacquard,                            227
+
+THE POTTER'S ART--
+    1. Luca Della Robbia,                                237
+    2. Bernard Palissy,                                  241
+    3. Josiah Wedgwood,                                  250
+
+THE MINER'S SAFETY LAMP--
+    1. Sir Humphrey Davy,                                263
+    2. George Stephenson's Lamp,                         275
+
+PENNY POSTAGE--
+    1. Sir Rowland Hill,                                 279
+    2. New Departments of the Postal System,             292
+
+THE OVERLAND ROUTE--
+    1. Lieutenant Waghorn,                               299
+    2. The Suez Canal,                                   309
+
+
+
+
+The Art of Printing.
+
+
+  I.--JOHN GUTENBERG.
+ II.--WILLIAM CAXTON.
+III.--THE PRINTING MACHINE.
+
+
+
+
+The Art of Printing.
+
+    "A creature he called to wait on his will,
+    Half iron, half vapour--a dread to behold--
+    Which evermore panted, and evermore rolled,
+    And uttered his words a millionfold.
+    Forth sprung they in air, down raining in dew,
+    And men fed upon them, and mighty they grew."
+
+                                            LEIGH HUNT, _Sword and Pen_.
+
+
+
+
+I.--JOHN GUTENBERG.
+
+
+Some Dutch writers, inspired by a not unnatural feeling of patriotism,
+have endeavoured to claim the honour of inventing the Art of Printing
+for a countryman of their own, Laurence Coster of Haarlem. Their sole
+reliance, however, is upon the statements of one Hadrian Junius, who was
+born at Horn, in North Holland, in 1511. About 1575 he wrote a work,
+entitled "Batavia," in which the account of Coster first appeared. And,
+as an unimpeachable authority has remarked, almost every succeeding
+advocate of Coster's pretensions has taken the liberty of altering,
+amplifying, or contradicting the account of Junius, according as it
+might suit his own line of argument; but not one of them has succeeded
+in producing a solitary fact in confirmation of it. The accounts which
+are given of Coster's discovery by Junius and his successors present
+many contradictory features. Thus Junius says: "Walking in a
+neighbouring wood, as citizens are accustomed to do after dinner and on
+holidays, he began to cut letters of beech-bark, with which, for
+amusement--the letters being inverted as on a seal--he impressed short
+sentences on paper for the children of his son-in-law." A later writer,
+Scriverius, is more imaginative: "Coster," he says, "walking in the
+wood, picked up a small bough of a beech, or rather of an oak-tree,
+blown off by the wind; and after amusing himself with cutting some
+letters on it, wrapped it up in paper, and afterwards laid himself down
+to sleep. When he awoke, he perceived that the paper, by a shower of
+rain or some accident having got moist, had received an impression from
+these letters; which induced him to pursue the accidental discovery."
+
+Not only are these accounts evidently deficient in authenticity, but it
+should be remarked that the earliest of them was not put before the
+world until Laurence Coster had been nearly a hundred and fifty years in
+his grave. The presumed writer of the narrative which first did justice
+to his memory had been also twelve years dead when his book was
+published. His information, or rather the information brought forward
+under cover of his name, was derived from an old man who, when a boy,
+had heard it from another old man who lived with Coster at the time of
+the robbery, and who had heard the account of the invention from his
+master. For, to explain the fact of the early appearance of typography
+in Germany, the Dutch writers are forced to the hypothesis that an
+apprentice of Coster's stole all his master's types and utensils,
+fleeing with them first to Amsterdam, second to Cologne, and lastly to
+Mentz! The whole story is too improbable to be accepted by any impartial
+inquirer; and the best authorities are agreed in dismissing the Dutch
+fiction with the contempt it deserves, and in ascribing to JOHN
+GUTENBERG, of Mentz, the honour to which he is justly entitled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of the career of Gutenberg we shall speak presently, but let us first
+point out that the invention of typography, like all great inventions,
+was no sudden conception of genius--not the birth of some singularly
+felicitous moment of inspiration--but the result of what may be called a
+gradual series of causes. Printing with movable types was the natural
+outcome of printing with blocks. We must go back, therefore, a few
+years, to examine into the origin of "block books."
+
+Mr. Jackson observes that there cannot be a doubt that the principle on
+which wood engraving is founded--that of taking impressions on paper or
+parchment, with ink, from prominent lines--was known and practised in
+attesting documents in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Towards
+the end of the fourteenth, or about the beginning of the fifteenth
+century, he says, there seems reason to believe that this principle was
+adopted by the German card-makers for the purpose of marking the
+outlines of the figures on their cards, which they afterwards coloured
+by the practice called _stencilling_.
+
+It was the Germans who first practised card-making as a trade, and as
+early as 1418 the name of a _kartenmacher_, or card-maker, occurs in the
+burgess-books of Augsburg. In the town-books of Nuremburg, the
+designation _formschneider_, or figure-cutter, is found in 1449; and we
+may presume that block books--that is, books each page of which was cut
+on a single block--were introduced about this time. These books were on
+religious subjects, and were intended, perhaps, by the monks as a kind
+of counterbalance against the playing-cards; "thus endeavouring to
+supply a remedy for the evil, and extracting from the serpent a cure for
+his bite."
+
+The earliest woodcut known--one of St. Christopher--bears the date of
+1432, and was found in a convent situated within about fifty miles of
+the city of Augsburg--the convent of Buxheim, near Memmingen. It was
+pasted on the inside of the right hand cover of a manuscript entitled
+_Laus Virginis_, and measures eleven and a quarter inches in height, by
+eight and one-eighth inches in width.
+
+The following description of it by Jackson is interesting:--
+
+"To the left of the engraving the artist has introduced, with a noble
+disregard of perspective, what Bewick would have called a 'bit of
+nature.' In the foreground a figure is seen driving an ass loaded with a
+sack towards a water-mill; while by a steep path a figure, perhaps
+intended for the miller, is seen carrying a full sack from the back-door
+of the mill towards a cottage. To the right is seen a hermit--known by
+the bell over the entrance to his dwelling--holding a large lantern to
+direct St. Christopher as he crosses the stream. The couplet at the foot
+of the cut,--
+
+    'Cristofori faciem die quacunque tueris,
+    Illa nempe die morte mala non morieris,'
+
+may be translated as follows,--
+
+    Each day that thou the image of St. Christopher shall see,
+    That day no frightful form of death shall chance to fall on thee.
+
+These lines allude to a superstition, once popular in all Catholic
+countries, that on the day they saw a figure or image of St.
+Christopher, they would be safe from a violent death, or from death
+unabsolved and unconfessed."
+
+Passing over some other woodcuts of great antiquity, in all of which the
+figures are accompanied by engraved letters, we come to the block books
+proper. Of these, the most famous are called, the _Apocalypsis, seu
+Historia Sancti Johannis_ (the "Apocalypse, or History of St. John");
+the _Historia Virginis ex Cantico Canticorum_ ("Story of the Virgin,
+from the Song of Songs"); and the _Biblia Pauperum_ ("Bible of the
+Poor"). The first is a history, pictorial and literal, of the life and
+revelations of St. John the Evangelist, partly derived from the book of
+Revelation, and partly from ecclesiastical tradition. The second is a
+similar biography of the Virgin Mary, as it is supposed to be typified
+in the Song of Solomon; and the third consists of subjects representing
+many of the most important passages in the Old and New Testaments, with
+texts to illustrate the subject, or clinch the lesson of duty it may
+shadow forth.
+
+With respect to the engraving, we are told that the cuts are executed in
+the simplest manner, as there is not the least attempt at shading, by
+means of cross lines or hatchings, to be detected in any one of the
+designs. The most difficult part of the engraver's task, says Jackson,
+supposing the drawing to have been made by another person, would be the
+cutting of the letters, which, in several of the subjects, must have
+occupied a considerable portion of time, and have demanded no small
+degree of perseverance, care, and skill.
+
+These block books were followed by others in which no illustrations
+appeared, but in which the entire page was occupied with text. The
+Grammatical Primer, called the "Donatus," from the name of its supposed
+compiler, was thus printed, or engraved, enabling copies of it to be
+multiplied at a much cheaper rate than they could be produced in
+manuscript.
+
+And thus we see that the art of printing--or, more correctly speaking,
+engraving on wood--has advanced from the production of a single figure,
+with merely a few words beneath it, to the impression of whole pages of
+text. Next, for the engraved page were to be substituted movable letters
+of metal, wedged together within an iron frame; and impressions, instead
+of being obtained by the slow and tedious process of friction, were to
+be secured by the swift and powerful action of the press.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About the year 1400, John Gaensfleisch, or Gutenberg, was born at Mentz.
+He sprung from an honourable family, and it is said that he himself was
+by birth a knight. He seems to have been a person of some property.
+
+About 1434 we find him living in Strasburg, and, in partnership with a
+certain Andrew Drytzcher, endeavouring to perfect the art of typography.
+How he was induced to direct his attention towards this object, and
+under what circumstances he began his experiments, it is impossible to
+say; but there can be no doubt that he was the first person who
+conceived the idea of _movable types_--an idea which is the very
+foundation of the art of printing.
+
+An old German chronicler furnishes the following account of the early
+stages of the great printer's discovery:--
+
+"At this time (about 1438), in the city of Mentz, on the Rhine, in
+Germany, and not in Italy as some persons have erroneously written, that
+wonderful and then unheard-of art of printing and characterizing books
+was invented and devised by John Gutenberger, citizen of Mentz, who,
+having expended most of his property in the invention of this art, on
+account of the difficulties which he experienced on all sides, was about
+to abandon it altogether; when, by the advice and through the means of
+John Fust, likewise a citizen of Mentz, he succeeded in bringing it to
+perfection. At first they formed or engraved the characters or letters
+in written order on blocks of wood, and in this manner they printed the
+vocabulary called a 'Catholicon.' But with these forms or blocks they
+could print nothing else, because the characters could not be transposed
+in these tablets, but were engraved thereon, as we have said. To this
+invention succeeded a more subtle one, for they found out the means of
+cutting the forms of all the letters of the alphabet, which they called
+_matrices_, from which again they cast characters of copper or tin of
+sufficient hardness to resist the necessary pressure, which they had
+before engraved by hand."
+
+This is a very brief and summary account of a great invention. By
+comparison of other authorities we are enabled to bring together a far
+greater number of details, though we must acknowledge that many of these
+have little foundation but in tradition or romance.
+
+Let us, therefore, take a peep at the first printer, working in
+seclusion and solitude in the old historic city of Strasburg, and
+endeavouring to elaborate in practice the grand idea which has been
+conceived and matured by his energetic brain. Doubtlessly he knew not
+the full importance of this idea, or of how great a social and religious
+revolution it was to be the seed, and yet we cannot believe that he was
+altogether unconscious of its value to future generations.
+
+Shutting himself up in his own room, seeing no one, rarely crossing the
+threshold, allowing himself hardly any repose, he set himself to work
+out the plan he had formed. With a knife and some pieces of wood he
+constructed a set of movable types, on one face of each of which a
+letter of the alphabet was carved in relief, and which were strung
+together, in the order of words and sentences, upon a piece of wire. By
+means of these he succeeded in producing upon parchment a very
+satisfactory impression.
+
+To be out of the way of prying eyes, he took up his quarters in the
+ruins of the old monastery of St. Arbogaste, outside the town, which had
+long been abandoned by the monks to the rats and beggars of the
+neighbourhood; and the better to mask his designs, as well as to procure
+the funds necessary for his experiments, he set up as a sort of
+artificer in jewellery and metal-work, setting and polishing precious
+stones, and preparing Venetian glass for mirrors, which he afterwards
+mounted in frames of metal and carved wood. These avowed labours he
+openly practised, along with a couple of assistants, in a public part of
+the monastery; but in the depths of the cloisters, in a dark secluded
+spot, he fitted up a little cell as the _atelier_ of his secret
+operations; and there, secured by bolts and bars, and a thick oaken
+door, against the intrusion of any one who might penetrate so far into
+the interior of the ruins, he applied himself to his great work. He
+quickly perceived, as a man of his inventiveness was sure to perceive,
+the superiority of letters of metal over those of wood. He invented
+various coloured inks, at once oily and dry, for printing with; brushes
+and rollers for transferring the ink to the face of the types; "forms,"
+or cases, for keeping together the types arranged in pages; and a press
+for bringing the inked types and the paper in contact.
+
+[Illustration: GUTENBERG IN THE OLD MONASTERY. Page 22.]
+
+Day and night, whenever he could spare an instant from his professed
+occupations, he devoted himself to the development of his great design.
+At night he could hardly sleep for thinking of it, and his hasty
+snatches of slumber were disturbed by agitating dreams. Tradition has
+preserved the story of one of these for us as he afterwards told it to
+his friends. He dreamt that, as he sat feasting his eyes upon the
+impression of his first page of type, he heard two voices whispering at
+his ear--the one soft and musical, the other harsh, dull, and bitter in
+its tones. The one bade him rejoice at the great work he had achieved;
+unveiled the future, and showed the men of different generations, the
+peoples of distant lands, holding high converse by means of his
+invention; and cheered him with the hope of an immortal fame. "Ay," put
+in the other voice, "immortal he might be, but at what a price! Man,
+more often perverse and wicked than wise and good, would profane the new
+faculty this art created, and the ages, instead of blessing, would have
+cause to curse the man who gave it to the world. Therefore let him
+regard his invention as a seductive but fatal dream, which, if
+fulfilled, would place in the hands of man, sinful and erring as he was,
+only another instrument of evil." Gutenberg, whom the first voice had
+thrown into an ecstasy of delight, now shuddered at the thought of the
+fearful power to corrupt and to debase his art would give to wicked men,
+and awoke in an agony of doubt. He seized his mallet, and had almost
+broken up his types and press, when he paused to reflect that, after
+all, God's gifts, although sometimes perilous and capable of abuse, were
+never evil in themselves, and that to give another means of utterance to
+the piety and reason of mankind was to promote the spread of virtue and
+intelligence, which were both divine. So he closed his ears to the
+suggestions of the tempter, and persisted in his work.
+
+Gutenberg had scarcely completed his printing machine, and got it into
+working order, when the jealousy and distrust of his associates in the
+nominal business he carried on, brought him into trouble with the
+authorities of Strasburg. He could have saved himself by the disclosure
+of all the secrets of his invention; but this he refused to do. His
+goods were confiscated; and he returned penniless, with a heavy heart,
+to his native town Mentz. There, in partnership with a wealthy goldsmith
+named John Fust, and his son-in-law Schoeffer, he started a printing
+office; from which he sent out many works, mostly of a religious
+character. The enterprise throve; but misfortune was ever dogging
+Gutenberg's steps, and he had but a brief taste of prosperity. The
+priests looked with suspicion upon the new art, which enabled people to
+read for themselves what before they had to take on trust from them. The
+transcribers of books,--a large and influential guild,--were also
+hostile to the invention, which threatened to deprive them of their
+livelihood. These two bodies formed a league against the printers; and
+upon the head of poor Gutenberg were emptied all the vials of their
+wrath. Fust and Schoeffer, with crafty adroitness, managed to conciliate
+their opponents, and to offer up their partner as a sacrifice for
+themselves. By the zeal of his enemies, and the treachery of his
+friends, Gutenberg was driven out of Mentz. After wandering about for
+some time in poverty and neglect, Adolphus, the Elector of Nassau,
+became his patron; and at his court Gutenberg set up a press, and
+printed a number of works with his own hands. Though poor, his last
+years were spent in peace; and when he died, he had only a few copies of
+the productions of his press to leave to his sister.
+
+Meanwhile, at Strasburg, some of his former associates pieced together
+the revelations that had fallen from him, while at the old monastery, as
+to his invention; and not only worked it with success, but claimed all
+the credit of its origin. In the same way, Fust and Schoeffer, at Mentz,
+grew rich through the invention of the man they had betrayed, and tried
+to rob of his fame.
+
+There is a curious, but not very well authenticated story about a visit
+Fust made to Paris to push the sale of his Bibles. "The tradition of the
+Devil and Dr. Faustus," writes D'Israeli in the "Curiosities of
+Literature," "was said to have been derived from the odd circumstances
+in which the Bibles of the first printer, Fust, appeared to the world.
+When Fust had discovered this new art, and printed off a considerable
+number of copies of the Bible to imitate those which were commonly sold
+as MSS., he undertook the sale of them at Paris. It was his interest to
+conceal this discovery and to pass off his printed copies for MSS. But,
+enabled to sell his Bibles at sixty crowns, while the other scribes
+demanded five hundred, this raised universal astonishment; and still
+more when he produced copies as fast as they were wanted, and even
+lowered his price. The uniformity of the copies increased the wonder.
+Informations were given in to the magistrates against him as a magician;
+and on searching his lodgings, a great number of copies were found. The
+red ink, and Fust's red ink is peculiarly brilliant, which embellished
+his copies, was said to be his blood; and it was solemnly adjudged that
+he was in league with the Infernal. Fust at length was obliged, to save
+himself from a bonfire, to reveal his art to the Parliament of Paris,
+who discharged him from all prosecution in consideration of the
+wonderful invention."
+
+The edition of the Bible, which was one of the very first productions of
+Gutenberg and Fust's press, is called the Mazarin, in consequence of the
+first known copy having been discovered in the famous library formed by
+Cardinal Mazarin. It seems to have been printed as early as August
+1456, and is a truly admirable specimen of typography; the characters
+being very clear and distinct, and the uniformity of the printing
+perfectly remarkable. A copy in the Royal Library at Paris is bound
+in two volumes, and every complete page consists of two columns,
+each containing forty-two lines. The reader will recognize the
+appropriateness of the fact that from the first printing press the first
+important work produced should be a copy of God's Word. It sanctified
+the new art which was to be so fruitful of good and evil results--the
+good superabounding, and clearly visible--the evil little, and destined,
+perhaps, to be directed eventually to good--for successive generations
+of mankind. It was a fitting forerunner of the long generation of books
+which have since issued so ceaselessly from the printing press; books,
+of the majority of which we may say, with Milton, that "they contain a
+potency of life in them to be as active as those souls were whose
+progeny they are; to preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and
+extraction of the living intellects that feed them."
+
+Gutenberg's career was dashed with many lights and shadows, but it
+closed in peace. In 1465, the Archbishop-elector of Mentz appointed him
+one of his courtiers, with the same allowance of clothing as the
+remainder of the nobles attending his court, and all other privileges
+and exemptions. It is probable that from this time he abandoned the
+practice of his new invention. The date of his death is uncertain; but
+there is documentary evidence extant which proves that it occurred
+before February 24, 1468. He was interred in the church of the Recollets
+at Mentz, and the following epitaph was composed by his kinsman Adam
+Gelthaus:--
+
+    "D. O. M. S.
+
+    "Joanni Gesnyfleisch, artis impressoriae repertori, de omni
+    natione et lingua optime merito, in nominis sui memoriam
+    immortalem Adam Gelthaus posuit. Ossa ejus in ecclesia D.
+    Francisci Moguntina feliciter cubant."
+
+
+
+
+II.--WILLIAM CAXTON.
+
+
+During the last thirty or forty years of the fifteenth century, while
+printing was becoming gradually more and more practised on the
+Continent, and the presses of Mentz, Bamberg, Cologne, Strasburg,
+Augsburg, Rome, Venice, and Milan, were sending forth numbers of Bibles,
+and various learned and theological works, chiefly in Latin, an English
+merchant, a man of substance and of no little note in Chepe, appeared at
+the court of the Duke of Burgundy at Bruges, to negotiate a commercial
+treaty between that sovereign and the king of England; which
+accomplished, the worthy ambassador seems to have liked the place and
+the people so well, and to have been so much liked in return, that for
+some years afterwards he took up his residence there, holding some
+honourable, easy appointment in the household of the Duchess of
+Burgundy. This was William Caxton, who here ripened, if he did not
+acquire, his love of literature and scholarship, and began, from hatred
+of idleness, to take pen in hand himself.
+
+"When I remember," says he, in his preface to his first work, a
+translation of a fanciful "Recueil des Histoires de Troye," "that every
+man is bounden by the commandment and counsel of the wise man to eschew
+sloth and idleness, which is mother and nourisher of vices, and ought to
+put himself into virtuous occupation and business, then I, having no
+great charge or occupation, following the said counsel, took a French
+book, and read therein many strange marvellous histories. And for so
+much as this book was new and late made, and drawn into French, and
+never seen in our English tongue, I thought in myself, it should be a
+good business to translate it into our English, to the end that it might
+be had as well in the royaume of England as in other lands, and also to
+pass therewith the time; and thus concluded in myself to begin this said
+work, and forthwith took pen and ink, and began boldly to run forth, as
+blind Bayard, in this present work."
+
+While at work upon this translation, Caxton found leisure to visit
+several of the German towns where printing presses were established, and
+to get an insight into the mysteries of the art, so that by the time he
+had finished the volume, he was able to print it. At the close of the
+third book of the "Recuyell," he says: "Thus end I this book which I
+have translated after mine author, as nigh as God hath given me cunning,
+to whom be given the laud and praise. And for as much as in the writing
+of the same my pen is worn, mine hand weary and not steadfast, mine eyen
+dimmed with overmuch looking on the white paper, and my courage not so
+prone and ready to labour as it hath been, and that age creepeth on me
+daily, and feebleth all the body; and also because I have promised to
+divers gentlemen and to my friends, to address to them as hastily as I
+might, this said book, therefore I have practised and learned, at my
+great charge and dispense, to ordain this said book in print, after the
+manner and form you may here see; and is not written with pen and ink as
+other books are, to the end that every man may have them at once. For
+all the books of this story, named the 'Recuyell of the Historyes of
+Troye,' thus imprinted as ye here see, were begun in one day, and also
+finished in one day" (that is, in the same space of time).
+
+By the year 1477, Caxton had returned to London, and set up a printing
+establishment within the precincts of Westminster Abbey; had given to
+the world the three first books ever printed in England,--"The Game
+and Play of the Chesse" (March 1474); "A boke of the hoole Lyf of
+Jason" (1475); and "The Dictes and Notable Wyse Sayenges of the
+Phylosophers" (1477),--and was fairly started in the great work of
+supplying printed books to his countrymen, which, as a placard in his
+largest type sets forth, if any one wanted, "emprynted after the forme
+of this present lettre whiche ben well and truly correct, late hym come
+to Westmonster, in to the Almonesrye, at the reed pale, and he shal have
+them good chepe." From the situation of the first printing office, the
+term chapel is applied to such establishments to this day.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM CAXTON. Page 30.]
+
+Caxton published between sixty and seventy different works during the
+seventeen years of his career as a printer, all of them in what is
+called black letter, and the bulk of them in English. He had always a
+view to the improvement of the people in the works he published, and
+though many of his productions may seem to us to be of an unprofitable
+kind, it is clear that in the issue of chivalrous narratives, and of
+Chaucer's poems (to whom, says the old printer, "ought to be given great
+laud and praising for his noble making and writing"), he was aiming at
+the diffusion of a nobler spirit, and a higher taste than then
+prevailed.
+
+In 1490, Caxton, an old, worn man, verging on fourscore years of age,
+wrote, "Every man ought to intend in such wise to live in this world, by
+keeping the commandments of God, that he may come to a good end; and
+then, out of this world full of wretchedness and tribulation, he may go
+to heaven, unto God and his saints, unto joy perdurable;" and passed
+away, still labouring at his post. He died while writing, "The most
+virtuous history of the devout and right renouned Lives of Holy Fathers
+living in the desert, worthy of remembrance to all well-disposed
+persons."
+
+Wynkyne de Worde filled his master's place in the almonry of
+Westminster; and the guild of printers gradually waxed strong in numbers
+and influence. In Germany they were privileged to wear robes trimmed
+with gold and silver, such as the nobles themselves appeared in; and to
+display on their escutcheon, an eagle with wings outstretched over the
+globe,--a symbol of the flight of thought and words throughout the
+world. In our own country, the printers were men of erudition and
+literary acquirements; and were honoured as became their mission.
+
+
+
+
+III.--THE PRINTING MACHINE.
+
+
+Between the rude screw-press of Gutenberg or Caxton, slow and laboured
+in its working, to the first-class printing machine of our own day,
+throwing off its fifteen or eighteen thousand copies of a large
+four-page journal in an hour, what a stride has been taken in the noble
+art! Step by step, slowly but surely, has the advance been made,--one
+improvement suggested after another at long intervals, and by various
+minds. With the perfection of the printing press, the name of Earl
+Stanhope is chiefly associated; but, although when he had put the
+finishing touches to its construction, immensely superior to all former
+machines, it was unavailable for rapid printing. In relation to the
+demand for literature and the means of supplying it, the world had, half
+a century ago, reached much the same deadlock as in the days when the
+production of books depended solely on the swiftness of the
+transcriber's pen, and when the printing press existed only in the
+fervid brain and quick imagination of a young German student. Not only
+the growth, but the spread of literature, was restricted by the labour,
+expense, and delay incident to the multiplication of copies; and the
+popular appetite for reading was in that transition state when an
+increased supply would develop it beyond all bounds or calculation,
+while a continuance of the starvation supply would in all likelihood
+throw it into a decline from want of exercise.
+
+Such was the state of things when a revolution in the art of printing
+was effected which, in importance, can be compared only to the original
+discovery of printing. In fact, since the days of Gutenberg to the
+present hour, there has been only one great revolution in the art, and
+that was the introduction of steam printing in 1814. The neat and
+elegant, but slow-moving Stanhope press, was after all but little in
+advance of its rude prototype of the fifteenth century, the chief
+features of which it preserved almost without alteration. The steam
+printing machine took a leap ahead that placed it at such a distance
+from the printing press, that they are hardly to be recognised as the
+offspring of the same common stock. All family resemblance has died out,
+although the printing machine is certainly a development of the little
+screw press.
+
+Of the revolution of 1814, which placed the printing machine in the seat
+of power, _vice_ the press given over to subordinate employment, Mr.
+John Walter of the _Times_ was the prominent and leading agent. But for
+his foresight, enterprise, and perseverance, the steam machine might
+have been even now in earliest infancy, if not unborn.
+
+Familiar as the invention of the steam printing machine is now, in the
+beginning of the present century it shared the ridicule which was thrown
+upon the project of sailing steam ships upon the sea, and driving steam
+carriages upon land. It seemed as mad and preposterous an idea to print
+off 5000 impressions of a paper like the _Times_ in one hour, as, in the
+same time, to paddle a ship fifteen miles against wind and tide, or to
+propel a heavily laden train of carriages fifty miles. Mr. Walter,
+however, was convinced that the thing could be done, and lost no time in
+attempting it. Some notion of the difficulties he had to overcome, and
+the disappointments he had to endure, while engaged in this enterprise,
+may be gathered from the following extracts from the biography of Mr.
+Walter, which appeared in the _Times_ at the time of his death in July
+1847:--
+
+"As early as the year 1804, an ingenious compositor, named Thomas
+Martyn, had invented a self-acting machine for working the press, and
+had produced a model which satisfied Mr. Walter of the feasibility of
+the scheme. Being assisted by Mr. Walter with the necessary funds, he
+made considerable progress towards the completion of his work, in the
+course of which he was exposed to much personal danger from the
+hostility of the pressmen, who vowed vengeance against the man whose
+inventions threatened destruction to their craft. To such a length was
+their opposition carried, that it was found necessary to introduce the
+various pieces of the machine into the premises with the utmost possible
+secresy, while Martyn himself was obliged to shelter himself under
+various disguises in order to escape their fury. Mr. Walter, however,
+was not yet permitted to reap the fruits of his enterprise. On the very
+eve of success he was doomed to bitter disappointment. He had exhausted
+his own funds in the attempt, and his father, who had hitherto assisted
+him, became disheartened, and refused him any further aid. The project
+was, therefore, for the time abandoned.
+
+"Mr. Walter, however, was not the man to be deterred from what he had
+once resolved to do. He gave his mind incessantly to the subject, and
+courted aid from all quarters, with his usual munificence. In the year
+1814 he was induced by a clerical friend, in whose judgment he confided,
+to make a fresh experiment; and, accordingly, the machinery of the
+amiable and ingenious Koenig, assisted by his young friend Bower, was
+introduced--not, indeed, at first into the _Times_ office, but into the
+adjoining premises, such caution being thought necessary upon the
+threatened violence of the pressmen. Here the work advanced, under the
+frequent inspection and advice of the friend alluded to. At one period
+these two able mechanics suspended their anxious toil, and left the
+premises in disgust. After the lapse, however, of about three days, the
+same gentleman discovered their retreat, induced them to return, showed
+them, to their surprise, their difficulty conquered, and the work still
+in progress. The night on which this curious machine was first brought
+into use in its new abode was one of great anxiety, and even alarm. The
+suspicious pressmen had threatened destruction to any one whose
+inventions might suspend their employment. 'Destruction to him and his
+traps.' They were directed to wait for expected news from the Continent.
+It was about six o'clock in the morning when Mr. Walter went into the
+press-room, and astonished its occupants by telling them that 'The
+_Times_ was already printed by steam! That if they attempted violence,
+there was a force ready to suppress it; but that if they were
+peaceable, their wages should be continued to every one of them till
+similar employment could be procured,'--a promise which was, no doubt,
+faithfully performed; and having so said, he distributed several copies
+among them. Thus was this most hazardous enterprise undertaken and
+successfully carried through, and printing by steam on an almost
+gigantic scale given to the world."
+
+On that memorable day, the 29th of November 1814, appeared the following
+announcement,--"Our journal of this day presents to the public the
+practical result of the greatest improvement connected with printing
+since the discovery of the art itself. The reader now holds in his hands
+one of the many thousand impressions of the _Times_ newspaper which were
+taken off last night by a mechanical apparatus. That the magnitude of
+the invention may be justly appreciated by its effects, we shall inform
+the public that after the letters are placed by the compositors, and
+enclosed in what is called a form, little more remains for man to do
+than to attend and watch this unconscious agent in its operations. The
+machine is then merely supplied with paper; itself places the form, inks
+it, adjusts the paper to the form newly inked, stamps the sheet, and
+gives it forth to the hands of the attendant, at the same time
+withdrawing the form for a fresh coat of ink, which itself again
+distributes, to meet the ensuing sheet, now advancing for impression;
+and the whole of these complicated acts is performed with such a
+velocity and simultaneousness of movement, that no less than 1100 sheets
+are impressed in one hour."
+
+Koenig's machine was, however, very complicated, and before long, it was
+supplanted by that of Applegath and Cowper, which was much simpler in
+construction, and required only two boys to attend it--one to lay on,
+and the other to take off the sheets. The vertical machine which Mr.
+Applegath subsequently invented, far excelled his former achievement;
+but it has in turn been superseded by the machine of Messrs. Hoe of New
+York. All these machines were first brought into use in the _Times'_
+printing office; and to the encouragement the proprietors of that
+establishment have always afforded to inventive talent, the readiness
+with which they have given a trial to new machines, and the princely
+liberality with which they have rewarded improvements, is greatly due
+the present advanced state of the noble craft and mystery.
+
+The printing-house of the _Times_, near Blackfriars Bridge, forms a
+companion picture to Gutenberg's printing-room in the old abbey at
+Strasburg, and illustrates not only the development of the art, but the
+progress of the world during the intervening centuries. Visit
+Printing-House Square in the day-time, and you find it a quiet, sleepy
+place, with hardly any signs of life or movement about it, except in
+the advertisement office in the corner, where people are continually
+going out and in, and the clerks have a busy time of it, shovelling
+money into the till all day long. But come back in the evening, and the
+place will wear a very different aspect. All signs of drowsiness have
+disappeared, and the office is all lighted up, and instinct with bustle
+and activity. Messengers are rushing out and in, telegraph boys, railway
+porters, and "devils" of all sorts and sizes. Cabs are driving up every
+few minutes, and depositing reporters, hot from the gallery of the House
+of Commons or the House of Lords, each with his budget of short-hand
+notes to decipher and transcribe. Up stairs in his sanctum the editor
+and his deputies are busy preparing or selecting the articles and
+reports which are to appear in the next day's paper. In another part of
+the building the compositors are hard at work, picking up types, and
+arranging them in "stick-fulls," which being emptied out into "galleys,"
+are firmly fixed therein by little wedges of wood, in order that
+"proofs" may be taken of them. The proofs pass into the hands of the
+various sets of readers, who compare them with the "copy" from which
+they were set up, and mark any errors on the margin of the slips, which
+then find their way back to the compositors, who correct the types
+according to the marks. The "galleys" are next seized by the persons
+charged with the "making-up" of the paper, who divide them into columns
+of equal length. An ordinary _Times_ newspaper, with a single inside
+sheet of advertisements, contains seventy-two columns, or 17,500 lines,
+made up of upwards of a million pieces of types, of which matter about
+two-fifths are often written, composed, and corrected after seven
+o'clock in the evening. If the advertisement sheet be double, as it
+frequently is, the paper will contain ninety-six columns. The types set
+up by the compositors are not sent to the machine. A mould is taken of
+them in a composition of brown paper, by means of which a "stereotype"
+is cast in metal, and from this the paper is printed. The advertisement
+sheet, single or double, as the case may be, is generally ready for the
+press between seven or eight o'clock at night. The rest of the paper is
+divided into two "forms,"--that is, columns arranged in pages and bound
+together by an iron frame, one for each side of the sheet. Into the
+first of these the person who "makes up" the paper endeavours to place
+all the early news, and it is ready for press usually about four
+o'clock. The other "form" is reserved for the leading articles,
+telegrams, and all the latest intelligence, and does not reach the press
+till near five o'clock.
+
+The first sight of Hoe's machine, by several of which the _Times_ is now
+printed, fills the beholder with bewilderment and awe. You see before
+you a huge pile of iron cylinders, wheels, cranks, and levers, whirling
+away at a rate that makes you giddy to look at, and with a grinding and
+gnashing of teeth that almost drives you deaf to listen to. With
+insatiable appetite the furious monster devours ream after ream of snowy
+sheets of paper, placed in its many gaping jaws by the slaves who wait
+on it, but seems to find none to its taste or suitable to its digestion,
+for back come all the sheets again, each with the mark of this strange
+beast printed on one side. Its hunger never is appeased,--it is always
+swallowing and always disgorging, and it is as much as the little
+"devils" who wait on it can do, to put the paper between its lips and
+take it out again. But a bell rings suddenly, the monster gives a gasp,
+and is straightway still, and dead to all appearance. Upon a closer
+inspection, now that it is at rest, and with some explanation from the
+foreman you begin to have some idea of the process that has been going
+on before your astonished eyes.
+
+The core of the machine consists of a large drum, turning on a
+horizontal axis, round which revolve ten smaller cylinders, also on
+horizontal axes, in close proximity to the drum. The stereotyped matter
+is bound, like a malefactor on the wheel, to the central drum, and round
+each cylinder a sheet of paper is constantly being passed. It is
+obvious, therefore, that if the type be inked, and each of the cylinders
+be kept properly supplied with a sheet of paper, a single revolution of
+the drum will cause the ten cylinders to revolve likewise, and produce
+an impression on one side of each of the sheets of paper. For this
+purpose it is necessary to have the type inked ten times during every
+revolution of the drum; and this is managed by a very ingenious
+contrivance, which, however, is too complicated for description here.
+The feeding of the cylinders is provided for in this way. Over each
+cylinder is a sloping desk, upon which rests a heap of sheets of white
+paper. A lad--the "layer-on"--stands by the side of the desk and pushes
+forward the paper, a sheet at a time, towards the tape fingers of the
+machine, which, clutching hold of it, drag it into the interior, where
+it is passed round the cylinders, and printed on the outer side by
+pressure against the types on the drum. The sheet is then laid hold of
+by another set of tapes, carried to the other end of the machine from
+that at which it entered, and there laid down on a desk by a projecting
+flapper of lath-work. Another lad--the "taker-off"--is in attendance to
+remove the printed sheets, at certain intervals. The drum revolves in
+less than two seconds; and in that time therefore ten sheets--for the
+same operation is performed simultaneously by the ten cylinders--are
+sucked in at one end and disgorged at the other printed on one side,
+thus giving about 20,000 impressions in an hour.
+
+Such is the latest marvel of the "noble craft and mystery" of printing;
+but it is not to be supposed that the limits of production have even now
+been reached. The greater the supply the greater has grown the demand;
+the more people read, the more they want to read; and past experience
+assures us that ingenuity and enterprise will not fail to expand and
+multiply the powers of the press, so that the increasing appetite for
+literature may be fully met.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We have briefly alluded to stereotyping; but some fuller notice seems
+requisite of a process so valuable and important, without which, indeed,
+the rapid multiplication of copies of a newspaper, even by a Hoe's
+six-cylinder machine, would be impossible. If stereotyping had not been
+invented, the printer would require to "set up" as many "forms" of type
+as there are cylinders in the machine he uses; an expensive and
+time-consuming operation which is now dispensed with, because he can
+resort to "casts." There is yet another advantage gained by the process;
+"casts" of the different sheets of a book can be preserved for any
+length of time; and when additional copies or new editions are needed,
+these "casts" can at once be sent to the machine, and the publisher is
+saved the great expense of "re-setting."
+
+The reader is well aware that while many books disappear with the day
+which called them forth, so there are others for which the demand is
+constant. This was found to be the case soon after the invention of
+printing, and the plan then adopted was the expensive and cumbrous one
+of setting up the whole of the book in request, and to keep the type
+standing for future editions. The disadvantages of this plan were
+obvious--a large outlay for type, the amount of space occupied by a
+constantly increasing number of "forms," and the liability to injury
+from the falling out of letters, from blows, and other accidents. As
+early as the eighteenth century attempts seem to have been made to
+remedy these inconveniences by cementing the types together at the
+bottom with lead or solder to effect their greater preservation. Canius,
+a French historian of printing, states that in June 1801 he received a
+letter from certain booksellers of Leyden, with a copy of their
+stereotype Bible, the plates for which were formed by soldering together
+the bottom of common types with some melted substance to the thickness
+of about three quires of writing-paper; and, it is added, "These plates
+were made about the beginning of the last century by an artist named Van
+du Mey."
+
+This, however, was not true stereotyping; whose leading principle is to
+dispense with the movable types--to set them again, as it were, at
+liberty--by making up perfect fac-similes in type-metal of the various
+combinations into which they may have entered. These fac-similes being
+made, the type is set free, and may be distributed, and used for making
+up fresh pages; which may once more furnish, so to speak, the punches to
+the mould into which the type-metal is poured for the purpose of
+effecting the fac-simile.
+
+The inventor of this ingenious process of casting plates from pages of
+type was William Ged, a goldsmith of Edinburgh, in 1735. Not possessing
+sufficient capital to carry out his invention, he visited London, and
+sought the assistance of the London stationers; from whom he received
+the most encouraging words, but no pecuniary assistance. But Ged was a
+man not readily discomfited, and applying at length to the Universities
+and the King's printer, he obtained the effective patronage he needed.
+He "stereotyped" some Bibles and Prayer-books, and the sheets worked off
+from his plates were admitted equal in point of appearance and accuracy
+to those printed from the type itself.
+
+But every benefactor of his kind is doomed to meet with the opposition
+of the envious, the ignorant, or the prejudiced. "The argument used by
+the idol-makers of old, 'Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our
+wealth,' and, 'This our craft is in danger to be set at nought,' was, as
+is usual in such cases, urged against this most useful and important
+invention. The compositors refused to set up works for stereotyping, and
+even those which were set up, however carefully read and corrected, were
+found to be full of gross errors. The fact was, that when the pages were
+sent to be cast, the compositors or pressmen, bribed, it is said, by a
+typefounder, disturbed the type, and introduced false letters and
+words. Poor Ged died, and left the dangerous secret of his art (which he
+did not disclose during his life-time) to his son, who, after many
+struggles for success, failed as his father had done before him." There
+is a tradition current, however, that he joined the Jacobite rebellion,
+was arrested, imprisoned, tried, and sentenced, but was eventually
+spared in consideration of the value of his father's admirable
+invention.
+
+That invention, after being forgotten for nearly half a century, was
+revived by a Dr. Tilloch, and taken up, improved, and extended by the
+ingenious Earl Stanhope. It is now practised in the following manner:--
+
+The type employed differs slightly from that in common use. The letter
+should have no shoulder, but should rise in a straight line from the
+foot; the spaces, leads, and quadrats are of the same height as the stem
+of the letter; the object being to diminish the number and depth of the
+cavities in the page, and thus lessen the chances of the mould breaking
+off and remaining in the form. Each page is corrected with the utmost
+care, and "imposed" in a small "chase" with metal furniture (or
+frame-work), which rises to a level with the type. Of course the number
+of pages in the form will vary according to the size of the book; a
+sheet being folded into sixteen leaves, twelve, eight, four, or two for
+16mo, 12mo, 8vo, quarto, or folio.
+
+Having our pages of type in complete order, we now proceed to rub the
+surface with a soft brush which has been lightly dipped into a very thin
+oil. Plumbago is sometimes preferred. A brass rectangular frame of three
+sides, with bevelled borders adapted to the size of the pages, is placed
+upon the chase so as to enclose three sides of the type, the fourth side
+being formed by a single brass edge, having the same inward sloping
+level as the other three sides. The use of this frame is to determine
+the size and thickness of the cast, which is next taken in
+plaster-of-paris--two kinds of the said plaster being used; the finer is
+mixed, poured over the surface of the type, and gently worked in with a
+brush so as to insure its close adhesion to the exclusion of bubbles of
+air; the coarser, after being mixed with water, is simply poured and
+spread over the previous and finer stratum.
+
+The superfluous plaster is next cleared away; the mould soon sets; the
+frame is raised; and the mould comes off from the surface of the type,
+on which it has been prevented from encrusting itself by the thin film
+of oil or plumbago.
+
+The next step is to dress and smoothen the plaster-mould, and set it on
+its edge in one of the compartments of a sheet-iron rack contained in an
+oven, and exposed, until perfectly dry, to a temperature of about 400 deg..
+This occupies about two hours. A good workman, it is said, will mould
+ten octavo sheets, or one hundred and sixty pages in a day: each mould
+generally contains a couple of octavo pages.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the state to which it is now brought, the mould is exceedingly
+friable, and requires to be handled with becoming care. With the face
+downwards it is placed upon the flat cast-iron _floating-plate_, which,
+in its turn, is set at the bottom of a square cast-iron tray, with
+upright edges sloping outwards, called the "dipping pan." It has a
+cast-iron lid, secured by a screw and shackles, not unlike a copying
+machine. This pan having been heated to 400 deg., it is plunged into an iron
+pot containing the melted alloy, which hangs over a furnace, the pan
+being slightly inclined so as to permit the escape of the air. A small
+space is left between the back or upper surface of the mould, and the
+lid of the dipping-pan, and the fluid metal on entering into the pan
+through the corner openings, _floats_ up the plaster together with the
+iron plate (hence called the _floating-plate_) on which the mould is
+set, with this effect, that the metal flows through the notches cut in
+the edge of the mould, and fills up every part of it, forming a layer of
+metal on its face corresponding to the depth of the border, while on
+the back is left merely a thin metallic film.
+
+The dipping-pan, says Tomlinson, is suspended, plunged in the metal, and
+removed by means of a crane; and when taken out, is set in a cistern of
+water upon supports so arranged that only the bottom of the pan comes in
+contact with the surface of the water. The metal thus _sets_, or
+solidifies, from below, and containing fluid above, maintains a fluid
+pressure during the contraction which accompanies the cooling.
+
+As it thus shrinks in dimensions, molten metal is poured into the
+corners of the pan for the purpose of maintaining the fluid pressure on
+the mould, and thus securing a good and solid cast. For if the pan were
+allowed to cool more slowly, the thin metallic film at the back of the
+inverted plaster mould would probably solidify first, and thus prevent
+the fluid pressure which is necessary for filling up all the lines of
+the mould.
+
+Tomlinson concludes his description of these interesting processes by
+informing us that an experienced and skilled workman will make five
+dips, each containing two octavo pages, in the course of an hour, or, as
+already stated, at the rate of nearly ten octavo sheets a day.
+
+When the pan is opened, the cake of metal and plaster is removed, and
+beaten upon its edges with a mallet, to clear away all superfluous
+metal. The stereotype plate is then taken by the _picker_, who planes
+its edges square, "turns" its back flat upon a lathe until the proper
+thickness is obtained, and removes any minute imperfections arising from
+specks of dirt and air-bubbles left among the letters in casting the
+mould. Damaged letters are cut out, and separate types soldered in as
+substitutes. After all this anxious care to obtain perfection, the plate
+is pronounced ready for working, and when made up with the other plates
+into the proper form, it may be worked either at the hand-press or by
+machine.
+
+Other modes of stereotyping have been introduced, but not one has
+attained to the popularity of the method we have just described.
+
+
+
+
+The Steam Engine.
+
+
+ I.--THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER.
+II.--JAMES WATT.
+
+
+
+
+The Steam Engine.
+
+    "It is said that ideas produce revolutions and truly they
+    do--not spiritual ideas only, but even mechanical."--CARLYLE.
+
+
+
+
+I.--THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER.
+
+
+As the last century was drawing to its close, two great revolutions were
+in progress, both of which were destined to exercise a mighty influence
+upon the years to come,--the one calm, silent, peaceful, the other full
+of sound and fury, bathed in blood, and crowned with thorns,--the one
+the fruit of long years of patient thought and work, the other the
+outcome of long years of oppression, suffering, and sin,--the one was
+Watt's invention of the steam engine, the other the great popular revolt
+in France. These are the two great events which set their mark upon our
+century, gave form and colour to its character, and direction to its
+aims and aspirations. In the pages of conventional history, of course,
+the French revolution, with its wild phantasmagoria of retribution, its
+massacres and martyrdoms, will no doubt have assigned to it the foremost
+rank as the great feature of the era,--
+
+    "For ever since historians writ,
+      And ever since a bard could sing,
+    Doth each exalt with all his wit
+      The noble art of murdering."
+
+But those who can look below the mere surface of events, and whose fancy
+is not captivated by the melo-drama of rebellion, and the pageantry of
+war, will find that Watt's steam machine worked the greatest revolution
+of modern times, and exercised the deepest, as well as widest and most
+permanent influence over the whole civilized world.
+
+Like all great discoveries, that of the motive power of steam, and the
+important uses to which it might be applied, was the work, not of any
+one mind, but of several minds, each borrowing something from its
+predecessor, until at last the first vague and uncertain Idea was
+developed into a practical Reality. Known dimly to the ancients, and
+probably employed by the priests in their juggleries and pretended
+miracles, it was not till within the last three centuries that any
+systematic attempt was made to turn it to useful account.
+
+But before we turn our attention to the persons who made, and, after
+many failures and discouragements, _successfully_ made this attempt, it
+will be advisable we should say something as to the principle on which
+their invention is founded.
+
+The reader knows that gases and vapours, when imprisoned within a narrow
+space, do struggle as resolutely to escape as did Sterne's starling from
+his cage. Their force of pressure is enormous, and if confined in a
+closed vessel, they would speedily rend it into fragments. Let some
+water boil in a pipkin whose lid fits very tightly; in a few minutes
+the vapour or steam arising from the boiling water, overcoming the
+resistance of the lid, raises it, and rushes forth into the atmosphere.
+
+Take a small quantity of water, and pour it into the hollow of a ball of
+metal. Then with the aid of a cork, worked by a metallic screw, close
+the opening of the ball hermetically, and place the ball in the heart of
+a glowing fire. The steam formed by the boiling water in the inside of
+the metallic bomb, finding no channel of escape, will burst through the
+bonds that sought to confine it, and hurl afar the fragments with a loud
+and dangerous explosion.
+
+These well-known facts we adduce simply as a proof of the immense
+mechanical power possessed by steam when enclosed within a limited area.
+Now, the questions must have occurred to many, though they were
+themselves unable to answer them,--Why should all this force be wasted?
+Can it not be directed to the service and uses of man? In the course of
+time, however, human intelligence _did_ discover a sufficient reply, and
+_did_ contrive to utilize this astonishing power by means of the machine
+now so famous as the Steam Engine.
+
+Let us take a boiler full of water, and bring it up to boiling point by
+means of a furnace. Attach to this boiler a tube, which guides the steam
+of the boiler into a hollow metallic cylinder, traversed by a piston
+rising and sinking in its interior. It is evident that the steam rushing
+through the tube into the lower part of the cylinder, and underneath the
+piston, will force the piston, by its pressure, to rise to the top of
+the cylinder. Now let us check for a moment the influx of the steam
+_below_ the piston, and turning the stopcock, allow the steam which
+fills that space to escape outside; and, at the same time, by opening a
+second tube, let in a supply of steam _above_ the piston: the pressure
+of the steam, now exercised in a downward direction, will force the
+piston to the bottom of its course, because there will exist beneath it
+no resistance capable of opposing the pressure of the steam. If we
+constantly keep up this alternating motion, the piston now rising and
+now falling, we are in a position to profit by the force of steam. For
+if the lever, attached to the rod of the piston at its lower end, is
+fixed by its upper to a crank of the rotating axle of a workshop or
+factory, is it not clear that the continuous action of the steam will
+give this axle a continuous rotatory movement? And this movement may be
+transmitted, by means of bands and pulleys, to a number of different
+machines or engines all kept at work by the power of a solitary engine.
+
+This, then, is the principle on which the inventions of Papin, the
+Marquis of Worcester, Newcomen, and James Watt have been based.
+
+The great astronomer Huyghens conceived the idea of creating a motive
+machine by exploding a charge of gunpowder under a cylinder traversed by
+a piston: the air contained in this cylinder, dilated by the heat
+resulting from the combustion of the powder, escaped into the outer air
+through a valve, whereupon a partial void existed beneath the piston,
+or, rather, the air considerably rarified; and from this moment the
+pressure of the atmospheric air falling on the upper part of the piston,
+and being but imperfectly counterpoised by the rarified air beneath the
+piston, precipitated this piston to the bottom of the cylinder.
+Consequently, said Huyghens, if to the said piston were attached a chain
+or cord coiling around a pulley, one might raise up the weights placed
+at the extremity of the cord, and so produce a genuine mechanical
+effect.
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL PRINCIPLE OF THE STEAM ENGINE.]
+
+But Experiment, the touchstone of Physical Truth, soon revealed the
+deficiencies of an apparatus such as Huyghens had suggested. The air
+beneath the piston was not sufficiently rarified; the void produced was
+too imperfect. Evidently gunpowder was not the right agent. What was?
+Denis Papin answered, Steam. And the first Steam Engine ever invented
+was invented by this ingenious Frenchman.
+
+Papin was born at Blois on the 22nd of August 1645. He died about 1714,
+but neither the exact date nor the place of his death is known. The
+lives of most men of genius are heavy with shadows, but Papin's career
+was more than ordinarily characterized by the incessant pursuit of the
+evil spirits of adversity and persecution. A Protestant, and devoutly
+loyal to his creed, he fled from France with thousands of his
+co-religionists, when Louis XIV. unwisely and unrighteously revoked the
+Edict of Nantes, which permitted the Huguenots to worship God after
+their own fashion. And it was abroad, in England, Italy, and Germany,
+that he realized the majority of his inventions, among which that of the
+Steam Engine is the most conspicuous.
+
+In 1707 Papin constructed a steam engine on the principle we have
+already described, and placed it on board a boat provided with wheels.
+Embarking at Cassel on the river Fulda, he made his way to Muenden in
+Hanover, with the design of entering the waters of the Weser, and thence
+repairing to England, to make known his discovery, and test its
+capabilities before the public. But the harsh and ignorant boatmen of
+the Weser would not permit him to enter the river; and when he
+indignantly complained, they had the barbarity to break his boat in
+pieces. This was the crowning misfortune of Papin's life. Thenceforward
+he seems to have lost all heart and hope. He contrived to reach London,
+where the Royal Society, of which he was a member, allowed him a small
+pittance.
+
+In 1690 this ingenious man had devised an engine in which atmospheric
+vapour instead of steam was the motive agent. At a later period,
+Newcomen, a native of Dartmouth in Devonshire, conceived the idea of
+employing the same source of power.
+
+But, previously, the value of steam, if employed in this direction, had
+occurred to the Marquis of Worcester, a nobleman of great ability and a
+quick imagination, who, for his loyalty to the cause of Charles I., had
+been confined in the Tower of London as a prisoner. On one occasion,
+while sitting in his solitary chamber, the tight cover of a kettle full
+of boiling water was blown off before his eyes; for mere amusement's
+sake he set it on again, saw it again blown off, and then began to
+reflect on the capabilities of power thus accidentally revealed to him,
+and to speculate on its application to mechanical ends. Being of a
+quick, ingenious turn of mind, he was not long in discovering how it
+could be directed and controlled. When he published his project--"An
+Admirable and Most Forcible Way to Drive up Water by Fire"--he was
+abused and laughed at as being either a madman or an impostor. He
+persevered, however, and actually had a little engine of some two horse
+power at work raising water from the Thames at Vauxhall; by means of
+which, he writes, "a child's force bringeth up a hundred feet high an
+incredible quantity of water, and I may boldly call it the most
+stupendous work in the whole world." There is a fervent "Ejaculatory and
+Extemporary Thanksgiving Prayer" of his extant, composed "when first
+with his corporeal eyes he did see finished a perfect trial of his
+water-commanding engine, delightful and useful to whomsoever hath in
+recommendation either knowledge, profit, or pleasure." This and the rest
+of his wonderful "Centenary of Inventions," only emptied instead of
+replenishing his purse. He was reduced to borrow paltry sums from his
+creditors, and received neither respect for his genius nor sympathy for
+his misfortunes. He was before his age, and suffered accordingly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1698 his work was taken up by Thomas Savery, a miner, who, through
+assiduous labour and well-directed study, had become a skilful engineer.
+He succeeded in constructing an engine on the principle of the pressure
+of aqueous vapour, and this engine he employed successfully in pumping
+water out of coal mines. We owe to Savery the invention of a vacuum,
+which was suggested to him, it is said, in a curious manner: he
+happened to throw a wine-flask, which he had just drained, upon the
+fire; a few drops of liquor at the bottom of the flask soon filled it
+with steam, and, taking it off the fire, he plunged it, mouth downwards,
+into a basin of cold water that was standing on the table, when, a
+vacuum being produced, the water immediately rushed up into the flask.
+
+In tracing this lineage of inventive genius, we next come to Thomas
+Newcomen, a blacksmith, who carried out the principle of the piston in
+his Atmospheric Engine, for which he took out a patent in 1705. It is
+but just to recognize that this engine was the first which proved
+practically and widely useful, and was, in truth, the actual progenitor
+of the present steam engine. It was chiefly used for working pumps. To
+one end of a beam moving on a central axis was attached the rod of the
+pump to be worked; to the other, the rod of the piston moving in the
+cylinder below. Underneath this cylinder was a boiler, and the two were
+connected by a pipe provided with a stop-cock to regulate the supply of
+steam. When the pump-rod was depressed, and the piston raised to the top
+of the cylinder, which was effected by weights hanging to the pump-end
+of the beam, the stop-cock was used to cut off the steam, and a supply
+of cold water injected into the cylinder through a water-pipe connected
+with the tank or cistern. The steam in the cylinder was immediately
+condensed; a vacuum created below the piston; the latter was then forced
+down by atmospheric pressure, bringing with it the end of the beam to
+which it was attached, and raising the other along with the pump-rod. A
+fresh supply of steam was admitted below the piston, which was raised by
+the counterpoise; and thus the motion was constantly renewed. The
+opening and shutting of the stop-cocks was at first managed by an
+attendant; but a boy named Potter, who was employed for this purpose,
+being fonder of play than work, contrived to save himself all trouble in
+the matter by fastening the handles with pieces of string to some of the
+cranks and levers. Subsequently, Beighton, an engineer, improved on this
+idea by substituting levers, acted on by pins in a rod suspended from
+the beam.
+
+Properly speaking, Newcomen's engine was not a steam, but an atmospheric
+engine; for though steam was employed, it formed no essential feature of
+the contrivance, and might have been replaced by an air-pump. All the
+use that was made of steam was to produce a vacuum underneath the
+piston, which was pressed down by the weight of the atmosphere, and
+raised by the counterpoise of the buckets at the other end of the beam.
+Watt, in bringing the expansive force of steam to bear upon the working
+of the piston, may be said to have really invented the steam engine.
+Half a century before the little model came into Watt's hands,
+Newcomen's engine had been made as complete as its capabilities
+admitted of; and Watt struck into an entirely new line, and invented an
+entirely new machine, when he produced his Condensing Engine.
+
+
+
+
+II.--JAMES WATT.
+
+
+There are few places in our country where human enterprise has effected
+such vast and marvellous changes within the century as the country
+traversed by the river Clyde. Where Glasgow now stretches far and wide,
+with its miles of swarming streets, its countless mills, and warehouses,
+and foundries, its busy ship-building yards, its harbour thronged with
+vessels of every size and clime, and its large and wealthy population,
+there was to be seen, a hundred years ago, only an insignificant little
+burgh, as dull and quiet as any rural market-town of our own day. There
+was a little quay at the Broomielaw, seldom used, and partly overgrown
+with broom. No boat over six tons' burden could get so high up the
+river, and the appearance of a masted vessel was almost an event.
+Tobacco was the chief trade of the town; and the tobacco merchants might
+be seen strutting about at the Cross in their scarlet cloaks, and
+looking down on the rest of the inhabitants, who got their livelihood,
+for the most part, by dealing in grindstones, coals, and fish--"Glasgow
+magistrates," as herrings are popularly called, being in as great repute
+then as now. There were but scanty means of intercourse with other
+places, and what did exist were little used, except for goods, which
+were conveyed on the backs of pack-horses. The caravan then took two
+days to go to Edinburgh--you can run through now between the two cities
+in little more than an hour. There is hardly any trade that Glasgow does
+not prosecute vigorously and successfully. You may see any day you walk
+down to the Broomielaw, vessels of a thousand tons' burden at anchor
+there, and the custom duties which were in 1796 little over L100, have
+now reached an amount exceeding one million!
+
+Glasgow is indebted, in a great part, for the gigantic strides which it
+has made, to the genius, patience, and perseverance of a man who, in his
+boyhood, rather more than a hundred years ago, used to be scolded by his
+aunt for wasting his time, taking off the lid of the kettle, putting it
+on again, holding now a cup, now a silver spoon over the steam as it
+rose from the spout, and catching and counting the drops of water it
+fell into. James Watt was then taking his first elementary lessons in
+that science, his practical application of which in after life was to
+revolutionize the whole system of mechanical movement, and place an
+almost unlimited power at the disposal of the industrial classes.
+
+When a boy, James Watt was delicate and sickly, and so shy and sensitive
+that his school-days were a misery to him, and he profited but little by
+his attendance. At home, though, he was a great reader, and picked up a
+great deal of knowledge for himself, rarely possessed by those of his
+years. One day a friend was urging his father to send James to school,
+and not allow him to trifle away his time at home. "Look how the boy is
+occupied," said his father, "before you condemn him." Though only six
+years old, he was trying to solve a geometrical problem on the floor
+with a bit of chalk. As he grew older he took to the study of optics and
+astronomy, his curiosity being excited by the quadrants and other
+instruments in his father's shop. By the age of fifteen he had twice
+gone through De Gravesande's Elements of Natural Philosophy, and he was
+also well versed in physiology, botany, mineralogy, and antiquarian
+lore. He was further an expert hand in using the tools in his father's
+workshop, and could do both carpentry and metal work. After a brief stay
+with an old mechanic in Glasgow, who, though he dignified himself with
+the name of "optician," never rose beyond mending spectacles, tuning
+spinets, and making fiddles and fishing tackle, Watt went at the age of
+eighteen to London, where he worked so hard, and lived so sparingly in
+order to relieve his father from the burden of maintaining him, that his
+health suffered, and he had to recruit it by a return to his native air.
+During the year spent in the metropolis, however, he managed to learn
+nearly all that the members of the trade there could teach, and soon
+showed himself a quick and skilful workman.
+
+In 1757 we find the sign of "James Watt, Mathematical Instrument Maker
+to the College," stuck up over the entrance to one of the stairs in the
+quadrangle of Glasgow College. But though under the patronage of the
+University, his trade was so poor, that thrifty and frugal as he was, he
+had a hard struggle to live by it. He was ready, however, for any work
+that came to hand, and would never let a job go past him. To execute an
+order for an organ which he accepted, he studied harmonics diligently,
+and though without any ear for music, turned out a capital instrument,
+with several improvements of his own in its action; and he also
+undertook the manufacture of guitars, violins, and flutes. All this
+while he was laying up vast stores of knowledge on all sorts of
+subjects, civil and military engineering, natural history, languages,
+literature, and art; and among the professors and students who dropped
+into his little shop to have a chat with him, he soon came to be
+regarded as one of the ablest men about the college, while his modesty,
+candour, and obliging disposition gained him many good friends.
+
+[Illustration: JAMES WATT. Page 67.]
+
+Among his multifarious pursuits, Watt had experimented a little in the
+powers of steam; but it was not till the winter of 1763-4, when a model
+of Newcomen's engine was put into his hands for repair, that he took up
+the matter in earnest. Newcomen's engine was then about the most
+complete invention of its kind; but its only value was its power of
+producing a ready vacuum, by rapid condensation on the application of
+cold; and for practical purposes was neither cheaper nor quicker than
+animal power. Watt, having repaired the model, found, on setting it
+agoing, that it would not work satisfactorily. Had it been only a little
+less clumsy and imperfect, Watt might never have regarded it as more
+than the "fine plaything," for which he at first took it; but now the
+difficulties of the task roused him to further efforts. He consulted all
+the books he could get on the subject, to ascertain how the defects
+could be remedied; and that source of information exhausted, he
+commenced a series of experiments, and resolved to work out the problem
+for himself. Among other experiments, he constructed a boiler which
+showed by inspection the quantity of water evaporated in a given time,
+and thereby ascertained the quantity of steam used in every stroke of
+the engine. He found, to his astonishment, that a small quantity of
+water in the form of steam heated a large quantity of water injected
+into the cylinder for the purpose of cooling it; and upon further
+examination, he ascertained the steam heated six times its weight of
+well water up to the temperature of the steam itself (212 deg.). After
+various ineffectual schemes, Watt was forced to the conclusion that, to
+make a perfect steam engine, two apparently incompatible conditions must
+be fulfilled--the cylinder must always be as hot as the steam that came
+rushing into it, and yet, at each descent of the piston, the cylinder
+must become sufficiently cold to condense the steam. He was at his wit's
+end how to accomplish this task, when, as he was taking a walk one
+afternoon, the idea flashed across his mind that, as steam was an
+elastic vapour, it would expand and rush into a previously exhausted
+place; and that, therefore, all he had to do to meet the conditions he
+had laid down, was to produce a vacuum in a separate vessel, and open a
+communication between this vessel and the cylinder of the steam-engine
+at the moment when the piston was required to descend, and the steam
+would disseminate itself and become divided between the cylinder and the
+adjoining vessel. But as this vessel would be kept cold by an injection
+of water, the steam would be annihilated as fast as it entered, which
+would cause a fresh outflow of the remaining steam in the cylinder, till
+nearly the whole of it was condensed, without the cylinder itself being
+chilled in the operation. Here was the great key to the problem; and
+when once the idea of separate condensation was started, many other
+subordinate improvements, as he said himself, "followed as corollaries
+in rapid succession, so that in the course of one or two days the
+invention was thus far complete in his mind."
+
+It cost him ten long weary years of patient speculation and experiment,
+to carry out the idea, with little hope to buoy him up, for to the last
+he used to say "his fear was always equal to his hope,"--and with all
+the cares and embarrassments of his precarious trade to perplex and
+burden him. Even when he had his working model fairly completed, his
+worst difficulties--the difficulties which most distressed and harassed
+the shy, sensitive, and retiring Watt--seemed only to have commenced. To
+give the invention a fair practical trial required an outlay of at least
+L1000; and one capitalist, who had agreed to join him in the
+undertaking, had to give it up through some business losses. Still Watt
+toiled on, always keeping the great object in view,--earning bread for
+his family (for he was married by this time), by adding land-surveying
+to his mechanical labours, and, in short, turning his willing hand to
+any honest job that offered.
+
+He got a patent in 1769, and began building a large engine; but the
+workmen were new to the task, and when completed, its action was
+spasmodic and unsatisfactory. "It is a sad thing," he then wrote, "for a
+man to have his all hanging by a single string. If I had wherewithal to
+pay for the loss, I don't think I should so much fear a failure; but I
+cannot bear the thought of other people becoming losers by my scheme,
+and I have the happy disposition of always painting the worst." And just
+then, to make matters still more gloomy, he learned that some rascally
+linen-draper in London was plagiarizing the great invention he had
+brought forth in such sore and protracted travail. "Of all things in
+the world," cried poor Watt, sick with hope deferred, and pressed with
+little carking cares on every side, "there is nothing so foolish as
+inventing."
+
+When nearly giving way to despair, and on the point of abandoning his
+invention, Watt was fortunate enough to fall in with Matthew Boulton,
+one of the great manufacturing potentates of Birmingham, an energetic,
+far-seeing man, who threw himself into the enterprise with all his
+spirit; and the fortune of the invention was made. An engine, on the new
+principle, was set up at Soho; and there Boulton and Watt sold, as the
+former said to Boswell, "what all the world desires to have,
+POWER;"--the infinite power that animates those mighty engines, which--
+
+          "England's arms of conquest are,
+    The trophies of her bloodless war:
+              Brave weapons these.
+    Victorious over wave and soil,
+    With these she sails, she weaves, she tills,
+    Pierces the everlasting hills,
+              And spans the seas."
+
+Watt's engine, once fairly started, was not long in making its way into
+general use. The first steam-engine used in Manchester was erected in
+1790; and now it is estimated that in that district, within a radius of
+ten miles, there are in constant work more than fifty thousand boilers,
+giving a total power of upwards of one million horses. And the united
+steam power of Great Britain is considered equal to the manual labour of
+upwards of four hundred millions of men, or more than double the number
+of males on the face of the earth. From the factory at Soho, Watt's
+improved engines were dispersed all over the country, especially in
+Cornwall--the firm receiving the value of a third part of the coal saved
+by the use of the new machine. In one mine, where there were three pumps
+at work, the proprietors thought it worth while, it is said, to purchase
+the rights of the inventors, at the price of L2500 yearly for each
+engine. The saving, therefore, on the three engines, in fuel alone, must
+have been at least L7500 a year.
+
+In the first year of the present century, Watt withdrew himself entirely
+from business; but though he lived in retirement, he did not let his
+busy mind get rusty or sluggish for want of exercise. At one time he
+took it into his head that his faculties were declining, and though
+upwards of seventy years of age, he resolved to test his mental powers
+by taking up some new subject of study. It was no easy matter to find
+one quite new to him, so wide and comprehensive had been his range of
+study; but at length the Anglo-Saxon tongue occurred to him, and he
+immediately applied himself to master it, the facility with which he did
+so, dispelling all doubt as to the failing of his stupendous intellect.
+He thus busied himself in various useful and entertaining pursuits, till
+close upon his death, which took place in 1819.
+
+Extraordinary as was Watt's inventive genius, his wide range of
+knowledge, theoretic and practical, was equally so. Great as is the
+"idea" with which his name is chiefly associated, he was not a man of
+one idea, but of a thousand. There was hardly a subject which came under
+his notice which he did not master; and, as was said of him, "it seemed
+as if every subject casually started by him had been that he had been
+occupied in studying." He had no doubt a rapid faculty of acquiring
+knowledge; but he owed the versatility and copiousness of his
+attainments above all to his unwearied industry. He was always at work
+on something or other, and he may truly be called one of those who--
+
+            "Could Time's hour-glass fall,
+    Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand,
+    And by incessant labour gather all."
+
+In a recent volume of memoirs by Mrs. Schimmel Pennick, we find the
+following graphic sketch of this extraordinary man:--"He was one of the
+most complete specimens of the melancholic temperament. His head was
+generally bent forward or leaning on his hand in meditation, his
+shoulders stooping, and his chest falling in, his limbs lank and
+unmuscular, and his complexion sallow. His utterance was slow and
+impassioned, deep and low in tone, with a broad Scotch accent; his
+manners gentle, modest, and unassuming. In a company where he was not
+known, unless spoken to, he might have tranquilly passed the whole time
+in pursuing his own meditations. When he entered the room, men of
+letters, men of science, many military men, artists, ladies, and even
+little children, thronged around him. I remember a celebrated Swedish
+artist being instructed by him that rat's whiskers made the most pliant
+painting-brushes; ladies would appeal to him on the best modes of
+devising grates, curing smoking chimneys, warming their houses, and
+obtaining fast colours."
+
+His reading was singularly extensive and diversified. He perused almost
+every work that came in his way, and used to say that he never opened a
+book, no matter what its subject or worth, without learning something
+from it. He had a vivid imagination, was passionately fond of fiction,
+and was a very gifted story-teller himself. When a boy, staying with his
+aunt in Glasgow, he used every night to enthral the attention of the
+little circle with some exciting narrative, which they would not go to
+bed till they had heard the end of; and kept them in such a state of
+tremor and excitement, that his aunt used to threaten to send him away.
+
+Since Watt's time, innumerable patents have been taken out for
+improvements in the steam engine; but his great invention forms the
+basis of nearly all of them, and the alterations refer rather to details
+than principles of action. The application of steam to locomotive
+purposes, however, led to the construction of the high pressure engine,
+in which the cumbrous condensing apparatus is dispensed with, and motion
+imparted to the piston by the elastic power of the steam being greater
+than that of the atmosphere.
+
+
+
+
+The Manufacture of Cotton.
+
+
+  I.--KAY AND HARGREAVES.
+ II.--SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT.
+III.--SAMUEL CROMPTON.
+ IV.--DR. CARTWRIGHT.
+  V.--SIR ROBERT PEEL.
+
+
+
+
+The Manufacture of Cotton.
+
+    "Are not our greatest men as good as lost? The men who walk
+    daily among us, clothing us, warming us, feeding us, walk
+    shrouded in darkness, mere mythic men."--CARLYLE.
+
+
+
+
+I.--KAY AND HARGREAVES.
+
+
+On the 3d of May 1734, there was a hanging at Cork which made a good
+deal more noise than such a very ordinary event generally did in those
+days. There was nothing remarkable about the malefactor, or the crime he
+had committed. He was a very commonplace ruffian, and had earned his
+elevation to the gallows by a vulgar felony. What was remarkable about
+the affair was, that the woollen weavers of Cork, being then in a state
+of great distress from want of work, dressed up the convict in cotton
+garments, and that the poor wretch, having once been a weaver himself,
+"employed" the last occasion he was ever to have of addressing his
+fellow creatures, by assuring them that all his misdeeds and misfortunes
+were to be traced to the "pernicious practice of wearing cottons."
+"Therefore, good Christians," he continued, "consider that if you go on
+to suppress your own goods, by wearing such cottons as I am now clothed
+in, you will bring your country into misery, which will consequently
+swarm with such unhappy malefactors as your present Object is; and the
+blood of every miserable felon that will hang after this warning from
+the gallows will lie at your doors."
+
+All which sayings were no doubt greatly applauded by the disheartened
+weavers on the spot, and much taken to heart by the citizens and gentry
+to whom they were addressed.
+
+This is only one out of the many illustrations which might be drawn from
+the chronicles of those days, of the prejudice and discouragement cotton
+had to contend against on its first appearance in this country.
+Prohibited over and over again, laid under penalties and high duties,
+treated with every sort of contumely and oppression, it had long to
+struggle desperately for the barest tolerance; yet it ended by
+overcoming all obstacles, and distancing its favoured rival wool.
+Returning good for evil, cotton now sustains one-sixth of our
+fellow-countrymen, and is an important mainstay of our commerce and
+manufactures.
+
+First imported into Great Britain towards the middle of the seventeenth
+century, cotton was but little used for purposes of manufacture till the
+middle of the eighteenth. The settlement of some Flemish emigrants in
+Lancashire led to that district becoming the principal seat of the
+cotton manufacture; and probably the ungenerous nature of its soil
+induced the people to resort to spinning and weaving to make up for the
+unprofitableness of their agricultural labours.
+
+A nobler monument of human skill, enterprise, and perseverance, than the
+invention of cotton-spinning machinery is hardly to be met with; but it
+must also be owned that its history, encouraging as it is in one aspect,
+is in another sad and humiliating to the last degree. It is difficult at
+first to credit the uniform ingratitude and treachery which the various
+inventors met with from the very men whom their contrivances enriched.
+"There is nothing," said James Watt in the crisis of his fortunes, worn
+with care, and sick with hope deferred--"there is nothing so foolish as
+inventing;" and with far more reason the inventors of cotton-spinning
+machines could echo the mournful cry. It is sad to think that so proud a
+chapter of our history should bear so dark a stain.
+
+In 1733 the primitive method still prevailed of spinning between the
+finger and thumb, only one thread at a time; and weaving up the yarn in
+a loom, the shuttle of which had to be thrown from right to left and
+left to right by both hands alternately. In that year, however, the
+first step was made in advance, by the invention of the fly-shuttle,
+which, by means of a handle and spring, could be jerked from side to
+side with one hand. This contrivance was due to the ingenuity of John
+Kay, a loom-maker at Colchester, and proved his ruin. The weavers did
+their best to prevent the use of the shuttle,--the masters to get it
+used, and to cheat the inventor out of his reward. Poor Kay was soon
+brought low in the world by costly law-suits, and being not yet tired of
+inventing, devised a rude power-loom. In revenge a mob of weavers broke
+into his house, smashed all his machines, and would have smashed him
+too, had they laid hands on him. He escaped from their clutches, to find
+his way to Paris, and to die there in misery not long afterwards. Kay
+was the first of the martyrs in this branch of invention. James
+Hargreaves was the next.
+
+The use of the fly-shuttle greatly expedited the process of weaving, and
+the spinning of cotton soon fell behind. The weavers were often brought
+to a stand-still for want of weft to go on with, and had to spend their
+mornings going about in search of it, sometimes without getting as much
+as kept them busy for the rest of the day. The scarcity of yarn was a
+constant complaint; and many a busy brain was at work trying to devise
+some improvement on the common hand-wheel. Amongst others, James
+Hargreaves, an ingenious weaver at Standhill, near Blackburn, who had
+already improved the mode of cleaning and unravelling the cotton before
+spinning, took the subject into consideration. One day, when brooding
+over it in his cottage, idle for want of weft, the accidental
+overturning of his wife's wheel suggested to him the principle of the
+spinning-jenny. Lying on its side, the wheel still continued in
+motion--the spindle being thrown from a horizontal into an upright
+position; and it occurred to him that all he had got to do was to place
+a number of spindles side by side. This was in 1764, and three years
+afterwards Hargreaves had worked out the idea, and constructed a
+spinning frame, with eight spindles and a horizontal wheel, which he
+christened after his wife Jenny, whose wheel had first put him in the
+right track. Directly the spinners of the locality got knowledge of this
+machine that was to do eight times as much as any one of them, they
+broke into the inventor's cottage, destroyed the jenny, and compelled
+him to fly for the safety of his life to Nottingham. He took out a
+patent, but the manufacturers leagued themselves against them. Sole,
+friendless, penniless, he could make no head against their numbers and
+influence, relinquished his invention, and died in obscurity and
+distress ten years after he had the misfortune to contrive the
+spinning-jenny.
+
+The history of the cotton manufacture now becomes identified with the
+lives of Arkwright, Crompton, and Cartwright--the inventors of the
+water-frame, the mule, and the power-loom.
+
+
+
+
+II.--SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT.
+
+
+Somewhere about the year 1752, any one passing along a certain obscure
+alley in Preston, then a mere village compared with the prosperous town
+into which it has since expanded, might have observed projecting from
+the entrance to the underground flat of one of the houses, a blue and
+white pole, with a battered tin plate dangling at the end of it, the
+object of which was to indicate that if he wanted his hair cut or his
+chin shaved, he had only to step down stairs, and the owner of the sign
+would be delighted to accommodate him. But either people in that quarter
+had little or no superfluous hair to get rid of, or they had it taken
+off elsewhere; for Dicky Arkwright, the barber in the cellar, for whom
+the pole and plate stood sponsor in the upper world, had few
+opportunities of displaying his talents, and spent most of his time
+whetting his razors on a long piece of leather, one end of which was
+nailed to the wall, while the other was drawn towards him, and keeping
+the hot water and the soap ready for the customers who seldom or never
+came. This sort of thing did not suit Dick's notions at all; for he was
+of an active temperament, and besides feeling very dull at being so much
+by himself all day, he pulled rather a long face when he counted out the
+scanty array of coppers in the till after shutting up shop for the
+night. As he sat one night, before tumbling into his truckle bed that
+stood in a recess in one corner of the dingy little room, meditating on
+the hardness of the times, a bright idea struck him; and the next
+morning the attractions of the sign-pole were enhanced by a staring
+placard, bearing the urgent invitation:--
+
+    COME TO THE
+    SUBTERRANEOUS BARBER!
+    HE SHAVES FOR A PENNY!!
+
+Now twopence, as we believe all those who have investigated the subject
+are agreed, was the standard charge for a clean shave at that period;
+and as soon as this innovation got wind, we can fancy how indignant the
+fraternity were at the unprincipled conduct of one of their number; how
+they denounced the reprobate, and prophesied his speedy ruin, over their
+pipes and beer in the parlour of the "Duke of Marlborough," which they
+patronized out of respect for that hero's enormous periwig,--in their
+eyes his chief title to immortality, and a bright example for the
+degenerate age, when people had not only taken to wearing their own
+hair, but were even beginning to leave off dusting it with flour! And to
+make matters worse, here was a low fellow offering to shave for a penny.
+A number of people, tickled with the originality of the placard, and not
+unmindful of the penny saved, began to patronize the "Subterraneous
+barber," and he soon drew so many customers away from the higher-priced
+shops, that they were obliged to come down, after a while, to a penny as
+well. Not to be outdone, Arkwright lowered his charge to a halfpenny,
+and still retained his rank as the cheapest barber in the place.
+
+Arkwright's parents had been very poor people; and as he was the
+youngest of a family of thirteen, it may be readily supposed that all
+the school learning he got was of the most meagre kind,--if, indeed, he
+ever was at school at all, which is very doubtful. He was of a very
+ardent, enterprising temperament, however, and when once he took a thing
+in hand, stubbornly persevered in carrying it through to the end. About
+the year 1760, being then about thirty years of age, Arkwright got tired
+of the shaving, which brought him but a very scanty and precarious
+livelihood, and resolved to try his luck in a business where there was
+more scope for his enterprise and activity. He therefore began business
+as an itinerant dealer in hair, travelling up and down the country to
+collect it, dressing it himself, and then disposing of it in a prepared
+state to the wig-makers. As he was very quick in detecting any
+improvements that might be made in the process of dressing, he soon
+acquired the reputation amongst the wig-makers of supplying a better
+article than any of his rivals, and drove a very good trade. He had also
+picked up or discovered for himself the secret of dyeing the hair in a
+particular way, by which he not only augmented his profits, but enlarged
+the circle of his customers. He throve so well, that he was able to lay
+by a little money and to marry. He was very fond of spending what
+leisure time he had in making experiments in mechanics; and for a while
+was very much taken up with an attempt to solve the attractive problem
+of perpetual motion. No doubt he soon saw the hopelessness of the
+effort; but although he left the question unsolved, the bent thus given
+to his thoughts was fruitful of most valuable consequences.
+
+Living in the midst of a manufacturing population, Arkwright was
+accustomed to hear daily complaints of the continual difficulty of
+procuring sufficient weft to keep the looms employed; while the
+exportation of cotton goods gave rise to a growing demand for the
+manufactured article. The weavers generally had the weft they used spun
+for them by their wives or daughters; and those whose families could not
+supply the necessary quantity, had their spinning done by their
+neighbours; and even by paying, as they had to do, more for the spinning
+than the price allowed by their masters, very few could procure weft
+enough to keep themselves constantly at work. It was no uncommon thing,
+we learn, for a weaver to walk three or four miles in a morning, and
+call on five or six spinners, before he could collect weft to serve him
+for the rest of the day. Arkwright must have been constantly hearing of
+this difficulty, and of the restrictions it placed on the manufacture of
+cotton goods; and being a mechanical genius, was led to think how it
+might be lessened, if not got rid of altogether. The idea of having an
+automaton spinner, instead of one of flesh and blood, had occurred
+before then to more than one speculator; but the thing had never
+answered, and no models or descriptions of the machines proposed were
+preserved. One inventor had, indeed, destroyed his own machine, after
+having constructed it and found it to work, for fear that if it came
+into use it would deprive the poor spinners of their livelihood,--in
+reality its effect would have been to provide employment and food for
+thousands more than at that time got a miserable living from their
+spinning-wheels.
+
+While Arkwright was intent on the discovery of perpetual motion, he fell
+in with a clockmaker of the name of Kay, who assisted him in making
+wheels and springs for the contrivance he was trying to complete. This
+led to an intimate connection between them; and when Arkwright had given
+up the perpetual motion affair, and applied his thoughts to the
+invention of some machine for producing cotton weft more rapidly than by
+the simple wheel, Kay continued to help him in making models. Arkwright
+soon became so engrossed in his new task, and so confident of ultimate
+success, that he began to neglect his regular business. All his
+thoughts, and nearly all his time, were given up to the great work he
+had taken in hand. His trade fell off; he spent all his savings in
+purchasing materials for models, and getting them put together, and he
+fell into very distressed circumstances. His wife remonstrated with him,
+but in vain; and one day, in a rage at what she considered the cause of
+all their privations, she smashed some of his models on the floor. Such
+an outrage was more than Arkwright could bear, and they separated.
+
+In 1768, Arkwright, having completed the model of a machine for spinning
+cotton thread, removed to Preston, taking Kay with him. At this time he
+had hardly a penny in the world, and was almost in rags. His poverty,
+indeed, was such, that soon after his arrival in Preston, a contested
+election for a member of Parliament having taken place, he was so
+tattered and miserable in his appearance, that the party with whom he
+voted had to give him a decent suit of clothes before he could be seen
+at the polling-booth. He had got leave to set up his machine in the
+dwelling-house attached to the Free Grammar School; but, afraid of
+suffering from the hostility of the spinners, as the unfortunate
+Hargreaves had done some time before, he and Kay thought it best to
+leave Lancashire, and try their fortune in Nottingham.
+
+Poor and friendless, it may easily be supposed that Arkwright found it a
+hard matter to get any one to back him in a speculation which people
+then regarded as hazardous, if not illusory. He got a few pounds from
+one of the bankers in the town; but that was soon spent, and further
+advances were refused. Nothing daunted, Arkwright tried elsewhere for
+help, and at length succeeded in convincing Messrs. Need and Strutt,[A]
+large stocking-weavers in the place, of the value of his invention, and
+inducing them to enter into partnership with him. In 1769 he took out a
+patent for the machine, as its inventor, and a mill, worked by
+horse-power, was erected for spinning cotton by the new machine. Two
+years after, he and his partner set up another mill in Derbyshire,
+worked by a water-wheel; and in 1775 he took out another patent for some
+improvements on his original scheme.
+
+The machinery which he patented consisted of a number of different
+contrivances; but the chief of these, and the one which he particularly
+claimed entirely as his own invention (for he frankly admitted that some
+of the other parts were only developments of other inventors), was what
+is called the water-frame throstle for drawing out the cotton from a
+coarse to a finer and harder twisted thread, and so rendering it fit to
+be used for the warp, or longitudinal threads of the cloth, which were
+formed of linen, as well as the weft. This apparatus was a combination
+of the carding and spinning machinery; and the principle of having two
+pairs of rollers, one revolving faster than the other, was now for the
+first time applied to machinery.
+
+In a year or two the success of Arkwright's inventions was fairly
+established. The manufacturers were fully alive to its importance; and
+Arkwright now reaped the reward of all the toil and danger he had
+undergone in the shape of a diligent and persistent attempt to rob him
+of his monopoly, which was carried on for a number of years, and was at
+length successful. Some of the manufacturers, who were greedy to profit
+by the new machinery without paying the inventor, got hold of Kay, who
+had quarrelled with Arkwright some time before, and found him a willing
+instrument in their hands. It would take too long to go over all the law
+processes which Arkwright had now to engage in to defend his rights. Kay
+got up a story that the real inventor was a poor reed maker named Highs,
+who had once employed him to make a model, the secret of which he had
+imparted to Arkwright; and this was a capital excuse for using the new
+machinery in defiance of the patent, although the evidence at the
+various trials is now held completely to vindicate Arkwright's title as
+inventor. One law plea was lost to him, on account of some technical
+omission in the specifications; another restored to him the enjoyment of
+his monopoly; and a third trial destroyed the patent, which Arkwright
+never took any steps to recover.
+
+Besides trying to defraud Arkwright of his patent-rights, the rival
+manufacturers, with jealous inconsistency, did their best to
+discountenance the use of the yarns he made, although much superior in
+quality to what was then in use. But Arkwright not only surmounted this
+obstacle, but turned it to good account, for it set him to manufacturing
+the yarn into stockings and calicoes, the duty on which being soon
+after lowered, in spite of the strenuous opposition of the
+manufacturers, turned out a very profitable speculation.
+
+For the first five years Arkwright's mills yielded little or no profit;
+but after that, the adverse tide against which he had struggled so
+bravely changed, and he followed a prosperous and honourable career till
+his death, which happened in 1792. He was knighted, not for being, as he
+was, a benefactor to his country, but because, in his capacity of high
+sheriff, he chanced to read some trumpery address to the king. He left
+behind a fortune of about half a million sterling.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] The founder of the family of Strutt of Belper, afterwards ennobled.
+
+
+
+
+III.--SAMUEL CROMPTON.
+
+
+Excellent as was the yarn produced by the spinning-jenny and the
+water-frame, compared with the old hand-spun stuff, it was coarse and
+full of knots; and when a demand arose for imitations of the fine India
+muslins, the weavers found they could produce but a very poor piece of
+work with such rough materials.
+
+Among those who were inconvenienced for want of a better sort of yarn
+was young Samuel Crompton, who lived with his widowed mother and two
+sisters in an old country house called Hall-in-the-Wood, near what was
+then the little rural town of Bolton in the Moors. When Samuel was only
+five years old his father died, and left his widow with the three
+children on her hands, to struggle through the world as best she could.
+A hard-working, energetic, God-fearing woman, she buckled to the fight
+with a stout heart and a resolute will. Her husband had been both farmer
+and weaver, like most of the men in that quarter; and she did her best
+to fill his place, looking after the little farm and the three cows, and
+working at the loom, the yarn for which she taught the bairns to spin.
+Whatever she took in hand she did with might and main, and the result
+was, her webs were the best woven, her butter the richest, her honey the
+purest, her home-made wines the finest flavoured of any in the district.
+Small as her means were, she gave her boy the best education that could
+be got in Bolton--first at a day-school, and afterwards, when he was old
+enough to take his place by day between the treadles, at a night-school.
+Rigid in her sense of duty, and resolute to do her own share of the
+work, she exacted the same from others, and kept her lad tightly to the
+loom. Every day he had to do a certain quantity of work; and there was
+no looking her in the face unless each evening saw it done, and well
+done too. Anxious to satisfy his mother, and yet get time for his
+favourite amusement of fiddle-making and fiddle-playing, Sam grew
+quickly sensitive of the imperfections of the machinery he had to work
+with. "He was plagued to deeath," he used to say, "wi' mendin' the
+broken threeads;" and could not help thinking many a time whether the
+jenny could not be improved so as to spin more quickly, and produce a
+better thread. By the time he came to man's estate, in 1774, his
+thoughts had settled so far into a track, that he was able to begin
+making a contrivance of his own, which he hoped would accomplish the
+object he had in view. He had a few common tools which had belonged to
+his father, but his own clasp-knife served nearly every purpose in his
+ready hands. He had his "bits of things" filed at the smithy, and to get
+money for materials, he fiddled at the theatre for 1s. 6d. a night.
+Every minute he could spare from the task-work of the day was spent in
+his little room over the porch of the hall in forwarding his invention.
+As it advanced, he grew more and more engrossed with it, and often the
+dawn found him still at work on it. The good folks down in Bolton were
+sorely puzzled to think what light it was that was so often seen
+glimmering at uncanny hours up at the old hall. The story went abroad
+that the place was haunted, and that the ghost of some former resident,
+uneasy from the sorrows or the sins of his past life, kept watch and
+ward till cock crow, with a spectral lamp. The mystery was cleared up at
+last. It was discovered that the ghost was only Sam Crompton "fashing
+himself over bits of wood and iron;" and Sam was pointed out as a
+"conjuror"--the cant term for inventor--when he walked through the town.
+
+The five years of labour and anxiety bore fruit in 1779, when the
+"mule-jenny" with its spindle carriage was finished and set to work. As
+its name indicates, it was an ingenious cross between the jenny and the
+water-frame, combining the best features of both with several novel
+ones, which rendered it a very valuable machine.
+
+Just as Crompton had put the finishing touches to his mule, the weavers
+and spinners broke out in open riot at Blackburn, and scoured the
+country with the cry, "Men, not machines;" breaking every machine they
+could lay hands on. To keep himself out of trouble and save his mule,
+Crompton took it to pieces, and hid it in the roof of the hall. When the
+storm had swept past, he brought it out, put it together, and began to
+use it in his daily work. The fine yarn he turned out made quite a
+sensation, and the fame of his invention spread far and wide. People
+came from all quarters to get a sight of it; and when denied admittance,
+brought ladders and harrows, and climbed up to the window of the room
+where it stood. One pertinacious fellow actually ensconced himself for
+several days in the cockloft, from which he watched Crompton at work in
+the room below, through a gimlet hole he bored in the ceiling. Crompton
+lost all patience with this constant espionage. "Why couldn't folk let
+him enjoy his machine by himself?" he asked. A friend, whose advice he
+asked, urged him not to think of taking out a patent, but to make a
+present of his invention to the community at large. Save me from my
+friends, Crompton might well have cried. Simple, guileless fellow that
+he was, he acted on his "friend's" advice, and on a number of
+manufacturers putting down their names for subscriptions varying from a
+guinea to a crown, threw open the invention to the world. When the time
+came for the subscriptions to be called in, some of the manufacturers
+actually were base enough to refuse payment of the paltry sums they had
+promised, and overwhelmed with abuse the man by the fruit of whose brain
+they were making their fortunes. When all the money was collected, it
+amounted to only L60, just as much as built Crompton a new machine, with
+no more than four spindles.
+
+Shy, simple, confiding, innocent of the cunning ways of the world, sadly
+backward in the study of mankind, and perhaps somewhat ungenial and
+unpractised to boot, Crompton, from the time when one would have thought
+he had set his foot on the first round of the ladder of fortune, went
+stumbling on from one misfortune to another, ill-used on every side, and
+unsuccessful in every effort to get on in the world. Wheedled out of his
+patent rights, cheated of the money promised him, his workmen lured away
+from him as soon as he had taught them the construction of the mule, he
+grew morbid and distrustful of everyone. He would have no more workmen;
+and as the production of his machines was thus restricted to the labours
+of his own hands, he could not compete with the large factories, who
+drew all the customers away from him. Peel, the father of the statesman,
+offered him first a lucrative place of trust, and afterwards a
+partnership; but he would not listen to him. He grew more wretched and
+discouraged every day. In despair he cut up his spinning machines, and
+hacked to pieces with an axe a carding machine he had invented,
+exclaiming bitterly, "They shall not have this too."
+
+He then retired into comparative obscurity at Oldham, where he drudged
+away at weaving, farming, cow-keeping, and overseeing the poor, and
+found it no easy matter withal to support his family, for he had married
+some years before. Afterwards he re-appeared at Bolton as a small
+manufacturer; and there was a brief interval of sunshine. The muslin
+trade was very brisk, and the weavers walked about with five-pound notes
+stuck in their hats, and dressed out in ruffled shirts and top boots,
+like fine gentlemen. While this lasted Crompton found abundant sale for
+his superior yarn. But trade grew depressed, and the gloom settled over
+Crompton's life to its close.
+
+The idea was started of getting Parliament to do something for him; but
+he was too independent to supplicate government officials in person.
+Spencer Perceval, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was willing to
+befriend him; but Crompton's ill luck was at his heels. On the 11th of
+May 1812, Crompton was talking with Peel and another gentleman in the
+lobby of the House of Commons, when Perceval walked up to them, saying,
+"You will be glad to know we mean to propose L20,000 for Crompton. Do
+you think it will be satisfactory?" Crompton walked away out of delicacy
+not to hear the answer. An instant afterwards there was a great shout,
+and a rush of people in alarm. Perceval lay bathed in his own blood,
+slain by the bullet of the assassin Bellingham. Crompton had lost his
+friend.
+
+When the subject of a grant to the inventor of the spinning-mule was
+brought up in the House a few days afterwards by Lord Stanley (now Lord
+Derby), only L5000 was proposed. No one thought of increasing it. "Let's
+give the man a L100 a-year," said an honourable member; "it's as much as
+he can drink." So the vote was agreed to; though at that very time the
+duty accruing to the revenue from the cotton wool imported to be spun
+upon the mule was L300,000 a-year, or more than L1000 a working day. The
+impulse which this invention gave to the cotton manufactures of Great
+Britain, and the commercial prosperity to which it led, enabled the
+country to bear the heavy drain of the war taxes; and it has been said,
+with no little truth, that Crompton contributed as much as Wellington to
+the downfall of Napoleon. As soon as it became known, the mule-spindle
+took the lead in cotton-spinning machines. In 1811 above 4,600,000
+mule-spindles, made by his pattern, were in use. At the present time it
+is calculated that there are upwards of 30,000,000 in use in Great
+Britain; and the increase goes on at the rate of above 1,000,000 a-year.
+In France there were in 1850 about 3,000,000 spindles on Crompton's
+principle; and one firm of mule makers (Hibbert, Platt, and Company, of
+Oldham), make mules at the rate of 500,000 spindles a-year. The immense
+impetus given to trade, money, civilization, and comfort by this
+invention is almost incalculable.
+
+The grant of L5000 was soon swallowed up in the payment of his debts,
+and in meeting the losses of his business. "Nothing more was ever done
+for him. The king, who was fond of patronizing merit, took no notice of
+him; his eldest son was promised a commission, which he did not get; and
+some time after, when struggling through life on only L100 a-year, the
+post of sub-inspector of the factories in Bolton became vacant; though
+he applied for the office, for which he was eminently qualified, he was
+passed over in favour of the natural son of one of the ex-secretaries of
+state--a man who did not know a mule from a spinning-jenny."[B]
+
+Crompton spent his last days in poverty and privation, and died at the
+age of seventy-four, in 1827.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[B] Athenaeum.
+
+
+
+
+IV.--DR. CARTWRIGHT.
+
+
+In the summer of 1784 a number of gentlemen were chatting, after dinner,
+in a country house at Matlock in Derbyshire. Some extensive cotton-mills
+had recently been set up in the neighbourhood, and the conversation
+turned upon the wonderful inventions which had been introduced for
+spinning cotton. There were one or two gentlemen present connected with
+the "manufacturing interest," who were very bitter against Arkwright and
+his schemes.
+
+"It's all very well," said one of the grumblers, "but what will all this
+rapid production of yarn lead to? Putting aside the ruin of the poor
+spinners, who will be starved because they haven't as many arms as these
+terrible machines, you'll find that it will end in a great deal more
+yarn being spun than can be woven into cloth, and in large quantities of
+yarn being exported to the Continent, where it will be worked up by
+foreign weavers, to the injury of our home manufacture. That will be the
+short and the long of it, mark my words."
+
+"Well, but, sir," remarked a grave, portly, middle-aged gentleman of
+clerical appearance, after a few minutes' reflection, "when you talk of
+the impossibility of the weaving keeping up with the spinning, you
+forget that machinery may yet be applied to the former as well as the
+latter. Why may there not be a loom contrived for working up yarn as
+fast as the spindle produces it. That long-headed fellow Arkwright must
+just set about inventing a weaving machine."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense," returned the "practical man" pettishly, as though
+it were hardly worth while noticing the remarks of such a dreamer. "You
+might as well bid Arkwright grow the cloth ready made. Weaving by
+machinery is utterly impossible. You must remember how much more complex
+a process it is than spinning, and what a variety of movements it
+involves. Weaving by machinery is a mere idle vision, my dear sir, and
+shows you know nothing about the operation."
+
+"Well, I must confess my ignorance on the subject of weaving," replied
+the clergyman; "but surely it can't be a more complex matter than moving
+the pieces in a game of chess. Now, there's an automaton figure now
+exhibiting in London, which handles the chess men, and places them on
+the proper squares of the board, and makes the most intricate moves, for
+all the world as if it were alive. If that can be done, I don't see why
+weaving should baffle a clever mechanist. A few years ago we should have
+laughed at the notion of doing what Arkwright has done; and I'm certain
+that before many years are over, we shall have 'weaving Johnnies,' as
+well as 'spinning Jennies.'"
+
+Dr. Cartwright, for that was the clergyman's name, confidently as he
+foretold that machine-weaving would be devised before long, little
+dreamt at that moment that he was himself to bring about the fulfilment
+of his own prediction. A quiet, country clergyman, of literary tastes, a
+scholar, and poetaster, he had spent his life hitherto in the discharge
+of his ministerial duties, writing articles and verses, and had never
+given the slightest attention to mechanics, theoretical or practical. He
+had never so much as seen a loom at work, and had not the remotest
+notion of the principle or mode of its construction. But the chance
+conversation at the Matlock dinner table suddenly roused his interest in
+the subject. He walked home meditating on what sort of a process weaving
+must be; brooded over the subject for days and weeks,--was often
+observed by his family striding up and down the room in a fit of
+abstraction, throwing his arms from side to side like a weaver jerking
+the shuttles,--and at last succeeded in evolving, as the Germans would
+say, from "the depths of his moral consciousness," the idea of a
+power-loom. With the help of a smith and a carpenter, he set about the
+construction of a number of experimental machines, and at length, after
+five or six months' application, turned out a rude, clumsy piece of
+work, which was the basis of his invention.
+
+"The warp," he says, "was laid perpendicularly, the reed fell with the
+force of at least half a hundredweight, and the springs which threw the
+shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. In short,
+it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a
+slow rate, and only for a short time. This being done, I then
+condescended to see how other people wove; and you will guess my
+astonishment when I compared their easy modes of operation with mine.
+Availing myself of what I then saw, I made a loom in its general
+principles nearly as they are now made. But it was not till the year
+1787 that I completed my invention."
+
+Having given himself to the contrivance of a loom that should be able to
+keep pace in the working up of the yarn with the jenny which produced
+it, solely from motives of philanthropy, he felt bound, now that he had
+devised the machine, to prove its utility, and bring it into use. To
+have stopped with the work of invention, would, he conceived, have been
+to leave the work half undone; and, therefore, at no slight sacrifice of
+personal inclination, and to the rupture of all old ties, associations,
+and ways of life, he quitted the ease and seclusion of his parsonage,
+abandoned the pursuits which had formerly been his delight, and devoted
+himself to the promotion of his invention. He set up weaving and
+spinning factories at Doncaster, and, bent on the welfare of his race,
+began the weary, painful struggle that was to be his ruin, and to end
+only with his life. "I have the worst mechanical conception any man can
+have," wrote his friend Crabbe, "but you have my best wishes. May you
+weave webs of gold." Alas! the good man wove for himself rather a web of
+dismal sack-cloth, sore and grievous to his peace, like the harsh shirts
+of hair old devotees used to vex their flesh with for their sins. The
+golden webs were for other folk's wear,--for those who toiled not with
+their brain as he had done, but who reaped what they had not sown.
+
+He had invented a machine that was to promote industry, and save the
+English weavers from being driven from the field, as was beginning to be
+the case, by foreign weavers; and masters and men were up in arms
+against him as soon as his design was known. His goods were maliciously
+damaged,--his workmen were spirited away from him,--his patent right was
+infringed. Calumny and hatred dogged his steps. After a succession of
+disasters, his prospects assumed a brighter aspect, when a large
+Manchester firm contracted for the use of four hundred looms. A few days
+after they were at work, the mill that had been built to receive them
+stood a heap of blackened ruins.
+
+Still, he would not give up till all his resources were exhausted,--and
+surely and not slowly that event drew nigh. The fortune of L30,000 with
+which he started in the enterprise melted rapidly away; and at length
+the day came when, with an empty purse, a frame shattered with anxiety
+and toil, but with a brave, stout heart still beating in his breast,
+Cartwright turned his back upon his mills, and went off to London to
+gain a living by his pen. As he turned from the scene of his
+misfortunes, he exclaimed,--
+
+    "With firm, unshaken mind, that wreck I see,
+    Nor think the doom of man should be reversed for me."
+
+The lion that has once eaten a man has ever after, it is said, a wild
+craving after human blood. And it would seem that the faculty of
+invention, once aroused, its appetite for exercise is constant and
+insatiable. Cartwright having discovered his dormant powers, could no
+more cease to use them than to eat. A return to his quiet literary ways,
+fond as he still was of such pursuits, was impossible. An inventor he
+was, and an inventor he must continue till his eye was glazed, and his
+brain numbed in death. When a clergyman he set himself to study
+medicine, and acquired great skill and knowledge in the science, solely
+for the benefit of the poor parishioners, and now he gave himself up to
+the labours of invention with the same benevolent motives. Gain had not
+tempted him to enter the arena,--discouragement and ruin were not to
+drive him from it. The resources of his ingenuity seemed inexhaustible,
+and there was no limit to its range of objects. Wool-combing machines,
+bread and biscuit baking machines, rope-making machines, ploughs, and
+wheel carriages, fire-preventatives, were in turn invented or improved
+by him. He predicted the use of steam-ships, and steam-carriages,--and
+himself devised a model of the former (with clock-work instead of a
+steam-engine), which a little boy used to play with on the ponds at
+Woburn, that was to grow up into an eminent statesman--Lord John
+Russell. To the very last hour of his life his brain was teeming with
+new designs. He went down to Dover in his eightieth year for warm
+sea-bathing, and suggested to his bathman a way of pumping up the water
+that saved him the wages of two men; and almost the day before his
+death, he wrote an elaborate statement of a new mode he had discovered
+of working the steam-engine. Moved by an irresistible impulse to promote
+the "public weal," he truly fulfilled the resolution he expressed in
+verse,--
+
+    "With mind unwearied, still will I engage,
+    In spite of failing vigour and of age,
+    Nor quit the combat till I quit the stage."
+
+In 1808 he was rewarded by Parliament for his invention of the
+power-loom, and the losses it brought upon him, by a grant of L10,000.
+He died in October 1823.
+
+
+
+
+V.--SIR ROBERT PEEL.
+
+
+Cartwright's power-loom was afterwards taken in hand and greatly
+improved by other ingenious persons--mechanics and weavers. "The names
+of many clever mechanics," says a writer in the _Quarterly Review_, "who
+contributed to advance it, step by step, through failure and
+disappointment, have long been forgotten. Some broke their hearts over
+their projects when apparently on the eve of success. No one was more
+indefatigable in his endeavours to overcome the difficulties of the
+contrivance than William Radcliffe, a manufacturer at Mellor, near
+Manchester, whose invention of the dressing-machine was an important
+step in advance. With the assistance of an ingenious young weaver in his
+employment, named Johnson, he also brought out the dandy-loom, which
+effects almost all that can be done for the hand-loom as to motion.
+Radcliffe was not, however, successful as a manufacturer; he exhausted
+his means in experiments, of which his contemporaries and successors
+were to derive the benefit; and after expending immense labour, and a
+considerable fortune in his improvements, he died in poverty in
+Manchester only a few years ago."
+
+To the Peel family the cotton manufacture is greatly indebted for its
+progress. Robert Peel, the founder of the family, developed the plan of
+printing calico, and his successors perfected it in a variety of ways.
+While occupied as a small farmer near Blackburn, he gave a great deal of
+attention to the subject, and made a great many experiments. One day,
+when sketching a pattern on the back of a pewter dinner-plate, the idea
+occurred to him, that if colour were rubbed upon the design an
+impression might be printed off it upon calico. He tested the plan at
+once. Filling in the pattern with colour on the back of the plate, and
+placing a piece of calico over it, he passed it through a mangle, and
+was delighted with seeing the calico come out duly printed. This was his
+first essay in calico-printing; and he soon worked out the idea,
+patented it, and starting as a calico-printer, succeeded so well, that
+he gave up the farm and devoted himself entirely to that business. His
+sons succeeded him; and the Peel family, divided into numerous firms,
+became one of the chief pillars of the cotton manufacture.
+
+To such perfection has calico-printing now been brought, that a mile of
+calico can be printed in an hour, or three cotton dresses in a minute;
+and so extensive is the production of that article, that one firm
+alone--that of Hoyle--turns out in a year more than 10,000 miles of it,
+or more than sufficient to measure the diameter of our planet.
+
+It was a favourite saying of old Sir Robert Peel, in regard to the
+importance of commercial wealth in a national point of view, "that the
+gains of individuals were small compared with the national gains arising
+from trade;" and there can be no doubt that the success of the cotton
+trade has contributed essentially to the present affluence and
+prosperity of the United Kingdom. It has placed cheap and comfortable
+clothing within the reach of all, and provided well-paid employment for
+multitudes of people; and the growth of population to which it has led,
+and consequent increase in the consumption of the various necessaries
+and luxuries of life, have given a stimulus to all the other branches of
+industry and commerce. From one of the most miserable provinces in the
+land, Lancashire has grown to be one of the most prosperous. Within a
+hundred and fifty years the population has increased tenfold, and land
+has risen to fifty times its value for agricultural, and seventy times
+for manufacturing purposes. From an insignificant country town and a
+little fishing village have sprung Manchester and Liverpool; and many
+other towns throughout the country owe their existence to the same
+source. These are the great monuments to the achievements of Arkwright,
+Crompton, Peel, and the other captains of industry who wrought this
+mighty change, and the best trophies of their genius and enterprise.
+
+
+
+
+The Railway and the Locomotive.
+
+
+  I.--"THE FLYING COACH."
+ II.--THE STEPHENSONS: FATHER AND SON.
+III.--THE GROWTH OF RAILWAYS.
+
+
+
+
+The Railway and the Locomotive
+
+
+
+
+I.--"THE FLYING COACH."
+
+
+It is the grey dawn of a fine spring morning in the year 1669, and early
+though it be, there are many folks astir and gathering in clusters
+before the ancient, weather-stained front of All Souls' College, Oxford.
+The "Flying Coach" which has been so much talked about, and which has
+been solemnly considered and sanctioned by the heads of the University,
+is to make its first journey to the metropolis to-day, and to accomplish
+it between sunrise and sunset. Hitherto the journey has occupied two
+days, the travellers sleeping a night on the road; and the new
+undertaking is regarded as very bold and hazardous. A buzz rises from
+the knots of people as they discuss its prospects,--some very sanguine,
+some very doubtful, not a few very angry at the presumption of the
+enterprise. But six o'clock is on the strike--all the passengers are
+seated, some of them rather wishful to be safe on the pavement
+again--the driver has got the reins in his hand--the guard sounds his
+bugle, and off goes the "Flying Coach" at a rattling pace, amidst the
+cheering of the crowd and the benedictions of the university "Dons," who
+have come down to honour the event with their presence. Learned,
+liberal-minded men these "Dons" are for the times they live in; but only
+fancy what they would think if some old seer, whose meditation and
+research had
+
+    "Pierced the future, far as human eye could see,
+    Seen the vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be,"
+
+were to come forth and tell them, that before two centuries were over
+men would think far less of travelling from Oxford to London in one hour
+than they then did of doing so in a day, by means of a machine of iron,
+mounted upon wheels, which should rush along the ground, and drag a
+load, which a hundred horses could not move, as though it were a
+feather. Roger Bacon had prophesied as much four centuries before; the
+Marquis of Worcester was propounding the same theory at that very day,
+and yet who can blame them if they treated the notion as the falsehood
+of an impostor, or the hallucination of a lunatic?
+
+In these days when railways traverse the country in every direction,
+and are still multiplying rapidly, when no two towns of the least
+size and consideration are unprovided with this mode of mutual
+communication--when we step into a railway carriage as readily as into
+an omnibus, and breakfasting comfortably in London, are whisked off to
+Edinburgh, almost in time for the fashionable dinner hour,--it requires
+no little effort to realize the incredulity and contempt with which the
+idea of superseding the stage-coach by the steam locomotive, and having
+lines of iron railways instead of the common highways, was regarded for
+many years after the beginning of the present century. Even after the
+practicability of the project had been proved, and steam-engines had
+been seen puffing along the rails, with a train of carriages attached,
+even so late as 1825, we find one of the leading periodicals--the
+_Quarterly Review_--denouncing the gross exaggeration of the powers of
+the locomotive which its promoters were guilty of, and predicting that
+though it might delude for a time, it must end in the mortification of
+all concerned. The fact was, said the writer, that people would as soon
+suffer themselves to be fired off like a Congreve rocket, as trust
+themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate--the
+rate of eighteen miles an hour, which people now-a-days, accustomed to
+dash along in express trains at two or three times that speed, would
+deem a perfect snail-pace.
+
+The "railway" had the start of the locomotive by a couple of centuries,
+and derives its parentage from the clumsy wooden way-leaves or
+tram-roads which were laid down to lessen the labour of dragging the
+coal-waggons to and from the place of shipment in the Newcastle
+colleries. These were in use from the beginning of the seventeenth
+century, but it was not till the beginning of the nineteenth that the
+locomotive steam-engine made its appearance. Watt himself took out a
+patent for a locomotive in 1784, but nothing came of it; and the honour
+of having first proved the practicability of applying steam to the
+purposes of locomotion is due to a Cornishman named Trevithick, who
+devised a high-pressure engine of very ingenious construction, and
+actually set it to work on one of the roads in South Wales. At first,
+therefore, there was no alliance between the engine and the rail; and
+though afterwards Trevithick adapted it to run on a tram-way, something
+went wrong with it, and the idea was for the time abandoned. There was a
+long-headed engine-man in one of the Newcastle collieries about this
+time, in whose mind the true solution of the problem was rapidly
+developing, but Trevithick had nearly forestalled him. The stories of
+these two men afford a most instructive lesson. A man of undoubted
+talent and ingenuity, with influential friends both in Cornwall and
+London, Trevithick had a fair start in life, and every opportunity of
+distinguishing himself. But he lacked steadiness and perseverance, and
+nothing prospered with him. He had no sooner applied himself to one
+scheme than he threw it up, and became engrossed in another, to be
+abandoned in turn for some new favourite. He was always beginning some
+novelty, and never ending what he had begun, and the consequence was an
+almost constant succession of failures. He was always unhappy and
+unsuccessful. If now and then a gleam of success did brighten on his
+path, it was but temporary, and was speedily absorbed in the gloom of
+failure. He found a man of capital to take up his high-pressure engine,
+got his locomotive built and set to work, brought his ballast engine
+into use, and stood in no want of praise and encouragement; and yet, one
+after another his schemes went wrong. Not one of them did well, because
+he never stuck to any of them long enough. "The world always went wrong
+with him," he said himself. "He always went wrong with the world," said
+more truly those who knew him. His haste, impatience, and want of
+perseverance ruined him. After actually witnessing his steam engine at
+work in Wales, dragging a train of heavy waggons at the rate of five
+miles an hour, he lost conceit of his invention, went away to the West
+Indies, and did not return to England till Stephenson had solved the
+difficulty of steam locomotion, and was laying out the Stockton and
+Darlington Railway. The humble engine-man, without education, without
+friends, without money, with countless obstacles in his way, and not a
+single advantage, save his native genius and resolution, had won the
+day, and distanced his more favoured and accomplished rival. It was
+reserved for GEORGE STEPHENSON to bring about the alliance of the
+locomotive and the railroad--"man and wife," as he used to call
+them--whose union, like that of heaven and earth in the old mythology,
+was to bear an offspring of Titanic might--the modern railway.
+
+
+
+
+II.--THE STEPHENSONS: FATHER AND SON.
+
+
+Towards the close of the last century, a bare-legged herd-laddie, about
+eight years old, might have been seen, in a field at Dewley Burn, a
+little village not far from Newcastle, amusing himself by making
+clay-engines, with bits of hemlock-stalk for imaginary pipes. The child
+is father of the man; and in after years that little fellow became the
+inventor of the passenger locomotive, and as the founder of the gigantic
+railway system which now spreads its fibres over the length and breadth,
+not only of our own country, but of the civilized world, the true hero
+of the half-century.
+
+The second son of a fireman to one of the colliery engines, who had six
+children and a wife to support on an income of twelve shillings a-week,
+George Stephenson had to begin work while quite a child. At first he was
+set to look after a neighbour's cows, and keep them from straying; and
+afterwards he was promoted to the work of leading horses at the plough,
+hoeing turnips, and such like, at a salary of fourpence a-day. The lad
+had always been fond of poking about in his father's engine house; and
+his great ambition at this time was to become a fireman like his father.
+And at length, after being employed in various ways about the colliery,
+he was, at the age of fourteen, appointed his father's assistant at a
+shilling a-day. The next year he got a situation as fireman on his own
+account; and "now," said he, when his wages were advanced to twelve
+shillings a-week--"now I'm a made man for life."
+
+The next step he took was to get the place of "plugman" to the same
+engine that his father attended as fireman, the former post being rather
+the higher of the two. The business of the plugman, the uninitiated may
+be informed, is to watch the engine, and see that it works properly--the
+name being derived from the duty of plugging the tube at the bottom of
+the shaft, so that the action of the pump should not be interfered with
+by the exposure of the suction-holes. George now devoted himself
+enthusiastically to the study of the engine under his care. It became a
+sort of pet with him; and he was never weary of taking it to pieces,
+cleaning it, putting it together again, and inspecting its various parts
+with admiration and delight, so that he soon made himself thoroughly
+master of its method of working and construction.
+
+Eighteen years old by this time, George Stephenson was wholly
+uneducated. His father's small earnings, and the large family he had to
+feed, at a time when provisions were scarce and at war prices, prevented
+his having any schooling in his early years; and he now set himself to
+repair his deficiencies in that respect. His duties occupied him twelve
+hours a-day, so that he had but little leisure to himself; but he was
+bent on improving himself, and after the duties of the day were over,
+went to a night-school kept by a poor teacher in the village of
+Water-row, where he was now situated, on three nights during the week,
+to take lessons in reading and spelling, and afterwards in the science
+of pot-hooks and hangers as well; so that by the time he was nineteen he
+was able to read clearly, and to write his own name. Then he took to
+arithmetic, for which he showed a strong predilection. He had always a
+sum or two by him to work out while at the engine side, and soon made
+great progress.
+
+The next year he was appointed brakesman at Black Collerton Colliery,
+with six shillings added to his wages, which were now nearly a pound
+a-week, and he was always making a few shillings extra by mending his
+fellow-workmen's shoes, a job at which he was rather expert. Busy as he
+was with his various tasks, he found time to fall in love. Pretty Fanny
+Henderson, a servant at a neighbouring farm, caught his fancy; and
+getting her shoes to mend, it cost him a great effort to return them to
+the comely owner after they were patched up. He carried them about with
+him in his pocket for some time, and would pull them out, and then gaze
+fondly at them with as much emotion as the old story tells us the sight
+of the dainty glass slipper, which Cinderella dropped at the ball,
+excited in the breast of the young prince. Bent upon taking up house for
+himself, with Fanny as presiding genius, Stephenson now began to save
+up, and declared himself a "rich man" when he put his first guinea in
+the box.
+
+Instead of spending the Saturday afternoon with his fellow-workmen in
+the public-house, Stephenson employed himself in taking the engine to
+pieces, and cleaning it; but besides his attention to work, he was also
+remarkable for his skill at putting and wrestling, in which he beat most
+of his comrades. And he was not without pluck either, as he let a great
+hulking fellow, who was the bully of the village, know to his cost, by
+giving him such a drubbing as made him a "sadder and wiser man" for some
+time afterwards. He still continued his attendance at the night-school,
+till he had got out of the master as much instruction in arithmetic as
+he was able to supply.
+
+By the time he was of age he had saved up enough to take a little
+cottage and furnish it comfortably, though, of course, very humbly; and
+in the winter of 1802, Fanny, now Mrs. George Stephenson, rode home from
+church on horseback, seated on a pillion behind her husband, with her
+arms round his waist; and very proud and happy, we may be sure, he was
+that day, as the neighbours came to their doors to wish him "God speed"
+in his new mode of life.
+
+Having learned all he could from the village teacher, George Stephenson
+now began to study mensuration and mathematics at home by himself; but
+he also found time to make a number of experiments in the hope of
+finding out the secret of perpetual motion, and to make shoe-lasts and
+shoes, as well as mend them. At the end of 1803 his only son, Robert,
+was born; and soon after the family removed to Killingworth, seven miles
+from Newcastle, where George got the place of brakesman. They had not
+been settled long here when Fanny died--a loss which affected George
+deeply, and attached him all the more intensely to the offspring of
+their union. At this time everything seemed to go wrong with him. As if
+his wife's death was not grief enough, his father met with an accident
+which deprived him of his eye-sight, and shattered his frame; George
+himself was drawn for the militia, and had to pay a heavy sum of money
+for a substitute; and with his father, and mother, and his own boy to
+support, at a time when taxes were excessive and food dear, he had only
+a salary of L50 or L60 a-year to meet all claims. He was on the verge of
+despair, and would have emigrated to America, if, fortunately for our
+country, he had not been unable to raise sufficient money for his
+passage. So he had to stay in the old country, where a bright and
+glorious future awaited him, dark and desperate as the prospect then
+appeared.
+
+He still went on making models and experiments, and perfecting his
+knowledge of his own engine. To add to his earnings he also took to
+clock-cleaning, with the view of saving up enough to give his boy the
+best education it was in his power to bestow. "In the earlier period of
+my career," he used afterwards to say, "when Robert was a little boy, I
+saw how deficient I was in education, and I made up my mind that he
+should not labour under the same defect, but that I would put him to a
+good school, and give him a liberal training. I was, however, a poor
+man, and how do you think I managed? I betook myself to mending my
+neighbours' clocks and watches at nights, after my daily labour was
+done, and thus I procured the means of educating my son." George began
+by teaching his son to work with him; and when the little chap could not
+reach so high as to put a clock-hand on, would set him on a chair for
+the purpose, and very proud Robert was whenever he could "help father"
+in any of his jobs.
+
+About this time a new pit having been sunk in the district where he
+worked, the engine fixed for the purpose of pumping the water out of the
+shaft was found a failure. This soon reached George's ears. He walked
+over to the pit, carefully examined the various parts of the machinery,
+and turned the matter over in his mind. One day when he was looking at
+it, and almost convinced that he had discovered the cause of the
+failure, one of the workmen came up, and asked him if he could tell what
+was wrong.
+
+"Yes," said George; "and I think I could alter it, and in a week's time
+send you to the bottom."
+
+George offered his services to the engineer. Every expedient had been
+tried to repair the engine, and all had failed. There could be no harm,
+if no good, in Stephenson trying his hand at it. So he got leave, and
+set to work. He took the engine entirely to pieces, and in four days had
+repaired it thoroughly, so that the workmen could get to the bottom and
+proceed with their labours. George Stephenson's skill as an
+engine-doctor began to be noised abroad, and secured him the post of
+engine-wright at Killingworth, with a salary of L100 a-year. Robert was
+now old enough to go to school, and was sent to one in Newcastle, to
+which, dressed in a suit of coarse grey stuff cut out by his father, he
+rode every day upon a donkey. Robert spent much of his spare time in the
+Literary and Philosophical Institute of Newcastle; and would sometimes
+take home a volume from the library, which father and son would eagerly
+peruse together. Occasionally they tried chemical experiments together;
+and now and then Robert would try his hand by himself. On one occasion
+he electrified the cows in an adjacent enclosure by means of an electric
+kite, making the bewildered animals dash madly about the field, with
+their tails erect on end; and another time he administered a severe
+electric shock to his father's Galloway pony, which nearly knocked it
+over, and drew down upon him the affected wrath of his father, who,
+coming out at the instant, shook his whip at him and called him a
+mischievous scoundrel, though pleased all the while at the lad's
+ingenuity and enterprise. As an early proof of the former, there still
+stands over the cottage door at Killingworth a sun-dial, constructed by
+Robert when he was thirteen years old, with some little help from his
+father.
+
+The idea of constructing a steam-engine to run on the colliery
+tram-roads leading to the shipping-place was now receiving considerable
+attention from the engineering community. Several schemes had been
+propounded, and engines actually made; but none of them had been brought
+into use. A mistaken notion prevailed that the plain round wheels of an
+engine would slip round without catching hold of the rails, and that
+thus no progress would be made; but George Stephenson soon became
+convinced that the weight of the engine would of itself be sufficient to
+press the wheels to the rails, so that they could not fail to bite. He
+turned the subject over and over in his mind, tested his conceptions by
+countless experiments, and at length completed his scheme. Money for the
+construction of a locomotive engine on his plan having been supplied by
+Lord Ravensworth, one was made after many difficulties, and placed upon
+the tram-road at Killingworth, where it drew a load of 30 tons up a
+somewhat steep gradient at the rate of four miles an hour. Still there
+was very little saving in cost, and little advance in speed as compared
+with horse-power; but in a second one, which Stephenson quickly set
+about constructing, he turned the waste steam into the chimney to
+increase the draught, and thus puff the fuel into a brisker flame, and
+create a larger volume of steam to propel the locomotive. The
+fundamental principles of the engine thus formed remain in operation to
+this day; and it may in truth be termed the progenitor of the great
+locomotive family.
+
+In 1821 George Stephenson got the appointment of engineer, with L300 of
+salary, to the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company, in the Act of
+Parliament for which power was given to use locomotive engines, if
+needful, either for the conveyance of goods or passengers. When the line
+was opened, it was worked partly by horses and partly by locomotive and
+stationary engines. This led to a partnership between Mr. Edward Pease
+of Darlington, the chief projector of the line, and Stephenson, in a
+locomotive manufactory in Newcastle,--for many years the only one of the
+kind in existence.
+
+Meanwhile, young Robert Stephenson, having spent a year or two in
+gaining a practical acquaintance with the machinery and working of a
+colliery, went to the University of Edinburgh, where he spent a session
+in attending the courses of lectures on chemistry, natural philosophy,
+and geology. He made the best of his opportunities; and that he might
+profit to the utmost by the lectures, he studied short-hand, and took
+them all down _verbatim_, transcribing his notes every evening before
+he went to bed. Robert brought home the prize for mathematics, and
+showed he had made so much progress at college that, though the L80
+which the session cost was a large sum to his father at that time,
+George never failed, then or afterwards, to declare that it was one of
+the best investments he had ever made.
+
+After a year or two in his father's locomotive factory, Robert spent two
+or three years in charge of the machinery of a mining company in
+Columbia, and returned to England at the close of 1827, to find the
+great question, "Whether locomotives can be successfully and profitably
+applied to passenger traffic?" hotly agitated, his father, almost alone,
+taking the side of the travelling, against that of the fixed engines,
+and insisting that the wheel and the rail were clearly and closely part
+of one system.
+
+The success of the Darlington line induced the Liverpool merchants to
+project a line between that town and Manchester; and George Stephenson
+was almost unanimously chosen engineer, though it was still undetermined
+whether the new line should be worked by steam or horse power. But,
+apart from that question, a great, and, as it appeared to most of the
+engineers of the time, an insurmountable difficulty existed in the
+quagmire of Chat Moss,--an enormous mass of watery pulp, which rose in
+height in wet, and sank in dry weather like a sponge, and over whose
+treacherous depths it was pronounced impossible to form a firm road. It
+was perfect madness to think of such a thing, said the engineers, and
+none of them would support Stephenson's scheme; but he resolved to see
+what could be done. Truck-load after truck-load of stuff was emptied
+into the moss, and still the insatiable bog kept gaping as though it had
+not had half a feed. The directors, alarmed, would have abandoned the
+project, had they not been so deeply involved that they were obliged to
+let Stephenson continue. But he never doubted himself--not for a moment.
+He only pushed on the works more vigorously; and, before six months were
+over, the directors found themselves whirling along over the very bog
+they expected all their capital was to be fruitlessly sunk to the bottom
+of. Still, no decision had been come to as to whether locomotive or
+fixed engines were to be adopted; and the Stephensons were still
+battling bravely in favour of the locomotive against a host of
+opponents. Robert did his father good service by the able and pithy
+pamphlets which he wrote on the subject; and at length their
+perseverance was rewarded by the directors consenting to employ a
+locomotive, if they could get one that would run at the rate of ten
+miles an hour, and not weigh more than six tons, including tender; and
+offering a reward of L500 for the best engine fulfilling these
+conditions. George Stephenson and his son set to work immediately, and
+the product of their united skill and ingenuity was the celebrated
+_Rocket_, which carried off the prize, and attained a speed of
+twenty-nine miles on the opening day. The practicability and success of
+the locomotive was now beyond a doubt; from that day forward public
+opinion began to turn. Of course, for many a long year afterwards there
+were not wanting numbers of bigoted men of the old school who cried down
+the new-fangled system, and would hear of no means of transit but the
+stage-coach and the canal-boat. But shrewd folk, like the old Duke of
+Bridgewater, whose faculties were sharpened by their pockets being in
+danger, could not help crying out, "There's mischief in these tram-ways!
+I wish the canals mayn't suffer;" and, within ten years of the day when
+the _Rocket_ went puffing triumphantly along the Liverpool and
+Manchester line, most sensible people had become convinced of the
+importance of the locomotive railway, and scarcely a principal town in
+the country but was supplied with a line.
+
+The Stephensons had fought a hard fight for their protege, "rail and
+wheel," and now they were to reap the fruits of their enterprise and
+foresight. To nearly all the most important of the new lines George
+Stephenson acted as engineer; and thus, in the course of two years,
+above 321 miles of railway were constructed under his superintendence,
+at a cost of L11,000,000 sterling. Robert at first left his father to
+attend to the laying out of railways, and directed his attention to the
+improvement of the locomotive in all its details, experimenting
+incessantly, and trying now one new device, now another. "It was
+astonishing," says Mr. Smiles, "to observe the rapidity of the
+improvements effected,--every engine turned out of Stephenson's
+workshops exhibiting an advance upon its predecessor in point of speed,
+power, and working efficiency."
+
+By this time George had taken up his residence at Tapton House, near
+Chesterfield, where he continued to reside for the remainder of his
+life. Close by were some extensive coal-pits, which he had taken in
+lease, and from which he supplied London with the first coals sent by
+railway. He was now a man of wealth and fame, known and honoured
+throughout his own country, and in many foreign ones, and blessed with
+many a staunch, true friend. More than once he was offered knighthood by
+Sir Robert Peel, but declined the honour. As he grew up in years, he
+gradually abandoned his railway business to the charge of his son, and
+settled down into a quiet country gentleman of agricultural tastes. He
+was very fond of gardening and farming, and spent many a long day
+superintending the operations in the fields. When a boy, he had always
+been very fond of taming birds and rabbits, and had once had flocks of
+robins, which, in the hard winter, used to come hopping round his feet
+for crumbs. And now, in his old age, he had special pets among his dogs
+and horses, and was proud of his superior breed of rabbits. There was
+scarcely a nest on his estate that he was not acquainted with; and he
+used to go round from day to day to look at them, and see that they were
+kept uninjured.
+
+The year before his death he visited Sir Robert Peel at Drayton Manor.
+Dr. Buckland, the geologist, was of the party. One Sunday, as they were
+returning from church, they observed a train speeding along the valley
+in the distance.
+
+"Now, Buckland," said Mr. Stephenson, "I have a poser for you. Can you
+tell me what is the power that is driving that train?"
+
+"Well," said the other, "I suppose it is one of your big engines."
+
+"But what drives the engine?"
+
+"Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver."
+
+"What do you say to the light of the sun?"
+
+"How can that be?" asked the professor.
+
+"It is nothing else," said the engineer. "It is light bottled up in the
+earth for tens of thousands of years--light, absorbed by plants and
+vegetables, being necessary for the condensation of carbon during the
+process of their growth, if it be not carbon in another form; and now,
+after being buried in the earth for long ages in fields of coal, that
+latent light is again brought forth and liberated, made to work as in
+that locomotive, for great human purposes."
+
+On the 12th of August 1848, this great, good man--one of the truest
+heroes that ever lived, and one of the greatest benefactors of our
+country--passed from among us, leaving his son, Robert, to develop and
+extend the great work of which he had laid the foundation.
+
+Among one of the first railways of any extent of which Robert Stephenson
+had the laying out, was the London and Birmingham; and it is related, as
+an illustration of his conscientious perseverance in executing the task,
+that in the course of the examination of the country he walked over the
+whole of the intervening districts upwards of twenty times. Many other
+lines, in England and abroad, were executed by him in rapid succession;
+and it was stated a few years ago, that the lines of railway constructed
+under his superintendence had involved an outlay of L70,000,000
+sterling.
+
+The three great works, however, with which his name will always be most
+intimately associated, and which are the grandest monuments of his
+genius, are the High Level Bridge at Newcastle, the Britannia Bridge
+across the Menai Straits, and the Victoria Bridge across the St.
+Lawrence at Montreal. The first two are sufficiently well known--the one
+springing across the valley of the Tyne, between the busy towns of
+Newcastle and Gateshead; the other spanning, in mid air, a wide arm of
+the sea, at such a height that vessels of large burden in full sail can
+pass beneath. The third great effort of Robert Stephenson's prolific
+brain he did not live to see the completion of. The Victoria Bridge at
+Montreal is constructed on the same principle as the Britannia Bridge,
+but on a much larger scale. "The Victoria Bridge," says Mr. Smiles,
+"with its approaches, is only sixty yards short of two miles in length.
+In its gigantic strength and majestic proportions, there is no structure
+to compare with it in ancient or modern times. It consists of not less
+than twenty-five immense tubular bridges joined into one; the great
+central span being 332 feet, the others, 242 feet in length. The weight
+of the wrought iron on the bridge is about 10,000 tons, and the piers
+are of massive stone, containing some 8000 tons each of solid masonry."
+
+After the completion of the Britannia Bridge, and again after the
+opening of the High Level Bridge, Robert Stephenson was offered the
+honour of knighthood, which, like his father before him, he respectfully
+declined. In 1857 he received the title of D.C.L. from the University of
+Oxford; and for many years before his death he represented Whitby in
+Parliament. He was passionately fond of yachting, and almost immediately
+after a trip to Norway in the summer of 1859, he was seized with a
+mortal illness, and died in the beginning of October. On the 14th
+October he was buried in Westminster, amongst the illustrious dead of
+England.
+
+No man could be more beloved than Robert Stephenson was by a wide circle
+of friends, and none better deserved it. "In society," writes one who
+had opportunities of intercourse with him, "he was simply charming and
+fascinating in the highest degree, from his natural goodness of heart
+and the genial zest with which he relished life himself and participated
+its enjoyment with others. He was generous and even princely in his
+expenditure--not upon himself, but on his friends. On board the
+_Titania_, or at his house in Gloucester Square, his frequent and
+numerous guests found his splendid resources at all times converted to
+their gratification with a grace of hospitality which, although
+sedulous, was never oppressive. There was nothing of the patron in his
+manner, or of the Olympic condescension which is sometimes affected by
+much lesser men. A friend (and how many friends he had!) was at once his
+equal, and treated with republican freedom, yet with the most high-bred
+courtesy and happy considerateness.... His payment of half the debt of
+L6000, which weighed like an incubus on an institution at Newcastle, is
+generally known; but his private charities were as boundless as his
+nature was generous, and as quietly performed as that nature was
+unostentatious. Such, then, was Robert Stephenson, as complete a
+character in the multifarious relations of life as probably any man has
+met or will meet in the course of his experience. Not unlike, or rather
+exceedingly _like_, his father in some respects, especially in the easy,
+unimposing manner in which he went about his life's work, he was hardly
+to be accounted his father's inferior, except perhaps in the heroic
+quality of combativeness. Father and son, independently of each other,
+and both in conjunction, have left grand and beneficent results to
+posterity, and both recall to us Monckton Milnes's men of old, who
+
+    "'Went about their gravest tasks
+    Like noble boys at play.'"
+
+
+
+
+III.--THE GROWTH OF RAILWAYS.
+
+
+It was about the year 1818 that Thomas Gray of Nottingham, travelling in
+the north of England, happened to visit one of the collieries. As he
+stood watching a train of loaded waggons being propelled by steam along
+the tram-road which led from the mouth of the pit to the wharf where the
+coals were shipped, the idea flashed through his mind that the same
+system was applicable to the ordinary purposes of locomotion.
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed to the engineer who was showing him over the
+place,--"why are there not tram-roads laid down all over England so as
+to supersede our common roads, and steam engines employed to drag
+waggons full of goods, and carriages full of passengers along them,
+instead of horse-power?"
+
+"Propose that to the nation," replied his companion, "and see what you
+will get by it. Why, sir, you would be worried to death for your
+pains."
+
+Gray was not to be balked, however. The idea took firm possession of his
+mind, and became the one great subject of his thoughts and conversation.
+He talked about it to everybody whom he met, and who had patience to
+listen to him, wrote letters and memorials to public men, and afterwards
+appealed to the people at large. He was laughed at as a whimsical,
+crochetty fellow, and no one gave any serious attention to his views.
+Mr. Jones of Gromford Manor, and Mr. Pease of Darlington, also
+distinguished themselves by their agitation in favour of railways, at a
+time when they were regarded with suspicion and alarm. The growing trade
+of Liverpool and Manchester, and other large towns, however, spoke more
+imperatively and forcibly in favour of the new project than any amount
+of individual agitation. The means of communication between the various
+manufacturing towns had fallen far behind their wants; and it was at
+length felt that some new system must be adopted. The railroad and the
+locomotive got a trial; and before long the carriers' carts and the
+stage coaches were driven off the road for want of custom, although the
+conveyance of goods and passengers throughout the country went on
+multiplying an hundred-fold. One can fancy the astonishment and awe with
+which the country-folk watched the progress of the first railway train
+through their peaceful acres,--how old and young left their work and
+rushed out to see the marvellous spectacle,--how the "oldest
+inhabitants" shook their heads, and muttered about changed times,--how
+the horses in the field trembled with fear, and threw up their heels at
+their iron rival as it went snorting past--a strange, iron monster, the
+handicraft of man, able to drag the heaviest burdens, and yet outstrip
+_Flying Childers_ or _Eclipse_, as fresh at the end of a journey as at
+the beginning, and never to be tired out by any toil, if only kept in
+meat and drink. Just as in the days of Charles the First, honest,
+short-sighted folk prophesied the ruin of the empire and a judgment upon
+the use of coaches, and bewailed the misfortunes of the hundreds of
+able-bodied men who would be thrown out of employment; so in the early
+days of the railroad, great fears were entertained that the horses'
+occupation would be gone, and that the noble breed would quickly become
+extinct. There was no measure to the lamentations over the ruin of that
+great institution of English life--the stage-coach, with its gallant
+driver and guard, and spanking team.
+
+The extension of the railway system is one of the wonders of our time.
+The few score miles of railroad planted in 1825 have put forth offshoots
+and branches, till now a mighty net-work of some ten thousand miles in
+all, is spread over the three kingdoms, with many fresh shoots in bud.
+Up to the end of 1834, when not a hundred miles of railway were open,
+the annual average of travellers by coach was some six millions a year;
+ten years afterwards there were more than four times that number, and
+to-day the annual average is more than a hundred millions! The number of
+persons employed upon the working railroads of the United Kingdom amount
+to about one hundred and thirty thousand, while nearly half as many find
+employment in the construction of new lines.
+
+A few facts, stated by the late Mr. Robert Stephenson, illustrate in a
+very striking manner the gigantic proportion of the railway system of
+Great Britain:--The railway has pierced the earth with tunnels to the
+extent of more than fifty miles, and there are about twelve miles of
+viaducts in the vicinity of London alone. The earthworks which have been
+thrown up would measure 550,000,000 cubic yards, beside which St. Paul's
+would shrink to a pigmy, for it would form a pyramid a mile and a half
+high, with a base larger than the whole of St. James's Park. Every
+moment four tons of coal flashes into steam twenty tons of water--as
+much water as would suffice to supply the domestic and other wants of a
+town the size of Liverpool, and as much coal as equals half the
+consumption of the metropolis. The wear and tear is so great that twenty
+thousand tons of iron have to be replaced annually, and three hundred
+thousand trees, or as much as five thousand acres could produce, have to
+be felled for sleepers.
+
+When George Stephenson was planning the Liverpool and Manchester line,
+the directors entreated him, when they went to Parliament, not to talk
+of going at a faster rate than ten miles an hour, or he "would put a
+cross on the concern." George was sanguine, however, and spoke of
+fifteen miles an hour, to the astonishment of the committee, who began
+to think him crazy. The average speed is now twenty-five miles an hour,
+and a mile a minute can be done, if need be. The wind is hard pushed to
+keep ahead of a good engine at its fullest speed.[C] The express trains
+on the "broad gauge" of the Great Western travel at the rate of
+fifty-one miles an hour, or forty-three, including stoppages. To attain
+this rate, a speed of sixty miles an hour is adopted midway between some
+of the stations, and even seventy miles an hour have been reached in
+certain experimental trips. The engines on this line can draw a
+passenger-train weighing one hundred and twenty tons at a speed of sixty
+miles an hour, the engine and tender themselves weighing an additional
+fifty-two tons. The ordinary luggage-trains weigh some six hundred tons
+each. The locomotive, however, goes on the principle that the labourer
+is worthy of his hire; if it works hard, it eats voraciously. At
+ordinary mail speed the engine consumes about twenty lbs. of coke per
+mile; so that, costing L2500 to begin with, and spending an allowance of
+L2000 a year--as much as an under-secretary of state--the locomotive is
+rather an extravagant customer--only, it works very hard for the money,
+and earns it over and over again. With all its strength and size, the
+locomotive is a much more delicate concern than would be supposed; the
+5416 different pieces of which it is composed must be put together as
+carefully as a watch, and, though guaranteed to go two years without a
+doctor, exacts the most devoted attention from its guardians to keep it
+in order.
+
+It would fill a volume of huge dimensions to dilate on all the phases of
+the social revolution which the modern railway has wrought in our own
+and other countries; how it is daily annihilating time and space, and
+making the Land's End and John o'Groat's House next door neighbours;
+rubbing down old prejudices and jealousies, both national and
+provincial, promoting commerce, developing manufacture, transforming
+poor little villages into flourishing towns, and industrious towns into
+mighty cities; carrying civilization into the heart of the jungle and
+the desert, and, with its twin-brother, the steam-ship, joining hands
+and hearts in peace and amity all the world over. After the wonders of
+the last thirty years, who can doubt that our children, at the close of
+the century, will regard us as little less backward than we now do our
+fathers at its dawn?
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] The wind is calculated to travel at the rate of eighty-two feet in a
+second; the pace of a steam-engine, at the rate of sixty miles an hour,
+would be rather more.
+
+
+
+
+The Lighthouse.
+
+
+  I.--THE EDDYSTONE.
+ II.--THE BELL ROCK.
+III.--THE SKERRYVORE.
+
+
+
+
+The Lighthouse.
+
+    "Far in the bosom of the deep,
+    O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep:
+    A ruddy gleam of changeful light,
+    Bound on the dusky brow of night;
+    The seaman bids my lustre hail,
+    And scorns to strike his timorous sail."--SCOTT.
+
+
+
+
+I.--THE EDDYSTONE.
+
+
+When worthy Mr. Phillips, the Liverpool Quaker, taking thought in what
+way he could best benefit his fellow-creatures, built the beacon on the
+Smalls Rock in 1772, he could hardly have made a happier selection of "a
+great good to serve and save humanity." There are few enterprises more
+heroic or beneficent than those connected with the construction and
+management of lighthouses. From first to last, from the rearing of the
+column on the rock to the monotonous, nightly vigil in attendance on the
+lamps--from the setting to the rising of the sun--the valour,
+intrepidity, and endurance, of all concerned are called into play, and
+the wild perils and stirring adventures they experience impart to the
+story of their labours a thrilling and romantic interest. In the case of
+the Smalls Lighthouse, for instance, Whiteside, the self-taught
+engineer, and his party of Cornish miners had no sooner landed, and got
+a long iron shaft worked a few feet into the rock, than a storm arose
+that drove away their cutter, and kept them clinging with the tenacity
+of despair to the half-fastened rod for three days and two nights, when
+the wind fell and the sea calmed, and they were rescued, rather dead
+than alive, numbed from their long immersion in the water, which rose
+almost to their necks, and exhausted from want of food. And after the
+lighthouse had been erected, the engineer and some of his men again
+found themselves, as a paper in a bottle they had cast into the sea
+revealed to those on shore, in a "most dangerous and distressed
+condition on the Smalls," cut off from the mainland by the stormy
+weather, without fuel, and almost at the end of their stock of food and
+water--in which alarming situation they had to remain some time before
+their friends could get out to their relief. Most sea-girt beacons have
+their own legends of similar perils and fortitude; and the narratives of
+the erection of the three great lighthouses of Eddystone, Inchcape, and
+Skerryvore, which may be selected as the types of the rest, are full of
+incidents as exciting as any "hair breadth 'scapes i' the imminent
+deadly breach."
+
+About fourteen miles south from Plymouth, and ten from the Ram's Head,
+on the Cornish coast, lies a perilous reef of rocks, against which the
+long rolling swell of the Atlantic waves dashes with appalling force,
+and breaks up into those swirling eddies from which the reef is
+named--the Eddystone. Upon these treacherous crags many a gallant vessel
+has foundered and gone down within sight of the shore it had scarcely
+quitted or was just about to reach; and situated in the midst of a much
+frequented track, the rapid succession of calamities at the Eddystone
+was not long in awakening men's minds to the necessity of some warning
+light. The exposure of the reef to the wild fury of the Atlantic, and
+the small extent of the surface of the chief rock, however, rendered the
+construction of a lighthouse in such a situation a work of great and (as
+it was long considered) insuperable difficulty. The project was long
+talked of before any one was found daring enough to attempt the task;
+and when at length in 1696 Henry Winstanley stepped forward to undertake
+it, he might have been thought of all others the very last from whose
+brain so serious a conception would have emanated. The great hobby of
+his life had been to fill his house at Littlebury, in Essex, with
+mechanical devices of the most absurd and fantastic kind. If a visitor,
+retiring to his bedroom, kicked aside an old slipper on the floor,
+purposely thrown in his way, up started a ghost of hideous form. If,
+startled at the sight, he fell back into an arm chair placed temptingly
+at hand, a pair of gigantic arms would instantly spring forth and clasp
+him a prisoner in their rude embrace. Tired of these disagreeable
+surprises, the astonished guest perhaps took refuge in the garden, and
+sought repose in a pleasant arbour by the side of a canal; but he had
+scarcely seated himself, when he found himself suddenly set adrift on
+the water, where he floated about till his whimsical host came to his
+relief. Such was the man who now entered upon one of the most formidable
+engineering enterprises in the world.
+
+Although Winstanley's lighthouse was but a slight affair compared with
+its successors, it occupied six years in the erection--the frequent
+rising of the sea over the rock, and the difficulty and danger of
+passing to and from it greatly retarding the operations, and rendering
+them practicable only during a short summer season. For ten or fourteen
+days after a storm had passed, and when all was calm elsewhere, the
+ground-swell from the Atlantic was often so heavy among these rocks that
+the waves sprang two hundred feet, and more, in the air, burying the
+works from sight. The first summer was spent in boring twelve holes in
+the rock, and fixing therein twelve large irons as a holdfast for the
+works that were to be reared. The next season saw the commencement of a
+round pillar, which was to form the steeple of the tower, as well as
+afford protection to the workmen while at their labours. When Winstanley
+bade farewell to the rock for that year, the tower had risen to the
+height of twelve feet; and resuming operations next spring, he built at
+it till it reached the height of eighty feet. Having got the apartments
+fit for occupation, and the lantern set up, Winstanley determined to
+take up his abode there with his men, in order that no time might be
+lost in going to and from the rock. The first night they spent on the
+rock a great storm arose, and for eleven days it was impossible to hold
+any communication with the shore. "Not being acquainted with the height
+of the sea's rising," writes the architect, "we were almost drowned with
+wet, and our provisions in as bad a condition, though we worked night
+and day as much as possible to make shelter for ourselves." The storm
+abating, they went on shore for a little repose; but soon returning, set
+to work again with undiminished energy.
+
+On the 14th November of the same year (1698), Winstanley lighted his
+lantern for the first time. A long spell of boisterous weather followed,
+and it was not till three days before Christmas that they were able to
+quit their desolate abode, being "almost at the last extremity for want
+of provisions; but by good Providence then two boats came with
+provisions and the family that was to take care of the light; and so
+ended this year's work."
+
+It was soon found that the sea rose to a much greater height than had
+been anticipated, the lantern, although sixty feet above the rock, being
+often "buried under water." Winstanley was, therefore, under the
+necessity of enlarging the tower and carrying it to a greater
+elevation. The fourth season, accordingly, was spent in encasing the
+tower with fresh outworks, and adding forty feet to its height. This
+proved too high for its strength to bear; and in the course of three
+years the winds and waves had made sad havoc in the unstable fabric.
+
+In November 1703, Winstanley went out to the rock himself, accompanied
+by his workmen, to institute the repairs. As he was putting off in the
+boat from Plymouth, a friend who had for some time before been watching
+the condition of the lighthouse with much anxiety, mentioned to him his
+suspicion that it was in a bad way, and could not last long. Winstanley,
+full of faith in the stability of his work, replied that "he only wished
+to be there in the greatest storm that ever blew under the face of the
+heavens, that he might see what effect it would have on his structure."
+And with these words he shoved off from the beach, and made for the
+rock.
+
+With the last gleams of daylight, before the night fell and shrouded it
+from view, the tower was seen rising proudly from the midst of the
+waters. Before the dawn it had disappeared for ever, and the waves were
+lashing fiercely round the bare bleak ledge of the fatal rock. Poor
+Winstanley had had his presumptuous wish only too fully realized. The
+storm of the 26th November was one of the most fearful that ever ravaged
+our shores. The whole coast suffered severely from its fury, and when
+the morning came, not a sign remained of the lighthouse, architect, or
+workmen, save a fragment of chain-cable wedged firmly into a crevice of
+the rock. The disappearance of the warning light was quickly followed by
+the wreck of a large homeward-bound man-of-war, and the loss of nearly
+all her crew, upon the rocks.
+
+This first Eddystone lighthouse was a strange, fantastic looking
+structure, deficient in every element of stability, and the wonder was
+not that it fell in pieces as it did, but that it was able to withstand
+so long the boisterous weather of the Channel. But if of little merit as
+an architect, Winstanley at least deserves respect, as Smeaton remarks,
+for the heroism he displayed in undertaking "a piece of work that before
+had been looked on as impossible."
+
+For four years the Eddystone remained bare and untenanted, till, in the
+summer of 1706, the erection of a new lighthouse was commenced under the
+superintendence of John Rudyerd, by profession a silk-mercer in Ludgate
+Hill, but by natural genius an engineer of considerable merit. With such
+skill and energy did he apply himself to the work, that before two
+summers were over his tower was completed, and its friendly light beamed
+over the troubled waters and sunken crags. Rudyerd's lighthouse was
+entirely of wood, weighted at the base by a few courses of mason work,
+and 92 feet in height. In form, it was a smooth, solid cone of elegant
+simplicity, unbroken by any of those ornamental outworks, which offered
+the wind and sea so many points to lay hold of, in Winstanley's
+whimsical pagoda. Smeaton speaks of Rudyerd's tower as a masterly
+performance; and had it not been destroyed by fire, forty-six years
+after its erection, there seems little reason to suppose it might not
+have been standing to this day,--although no doubt the ravages of the
+worm in the wood would have demanded frequent repairs. On the 2d
+December 1755, some fishermen who happened to be on the beach very early
+in the morning preparing their nets, were startled by the sight of
+volumes of smoke issuing from the lighthouse. They instantly gave the
+alarm, and a boat was quickly manned for the relief of the sufferers. It
+did not reach the rock till about ten o'clock, and the fire had then
+been raging for eight hours. It was first discovered by the light-keeper
+upon watch who, going into the lantern about two o'clock in the morning
+to snuff the candles, found the place filled with smoke. He opened the
+door of the lantern into the balcony, and a mass of flame immediately
+burst from the inside of the cupola. He lost no time in seizing the
+buckets of water kept at hand, and dashing them over the fire, but
+without effect. His two companions were asleep, and it was some time
+before they heard his shouts for assistance. When at length they did
+bestir themselves, all the water in the house was exhausted. The
+light-keeper--an old man in his ninety-fourth year--urged them to
+replenish the buckets from the sea; but the difficulty of lowering the
+buckets to such a depth, and their confusion and terror at the sudden
+catastrophe and their impending fate, destroyed their presence of mind,
+and rendered them quite powerless. The old man did his best to prevent
+the advance of the flames; but, exhausted by the unavailing labour, and
+severely injured by the melting lead from the roof, he had to desist. As
+the fire spread from point to point, with rapid strides descending from
+the summit to the base, the poor wretches fled before it, retreating
+from room to room, till at last they were driven to seek shelter from
+the blazing timbers and red hot bars, in a cleft of the rock. There they
+were found by their preservers, crouching together half dead with
+suffering and fright. It was with the greatest difficulty that they were
+got into the boat; and they had no sooner reached the shore than one of
+them, crazed by the terrors he had undergone, ran away, and was never
+heard of more. The old man lingered on for a few days in great agony,
+and died from the injuries he had received.
+
+Such was the fate of the second lighthouse on the Eddystone,--one
+element revenging, as it were, the conquest over another.
+
+In spite of the fatality which seemed to attend these lighthouses,
+the lessees of the Eddystone--for it was then in private hands, and
+did not come into the hands of the Trinity House till many years
+after--resolved to make another attempt; and this time they selected as
+the architect one of the ablest professional men of the day, and with
+sagacious liberality, adopted his advice to build it of stone and
+granite.
+
+Smeaton truly belonged to the class of heaven-born engineers. From his
+earliest years the bent of his genius unmistakably revealed itself.
+Before he was six years old, he one day terrified his parents by
+climbing to the top of a barn to fix up some contrivance he had put
+together, after the fashion of a windmill; and another time he
+constructed a pump that raised water, after watching some workmen
+sinking one. And as he grew older, his efforts took a more ambitious
+range, and were all equally remarkable for their originality and
+success. His father destined him for the bar; but his inclination for
+engineering was so irresistible, that he allowed him to resign all
+chance of the woolsack, and set up in business as a mathematical
+instrument maker. He gradually advanced to the profession of civil
+engineering,--which he was the first man in England to pursue, and which
+he may be said to have created.
+
+It was in 1756 he commenced the construction of the great work which may
+be regarded as the monument of his fame. Having decided that his
+lighthouse should be of stone, the next point to be settled was its
+form. His thoughts, he tells us in his book, instinctively reverted to
+the analogy between a lighthouse shaft and the trunk of a stately oak.
+He remarked the spreading roots taking a broad, firm grip of the soil,
+the rise of the swelling base, gradually lessening in girth in a
+graceful curve, till a preparation being required for the support of the
+spreading boughs, a renewed swelling of diameter takes place; and he
+held that cutting off the branches we have, in the trunk of an oak, a
+type of such a lighthouse column as is best adapted to resist the
+influence of the winds and waves. Whether or not Smeaton arrived at the
+form of his lighthouse, which has since become the model for all others,
+from this fanciful analogy, its appearance rising from the rock presents
+a strong resemblance to a noble tree stripped of its boughs and foliage.
+
+Smeaton commenced the undertaking by visiting the rock in the spring of
+1756, accurately measuring its very irregular surface, and in order to
+ensure exactness in his plans, making a model of it. In the summer of
+the same year he prepared the foundation by cutting the surface of the
+rock in regular steps or trenches, into which the blocks of stone were
+to be dovetailed. The first stone was laid in June 1757, and the last in
+August 1759. Of that period there were only 431 days when it was
+possible to stand on the rock, and so small a portion even of these was
+available for carrying on the work, that it is calculated the building
+in reality occupied but six weeks. The whole was completed without the
+slightest accident to any one; and so well were all the arrangements
+made, that not a minute was lost by confusion or delay amongst the
+workmen.
+
+The tower measures 86 feet in height, and 26 feet in diameter at the
+level of the first entire course, the diameter under the cornice being
+only 15 feet. The first twelve feet of the structure form a solid mass
+of masonry,--the blocks of stone being held together by means of stone
+joggles, dovetailed joints, and oaken tree-nails. All the floors of the
+edifice are arched; to counteract the possible outburst of which,
+Smeaton bound the courses of his stone work together by belts of iron
+chain, which, being set in grooves while in a heated state, by the
+application of hot lead, on cooling, of course, tightened their clasp on
+the tower. Throughout the whole work the greatest ingenuity is displayed
+in obtaining the greatest amount of resistance, and combining the two
+great principles of strength and weight,--technically speaking, cohesion
+and inertia.
+
+On the 16th October 1759, the warning light once more, after an interval
+of four years, shone forth over the troubled waters from the dangerous
+rock; but it was but a feeble illumination at the best, for it came from
+only a group of tallow candles. It was better than nothing, certainly;
+but the exhibition of a few glimmering candles was but a paltry
+conclusion to so stupendous an undertaking. For many years, however, no
+stronger light gleamed from the tower, till, in 1807, when it passed
+from the hands of private proprietors into the charge of the Trinity
+House, the mutton dips were supplanted by Argand burners, with silvered
+copper reflectors.
+
+Imperfect, however, as used to be the lighting apparatus, the Eddystone
+Beacon has always been a great boon to all those "that go down to the
+sea in great ships," and has robbed these perilous waters of much of
+their terror. We can readily sympathize with the exultation of the great
+engineer who reared it, when standing on the Hoe at Plymouth, he spent
+many an hour, with his telescope, watching the great swollen waves, in
+powerless fury, dash against his tower, and "fly up in a white column,
+enwrapping it like a sheet, rising at the least to double the height of
+the tower, and totally intercepting it from sight." It is now more than
+a hundred years since Smeaton's Lighthouse first rose upon the
+Eddystone; but, in spite of the many furious storms which have put its
+stability to rude and searching proof, it still lifts its head proudly
+over the waves, and shows no signs of failing strength.
+
+
+
+
+II.--THE BELL ROCK.
+
+
+The Inch Cape, or Bell Rock, is a long, narrow reef on the east coast of
+Scotland, at the mouth of the Frith of Tay, and some dozen of miles from
+the nearest land. At high water the whole ledge is buried out of sight;
+and even at the ebb the highest part of it is only three or four feet
+out of the water. In the days of old, as the tradition goes, one of the
+abbots of Arbroath, among many good works, exhibited his piety and
+humanity by placing upon a float attached to the perilous reef a large
+bell, so suspended as to be tolled by the rising and falling of the
+waves.
+
+    "On a buoy, in the storm it floated and swung,
+    And over the waves its warning rung."
+
+Many a storm-tossed mariner heard the friendly knell that warned him of
+the nearness of the fatal rock, and changed his course before it was too
+late, with blessings on the good old monk who had hung up the bell; but
+after some years, one of the pirates who infested the coast cut it down
+in wanton cruelty, and was one of the first who suffered from the loss.
+Not long after, he perished upon this very rock, which a dense fog
+shrouded from sight, and no bell gave timely warning of.
+
+    "And even in his dying fear,
+    One dreadful sound did the rover hear;
+    A sound as if with the Inch Cape Bell,
+    The devil below was ringing his knell."
+
+After the lapse of many years, two attempts were made to raise a beacon
+of spars upon the rock; but one after the other they fell a prey to the
+angry waves, and were hardly set up before they disappeared. It was not
+till the beginning of the century that the Commissioners of Northern
+Lighthouses took up the idea of erecting a lighthouse on this reef, the
+most dangerous on all the coast. Several years elapsed before they got
+the sanction of Parliament to the undertaking, and 1807 arrived before
+it was actually entered upon.
+
+Mr. Robert Stevenson, to whom the work was intrusted as engineer, had
+from a very early age been employed in connection with lighthouses. He
+went almost directly from school to the office of Mr. Thomas Smith of
+Edinburgh, and when that gentleman was appointed engineer to the
+Northern Lighthouse Commissioners, became his assistant, and afterwards
+successor. When only nineteen, Mr. Stevenson superintended the
+construction of the lighthouse on the island of Little Cumbray; and
+during the time he was engineer to the Commissioners, which post he held
+till 1842, he erected no fewer than forty-two lighthouses, and
+introduced a great many valuable improvements into the system. His
+reputation, however, will be chiefly perpetuated as the architect of the
+Bell Rock Lighthouse.
+
+On the 17th August 1807, Mr. Stevenson and his men landed on the rock,
+to the astonishment and discomposure of the seals who had, from time
+immemorial, been in undisturbed possession of it, and now floundered off
+into the water on the approach of the usurpers. The workmen at once set
+about preparing the rock for the erection of a temporary pyramid on
+which a barrack-house was to be placed for the reception of the workmen.
+They could only work on the rock for a few hours at spring-tide. As soon
+as the flood-tide began to rise around them, putting out the fire of the
+smith's forge, and gradually covering the rock, they had to gather up
+their tools and retreat to a floating barrack moored at a considerable
+distance, in order to reach which they had to row in small boats to the
+tender, by which they were then conveyed to their quarters. The
+operations of this first season were particularly trying to the men, on
+account of their having to row backwards and forwards between the rock
+and the tender at every tide, which in rough weather was a very heavy
+pull, and having often after that to work on the rock knee deep in
+water, only quitting it for the boats when absolutely compelled by the
+swelling waves. Sometimes the sea would be so fierce for days together
+that no boat could live in it, and the men had, therefore, to remain
+cooped up wearily on board the floating barrack.
+
+One day in September, when the engineer and thirty-one men were on the
+rock, the tender broke from its moorings, and began to drift away from
+the rock, just as the tide was rising. Mr. Stevenson, perched on an
+eminence above the rest, surveying them at their labours, was the first,
+and for a while, the men being all intent on their work, the only one,
+who observed what had happened. He said nothing, but went to the
+highest point of the rock, and kept an anxious watch on the progress of
+the vessel and the rising of the sea. First the men on the lower tier of
+the works, then by degrees those above them, struck work on the approach
+of the water. They gathered up their tools and made towards the spot
+where the boats were moored, to get their jackets and stockings and
+prepare for quitting the rock. What their feelings were when they found
+only a couple of boats there, and the tender drifting off with the other
+in tow, may be conceived. All the peril of their situation must have
+flashed across their minds as they looked across the raging sea, and saw
+the distance between the tender and the rock increasing every moment,
+while all around them the water rose higher and higher. In another hour,
+the waves would be rolling twelve feet and more above the crag on which
+they stood, and all hope of the tender being able to work round to them
+was being quickly dissipated. They watched the fleeting vessel and the
+rising tide, and their hearts sank within them, but not a word was
+uttered. They stood silently counting their numbers and calculating the
+capacity of the boats; and then they turned their eyes upon their
+trusted leader, as if their last hope lay in his counsel. Stevenson
+never forgot the appalling solemnity of the moment. One chance, and but
+a slender one, of escape alone occurred to him. It was that, stripping
+themselves of their clothes, and divesting the two boats, as much as
+possible, of everything that weighted and encumbered them, so many men
+should take their seats in the boats, while the others hung on by the
+gunwales; and that they should then work their way, as best they could,
+towards either the tender or the floating barrack. Stevenson was about
+to explain this to his men, but found that all power of speech had left
+him. The anxiety of that dreadful moment had parched his throat, and his
+tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He stooped to one of the little
+pools at his feet to moisten his fevered lips with the salt water.
+Suddenly a shout was raised, "A boat! A boat!" and through the haze a
+large pilot boat could dimly be discerned making towards the rock. The
+pilot had observed the _Smeaton_ drifting off, and, guessing at once the
+critical position of the workmen on the rock, had hastened to their
+relief.
+
+Next morning when the bell sounded on board the barrack for the return
+to the rock, only eight out of the twenty-six workmen, beside the
+foreman and seamen, made their appearance on deck to accompany their
+leader. Mr. Stevenson saw it would be useless to argue with them then.
+So he made no remark, and proceeded with the eight willing workmen to
+the rock, where they spent four hours at work. On returning to the
+barrack, the eighteen men who had remained on board appeared quite
+ashamed of their cowardice; and without a word being said to them, were
+the first to take their places in the boats when the bell rang again in
+the afternoon.
+
+At length the barrack was completed, and the men were then relieved from
+the toil of rowing backwards and forwards between the tender and the
+rock, as well as from the constant sickness which tormented them on
+board the floating barrack. They were now able to prolong their labours,
+when the tide permitted, into the night. At such times the rock assumed
+a singularly picturesque and romantic aspect--its surface crowded with
+men in all variety of attitudes, the two forges and numerous torches
+lighting up the scene, and throwing a lurid gleam across the waters, and
+the loud dong of the anvils mingling with the dashing of the breakers.
+
+On the 18th July 1808, the site having been properly excavated, the
+first stone of the lighthouse was laid by the Duke of Argyle; and by the
+end of the second season some five or six feet of building had been
+erected, and were left to the mercy of the waves till the ensuing
+spring. The third season's operations raised the masonry to a height of
+thirty feet above the sea, and the fourth season saw the completion of
+the tower. On the first night in February of the succeeding year (1811)
+the lamp was lit, and beamed forth across the waters.
+
+The Bell Rock Tower is 100 feet in height, 42 feet in diameter at the
+base, and 15 feet at the top. The door is 30 feet from the base, and the
+ascent is by a massive bronze ladder. The "light" is revolving, and
+presents a white and red light alternately, by means of shades of red
+glass arranged in a frame. The machinery which causes the revolution of
+the lamp is also applied to the tolling of two large bells, in order to
+give warning to the mariner of his approach to the rock in foggy
+weather, thus reviving the traditional practice from which the rock
+takes its name.
+
+
+
+
+III.--THE SKERRYVORE.
+
+
+"Having crept upon deck about four in the morning, I find we are beating
+to windward off the Isle of Tyree, with the determination on the part of
+Mr. Stevenson that his constituents should visit a reef of rocks called
+Skerry Vhor, where he thought it would be essential to have a
+lighthouse. Loud remonstrances on the part of the commissioners, who one
+and all declare they will subscribe to his opinion, whatever it may be,
+rather than continue this dreadful buffeting. Quiet perseverance on the
+part of Mr. Stevenson, and great kicking, bouncing, and squabbling upon
+that of the yacht, who seems to like the idea of Skerry Vhor as little
+as the commissioners. At length, by dint of exertion, came in sight of
+this long range of rocks (chiefly under water), on which the tide breaks
+in a most tremendous style. There appear a few low broad rocks at one
+end of the reef which is about a mile in length. These are never
+entirely under water, though the surf dashes over them. We took
+possession of it in the name of the commissioners, and generously
+bestowed our own great names on its crags and creeks. The rock was
+carefully measured by Mr. Stevenson. It will be a most desolate position
+for a lighthouse--the Bell Rock and Eddystone a joke to it, for the
+nearest land is the wild island of Tyree, at 14 miles distance."
+
+Such is an entry in the diary of Sir Walter Scott's Yacht Tour, on the
+27th August 1814; but although the necessity of a lighthouse on the
+Skerry Vhor, or, as it is now generally called, Skerryvore, was fully
+acknowledged by the authorities, it was not till twenty-four years
+afterwards that the undertaking was actually commenced, under the
+superintendence of Mr. Alan Stevenson, the son of the eminent engineer
+who erected the Bell Rock Lighthouse.
+
+In the execution of this great work, if the son had, as compared with
+his father, certain advantages in his favour, he had also various
+disadvantages to contend with at Skerryvore from which the engineer of
+the Bell Rock was free. Mr. Alan Stevenson had steam power at his
+command, and the benefit of all the experience derived from the
+experiments of his predecessors in similar operations; but at the same
+time, the rock on which he had to work was at a greater distance from
+the land, and separated from it by a more dangerous passage than that of
+either the Bell or the Eddystone; and the geological formation of which
+the rock is composed, was much more difficult to work upon. The
+Skerryvore is distant from Tyree, the nearest inhabited island, about 11
+miles; even in fine weather the intervening passage is a trying one, and
+in rough weather no ship can live in such a sea, studded as it is with
+treacherous rocks. The sandstone of the Bell Rock is worn into rugged
+inequalities, which favoured the operations of the engineer; but the
+action of the waves on the igneous formation of the Skerryvore has given
+it all the smoothness and slippery polish of a mass of dark coloured
+glass. Indeed, the foreman of the masons, on first visiting the rock,
+not unjustly compared the operation of ascending it to that of "climbing
+up the neck of a bottle."
+
+The 7th August 1838 was the first day of entire work on the rock, and
+with succeeding ones was spent in the erection of a temporary barrack of
+wood, for the men to lodge in on the rock. It was completed before the
+season closed; but one of the first heavy gales in November wrenched it
+from its holdings, and swept it into the sea, leaving nothing to mark
+the site but a few broken and twisted stanchions, attached to one of
+which was a portion of a great beam which had been shaken and rent, by
+dashing against the rocks, into a bundle of ribands. Thus in one night
+were obliterated the results of a whole season's toil, and with them,
+the hopes the men cherished of having a dwelling on the rock, instead of
+on board the brig, where they suffered intensely from the miseries of
+constant sickness.
+
+The excavation of the foundations occupied the whole of the summer
+season of 1839, from the 6th May to the 3d September. The hard,
+nitrified rock held out stoutly against the assaults of both iron and
+gunpowder; and much time was spent in hollowing out the basin in which
+the lighthouse was to be fixed. From the limited extent of the rock and
+the absence of any place of shelter, the blasting was an operation of
+considerable danger, as the men had no place to run to, and it had to be
+managed with great caution. Only a small portion of the rock could be
+blown up at a time, and care had to be taken to cover the part over with
+mats and nettings made of old rope to check the flight of the stones.
+The excavation of the flinty mass occupied nearly two summers.
+
+The operations of 1840 included, much to the delight of the workmen, the
+reconstruction of the barrack, to which they were glad to remove from
+the tossing vessel. The second edifice was more substantial than the
+first, and proved more enduring. Rude and narrow as it was, it offered,
+after the discomforts of the vessel, almost a luxurious lodging to its
+hardy inmates.
+
+"Packed 40 feet above the weather-beaten rock, in this singular abode,"
+writes the engineer, Mr. Alan Stevenson, "with a goodly company of
+thirty men, I have spent many a weary day and night, at those times
+when the sea prevented any one going down to the rock, anxiously looking
+for supplies from the shore, and earnestly longing for a change of
+weather favourable to the recommencement of the works. For miles around
+nothing could be seen but white foaming breakers, and nothing heard but
+howling winds and lashing waves. Our slumbers, too, were at times
+fearfully interrupted by the sudden pouring of the sea over the roof,
+the rocking of the house on its pillars, and the spurting of water
+through the seams of the doors and windows; symptoms which, to one
+suddenly aroused from sound sleep, recalled the appalling fate of the
+former barrack, which had been engulphed in the foam not twenty yards
+from our dwelling, and for a moment seemed to summon us to a similar
+fate. On two occasions in particular, these sensations were so vivid as
+to cause almost every one to spring out of bed; and some of the men fled
+from the barrack by a temporary gangway to the more stable, but less
+comfortable shelter afforded by the bare walls of the lighthouse tower,
+then unfinished, where they spent the remainder of the night in the
+darkness and the cold."
+
+In spite of their anxiety to get on with the work, and their intrepidity
+in availing themselves of every opportunity, these gallant men were
+often forced by stress of weather into an inactivity which we may be
+sure they felt sadly irksome and against the grain. "At such seasons,"
+says Mr. Stevenson, "much of our time was spent in bed, for there alone
+we had effectual shelter from the winds and the spray which reached
+every cranny in the walls of our barrack." On one occasion they were for
+fourteen days without communication with the shore, and when at length
+the seas subsided, and they were able to make the signal to Tyree that a
+landing at the rock was practicable, scarcely twenty-four hours' stock
+of provisions remained on the rock. In spite of hardships and perils,
+however, the engineer declares that "life on the Skerryvore Rock was by
+no means destitute of its peculiar pleasures. The grandeur of the
+ocean's rage--the deep murmur of the waves--the hoarse cry of the sea
+birds, which wheeled continually over us, especially at our meals--the
+low moaning of the wind--or the gorgeous brightness of a glossy sea and
+a cloudless sky--and the solemn stillness of a deep blue vault, studded
+with stars, or cheered by the splendours of the full moon,--were the
+phases of external things that often arrested our thoughts in a
+situation where, with all the bustle that sometimes prevailed, there was
+necessarily so much time for reflection. Those changes, together with
+the continual succession of hopes and fears connected with the important
+work in which we were engaged, and the oft recurring calls for advice or
+direction, as well as occasional hours devoted to reading and
+correspondence, and the pleasures of news from home, were more than
+sufficient to reconcile me to--nay, to make me really enjoy--an
+uninterrupted residence, on one occasion, of not less than five weeks on
+that desert rock."
+
+The Skerryvore Lighthouse was at length successfully completed. The
+height of the tower is 138 feet 6 inches, of which the first 26 feet is
+solid. It contains a mass of stone work of more than double the quantity
+of the Bell Rock, and nearly five times that of the Eddystone. The
+entire cost, including steam tug and the building of a small harbour at
+Hynish for the reception of the little vessel that now attends the
+lighthouse, was L86,977. The light is revolving, and reaches its
+brightest state once every minute. It is produced by the revolution of
+eight great annular lenses around a central light, with four wicks, and
+can be seen from the deck of a vessel at the distance of 18 miles. Mr.
+Alan Stevenson sums up his deeply interesting narrative in the following
+words: "In such a situation as the Skerryvore, innumerable delays and
+disappointments were to be expected by those engaged in the work; and
+the entire loss of the fruit of the first season's labour in the course
+of a few hours, was a good lesson in the school of patience, and of
+trust in something better than an arm of flesh. During our progress,
+also, cranes and other materials were swept away by the waves; vessels
+were driven by sudden gales to seek shelter at a distance from the rocky
+shores of Mull and Tyree; and the workmen were left on the rock
+desponding and idle, and destitute of many of the comforts with which a
+more roomy and sheltered dwelling, in the neighbourhood of friends, is
+generally connected. Daily risks were run in landing on the rock in a
+heavy surf, in blasting the splintery gneiss, or by the falling of heavy
+bodies from the tower on a narrow space below, to which so many persons
+were necessarily confined. Yet had we not any loss of either life or
+limb; and although our labours were prolonged from dawn to night, and
+our provisions were chiefly salt, the health of the people, with the
+exception of a few slight cases of dysentery, was generally good
+throughout the six successive summers of our sojourn on the rock. The
+close of the work was welcomed with thankfulness by all engaged in it;
+and our remarkable preservation was viewed, even by many of the most
+thoughtless, as, in a peculiar manner, the gracious work of Him by whom
+the very hairs of our heads are all numbered!"
+
+
+
+
+Steam Navigation.
+
+
+  I.--JAMES SYMINGTON.
+ II.--ROBERT FULTON.
+III.--HENRY BELL.
+ IV.--OCEAN STEAMERS.
+
+
+
+
+Steam Navigation.
+
+
+
+
+I.--JAMES SYMINGTON.
+
+
+Of the many triumphs of enterprise achieved by the agency of that
+tremendous power which James Watt tamed and put in harness for his race,
+perhaps the greatest and most momentous is that which has reversed the
+old proverb, that "time and tide wait for no man," given ten-fold
+meaning to the truth that "seas but join the regions they divide," and
+enabled our ships to dash across the trackless deep in spite of opposing
+elements,--
+
+    "Against wind, against tide,
+    Steadying with upright keel,"
+
+in a fraction of the time, and with a fraction of the cost and peril of
+the old mode of naval locomotion. How amply realized has been James
+Bell's prediction more than half a century ago, "I will venture to
+affirm that history does not afford an instance of such rapid
+improvement in commerce and civilization, as that which will be effected
+by steam vessels!"
+
+Towards the close of the last century, a number of ingenious minds were
+in travail with the scheme of steam navigation. The Marquis de Jouffroy
+in France, and Fitch and Rumsey in America, were successful in
+experiments of its feasibility; but it is to the efforts of Miller and
+Symington in Scotland, followed up by those of Fulton and Bell, that we
+are chiefly and more immediately indebted for the practical development
+of the project.
+
+Having a natural bent for mechanical contrivances, and abundance of
+leisure and money to indulge his tastes, Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, in
+Dumfriesshire, somewhere about the year 1785, was full of schemes for
+driving ships by means of paddle-wheels,--by no means a novel idea, for
+it was known to the Romans, if not to the Egyptians, and had often been
+tried before.
+
+All he aimed at originally was, to turn the wheels by the power of men
+or horses; and this he managed to do successfully enough. Single,
+double, and treble boats were often to be seen driving along Dalswinton
+Lake, moved by paddle-wheels instead of oars. On one occasion, at Leith,
+one of the double boats, sixty feet long, propelled by two wheels, each
+of which was turned by a couple of men, was matched against a
+Custom-house boat, which was reckoned a fast sailer. The paddle-wheels
+did duty very well; but the men were soon knocked up with turning them,
+and the want of some other motive power was strongly felt. A young man
+named Taylor, who was tutor to Mr. Miller's boys, is said to have
+suggested the use of steam; but whether this be so or not, it was not
+till Miller met with James Symington that the idea assumed a practical
+form.
+
+In 1786 James Symington, then joint-engineer with his brother George, to
+the Wanlockhead Mines, was struck with the idea which, as we have seen,
+several other ingenious minds were also busy with about the same
+time,--of rendering the steam-engine available for locomotion both on
+land and sea. After much study and reflection, he succeeded in embodying
+the idea in a working model. It was supported on four wheels, which were
+moved in any direction by means of a small steam-engine, and could carry
+16 cwt., besides coals, water, &c. It was exhibited in Edinburgh in the
+summer of 1786, and made a considerable sensation. Mr. Miller, fond of
+all such inventions, did not fail to get a sight of Symington's
+locomotive engine, the first time he was in town. He was delighted with
+its ingenuity and completeness, and procured an interview with the
+author. Of course, Miller was full of his own experiments, and told
+Symington the whole story of his efforts to propel vessels by
+paddle-wheels, and the want of some stronger, and more constant power
+than that of men to turn the capstan, upon which the motion of the
+wheels depended. Symington at once expressed the opinion he had
+formed,--that steam was equally available for vessels as for carriages,
+and showed him how the steam-engine which he had devised for his
+locomotive could be applied to the paddle-wheels. Miller was so much
+struck by his statements, which he illustrated by reference to the
+model, that he determined to have an engine made on the same plan, and
+fitted into one of his double boats. Accordingly, an engine was built
+under Symington's directions and superintendence, sent to Dalswinton,
+and put together in October 1788. The engine, in a strong oak frame, was
+placed in the one half of a double pleasure-boat, the boiler occupying
+the other half, and the paddle-wheels being fixed in the middle.
+
+The autumn was withering into winter, the yellow leaves were swirling to
+the ground with every little breath of wind, and the boughs were
+beginning to show forth bare and grim, when the little boat was launched
+upon the bosom of Dalswinton Loch. At length all the preparations were
+finished, and on the 14th November Mr. Miller had the delight of seeing
+the vessel gliding over the mimic waves of the lake at the rate of five
+miles an hour. The company on board the boat on that memorable occasion
+were--Mr. Miller himself, of course, nervous with pleasure and
+exultation; Taylor, the tutor; Alexander Nasmyth (the well-known
+landscape painter, and father of the man who, in the next generation,
+was to invent the wonderful steam-hammer, that knocks masses of iron
+about like putty, and can yet so moderate its force as to crack a nut
+without bruising the kernel); a brisk stripling with strongly marked
+features, by name Harry Brougham, afterwards to be Lord Chancellor of
+England, and perhaps the most many-sided genius of his time; and--last
+and greatest of the group--there was one of Mr. Miller's tenants, the
+farmer of Ellisland,--Robert Burns, the great bard of Scotland, enjoying
+to the full, no doubt, the novelty of the expedition, but, we must
+suppose, unconscious of its import and grand future consequences, since
+he has accorded it no commemorative verse. "Many a time," says Mr. James
+Nasmyth, son of the distinguished painter, "I have heard my father
+describe the delight which this first and successful essay at steam
+navigation yielded the party in question. I only wish Burns had
+immortalized it in fit, clinking rhyme, for, indeed, it was a subject
+worthy of his highest muse."
+
+The experiment was next tried on a large scale with a canal boat, on the
+Forth and Clyde Canal, but one of the wheels broke. Not to be balked,
+Symington had stronger wheels made, and the next time the steam was put
+on, the vessel went off at the rate of seven miles an hour. The
+experiment was several times repeated with success. The vessel, however,
+was so slight, that many more trips would have knocked it to pieces; and
+it was therefore dismantled. The fitting up of these vessels, and the
+working of them, formed a heavy drain upon Mr. Miller's purse; and
+having laid satisfactory proof before the world that the thing could be
+done, he relinquished the enterprise, and left it to be worked out by
+others. Just then, however, no one came forward to fill his place; and
+for some years the idea slumbered.
+
+In 1801 Symington could not afford to indulge in further efforts at his
+own expense, but he found a patron in Lord Dundas, who commissioned him
+to construct a steam-tug for dragging canal boats. A stout, serviceable
+tug was built; and a series of experiments entered upon to test her
+efficiency, which cost upwards of L3000. One bleak, stormy spring-day in
+1802, the people on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal might have
+been seen staring with wonder, at the short, stumpy little tug pushing
+gallantly on at the rate of three or four miles an hour, with a strong
+wind right in her teeth, that no other vessel could make head against,
+and two loaded vessels (each of more than 70 tons burden) in tow. By
+itself, the tug could do six miles an hour without any great strain. The
+company made some objection, however, about the banks of the canal being
+injured, and the tug fell into disuse. It served an important end,
+though, in giving both Fulton and Bell a basis for their operations, and
+must be considered the parent of our modern steam-craft.
+
+
+
+
+II.--ROBERT FULTON.
+
+
+After Dr. Cartwright, the inventor of the power-loom, had retired
+penniless from his manufacturing enterprises, and had taken up his abode
+in London, one of the constant visitors at his modest residence in
+Marylebone Fields, was a thin, sharp-featured American, about
+twenty-eight years of age, an artist by profession, and formerly student
+of Benjamin West, who, however, was now much more interested in the art
+of engineering than the art of painting. From an early age he had shown
+a taste for mechanics, and was fond of spending his play-hours at school
+loitering about workshops and factories, watching the men at their work,
+and studying the machines and instruments they used. This sojourn in
+England had brought him into contact with the Duke of Bridgewater, the
+great canal projector, and Lord Stanhope, well known for his
+improvements in the printing press and other contrivances, in whose
+company his boyish bent towards mechanics was revived, and became quite
+a passion with him. He threw aside his brushes and palette, and applied
+himself to his favourite pursuit with heart and soul. Having formed the
+acquaintance of Cartwright, he became a daily visitor at his house, and
+the enthusiastic, good-natured doctor and he would sit debating for
+hours the great problem: "Whether it were practicable to move vessels by
+steam?" Fulton, eager, restless, vivacious, with pencil in hand, was
+perpetually sketching plans of paddle-wheels; while the doctor, calm,
+dignified, and earnest, equally engrossed in the subject, was contriving
+various modes of bringing steam to act upon them. Neither of them had
+any doubt that the thing could be done, but the "how" long baffled them;
+and even though the doctor constructed "the model of a boat, which,
+being wound up like a clock, moved on the water in a highly satisfactory
+manner," nothing practical came of their cogitations till some years
+after.
+
+While on a visit to Paris, Fulton was struck with the injury which
+standing navies of men-of-war inflicted on the mercantile marine, and
+gave his whole attention, as he says, "to find out the means of
+destroying such engines of oppression, by some method which would put it
+out of the power of any nation to maintain such a system, and compel
+every government to adopt the simple principles of education, industry,
+and a free circulation of its produce." The means presented itself to
+his mind in the shape of an explosive shell, called the torpedo, by
+which any ship of war could be blown to pieces; and for six or seven
+years he occupied himself in fruitless attempts to get first the
+government of France, and then that of England, to take up his project.
+He did not abandon his schemes with regard to steam-vessels, however;
+but, under the auspices of Mr. Livingstone, the American ambassador,
+made several experiments. One vessel of considerable size broke through
+the middle when the engines were placed on board, but a second one was
+rather more successful, though but a slow rate of movement was attained.
+His project came under the notice of Napoleon, then First Consul, who
+did not fail to appreciate its value. "It was," he said, "capable of
+changing the face of the world;" and he directed a commission to inquire
+into its merits. Nothing came of it, however.
+
+Shortly after, Fulton visited Scotland, and got an introduction to
+Symington, whom he pressed for a sight of his boat. Symington generously
+consented, and gave him a short sail on board the steam-tug. Fulton made
+no concealment of his intention of starting steamboats in his own
+country, whither he was about to return, and asked Symington to allow
+him to make a few notes of his observations on board. Symington had no
+objections; and, therefore, he says, "Fulton pulled out a memorandum
+book, and after putting several pointed questions respecting the general
+construction and effect of the machine, which I answered in a most
+explicit manner, he jotted down particularly everything then described,
+with his own remarks upon the boat while moving with him on board along
+the canal." Fulton was very liberal in his promises not to forget his
+assistance, if he got steamboats established in America; but Symington
+never heard anything more of him.
+
+Fulton was at New York in 1806, and busy getting a steamboat put
+together. It was a costly undertaking, and he had little spare cash of
+his own; so he offered shares in the concern to his friends, but no one
+would have anything to do with so ridiculous a scheme, as they thought.
+"My friends," says Fulton, "were civil, but shy. They listened with
+patience to my explanations, but with a settled cast of incredulity on
+their countenances. I felt the full force of the lamentation of the
+poet,--
+
+    'Truths would you teach, to save a sinking land,
+    All shun, none aid you, and few understand.'
+
+As I had occasion to pass daily to and from the building-yard while my
+boat was in progress, I have often loitered, unknown, near the idle
+groups of strangers, gathering in little circles, and heard various
+inquiries as to the object of this new vehicle. The language was
+uniformly that of scorn, sneer, or ridicule. The loud laugh rose at my
+expense, the dry jest, the wise calculation of losses and expenditure,
+the dull, but endless repetition of 'the Fulton Folly.' Never did a
+single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or a warm wish, cross my
+path."
+
+Let them laugh that win. The success which shortly attended Fulton's
+scheme turned the tables upon those who had mocked at him. The
+_Clermont_ was completed in August 1807, and the day arrived when the
+trial was to be made on the Hudson river. "To me," wrote Fulton, "it was
+a most trying and interesting occasion. I wanted some friends to go on
+board to witness the first successful trip. Many of them did me the
+favour to attend as a mark of personal respect; but it was manifest they
+did it with reluctance, fearing to be partners of my mortification, and
+not of my triumph. The moment arrived in which the word was to be given
+for the vessel to move. My friends were in groups on the deck. There was
+anxiety mixed with fear among them. They were silent, sad, and weary. I
+read in their looks nothing but disaster, and almost repented of my
+efforts. The signal was given, and the boat moved on a short distance,
+and then stopped and became immovable. To the silence of the preceding
+moment now succeeded murmurs of discontent and agitation, and whispers
+and shrugs. I could hear distinctly repeated--'I told you so; it is a
+foolish scheme; I wish we were well out of it.' I elevated myself on a
+platform, and stated that I knew not what was the matter; but if they
+would be quiet, and indulge me for half an hour, I would either go on or
+abandon the voyage. I went below, and discovered that a slight
+misadjustment was the cause. It was obviated. The boat went on; we left
+New York; we passed through the Highlands; we reached Albany! Yet even
+their imagination superseded the force of fact. It was doubted if it
+could be done again, or if it could be made, in any case, of any great
+value."
+
+The simple-minded country folk on the banks of the Hudson were almost
+frightened out of their wits at the awful apparition which they saw
+gliding along the river, and which, especially when seen indistinctly
+looming through the night, looked to their bewildered eyes, "a monster
+moving on the water, defying the winds and tide, and breathing flames
+and smoke." Pine-wood was used for fuel, and whenever the fire was
+stirred, a great burst of sparks issued from the chimney. "This uncommon
+light," says Colden, the biographer of Fulton, "first attracted the
+attention of the crews of other vessels. Notwithstanding the wind and
+tide were adverse to its approach, they saw with astonishment that it
+was rapidly coming towards them; and when it came so near that the noise
+of the machinery and paddles were heard, the crews in some instances
+shrunk beneath their decks from the terrific sight, and others left
+their vessels to go on shore; while others, again, prostrated
+themselves, and besought Providence to protect them from the approach of
+the horrible monster which was marching on the tides, and lighting its
+path by the fires which it vomited."
+
+With the novelty of the spectacle its terror died away, and people soon
+got tired of rushing out to see the remarkable machine that had once
+seemed so miraculous to them. The _Clermont_ soon began to travel
+regularly as a passage-boat between Albany and New York, other
+steam-vessels were constructed on its model, and by degrees the steam
+marine of America grew into the host it is at present. Thirty years
+after the first experiment on the Hudson, it was calculated 1300
+steamboats had been built in the States.
+
+Fulton did not live long to enjoy his triumphs. He died in 1815, having
+been actively engaged in promoting steam navigation to his last hours.
+
+
+
+
+III.--HENRY BELL.
+
+
+The honour which in America attached to Fulton as the man who first
+brought the steamboat into use, and to the River Hudson as being the
+scene of the experiment, in our own country fell (in a somewhat less
+degree, being subsequent), to Henry Bell, and the River Clyde.
+
+Brought up as a millwright, Bell, from want of funds to start in
+business, was obliged for many years to gain his living as a common
+carpenter in Glasgow, where he was noted among the trade as being very
+fond of "schemes," and suspected on that account by narrow-minded folk
+of being not very reliable in the lower branches of his craft. Scheme
+after scheme issued from his fertile mind; but he was rash and hasty in
+working them out, and few proved of much worth. Steam navigation being
+one of the vexed problems of the time, had every fascination for his
+peculiar genius; and he seems to have been brooding over it as the last
+century was closing, and the present opening upon the world. When Fulton
+visited Symington's invention, Bell appears to have accompanied him, and
+to have afterwards corresponded with him on the subject. "This," he
+says, "led me to think of the absurdity of writing my opinions to other
+countries, and not putting it in practice myself in my own country; and
+from these considerations I was roused to set on foot a steamboat, for
+which I made a number of different models before I was satisfied."
+Having removed to the little village of Helensburgh, on the banks of the
+Clyde, and there established a hotel and bath-house, which his wife
+managed, he endeavoured to work the passage-boats by which visitors were
+brought to the place, by means of paddle-wheels worked by the hand,
+instead of oars; but the plan did not succeed very well, for the same
+reason that led to Mr. Miller's abandonment of it--the inefficiency of
+manual power, which could not be applied with sufficiently sustained and
+continuous force. He therefore gave it up, and turned his attention to
+the employment of steam power for the same purpose. Of course, he was
+laughed at for his pains; and Henry Bell's project for having steamers
+on the Clyde became a standing joke among the frequenters of the
+watering-place. Even after the permanent success of Fulton's scheme was
+known, people would not moderate their incredulity; but Bell's faith,
+which had never wavered, was now confirmed, and he set about the work
+with redoubled energy.
+
+In 1811, Bell, having procured the necessary funds, had a steam-boat
+built of twenty-five tons and four horse power. He named it the _Comet_,
+because a comet had just then appeared in the north-west of Scotland.
+The _Comet_ began to run regularly between Glasgow and Helensburgh in
+January 1812, and continued to ply successfully during the summer of
+that year. At first, however, she brought rather loss than gain to her
+projector. People were shy of trusting themselves on board, and parties
+interested in the stage-coaches and sailing vessels, spread all sorts of
+absurd reports about her. It was not till she had gone for some time
+without accident, that tourists began to think they might as well save
+their money and their time by patronizing the new mode of conveyance. In
+the second year Bell took the _Comet_ off the Clyde, and sent her on a
+tour round the open coasts of the three kingdoms. Before long the safety
+and utility of steam navigation was admitted on all hands, and numerous
+rival enterprises were on foot. In 1820 the _Comet_ was lost between
+Glasgow and Fort William; and in the following year another of Bell's
+vessels was burnt to the water-edge--two misfortunes that carried L3000
+out of his pocket. His rivals, with abundant capital, soon drove him out
+of the field, and Bell sank into poverty and neglect. A small annuity
+from the Clyde trustees, and a subscription among his friends, to keep
+him from starving, were all the rewards he ever received for his
+enterprise and perseverance. He died in 1830 in the sixty-fourth year of
+his age.
+
+
+
+
+IV.--OCEAN STEAMERS.
+
+
+In the quarter of a century which elapsed between 1812, when the _Comet_
+first began to churn the waters of the Clyde, and 1837, steam navigation
+progressed steadily and surely. At first, content with plying along
+rivers and quiet bays, steamers by-and-by ventured out upon the open
+sea. We owe the regular establishment of deep-sea packets to the courage
+and enterprise of Mr. David Napier of Glasgow, "who," says Mr. Scott
+Russell, "has effected more for the improvement of steam navigation than
+any other man." He was quick to appreciate the capabilities of
+steam-vessels, and saw that they were fit for something more than mere
+inland voyages. Before starting one of them upon the open sea, however,
+he carefully estimated the danger to be encountered and the difficulties
+to be overcome. He took passage at the worst season of the year in one
+of the sailing vessels which formerly plied between Glasgow and Belfast,
+and which often required a week to perform a journey that is now done by
+steam in a few hours.
+
+Stationing himself on an elevated part of the deck, he kept a close
+watch on the movements of the vessel, observing the tossing to which she
+was subjected by the waves, the extent of the dip when she sank into a
+trough, the height of elevation when lifted on the summit of a wave, and
+calculating in his mind how all this would tell on the paddle-wheels.
+Through the roughest of the storm, when the vessel was pitching worst,
+and the wind blowing at its fiercest, he kept his place on deck,
+regardless of the drenching spray and the blast that almost carried him
+off his legs. When at length he had satisfied himself by the observation
+of his own eyes and inquiries of the captain and crew, that there was
+nothing in the voyage which a steamer could not encounter, he retired
+contentedly to his cabin, leaving everybody astonished at his strange
+curiosity respecting the effect of rough weather on the ship.
+
+Not long after David Napier started the _Rob Roy_ steam-packet between
+Greenock and Belfast, and afterwards between Dover and Calais. In the
+course of two or three years more he had established steam communication
+between Holyhead and Dublin, Liverpool and Greenock, and various other
+parts. The length of each unbroken passage was then considered the great
+difficulty; but as steamers got improved both in form and machinery,
+passages of greater length were successfully accomplished. Steamers
+traversed in all directions the German Ocean, the Mediterranean, the
+Baltic, and, in short, all the waters on the eastern side of the
+Atlantic; and were in use upon all the rivers and lakes of any size in
+Europe.
+
+At length, in 1836, the startling project was set on foot of superseding
+the far-famed New York and Liverpool packet ships by a fleet of
+steam-ships. Before this the _Savannah_, a steam vessel of 300 tons,
+had, in 1819, crossed from New York to Liverpool in twenty-six days,
+partly with sails and partly with steam; and another steam vessel had,
+in 1825, made the voyage from England to Calcutta; but one swallow does
+not make a summer, and many learned folks, on both sides of the
+Atlantic, shook their heads doubtfully at the daring scheme of regular
+steam communication across 13,000 miles of ocean. The experiment was to
+be made, however; and on the 4th April 1838, the _Sirius_, of 700 tons
+and 320 horse power, sailed from Cork for the far West. Four days after
+the _Great Western_ followed in her wake from Bristol.
+
+Great was the excitement in New York as the time drew nigh when the
+_Sirius_ was considered due. For days together the Battery was crowded
+with anxious watchers, from the first breaking of the cold, grey dawn
+till night dropped its dark curtain on the scene. At that time a
+telescope was a thing to be begged, borrowed, or stolen,--to be got,
+somehow or other, if only for a minute,--and a man who possessed one was
+to be looked up to, made much of, and, if possible, coaxed out of the
+loan of it. All day long a hundred telescopes swept the sea. The ocean
+steamer was the great topic of the hour, and "any appearance of her?"
+the constant question when two people met. On St. George's day, the 23d
+April, a dim, dusky speck on the far horizon grew under the eye of the
+thousands of breathless watchers into a long train of smoke, beneath
+which, as the hours wore on, appeared the black prow of a huge
+steam-boat. There she was, long looked for come at last; and with the
+American colours at the fore, and the flag of Old England rustling at
+the stern, the _Sirius_ swept into the harbour amidst the cheers of the
+multitude, the ringing of the city bells, and the firing of salutes. The
+excitement reached its climax, and the shouting and firing grew
+deafening, when, some few hours later on the same auspicious day, the
+_Great Western_ came to anchor alongside of her rival.
+
+Twenty-two years have passed since then, and the marvel of 1838 has
+become a mere everyday affair. There are some fourteen different lines
+of steamers, comprising more than fifty vessels, running between the
+United States and Europe, to say nothing of the magnificent steam fleets
+of the Peninsular and Oriental, the Royal West India, British and North
+American, Pacific, Australian, South Western, and other companies.
+
+The employment of iron in the construction of ships, thus securing at
+once lightness and strength, and the invention of the screw propeller,
+in 1836, by Mr. J. P. Smith, a farmer at Hendon, by means of which a
+vessel can combine all the qualities of a first-rate sailing ship with
+the use of steam power, gave a great impulse to steam navigation, which
+is still making steady and continuous progress. From one steam vessel
+in 1812 the number in the kingdom has risen successively to 20 in 1820,
+824 in 1840, and over 2000 in 1860. During 1858, 153 steamers were built
+in the United Kingdom, of which 112 were of iron. It is interesting to
+observe the advance in size of the steam vessels from their first
+introduction on the Clyde.
+
+                                                  Length.     Breadth.
+    1812. Comet                                   40 feet   10-1/2 feet.
+    1825. Enterprise (built expressly to go to
+          India, coaling at intermediate
+          stations)                              122  "     27      "
+    1835. Tagus (for Mediterranean)              182  "     28      "
+    1838. Great Western (the first ship built
+          expressly for Transatlantic service)   236  "     35-1/2  "
+    1844. Great Britain (the first large screw
+          ship, and largest iron ship up to that
+          time)                                  322  "     51      "
+    1853. Himalaya (iron)                        370  "     43-1/2  "
+    1856. Persia (do.)                           390  "     45      "
+    1859. Great Eastern (do.)                    680  "     83      "
+
+In the interval between 1812 and 1870 the number of steamers in the
+United Kingdom has increased from one to nearly three thousand; and the
+ocean-going steamer of 1870 is nearly six times the length of that of
+1825, and seventeen times the length of the _Comet_, while the
+difference in tonnage is still greater. How Fulton or Bell would open
+their eyes at the sight of a vast moving city, such as the Big Ship, an
+eighth of a mile in length, propelled by both paddle-wheels and screw,
+each worked by four huge engines!
+
+
+
+
+Iron Manufacture.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY CORT.
+
+
+
+
+Iron Manufacture.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY CORT.
+
+
+The multifarious use of iron in our day has given its name to the age.
+We have got far beyond the primitive applications of that metal--every
+day it is supplanting some other substance, and there is no saying where
+the wide-spread and varied service we exact from it will stop. The
+invention of the steam-engine, and the improvement of manufacturing
+machines, would be comparatively valueless, unless we had at command a
+cheap and abundant supply of iron for their construction. The land is
+covered with a net-work of iron rails, traversed by iron steeds--gulfs
+and valleys are spanned by iron arches and iron tubes--huge ships of
+iron ride upon the deep. Even stones and bricks are being discarded for
+this all-useful substance, and of iron we are building houses, palaces,
+theatres, churches, and spacious domes. There is no end to its uses.
+
+And yet, it is only between seventy and eighty years ago since Britain,
+the richest of all countries in native ore, was dependent upon others
+for her supply of the manufactured metal. We wanted but little iron in
+those days, compared with the present demand, and yet that little we
+could not furnish ourselves with. As much as a million and a half
+a-year went out of our pockets to purchase wrought iron from Sweden
+alone, and we were good customers to Russia as well. All the iron that
+our country could then produce was some 17,000 tons. The man who showed
+us how to turn our own ore to account, who rendered us independent of
+all other countries for our supply, and made us the great purveyors of
+wrought iron to the world, who opened up to us this great source of
+national wealth, was Henry Cort of Gosport.
+
+The great difficulty which he solved was how to get wrought iron out of
+the crude iron as it came from the smelting furnace, without using
+charcoal. With but a small tract of country, densely peopled, we had but
+a scant supply of wood at our command. The great forests which once
+overspread the land were gradually vanishing, partly before the spread
+of population and the growth of towns, and partly from the inroads made
+on them by the demand for timber. Formerly, the first transformation of
+the ore into pig iron (the crude form of the manufactured metal) was
+effected by means of wood; and the consumption was so great that an Act
+was passed in 1581 restraining its use. Soon afterwards Lord Dudley
+discovered that coal would answer the purpose just as well, and obtained
+a patent of monopoly. He reaped but little profit from his invention,
+however, for his iron-works were destroyed by a mob; and it was not till
+a century afterwards, when people got more alarmed at the growing
+scarcity of timber, and the increased demand for it, that the plan was
+generally adopted. This was one step in the right direction, but another
+yet remained to be made, for the manufacture was still hampered in our
+country by the want of wood for the second process--the conversion of
+crude into malleable iron, in which state alone it is fit for service.
+
+About the year 1785, Henry Cort, iron-master, of Gosport, after many
+years of patient and wearisome research, of anxious thought, and
+indefatigable experiment, in which he spent a private fortune of some
+L20,000, perfected a couple of inventions of priceless value. The first
+was the process of converting pig iron into wrought iron by the flame of
+pit coal in a puddling furnace, thus dispensing with the use of
+charcoal,--the cost and scarcity of which had before formed such a dead
+weight on the trade, and placed us at such a disadvantage compared with
+Sweden and Russia. The second was a further process for drawing the iron
+into bars by means of grooved rollers. Till then, this operation had to
+be performed with hammer and anvil, and was very tedious and laborious.
+The new system not only reduced the cost and labour of producing iron to
+one-twentieth of what they were previously, but greatly improved the
+quality of the article produced.
+
+It is not easy to estimate all that Henry Cort's inventions have done
+for this country. Without them we should have lost an overflowing and
+inexhaustible source of national wealth, and, moreover, large sums would
+have been taken out of the country in the purchase of wrought metal; we
+should never have been able to give full scope to the great mechanical
+inventions brought forth towards the close of the last, and the opening
+of the present century; we should have been debarred from taking rank as
+the great engineers and engine-makers for the rest of the world. The
+direct gain to this country from the inventions of Henry Cort, which
+enabled us to work up our own iron, has been calculated as equal by this
+time to not less than a hundred millions; and it is hardly possible to
+exaggerate the benefits which it has conferred. Lord Sheffield's
+prophecy, that the adoption of these processes would be worth more to
+Britain than a dozen colonies, may be said to have been fulfilled.
+
+Like many another benefactor of his country, Cort got little good out of
+his invention for himself. He took out a patent for his process, and
+arranged with the leading iron-masters to accept a royalty of ten
+shillings a ton for the use of them. With a large fortune in prospect,
+his purse was just then exhausted by the expenses he had incurred in
+experiments and researches; and he had to look out for a capitalist to
+aid him in working the patent on his own account. As ill luck would
+have it, he entered into partnership with a certain Adam Jellicoe, then
+deputy-paymaster of the navy. Jellicoe was considered a man of
+substance, and a "thoroughly respectable" character. He was to advance
+the ready money, and to receive in return half of the profits of the
+trade, Cort assigning to him, by way of collateral security, his patent
+rights. For a year or two all went well. The patent was everywhere
+adopted, and Cort's own iron works drove a lucrative and growing trade.
+He seemed in a fair way of getting back the fortune he had spent in
+bringing out the inventions, doubled or trebled, as he well deserved.
+The respectable Jellicoe was seized with a mortal sickness: at his death
+his desk was filled by another, his books were examined, and it turned
+out that he had been robbing the government for many a year back, and
+was a large defaulter. Cort, of course, had nothing to do with this
+villany, but he had to pay the penalty of it. As Jellicoe's partner he
+was responsible, in those days of unlimited liability, for all
+Jellicoe's debts; but that was not the worst of it. The treasurer of the
+navy was not content to exact only the payment of Jellicoe's
+defalcations, as he had no doubt a right to do, but confiscated the
+whole of Cort's patent rights, business, and property, which would have
+paid the debt seven or eight times over, had it been fairly valued.
+
+This incident has never been properly cleared up, but what glimpses of
+its secret passages have been obtained, seem to indicate clearly enough
+that poor Cort was the victim, not of one, but of two or more swindlers.
+To the day of his death he never could obtain a distinct account of the
+proceedings; and when, after his death, a Royal Commission was appointed
+to inquire into the matter, the treasurer of the navy and his deputy
+took care, a week or two before the Commission met, to indemnify each
+other by a joint release, and to burn their accounts for upwards of a
+million and a half of public money, for the application of which they
+were responsible, as well as all papers relating to Cort's case. When
+the Commission met, and the treasurer and his deputy were called before
+it, they refused to answer questions which would criminate themselves.
+
+His connection with Jellicoe was, of course, the ruin of Henry Cort. He
+had no means of re-establishing himself in business; he was robbed of
+all income from his patents; and he died ruined and broken-hearted ten
+years after, leaving a family of nine children, without a sixpence in
+the world. Four of these children now survive--old, infirm, and
+indigent--only saved from being dependent upon parish bounty by
+pensions, amounting in the aggregate to L90 per annum. Well may it be
+said, "There should be more gratitude in our Iron Age to the children of
+HENRY CORT."
+
+
+
+
+The Electric Telegraph.
+
+
+  I.--MR. COOKE.
+ II.--PROFESSOR WHEATSTONE.
+III.--THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.
+
+
+
+
+The Electric Telegraph.
+
+    "Speak the word and think the thought,
+    Quick 'tis as with lightning caught--
+    Over, under lands or seas,
+    To the far antipodes;
+    Here again, as soon as gone,
+    Making all the earth as one;
+    Moscow speaks at twelve o'clock,--
+    London reads ere noon the shock."
+
+
+
+
+I.--MR. COOKE.
+
+
+Of all the marvels of our time, the most marvellous is the subjugation
+of the electric fluid, that potent elemental force,--twin brother of the
+fatal lightning,--to be our submissive courier, to bear our messages
+from land to land, and "put a girdle round about the earth in forty
+minutes." The Prospero that tamed this Ariel was no individual genius,
+but "two single gentlemen rolled into one." The idea of employing the
+electric current for the conveyance of signals between distant points,
+can be traced pretty far back in date; but to Mr. Cooke and Professor
+Wheatstone is undoubtedly due the credit of having made the electric
+telegraph an actual and accomplished fact, and rendered it practicable
+for everyday uses.
+
+Having served for a number of years as an officer in our Indian army,
+Mr. Cooke came back to Europe to recruit his health in the beginning of
+1836, and took up his abode at Heidelberg. He found agreeable
+occupation for his leisure in the study of anatomy, and in the
+construction of anatomical models for his father's museum at Durham,
+where he was a professor in the university. Entirely self-taught in this
+delicate art, Mr. Cooke applied himself to it with characteristic
+ardour, and attained remarkable skill. One day he happened to witness
+some experiments which were made by Professor Moencke, to illustrate the
+feasibility of electric signalling. A current of electricity was passed
+through a long wire, and set a magnetic needle at the end quivering
+under its influence. The experiment was a very simple one, and not at
+all novel; but Cooke had never paid any attention to the subject before,
+and was much struck with what he saw. He became strongly impressed with
+the possibility of employing electricity in the transmission of
+telegraphic intelligence between distant places. From the day he
+witnessed the experiments in Professor Moencke's classroom, he forsook
+the dissecting knife, threw aside his modelling tools, and applied
+himself to the realization of his conception. With such ardour and
+devotion did he labour, and such skill and ingenuity did he bring to the
+work, that within three weeks he had constructed a telegraph with six
+wires, forming three complete metallic currents, and influencing three
+needles, by the varied inclination of which twenty-six different signals
+were designated. In that short time he had also invented the detector,
+by which injuries to the wires, whether from water, fracture, or
+contact with substances capable of diverting the current, were readily
+traced, and the alarum, by which notice is given at one end of the wire
+that a message is coming from the other. Both these contrivances were of
+the utmost value,--indeed, without them electric telegraphy would be
+impracticable,--and are still in use. Possessing more of a mechanical
+than a scientific genius, Mr. Cooke bestowed more of his time and
+ingenuity on the perfection of a telegraph to be worked by clock
+mechanism, set in action by the withdrawal of a detent by an electro
+magnet than in the completion of the electric telegraph pure and simple.
+
+Soon after having invented his telegraph, he came over to London, and
+spent the rest of the year in making a variety of instruments, and in
+efforts to get his telegraph introduced on the Liverpool and Manchester
+Railway. He found an obstacle to the complete success of his mechanical
+telegraph, in the difficulty of transmitting to a distance sufficient
+electric power to work the electro magnet upon which its action
+depended. A friend advised him to consult Professor Wheatstone, then
+known to be deeply engaged in electrical experiments, with a view to
+telegraphy; and accordingly, an interview between them took place in
+February 1837.
+
+
+
+
+II.--PROFESSOR WHEATSTONE.
+
+
+Mr. Charles Wheatstone, F.R.S., and Professor of Experimental Philosophy
+in King's College at the time of that interview, had made considerable
+advances in the scientific part of the enterprise. At the commencement
+of his career as a maker and seller of musical instruments in London, he
+was led to investigate the science of sound; and from his researches in
+that direction, he was led--much as Herschel was led--to devote himself
+to optics, and to study the philosophy of light. He was the first to
+point out the peculiarity of binocular vision, and to describe the
+stereoscope, which has since become so popular an instrument. Gradually,
+however, his thoughts and researches came to be steadfastly directed to
+the application of electricity to the communication of signals. In
+determining the rate at which the electric current travels through a
+wire he had laid down, he made an important stride towards the end in
+view. He proved by a series of most ingenious experiments, that one
+spark of electricity leaps on before another, and that its progress is a
+question of time. He found that electricity travels through a _copper_
+wire as fast as, if not faster, than light, that is, at the rate of
+200,000 miles in a second; but through an _iron_ wire, electricity moves
+at the rate of only 15,400 miles in a second. In 1836 Mr. Wheatstone had
+begun experiments in the vaults of King's College, with four miles of
+wire, properly insulated, and was working out the details of a
+telegraph, the scientific principles of which he had already laid down.
+He had discovered an original method of converting a few wires into a
+considerable number of circuits, so that the greatest number of signals
+could be transmitted by a limited number of wires, by the deflection of
+magnetic needles. Mr. Wheatstone, however, was somewhat backward in the
+mechanical parts of the scheme, and the meeting between him and Cooke
+was therefore of the greatest benefit to both, and an admirable
+illustration of the old proverb, that two heads are better than one. Had
+they never been brought together,--had they kept on working out their
+own ideas apart--each would, no doubt, have been able to produce an
+electric telegraph; but a great deal of time would have been lost, and
+their respective efforts less complete and valuable than the one they
+effected in conjunction. Cooke wanted sound, scientific knowledge;
+Wheatstone wanted mechanical ingenuity; and their union supplied mutual
+deficiencies. A partnership was immediately formed between them. Before
+their combined genius all difficulties vanished; and in the June of the
+same year they were able to take out a patent for a telegraph with five
+wires and five needles. Their respective shares in its invention are
+clearly marked out by Sir J. Brunel and Professor Daniell, who, as
+arbiters between the two upon that delicate question, gave the
+following award in 1841:--
+
+"Whilst Mr. Cooke is entitled to stand alone as the gentleman to whom
+this country is indebted for having practically introduced and carried
+out the electric telegraph as a useful undertaking, promising to be a
+work of national importance; and Professor Wheatstone is acknowledged as
+the scientific man whose profound and successful researches had already
+prepared the public to receive it as a project capable of practical
+application,--it is to the united labours of two gentlemen so well
+qualified for mutual assistance, that we must attribute the rapid
+progress which this important invention has made during the five years
+since they have been associated."
+
+Shortly after the taking out of a patent, wires were laid down between
+Euston Square Terminus and Camden Town Station, on the North-Western
+Railway; and the new telegraph was subjected to trial. Late in the
+evening of the 25th July 1837, in a dingy little room in one of the
+Euston Square offices, Professor Wheatstone sat alone, with a hand on
+each handle of the signal instrument, and an anxious eye upon the dial,
+with its needles as yet in motionless repose. In another little room at
+the Camden Town Station, Mr. Cooke was seated in a similar position
+before the instrument at the other end of the wires, along with Mr., now
+Sir Charles Fox, Robert Stephenson, and some other gentlemen. It was a
+trying, agitating moment for the two inventors,--how Wheatstone's pulse
+must have throbbed, and his heart beat, as he jerked the handle, broke
+the electric current, and sent the needles quivering on the dial; in
+what suspense he must have spent the next few minutes, holding his
+breath as though to hear his fellow's voice, and almost afraid to look
+at the dial lest no answer should be made; with what a thrill of joy
+must each have seen the needles wag knowingly and spell out their
+precious message,--the "All's well; thank God," that flashed from heart
+to heart, along the line of senseless wire. "Never," said Wheatstone,
+"did I feel such a tumultuous sensation before, as when all alone in the
+still room I heard the needles click; and as I spelled the words, I felt
+all the magnitude of the invention now proved to be practicable beyond
+cavil or dispute."
+
+A few days before this trial of the telegraph in London, Steinheil, of
+Munich, is said to have had one of his own invention at work there; and
+it is a difficult question to decide whether he or Cooke and Wheatstone
+were the first inventors. It is, however, a question of no consequence,
+as each worked independently. Since the first English electric telegraph
+was patented, there have been a thousand and one other contrivances of a
+similar kind taken out; but it may be doubted whether, for practical
+purposes, the original apparatus, with the improvements which its own
+inventors have made on it, is not still the best of them all.
+
+From being used merely to carry railway messages, the telegraph was
+brought into the service of the general public; the advantages of such
+almost instantaneous communication were readily appreciated; and eight
+years after Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone took out their patent, lines of
+telegraph to the extent of 500 miles were in operation in England upon
+the original plan. In 1855 telegraphic correspondence had become so
+general, that the Electric Telegraph Company was started to supply the
+demand. In that establishment the Needle Telegraph of Wheatstone and
+Cooke is the one generally used, with the Chemical Recording Telegraph
+of Bain for special occasions. By means of the latter, blue lines of
+various lengths, according to an alphabet, are drawn upon a ribbon of
+paper, and as many as 20,000 words can be sent in an hour, though the
+ordinary rate is 100 per minute. In the purchase of patent rights alone,
+the Company have spent L170,000, and they are every year adding to the
+length of their wires. In June 1850 they had 6730 miles of wires, and
+despatched 29,245 messages a year. In December 1853 they had 24,340
+miles of wires, and despatched 212,440 messages a-year. Their lines now
+extend over a much larger mileage, and convey a greatly increased number
+of messages. The Magnetic Telegraph Company have also a large extent of
+wires, and do a considerable business.
+
+
+
+
+III.--THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.
+
+
+The land telegraph having had such success, the next step was to carry
+the wires across the deep, and link continent to continent,--an
+all-important step for an island kingdom such as ours, with its legion
+of distant colonies. The success of a submerged cable between Gosport
+and Portsmouth, and of one across the docks at Hull, proved the
+feasibility of a water telegraph, at least on a small scale, and it was
+not long before more ambitious attempts were made. On the 28th of August
+1850, a cable, 30 miles long, in a gutta percha sheathing, was stretched
+at the bottom of the straits between Dover and Cape Grisnez, near
+Calais. Messages of congratulation sped along this wire between England
+and France; and although a ridge of rocks filed the cable asunder on the
+French coast, the suspension of communication was only temporary. The
+link has once more been established, and is in daily use. The first news
+sent by the wire to England was of the celebrated _coup d'etat_ of the
+2d December, which cleared the way for Louis Napoleon's ascent of the
+throne. Numerous other cables have since been sunk beneath the waters;
+complete telegraphic communication has just been established between
+England and India, and will, no doubt, before long be extended to
+Australia.
+
+The greatest enterprise of this kind, however, still remains
+unaccomplished--that is, the laying of the Atlantic cable. A company was
+started in 1856 to carry out this great enterprise, the governments of
+Great Britain and the United States engaging to assist them, not only
+with an annual subsidy of L10,000 a-year for twenty-five years, but to
+furnish the men and ships required for laying the cable from one side of
+the Atlantic to the other. The chief difficulty which engaged the
+attention of Mr. Wildman Whitehouse and the other agents of the notable
+enterprise was the enormous size of the cable which, it was thought,
+would be necessary. The general belief at that time was, that the
+greater the distance to be traversed, the larger must be the wire along
+which the electric current was to pass, and that the rate of speed would
+be in proportion to the size of the conductor. Mr. Whitehouse, however,
+thought it would be as well to begin by making sure that this was really
+the case, and that a monster cable was essential; and after some three
+thousand separate observations and experiments, was delighted to find
+that the difficulty which stared them in the face was imaginary. Instead
+of a large cable transmitting the current faster than a small one, he
+ascertained beyond a doubt, that the bigger the wire, the slower was the
+passage of the electricity. It would be needful, therefore, to make the
+cable only strong enough to stand the strain of its own weight, and
+heavy enough to sink to the bottom. A single wire would have been quite
+sufficient, but a strand of seven wires of the finest copper was used
+for the cable, so that the fracture of one of them might not interfere
+with the communication,--as long as one wire was left intact the current
+would proceed. A triple coating of gutta percha, to keep the sea from
+sucking out the electricity, and a thick coating of iron wire, to sink
+the cable to the bottom and give it strength, were added to the copper
+rope, and then the cable was complete. No less than 325,000 miles of
+iron and copper wire were woven into this great cable,--as much as might
+be wound thirteen times round the globe; and its weight was about a ton
+per mile. The length of the cable was 18,947 miles--some 600 miles being
+allowed to come and go upon, in case of accidents.
+
+The end of July 1857 was selected for the sailing of the ships that were
+to lay the cable, as fogs and gales were then out of season, and no
+icebergs to be met with. On the 8th of August, the _Agamemnon_ (English)
+and _Niagara_ (American), with four smaller steamers to attend them, and
+each with half of the mighty cable in her hold, got up their steam and
+left Valentia Harbour. One end of the cable was carried by a number of
+boats from the _Niagara_ on shore, where the Lord-Lieutenant was in
+waiting to receive it, and place it in contact with the batteries, which
+were arranged in a little tent upon the beach. A slight accident to the
+cable for a little while delayed the departure of the ships; but by the
+10th they had got 200 miles out to sea, and so far the cable had been
+laid successfully. Messages passed and repassed between the ships and
+the shore. The next day the engineer discovering that too much cable was
+being paid out, telegraphed to the people on board to put a greater grip
+on it; the operation was clumsily managed, and the cable snapped,
+sinking to a depth of 12,000 feet.
+
+Not disheartened, however, the Company replaced the lost portion of the
+cable; the Government again furnished ships and men, and the cable was
+actually laid at the bottom of the Atlantic from Valentia Bay to Trinity
+Harbour.
+
+Addresses of congratulation passed between the Queen and the President
+of the States, and numerous messages were transmitted. But gradually the
+signals grew fainter and more faint, till they ceased altogether. The
+cable was stricken dumb. A little to the north of the fiftieth parallel
+of latitude, at the bottom of the Atlantic, where the plateau is
+unbroken by any great depression, some 1500 miles of the disabled cable
+were lying, on a soft bed of mud, which was constantly thickening, at a
+depth of from 10,000 to 15,000 feet.
+
+The importance of telegraphic communication between England and the
+United States was, however, so obvious that its projectors were not to
+be daunted by the failure they had sustained. Nor was it altogether a
+failure. They had proved that a cable _could_ be laid, and messages
+flashed through it. What was wanted was evidently a stronger cable,
+which should be less liable to injury, and more perfect in its
+insulation of the telegraphic wires.
+
+From 1858 to 1864, the Company were engaged in the difficult task of
+raising fresh funds, and in endeavouring to secure grants from the
+British and American Governments. Their men of science, meanwhile, were
+devising improvements in the form of cable, and contriving fresh
+apparatus to facilitate its submersion. Eventually the Telegraph
+Construction and Maintenance Company, an union of the Gutta Percha
+Company with the celebrated firm of Glass and Elliott, constructed an
+entirely new cable, which was not only costlier, but thicker and
+stronger than the preceding one. The conductor, three hundred pounds per
+mile, and one-seventh of an inch thick, consisted of seven No. 18 copper
+wires, each one-twentieth of an inch in thickness. The core or heart of
+the cable, says a writer in "Chambers's Encyclopaedia," was formed of
+four layers of gutta percha alternating with four of Chatterton's
+compound (a solution of gutta percha in Stockholm tar); the wire and
+conductor being seven hundred pounds per mile, and nine-twentieths of an
+inch thick. Outside this was a coating of hemp or jute yarn, saturated
+with a preservative composition; while the sheath consisted of ten iron
+wires, each previously covered with five tarred Manilla yarns. The whole
+cable was an inch and one eighth thick, weighed thirty-five and
+three-quarter hundredweights per mile, and was strong enough to endure a
+breaking strain of seven tons and three-quarters. During the various
+processes of manufacture, the electrical quality of the cable was tested
+to an unusual extent. The portions of finished core were tested by
+immersion in water at various temperatures; next submitted to a pressure
+of six hundred pounds to the square inch, to imitate the ocean pressure
+at so great depth; then the conducting power of the copper wire was
+tested by a galvanometer; and various experiments were also made on the
+insulating property of the gutta percha. The various pieces having been
+thus severely put to the proof, they were spliced end to end, and the
+joints or splicings tested. In a word, nothing was left undone that
+could insure the success or guarantee the stability of the new cable.
+
+When completed, the cable measured two thousand three hundred miles, and
+weighed upwards of four thousand tons. It was felt that such a burden
+could only be intrusted to Brunel's "big ship," the _Great Eastern_. For
+this purpose three huge iron tanks were built, in the fore, middle, and
+aft holds of the vessel, each from fifty to sixty feet in diameter, and
+each twenty and a half feet in depth; and in these the cable was
+deposited in three vast coils.
+
+On the 23rd of July 1865, the _Great Eastern_ left Valentia, the
+submarine cable being joined end to end to a more massive shore cable,
+which was hauled up the cliff at Foilhummerum Bay, to a telegraph-house
+at the top. The electric condition of the cable was continually tested
+during the ship's voyage across the Atlantic; and more than once its
+efficiency was disturbed by fragments of wire piercing the gutta percha
+and destroying the insulation. At length on August 2nd, the cable
+snapped by overstraining, and the end sank to the bottom in two thousand
+fathoms water, at a distance of one thousand and sixty-four miles from
+the Irish coast. Attempts were made to recover it by dredging. A
+five-armed grapnel, suspended to the end of a stout iron-wire rope five
+miles long, was flung overboard; and when it reached the bottom, the
+_Great Eastern_ steamed to and fro in the direction where the lost cable
+was supposed to be lying; but failure followed upon failure, and the
+cable was never once hooked. There remained nothing to be done but for
+the _Great Eastern_ to return to England with the news of her
+non-success, and leaving (including the failure of 1857-8) nearly four
+thousand tons of electric cable at the bottom of the ocean.
+
+The promoters of ocean telegraphy, however, were determined to be
+resolute to the end. A new Company was formed, new capital was raised,
+and a third cable manufactured, differing in some respects from the
+former. The outside jacket was made of hemp instead of jute; the iron
+wires of the sheath were galvanized, and the Manilla hemp which covered
+them was not tarred. Chiefly through the absence of the tar, the weight
+of the cable was diminished five hundred pounds per mile; while its
+strength or breaking strain was increased. A sufficient quantity of this
+improved cable was made to cross the Atlantic, with all due allowance
+for slack; and also a sufficient quantity of the 1865 cable to remedy
+the disaster of that year.
+
+On July 13th, 1866, the _Great Eastern_ once more set forth on her
+interesting voyage, accompanied by the steamers _Terrible_, _Medway_,
+and _Albany_, to assist in the submersion of the cable, and to act as
+auxiliaries whenever needed. The line of route chosen lay about midway
+between those of the 1858 and 1865 cables, but at no great distance from
+either. The _Great Eastern_ exchanged telegrams almost continuously with
+Valentia as she steamed towards the American continent; and great were
+the congratulations when she safely arrived in the harbour of Heart's
+Content, Newfoundland, on the 27th.
+
+Operations were next commenced to recover the end of the 1865 cable, and
+complete its submergence. The _Albany_, _Medway_, and _Terrible_ were
+despatched on the 1st of August, to the point where, "deep down beneath
+the darkling waves," the cable was supposed to be lying, and on the 9th
+or 10th they were joined by the _Great Eastern_, when grappling was
+commenced, and carried on through the remainder of the month. The cable
+was repeatedly caught, and raised to a greater or less height from the
+ocean bed; but something or other snapped or slipped every time, and
+down went the cable again. At last, after much trial of patience, the
+end of the cable was safely fished up on September 1st; and electric
+messages were at once sent through to Valentia, just as well as if the
+cable had not had twelve months' soaking in the Atlantic. An additional
+length having been spliced to it, the laying recommenced; and on the 8th
+the squadron entered Heart's Content, having thus succeeded in laying a
+second line of cable from Ireland to America.
+
+The two cables, the old and the new, continued to work very smoothly
+during the winter of 1866 and 1867; but in May 1867, the new cable was
+damaged by an iceberg, which drifted across it at a distance of about
+three miles from the Newfoundland shore. The injury was soon repaired;
+but again, in July 1867, the same cable broke at about fifty miles from
+Newfoundland.
+
+The earlier cable continued to work for several years, but both cables
+gave way towards the close of the autumn of 1870. No special
+inconvenience was felt, however, as two years ago a French line of
+cable was laid down between Europe and America; the _Great Eastern_
+being again employed, and the operations being conducted under the
+superintendence of English electricians. The two British cables will
+probably be repaired in the spring of the present year (1871).
+
+Submarine cables have multiplied recently, and almost every ocean flows
+over the mysterious wires which flash intelligence beneath the rolling
+waters from point to point of the civilized world. By a telegraph-cable,
+which is partly submarine, the India Office in Westminster is united
+with the Governor-General and his Council at Calcutta. There is also
+communication between Singapore and Australia, and the network of ocean
+telegraphy is being so rapidly extended that, before long, the British
+Government in the metropolis will be enabled to convey its instructions
+in a few hours to the administrative authorities in every British
+colony. And thus the words which the poet puts into the mouth of "Puck"
+will be nearly realized in a sense the poet never dreamed of--"I'll put
+a girdle round about the world in forty minutes."
+
+
+
+
+The Silk Manufacture.
+
+
+  I.--JOHN LOMBE.
+ II.--WILLIAM LEE.
+III.--JOSEPH MARIE JACQUARD.
+
+
+
+
+The Silk Manufacture.
+
+
+
+
+I.--JOHN LOMBE.
+
+
+In the reign of the Emperor Justinian, a couple of Persian monks, on a
+religious mission to China, brought away with them a quantity of
+silkworms' eggs concealed in a piece of hollow cane, which they carried
+to Constantinople. There they hatched the eggs, reared the worms, and
+spun the silk,--for the first time introducing that manufacture into
+Europe, and destroying the close monopoly which China had hitherto
+enjoyed. From Constantinople the knowledge and the practice of the art
+gradually extended to Greece, thence to Italy, and next to Spain. Each
+country, as in turn it gained possession of the secret, strove to
+preserve it with jealous care; but to little purpose. A secret that so
+many thousands already shared in common, could not long remain so,
+although its passage to other countries might be for a time deferred.
+France and England were behind most of the other states of Europe in
+obtaining a knowledge of the "craft and mystery." The manufacture of
+silk did not take root in France till the reign of Francis I.; and was
+hardly known in England till the persecutions of the Duke of Parma in
+1585 drove a great number of the manufacturers of Antwerp to seek
+refuge in our land. James I. was very anxious to promote the breed of
+silkworms, and the production of silken fabrics. During his reign a
+great many mulberry-trees were planted in various parts of the
+country--among others, that celebrated one in Shakspeare's garden
+at Stratford-on-Avon--and an attempt was made to rear the worm
+in our country, which, however, the ungenial climate frustrated.
+Silk-throwsters, dyers, and weavers were brought over from the
+Continent; and the manufacture made such progress that, by 1629, the
+silk-throwsters of London were incorporated, and thirty years after
+employed no fewer than 40,000 hands. The emigration from France
+consequent on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) added not
+only to the numbers engaged in the trade, but to the taste, skill, and
+enterprise with which it was conducted. It is not easy to estimate how
+deeply France wounded herself by the iniquitous persecution of the
+Protestants, or how largely the emigrants repaid by their industry the
+shelter which Britain afforded them.
+
+Although the manufacture had now become fairly naturalized in England,
+it was restricted by our ignorance of the first process to which the
+silk was subjected. Up till 1718, the whole of the silk used in England,
+for whatever purpose, was imported "thrown," that is, formed into
+threads of various kinds and twists. A young Englishman named John
+Lombe, impressed with the idea that our dependence on other countries
+for a supply of thrown silk prevented us from reaping the full benefit
+of the manufacture, and from competing with foreign traders, conceived
+the project of visiting Italy, and discovering the secret of the
+operation. He accordingly went over to Piedmont in 1715, but found the
+difficulties greater than he had anticipated. He applied for admittance
+at several factories, but was told that an examination of the machinery
+was strictly prohibited. Not to be balked, he resolved, as a last
+resort, to try if he could accomplish by stratagem what he had failed to
+do openly. Disguising himself in the dress of a common labourer, he
+bribed a couple of the workmen connected with one of the factories, and
+with their connivance obtained access in secret to the works. His visits
+were few and short; but he made the best use of his time. He carefully
+examined the various parts of the machinery, ascertained the principle
+of its operation, and made himself completely master of the whole
+process of throwing. Each night before he went to bed he noted down
+everything he had seen, and drew sketches of parts of the machinery.
+This plot, however, was discovered by the Italians. He and his
+accomplices had to fly for their lives, and not without great difficulty
+escaped to a ship which conveyed them to England.
+
+Lombe had not forgotten to carry off with him his note-book, sketches,
+and a chest full of machinery, and on his return home lost no time in
+practising the art of "throwing" silk. On a swampy island in the river
+Derwent, at Derby, he built a magnificent mill, yet standing, called the
+"Old Silk Mill." Its erection occupied four years, and cost L30,000. It
+was five storeys in height, and an eighth of a mile in length. The grand
+machine numbered no fewer than 13,384 wheels. It was said that it could
+produce 318,504,960 yards of organzine silk thread daily; but the
+estimate is no doubt exaggerated.
+
+While the mill was building, Lombe, in order to save time and earn money
+to carry on the works, opened a manufactory in the Town Hall of Derby.
+His machinery more than fulfilled his expectations, and enabled him to
+sell thrown silk at much lower prices than were charged by the Italians.
+A thriving trade was thus established, and England relieved from all
+dependence on other countries for "thrown" silk.
+
+The Italians conceived a bitter hatred against Lombe for having broken
+in upon their monopoly and diminished their trade. In revenge,
+therefore, according to William Hutton, the historian of Derby, they
+"determined _his_ destruction, and hoped that of his works would
+follow." An Italian woman was despatched to corrupt her two countrymen
+who assisted Lombe in the management of the works. She obtained
+employment in the factory, and gained over one of the Italians to her
+iniquitous design. They prepared a slow poison, and administered it in
+small doses to Lombe, who, after lingering three or four years in agony,
+died at the early age of twenty-nine. The Italian fled; the woman was
+seized and subjected to a close examination, but no definite proof could
+be elicited that Lombe had been poisoned. Lombe was buried in great
+state, as a mark of respect on the part of his townsmen. "He was," says
+Hutton, "a man of quiet deportment, who had brought a beneficial
+manufactory into the place, employed the poor, and at advanced
+wages,--and thus could not fail to meet with respect; and his melancholy
+end excited much sympathy."
+
+
+
+
+II.--WILLIAM LEE.
+
+
+In the Stocking Weavers' Hall, in Redcross Street, London, there used to
+hang a picture, representing a man in collegiate costume in the act of
+pointing to an iron stocking-frame, and addressing a woman busily
+knitting with needles by hand. Underneath the picture appeared the
+following inscription: "In the year 1589, the ingenious William Lee,
+A.M., of St. John's College, Cambridge, devised this profitable art for
+stockings (but, being despised, went to France), yet of iron to himself,
+but to us and to others of gold; in memory of whom this is here
+painted." As to who this William Lee was, and the way in which he came
+to invent the stocking-frame, there are conflicting stories, but the
+one most generally received and best authenticated is as follows:--
+
+William Lee, a native of Woodborough, near Nottingham, was a fellow of
+one of the Cambridge Colleges. He fell in love with a young country
+lass, married her, and consequently forfeited his fellowship. A poor
+scholar, with much learning, but without money or the knowledge of any
+trade, he found himself in very embarrassed circumstances. Like many
+another "poor scholar," he might exclaim:--
+
+    "All the arts I have skill in,
+            Divine and humane;
+    Yet all's not worth a shilling;
+    Alas! poor scholar, whither wilt thou go?"
+
+His wife, however, was a very industrious woman, and by her knitting
+contributed to their joint support. It is said--but the story lacks
+authentic confirmation--that when Lee was courting her, she always
+appeared so much more occupied with her knitting than with the soft
+speeches he was whispering in her ear, that her lover thought of
+inventing a machine that would "facilitate and forward the operation of
+knitting," and so leave the object of his love more leisure to converse
+with him. "Love, indeed," says Beckmann, "is fertile in invention, and
+gave rise, it is said, to the art of painting; but a machine so complex
+in its parts, and so wonderful in its effects, would seem to require
+longer and greater reflection, more judgment, and more time and patience
+than could be expected of a lover." But afterwards, when Lee, in his
+painfully enforced idleness, sat many a long hour watching his wife's
+nimble fingers toiling to support him, his mind again recurred to the
+idea of a machine that would give rest to her weary fingers. His
+cogitations resulted in the contrivance of a stocking-frame, which
+imitated the movements of the fingers in knitting.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM LEE, THE INVENTOR OF THE STOCKING-FRAME. Page
+226.]
+
+Although the invention of this loom gave a great impulse to the
+manufacture of silk stockings in England, and placed our productions in
+advance of those of other countries, Lee reaped but little profit from
+it. He met with neglect both from Queen Elizabeth and James I.; and, not
+succeeding as a manufacturer on his own account, went to France, where
+he did very well until after the assassination of Henri IV., when he
+shared the persecutions of the Protestants, and died in great distress
+in Paris.
+
+
+
+
+III.--JOSEPH MARIE JACQUARD.
+
+
+Joseph Marie Jacquard, the inventor of the loom which bears his name,
+and to whom the extent and prosperity of the silk manufacture of our
+time is mainly due, was born at Lyons in 1752, of humble parents, both
+of whom were weavers. His father taught him to ply the shuttle; but for
+education of any other sort, he was left to his own devices. He managed
+to pick up some knowledge of reading and writing for himself; but his
+favourite occupation was the construction of little models of houses,
+towers, articles of furniture, and so on, which he executed with much
+taste and accuracy. On being apprenticed to a type-founder, he exhibited
+his aptitude for mechanical contrivances by inventing a number of
+improved tools for the use of the workmen. On his father's death he set
+up as a manufacturer of figured fabrics; but although a skilful workman,
+he was a bad manager, and the end of the undertaking was, that he had to
+sell his looms to pay his debts. He married, but did not receive the
+dowry with his wife which he expected, and to support his family had to
+sell the house his father had left him,--the last remnant of his little
+heritage. The invention of numerous ingenious machines for weaving,
+type-founding, &c., proved the activity of his genius, but produced not
+a farthing for the maintenance of his wife and child. He took service
+with a lime-maker at Brest, while his wife made and sold straw hats in a
+little shop at Lyons. He solaced himself for the drudgery of his labours
+by spending his leisure in the study of machines for figure-weaving. The
+idea of the beautiful apparatus which he afterwards perfected began to
+dawn on him, but for the time it was driven out of his mind by the
+stirring transactions of the time. The whirlwind of the Revolution was
+sweeping through the land. Jacquard ardently embraced the cause of the
+people, took part in the gallant defence of Lyons in 1793, fled for his
+life on the reduction of the city, and with his son--a lad of
+sixteen--joined the army of the Rhine. His boy fell by his side on the
+field of battle, and Jacquard, destitute and broken-hearted, returned to
+Lyons. His house had been burned down; his wife was nowhere to be heard
+of. At length he discovered her in a miserable garret, earning a bare
+subsistence by plaiting straw. For want of other employment he shared
+her labours, till Lyons began to rise from its ruins, to recover its
+scattered population, and revive its industry. Jacquard applied himself
+with renewed energy to the completion of the machine of which he had,
+before the Revolution, conceived the idea; exhibited it at the National
+Exposition of the Products of Industry in 1801; and obtained a bronze
+medal and a ten years' patent.
+
+During the peace of Amiens, Jacquard happened to take up a newspaper in
+a _cabaret_ which he frequented, and his eye fell on a translated
+extract from an English journal, stating that a prize was offered by a
+society in London for the construction of a machine for weaving nets. As
+a mere amusement he turned his thoughts to the subject, contrived a
+number of models, and at last solved the problem. He made a machine and
+wove a little net with it. One day he met a friend who had read the
+paragraph from the English paper. Jacquard drew the net from his pocket
+saying, "Oh! I've got over the difficulty! see, there is a net I've
+made." After that he took no more thought about the matter, and had
+quite forgotten it, when he was startled by a summons to appear at the
+Prefectal Palace. The prefect received him very kindly, and expressed
+his astonishment that his mechanical genius should so long have remained
+in obscurity. Jacquard could not imagine how the prefect had discovered
+his mechanical experiments, and began vaguely to dread that he had got
+into some shocking scrape. He stammered out a sort of apology. The
+prefect was surprised he should deny his own talent, and said he had
+been informed that he had invented a machine for weaving nets. Jacquard
+owned that he had.
+
+"Well, then, you're the right man, after all," said the prefect. "I have
+orders from the emperor to send the machine to Paris."
+
+"Yes, but you must give me time to make it," replied Jacquard.
+
+In a week or two Jacquard again presented himself at the palace with his
+machine and a half manufactured net. The prefect was eager to see how it
+worked.
+
+"Count the number of loops in that net," said Jacquard, "and then strike
+the bar with your foot."
+
+The prefect did so, and was surprised and delighted to see another loop
+added to the number.
+
+"Capital!" cried he. "I have his majesty's orders, M. Jacquard, to send
+you and your machine to Paris."
+
+"To Paris! How can that be? How can I leave my business here?"
+
+"There is no help for it; and not only must you go to Paris, but you
+must start at once, without an hour's delay."
+
+"If it must be, it must. I will go home and pack up a little bundle, and
+tell my wife about my journey, I shall be ready to start to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow won't do; you must go to-day. A carriage is waiting to take
+you to Paris; and you must not go home. I will send to your house for
+any things you want, and convey any message to your wife. I will provide
+you with money for the journey."
+
+There was no help for it, so Jacquard got into the carriage, along with
+a gendarme who was to take charge of him, and wondered, all the way to
+Paris, what it all meant. On reaching the capital he was taken before
+Napoleon, who received him in a very condescending manner. Carnot, who
+was also present, could not at first comprehend the machine, and turning
+to the inventor, exclaimed roughly, "What, do you pretend to do what is
+beyond the power of man? Can you tie a knot in a stretched string?"
+Jacquard, not at all disconcerted, explained the construction of his
+machine so simply and clearly, as to convince the incredulous minister
+that it accomplished what he had hitherto deemed an impossibility.
+
+Jacquard was now employed in the Conservatory of Arts and Manufactures
+to repair and keep in order the models and machines. At this time a
+magnificent shawl was being woven in one of the government works for the
+Empress Josephine. Very costly and complicated machinery was employed,
+and nearly L1000 had already been spent on it. It appeared to Jacquard
+that the shawl might be manufactured in a much simpler and less
+expensive manner. He thought that the principle of a machine of
+Vaucousin's might be applied to the operation, but found it too complex
+and slow. He brooded over the subject, made a great many experiments,
+and at last succeeded in contriving an improved apparatus.
+
+He returned to Lyons to superintend the introduction of his machine for
+figure-weaving and the manufacture of nets. The former invention was
+purchased for the use of the people, and was brought into use very
+slowly. The weavers of Lyons denounced Jacquard as the enemy of the
+people, who was striving to destroy their trade, and starve themselves
+and families, and used every effort to prevent the introduction of his
+machine. They wilfully spoiled their work in order to bring the new
+process into discredit. The machine was ordered to be destroyed in one
+of the public squares. It was broken to pieces,--the iron-work was sold
+for old metal, and the wood-work for faggots. Jacquard himself had on
+one occasion to be rescued from the hands of a mob who were going to
+throw him into the Rhone.
+
+Before Jacquard's death in 1835, his apparatus had not only made its way
+into every manufactory in France, but was used in England, Switzerland,
+Germany, Italy, and America. Even the Chinese condescended to avail
+themselves of this invention of a "barbarian."
+
+Jacquard's apparatus is, strictly speaking, not a loom, but an appendage
+to one. It is intended to elevate or depress, by bars, the warp threads
+for the reception of the shuttle, the patterns being regulated by means
+of bands of punched cards acting on needles with loops and eyes. At
+first applied to silk weaving only, the use of this machine has since
+been extended to the bobbin net, carpets, and other fancy manufactures.
+By its agency the richest and most complex designs, which could formerly
+be achieved only by the most skilful labourers, with a painful degree of
+labour, and at an exorbitant cost, are now produced with facility by the
+most ordinary workmen, and at the most moderate price.
+
+Of late years the silk manufacture has greatly improved, both in
+character and extent. The products of British looms exhibited at the
+Great Exhibition of 1862 vied with those of the Continent. Every year
+upwards of L2,300,000 worth of silk is brought to England; and the silk
+manufacture engages some L55,000,000 of capital, and employs eleven to
+twelve hundred thousand of our population.
+
+
+
+
+The Potter's Art.
+
+
+  I.--LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.
+ II.--BERNARD PALISSY.
+III.--JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
+
+
+
+
+The Potter's Art.
+
+
+
+
+I.--LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.
+
+
+There can be little doubt as to the antiquity of the pottery
+manufacture. It probably had its origin in that of bricks, which at a
+very early date men made for purposes of construction; but it is not
+impossible that he had previously contrived to fabricate the commoner
+articles of domestic economy, such as pans and dishes, of sun-dried
+clay.
+
+Bricks, as everybody knows, are fashioned out of a coarse clay, such as
+we meet with in very numerous localities. After mixing up with water a
+kind of paste out of these clayey earths, the moulder works up the paste
+into the shape of bricks, and they are then exposed to the heat of the
+kiln. Sometimes it was thought sufficient to dry these bricks in the
+rays of a burning sun; but, so dried, their solidity is very
+inconsiderable. Baked bricks owe their redness of colour to the oxide of
+iron which they contain. They are either moulded with the hand or cast
+in rectangular frames of wood, dusted with sand. To bake them, they are
+piled up in huge stacks, in which intervals are left for storing and
+kindling the fuel. They are also baked in kilns.
+
+The commoner pottery wares are manufactured with the coarse impure
+clays, which are allowed to rot in trenches for several years to render
+them more plastic. Flower-pots, sugar-pans, vases, and other and more
+graceful articles, are moulded on the potter's wheel.
+
+Now, this potter's wheel is one of the most ancient instruments of human
+industry, one of the earliest inventions by which man utilized and
+economized his labour. It consists of a large disc of wood, to which a
+rotatory motion is given by the workman's foot. A second and smaller
+disc, on which is placed the paste for working, is fixed upon the upper
+extremity of the vertical axis to which the larger and inferior disc is
+attached. Seated on his bench, the workman places in the centre of the
+disc a certain quantity of soft moist clay, and turning the wheel with
+his foot, moulds the said paste with both hands, until it assumes the
+desired shape. You can imagine no prettier spectacle than that of a
+skilful potter causing the clay, under his nimble fingers, to assume the
+most varied forms. It seems as if by miracle the vase was created
+suddenly, and the rude clay sprang into a life and beauty of its own.
+
+The Campanian potteries, improperly but commonly called the Etruscan,
+and the ancient Greek wares, belong to the class of soft and lustrous
+potteries which are no longer manufactured. The Etruscan vases are the
+most remarkable specimens of the ancient potter's art; pure, simple, and
+elegant in form, they cannot be surpassed by any efforts of the modern
+potter. The paste of which they are made is very fine and homogeneous,
+coated with a peculiar glassy lustre, which is thin but tenacious, red
+or black, and formed of silica rendered fusible by an alkali. They were
+baked at a low temperature. In this ware, which was in vogue between 500
+and 320 B.C., the Aretine and Roman pottery originated. The former was
+manufactured at Arezzo or Arretium.
+
+The knowledge of glazes, which was acquired by the Egyptians and
+Assyrians, seems to have been handed down to the Persians, Moors, and
+Arabs. Fayences, and enamelled bricks and plaques, were commonly used
+among them in the twelfth century, and among the Hindus in the
+fourteenth. The celebrated glazed tiles, or _azulejos_, which contribute
+so much to the beauty of the Alhambra, were introduced into Spain by the
+Moors about 711 A.D. In Italy, it is supposed, they were made known as
+early as the conquest of Majorca by the Pisans, in 1115 A.D. But
+Brongniart places their introduction three centuries later, or in 1415,
+and says this peculiar kind of ware was called _Majolica_, from Majorica
+or Majorca. This, however, seems to have been the Italian enamelled
+fayence, which was used for subjects in relief by the celebrated
+Florentine sculptor, Luca della Robbia.
+
+Robbia had been bred to the trade of a goldsmith--in those days a trade
+of great distinction and opulence--but his artistic tastes could not be
+controlled, and he abandoned it to become a sculptor. A man of a
+singularly enthusiastic and ardent nature, he applied himself arduously
+to his new work. He worked all day with his chisel, and sat up, even
+through the night, to study. "Often," says Vasari, "when his feet were
+frozen with cold in the night time, he kept them in a basket of shavings
+to warm them, that he might not be compelled to discontinue his
+drawings." Such devotion could hardly fail to secure success. Luca was
+recognised as one of the first sculptors of the day, and executed a
+number of great works in bronze and marble. On the conclusion of some
+important commissions, he was struck with the disproportion between the
+payment he received and the time and labour he had expended; and,
+abandoning marble and bronze, resolved to work in clay. Before he could
+do that, however, it was necessary to discover some means of rendering
+durable the works which he executed in that material. Applying himself
+to the task with characteristic zeal and perseverance, he at length
+succeeded in discovering a mode of protecting such productions from the
+injuries of time, by means of a glaze or enamel, which conferred not
+only an almost eternal durability, but additional beauty on his works in
+terra cotta. At first this enamel was of a pure white, but he afterwards
+added the further invention of colouring it. The fame of these
+productions spread over Europe, and Luca found abundant and profitable
+employment during the rest of his days, the work being carried on, after
+his death, by brothers and descendants.
+
+
+
+
+II.--BERNARD PALISSY.
+
+
+The next great master in the art was Bernard Palissy,--a man
+distinguished not only for his artistic genius, but for his
+philosophical attainments, his noble, manly character, and zealous
+piety. Born of poor parents about the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, Bernard Palissy was taken as apprentice by a land-surveyor, who
+had been much struck with the boy's quickness and ingenuity.
+Land-surveying, of course, involved some knowledge of drawing; and thus
+a taste for painting was developed. From drawing lines and diagrams he
+went on to copy from the great masters. As this new talent became known
+he obtained employment in painting designs on glass. He received
+commissions in various parts of the country, and in his travels employed
+his mind in the study of natural objects. He examined the character of
+the soils and minerals upon his route, and the better to grapple with
+the subject, devoted his attention to chemistry. At length he settled
+and married at Staines, and for a time lived thriftily as a painter.
+
+One day he was shown an elegant cup of Italian manufacture, beautifully
+enamelled. The art of enamelling was then entirely unknown in France,
+and Palissy was at once seized with the idea, that if he could but
+discover the secret it would enable him to place his wife and family in
+greater comfort. "So, therefore," he writes, "regardless of the fact
+that I had no knowledge of clays, I began to seek for these enamels as a
+man gropes in the dark. I reflected that God had gifted me with some
+knowledge of drawing, and I took courage in my heart, and besought him
+to give me wisdom and skill."
+
+[Illustration: PALISSY THE POTTER. Page 242.]
+
+He lost no time in commencing his experiments. He bought a quantity of
+earthen pots, broke them into fragments, and covering them with various
+chemical compounds, baked them in a little furnace of his own
+construction, in the hope of discovering the white enamel, which he had
+been told was the key to all the rest. Again and again he varied the
+ingredients of the compositions, the proportions in which they were
+mixed, the quality of the clay on which they were spread, the heat of
+the furnace to which they were subjected; but the white enamel was still
+as great a mystery as ever. Instead of discouraging, each new defeat
+seemed to confirm his hope of ultimate success and to increase his
+perseverance. Painting and surveying he no longer practised, except when
+sheer necessity compelled him to resort to them to provide bread for his
+family. The discovery of the enamel had become the great mission of his
+life, and to that all other occupations must be sacrificed. "Thus
+having blundered several times at great expense and through much
+trouble, with sorrows and sighs, I was every day pounding and grinding
+new materials and constructing new furnaces, which cost much money, and
+consumed my wood and my time." Two years had passed now in fruitless
+effort. Food was becoming scarce in the little household, his wife worn
+and shrewish, the children thin and sickly. But then came the thought to
+cheer him,--when the enamel was found his fortune would be made, there
+would then be an end to all his privations, anxieties, and domestic
+unhappiness, Lisette would live at ease, and his children lack no
+comfort. No, the work must not be given up yet. His own furnace was
+clumsy and imperfect,--perhaps his compositions would turn out better in
+a regular kiln. So more pots were bought and broken into fragments,
+which, covered with chemical preparations, were fired at a pottery in
+the neighbourhood. Batch after batch was prepared and despatched to the
+kiln, but all proved disheartening failures. Still with "great cost,
+loss of time, confusion, and sorrow," he persevered, the wife growing
+more shrewish, the children more pinched and haggard. By good luck at
+this time came the royal commissioners to establish the gabelle or tax
+in the district of Saintonge, and Palissy was employed to survey the
+salt marshes. It was a very profitable job, and Palissy's affairs began
+to look more flourishing. But the work was no sooner concluded, than
+the "will o' the wisp," as his wife and neighbours held it, was dancing
+again before his eyes, and he was back, with redoubled energy, to his
+favourite occupation, "diving into the secret of enamels."
+
+Two years of unremitting, anxious toil, of grinding and mixing, of
+innumerable visits to the kiln, sanguine of success, with ever new
+preparations; of invariable journeys home again, sad and weary, for the
+moment utterly discouraged; of domestic bickerings; of mockery and
+censure among neighbours, and still the enamel was a mystery,--still
+Palissy, seemingly as far from the end as ever, was eager to prosecute
+the search. He appeared to have an inward conviction that he would
+succeed; but meanwhile the remonstrances of his wife, the pale, thin
+faces of his bairns, warned him he must desist, and resume the
+employments that at least brought food and clothing. There should be one
+more trial on a grand scale,--if that failed, then there should be an
+end of his experiments. "God willed," he says, "that when I had begun to
+lose my courage, and was gone for the last time to a glass-furnace,
+having a man with me carrying more than three hundred pieces, there was
+one among those pieces which was melted within four hours after it had
+been placed in the furnace, which trial turned out white and polished,
+in a way that caused me such joy as made me think I was become a new
+creature." He rushed home, burst into his wife's chamber, shouting, "I
+have found it!"
+
+From that moment he was more enthusiastic than ever in his search. He
+had discovered the white enamel. The next thing to be done was to apply
+it. He must now work at home and in secret. He set about moulding
+vessels of clay after designs of his own, and baked them in a furnace
+which he had built in imitation of the one at the pottery. The grinding
+and compounding of the ingredients of the enamel cost him the labour,
+day and night, of another month. Then all was ready for the final
+process.
+
+The vessels, coated with the precious mixture, are ranged in the
+furnace, the fire is lit and blazes fiercely. To stint the supply of
+fuel would be to cheat himself of a fortune for the sake of a few pence,
+so he does not spare wood. All that day he diligently feeds the fire,
+nor lets it slacken through the night. The excitement will not let him
+sleep even if he would. The prize he has striven for through these weary
+years, for which he has borne mockery and privation, is now all but
+within his grasp; in another hour or two he will have possessed it.
+
+The grey dawn comes, but still the enamel melts not. His boy brings him
+a portion of the scanty family meal. There shall soon be an end to that
+miserable fare! More faggots are cast on the fire. The night falls, and
+the sun rises on the third day of his tending and watching at the
+furnace door, but still the powder shows no signs of melting. Pale,
+haggard, sick at heart with anxiety and dread, worn with watching,
+parched and fevered with the heat of the fire, through another, and yet
+another and another day and night, through six days and six nights in
+all, Bernard Palissy watches by the glaring furnace, feeds it
+continually with wood, and still the enamel is unmelted. "Seeing it was
+not possible to make the said enamel melt, I was like a man in
+desperation; and although quite stupified with labour, I counselled to
+myself that in my mixture there might be some fault. Therefore I began
+once more to pound and grind more materials, all the time without
+letting my furnace cool. In this way I had double labour, to pound,
+grind, and maintain the fire. I was also forced to go again and purchase
+pots in order to prove the said compound, seeing that I had lost all the
+vessels which I had made myself. And having covered the new pieces with
+the said enamel, I put them into the furnace, keeping the fire still at
+its height."
+
+By this time it was no easy matter to "keep the fire at its height." His
+stock of fuel was exhausted; he had no money to buy any more, and yet
+fuel must be had. On the very eve of success--alas! an eve that so
+seldom has a dawn--it would never do to lose it all for want of wood,
+not while wood of any kind was procurable. He rushed into the garden,
+tore up the palings, the trellis work that supported the vines, gathered
+every scrap of wood he could find, and cast them on the fire. But soon
+again the deep red glow of the furnace began to fade, and still it had
+not done its work. Suddenly a crashing noise was heard; his wife, the
+children clinging to her gown, rushed in. Palissy had seized the chairs
+and table, had torn the door from its hinges, wrenched the window frames
+from their sockets, and broken them in pieces to serve as fuel for the
+all-devouring fire. Now he was busy breaking up the very flooring of the
+house. And all in vain! The composition would not melt.
+
+"I suffered an anguish that I cannot speak, for I was quite exhausted
+and dried up by the heat of the furnace. Further to console me, I was
+the object of mockery; even those from whom solace was due, ran, crying
+through the town that I was burning my floors. In this way my credit was
+taken from me, and I was regarded as a madman," if not, as he tells us
+elsewhere, as one seeking ill-gotten gains, and sold to the evil one for
+filthy lucre.
+
+He made another effort, engaged a potter to assist him, giving the
+clothes off his own back to pay him, and afterwards receiving aid from a
+friendly neighbour, and this time proved that his mixture was of the
+right kind. But the furnace having been built with mortar which was full
+of flints, burst with the heat, and the splinters adhered to the
+pottery. Sooner than allow such imperfect specimens of his art to go
+forth to the world, Palissy destroyed them, "although some would have
+bought them at a mean price."
+
+Better days, however, were at hand for himself and family. His next
+efforts were successful. An introduction to the Duke of Montmorency
+procured him the patronage of that nobleman, as well as of the king. He
+now found profitable employment for himself and food for his family.
+"During the space of fifteen or sixteen years in all," he said
+afterwards, "I have blundered on at my business. When I had learned to
+guard against one danger, there came another on which I had not
+reckoned. All this caused me such labour and heaviness of spirit, that
+before I could render my enamels fusible at the same degrees of heat, I
+verily thought I should be at the door of my sepulchre.... But I have
+found nothing better than to observe the counsel of God, his edicts,
+statutes, and ordinances; and in regard to his will, I have seen that he
+has commanded his followers to eat bread by the labour of their bodies,
+and to multiply their talents which he has committed to them."
+
+When the Reformation came, Palissy was an earnest reformer, on Sunday
+mornings assembling a number of simple, unlearned men for religious
+worship, and exhorting them to good works. Court favour exempted him
+from edicts against Protestants, but could not shield him from popular
+prejudice. His workshops at Saintes were destroyed; and to save his
+life and preserve the art he had invented, the king called him to Paris
+as a servant of his own. Thus he escaped the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew. Besides being a skilful potter, Palissy was a naturalist of
+no little eminence. "I have had no other book than heaven and earth,
+which are open to all," he used to say; but he read the wondrous volume
+well, while others knew it chiefly at second-hand, and hence his
+superiority to most of the naturalists of the day. He was in the habit
+of lecturing to the learned men of the capital on natural history and
+chemistry. When more than eighty years of age he was accused of heresy,
+and shut up in the Bastille. The king, visiting him in prison, said, "My
+good man, if you do not renounce your views upon religious matters, I
+shall be constrained to leave you in the hands of my enemies." "Sire,"
+replied Palissy, "those who constrain you, a king, can never have power
+over me, because I know how to die." Palissy died in prison, aged and
+exhausted, in 1590, at the age of eighty.
+
+Before his death his wares had become famous, and were greatly prized.
+The enamel, which he went through so much toil and suffering to
+discover, was the foundation of a flourishing national manufacture.
+
+
+
+
+III.--JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
+
+
+Josiah Wedgwood, whose name in connection with pottery-ware has become a
+household word amongst us, was the younger son of a potter at Burslem,
+in Staffordshire, who had also a little patch of ground which he farmed.
+When Josiah was only eleven years old, his father died, and he was thus
+left dependent upon his elder brother, who employed him as a "thrower"
+at his own wheel. An attack of smallpox, in its most malignant form,
+soon after endangered his life, and he survived only by the sacrifice of
+his left leg, in which the dregs of the disease had settled, and which
+had to be cut off. Weak and disabled, he was now thrown upon the world
+to seek his own fortune. At first it was very uphill work with him, and
+he found it no easy matter to provide even the most frugal fare. He was
+gifted, however, with a very fine taste in devising patterns for
+articles of earthenware, and found ready custom for plates,
+knife-handles, and jugs of fanciful shape. He worked away industriously
+himself, and was able by degrees to employ assistance and enlarge his
+establishment. The pottery manufactures of this country were then in a
+very primitive condition. Only the coarsest sort of articles were made,
+and any attempt to give elegance to the designs was very rare indeed.
+All the more ornamental and finer class of goods came from the
+Continent. Wedgwood saw no reason why we should not emulate foreigners
+in the beauty of the forms into which the clay was thrown, and made a
+point of sending out of his own shop articles of as elegant a shape as
+possible. This feature in his productions was not overlooked by
+customers, and he found a growing demand for them. The coarseness of the
+material was, however, a great drawback to the extension of the trade in
+native pottery; and it seemed almost like throwing good designs away to
+apply them to such rude wares. Wedgwood saw clearly that if earthenware
+was ever to become a profitable English manufacture, something must be
+done to improve the quality of the clay. He brooded over the subject,
+tested all the different sorts of earth in the district, and at length
+discovered one, containing silica, which, black in colour before it went
+into the oven, came out of it a pure and beautiful white. This fact
+ascertained, he was not long in turning it to practical account, by
+mixing flint powder with the red earth of the potteries, and thus
+obtaining a material which became white when exposed to the heat of a
+furnace. The next step was to cover this material with a transparent
+glaze; and he could then turn out earthenware as pure in quality as that
+from the Continent. This was the foundation not only of his own fortune,
+but of a manufacture which has since provided profitable employment for
+thousands of his countrymen, besides placing within the reach of even
+the humblest of them good serviceable earthenware for household use.
+
+The success of his white stoneware was such, that he was able to quit
+the little thatched house he had formerly occupied, and open shop in
+larger and more imposing premises. He increased the number of his hands,
+and drove an extensive and growing trade. He was not content to halt
+after the discovery of the white stoneware. On the contrary, the success
+he had already attained only impelled him to further efforts to improve
+the trade he had taken up, and which now became quite a passion with
+him. When he devoted himself to any particular effort in connection with
+it, his first thought was always how to turn out the very best article
+that could be made--his last thought was whether it would pay him or
+not. He stuck up for the honour of old England, and maintained that
+whatever enterprise could be achieved, that English skill and enterprise
+was competent to do. Although he had never had any education himself
+worth speaking of, his natural shrewdness and keen faculty of
+observation supplied his deficiencies in that respect; and when he
+applied himself, as he now did, to the study of chemistry, with a view
+to the improvement of the pottery art, he made rapid and substantial
+progress, and passed muster creditably even in the company of men of
+science and learning. He contributed many valuable communications to the
+Royal Society, and invented a thermometer for measuring the higher
+degrees of heat employed in the various arts of pottery.
+
+Again his premises proved too confined for his expanding trade, and he
+removed to a larger establishment, and there perfected that
+cream-coloured ware with which Queen Charlotte was so delighted, that
+she ordered a whole service of it, and commanding that it should be
+called after her--the Queen's Ware, and that its inventor should receive
+the title of the "Royal Potter."
+
+A royal potter Wedgwood truly was; the very king of earthenware
+manufactures, resolute in his determination to attain the highest degree
+of perfection in his productions, indefatigable in his labours, and
+unstinting in his outlay to secure that end. He invented altogether
+seven or eight different kinds of ware; and succeeded in combining the
+greatest delicacy and purity of material, and utmost elegance of design,
+with strength, durability, and cheapness. The effect of the improvements
+he successively introduced into the manufacture of earthenware is thus
+described by a foreign writer about this period: "Its excellent
+workmanship, its solidity, the advantage which it possesses of
+sustaining the action of fire, its fine glaze, impenetrable to acids,
+the beauty and convenience of its form, and the cheapness of its price,
+have given rise to a commerce so active and so universal, that in
+travelling from Paris to Petersburg, from Amsterdam to the furthest port
+of Sweden, and from Dunkirk to the extremity of the south of France,
+one is served at every inn with Wedgwood ware. Spain, Portugal, and
+Italy are supplied with it, and vessels are loaded with it for the East
+Indies, the West Indies, and the continent of America." Wedgwood
+himself, when examined before a committee of the House of Commons in
+1785, some thirty years after he had begun his operations, stated that
+from providing only casual employment to a small number of inefficient
+and badly remunerated workmen, the manufacture had increased to an
+extent that gave direct employment to about twenty thousand persons,
+without taking into account the increased numbers who earned a
+livelihood by digging coals for the use of the potteries, by carrying
+the productions from one quarter to another, and in many other ways.
+
+Wedgwood did not confine himself to the manufacture of useful articles,
+though such, of course, formed the bulk of his trade, but published
+beautiful imitations of Egyptian, Greek, and Etruscan vases, copies of
+cameos, medallions, tablets, and so on. Valuable sets of old porcelain
+were frequently intrusted to him for imitation, in which he succeeded so
+well that it was difficult to tell the original from the counterfeit,
+except sometimes from the superior excellence and beauty of the latter.
+When the celebrated Barberini Vase was for sale, Wedgwood, bent upon
+making copies of it, made heavy bids against the Duchess of Portland
+for it; and was only induced to desist by the promise, that he should
+have the loan of it in order that he might copy it. Accordingly, the
+duchess had the vase knocked down to her at eighteen hundred guineas,
+and Wedgwood made fifty copies of it, which he sold at fifty guineas
+each, and was thus considerably out of pocket by the transaction. He did
+it, however, not for the sake of profit, but to show what an English
+pottery could accomplish.
+
+Besides copying from antique objects, Wedgwood tried to rival them in
+the taste and elegance of original productions. He found out Flaxman
+when he was an unknown student, and employed him, upon very liberal
+terms, to design for him; and thus the articles of earthenware which he
+manufactured proved of the greatest value in the art education of the
+people. We owe not a little of the improved taste and popular
+appreciation and enjoyment of the fine arts in our own day to the
+generous enterprise of Josiah Wedgwood, and his talented designs.
+
+In order to secure every access from the potteries to the eastern and
+western coasts of the island, Wedgwood proposed, and, with the aid of
+others whom he induced to join him, carried out the Grand Trunk Canal
+between the Trent and the Mersey. He himself constructed a turnpike road
+ten miles in length through the potteries, and built a village for his
+work-people, which he called Etruria, and where he established his
+works. He died there in 1795, at the age of sixty-five, leaving a large
+fortune and an honoured name, which he had acquired by his own industry,
+enterprise, and generosity.
+
+A remarkable memorial to the genius and artistic labours of Wedgwood was
+erected in 1863, and some reference to it should undoubtedly be made in
+these pages.
+
+It is a twofold memorial: a bronze statue at Stoke-upon-Trent, and a
+memorial institute, erected close to the birth-place of the Great Potter
+at Burslem. The foundation-stone was laid on the 26th of October by the
+Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in
+the presence of a very large and enthusiastic assemblage. The Chancellor
+delivered a public address, which in eloquent terms did homage to
+Wedgwood's great mental qualities and his services to his country.
+
+He described as his most signal and characteristic merit, the firmness
+and fulness of his perception of the true law of what we term industrial
+art, or, in other words, of the application of the higher art to
+industry--the law which teaches us to aim first at giving to every
+object the greatest possible degree of fitness and convenience for its
+purpose, and next at making it the article of the highest degree of
+beauty, which compatibly with that fitness and convenience it will
+bear--which does not substitute the secondary for the primary end, but
+recognizes as part of the business the study to harmonize the two.
+
+Mr. Gladstone observed, that to have a strong grasp of this principle,
+and to work it out to its results in the details of a vast and varied
+manufacture, was a praise high enough for any man, at any time and in
+any place. But he thought it was higher and more peculiar in the case of
+Wedgwood than it could be in almost any other case. For that truth of
+art which he saw so clearly, and which lies at the root of excellence,
+is one of which England, his country, has not usually had a perception
+at all corresponding in strength and fulness with her other rare
+endowments. She has long taken a lead among the European nations for the
+cheapness of her manufactures, not so for their beauty. And if the day
+should arrive when she shall be as eminent for purity of taste as she is
+now for economy of production, the result will probably be due to no
+other single man in so remarkable a degree as to Josiah Wedgwood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We conclude with a lively extract from the Chancellor's exhaustive and
+interesting address:--
+
+"Wedgwood," he says, "in his pursuit of beauty, did not overlook
+exchangeable value or practical usefulness. The first he could not
+overlook, for he had to live by his trade; and it was by the profit
+derived from the extended sale of his humbler productions that he was
+enabled to bear the risks and charges of his higher works. Commerce did
+for him what the King of France did for Sevres, and the Duke of
+Cumberland for Chelsea, it found him in funds. And I would venture to
+say that the lower works of Wedgwood are every whit as much
+distinguished by the fineness and accuracy of their adaptation to their
+uses as his higher ones by their successful exhibition of the finest
+arts. Take, for instance, his common plates, of the value of, I know not
+how few, but certainly of a very few pence each. They fit one another as
+closely as cards in a pack. At least, I for one have never seen plates
+that fit like the plates of Wedgwood, and become one solid mass. Such
+accuracy of form must, I apprehend, render them much more safe in
+carriage....
+
+"Again, take such a jug as he would manufacture for the wash-stand table
+of a garret. I have seen these made apparently of the commonest material
+used in the trade. But instead of being built up, like the usual and
+much more fashionable jugs of modern manufacture, in such a shape that a
+crane could not easily get his neck to bend into them, and the water can
+hardly be poured out without risk of spraining the wrist, they are
+constructed in a simple capacious form, of flowing curves, broad at the
+top, and so well poised that a slight and easy movement of the hand
+discharges the water. A round cheese-holder or dish, again, generally
+presents in its upper part a flat space surrounded by a curved rim; but
+the cheese-holder of Wedgwood will make itself known by this--that the
+flat is so dead a flat, and the curve so marked and bold a curve; thus
+at once furnishing the eye with a line agreeable and well-defined, and
+affording the utmost available space for the cheese. I feel persuaded
+that a Wiltshire cheese, if it could speak, would declare itself more
+comfortable in a dish of Wedgwood's than in any other dish."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The worthiest successor to Wedgwood whom England has known was the late
+Herbert Minton, who was scarcely less distinguished than his predecessor
+for perseverance, patient effort, and artistic sentiment. We owe to him
+in a great measure the revival of the elegant art of manufacturing
+encaustic tiles.
+
+The principal varieties of ceramic ware now in use are:--1. Porcelain,
+which is composed, in England, of sand, calcined bones, china-clay,
+and potash; and, at Dresden, of kaolin, felspar, and broken
+biscuit-porcelain; 2. Parian, which is used in a liquid state, and
+poured into plaster-of-paris moulds; 3. Earthenware, the _Fayence_ of
+the Italians, and the _Delft_ of the Dutch, made of various kinds of
+clay, with a mixture of powdered calcined flint; and, 4. Stoneware,
+composed of several kinds of plastic clay, mixed with felspar and sand,
+and occasionally a little lime.
+
+It is estimated that our English potteries not only supply the demand
+of the United Kingdom, but export ware to the value of nearly a million
+and a half annually. The establishments are about 190 in number; employ
+75,000 to 80,000 operatives; and export 90,000,000 pieces.
+
+
+
+
+The Miner's Safety Lamp.
+
+
+    SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.
+
+
+
+
+The Miner's Safety Lamp.
+
+
+
+
+SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.
+
+
+"What's that? Is the house coming down?" cried Mr. Borlase, the
+surgeon-apothecary of Penzance, jumping out of his cozy arm-chair, as a
+tremendous explosion shook the house from top to bottom, making a great
+jingle among the gallipots in the shop below, and rousing him from a
+comfortable nap.
+
+"Please, sir," said Betty, the housemaid, putting her head into the
+room, "here's that boy Davy been a-blowing of hisself up agen. Drat him,
+he's always up to some trick or other! He'll be the death of all of us
+some day, that boy will, as sure as my name's Betty."
+
+"Bring him here directly," replied her master, knitting his brow, and
+screwing his mild countenance into an elaborate imitation of that of a
+judge he once saw at the assizes, with the black cap on, sentencing some
+poor wretch to be hanged. "Really, this sort of thing won't do at all."
+
+Only, it must be owned, Mr. Borlase had said that many times before, and
+put on the terrible judicial look too, and yet "that boy Davy" was at
+his tricks again as much as ever.
+
+"I'll bring as much as I can find of him, sir," said Betty, gathering up
+her apron, as if she fully expected to discover the object of her search
+in a fragmentary condition.
+
+Presently there was heard a shuffling in the passage, and a somewhat
+ungainly youth, about sixteen years of age, was thrust into the room,
+with the due complement of legs, arms, and other members, and only
+somewhat the grimier about the face for the explosion. His fingers were
+all yellow with acids, and his clothes plentifully variegated with
+stains from the same compounds. At first sight he looked rather a dull,
+loutish boy, but his sharp, clear eyes somewhat redeemed his expression
+on a second glance.
+
+"Here he is, sir," cried Betty triumphantly, as though she really had
+found him in pieces, and took credit for having put him cleverly
+together again.
+
+"Well, Humphrey," said Mr. Borlase, "what have you been up to now?
+You'll never rest, I'm afraid, till you have the house on fire."
+
+"Oh! if you please, sir, I was only experimenting in the garret, and
+there's no harm done."
+
+"No harm done!" echoed Betty; "and if there isn't it's no fault of
+yours, you nasty monkey. I declare that blow up gave me such a turn you
+could ha' knocked me down with a feather, and there's a smell all over
+the house enough to pison any one."
+
+"That'll do, Betty," said her master, finding the grim judicial
+countenance rather difficult to keep up, and anxious to pronounce
+sentence before it quite wore off. "I'll tell you what it is, young
+Davy, this sort of thing won't do at all. I must speak to Mr. Tonkine
+about you; and if I catch you at it again, you'll have to take yourself
+and your experiments somewhere else. So I warn you. You had much better
+attend to your work. It was only the other day you gave old Goody Jones
+a paperful of cayenne instead of cinnamon; and there's Joe Grimsly, the
+beadle, been here half a dozen times this day for those pills I told you
+to make up, and they're not ready yet. So just you take yourself off,
+mind your business, and don't let me have any more nonsense, or it'll be
+the worse for you."
+
+And so the culprit gladly backed out of the room, not a whit abashed by
+the reprimand, for it was no novelty, to begin his experiments again and
+again, and one day, by way of compensation for keeping his master's
+household in constant terror of being blown up, to make his name
+familiar as a household word, by the invention of a little instrument
+that would save thousands and thousands from the fearful consequences of
+coal-pit explosions.
+
+The Mr. Tonkine that his master referred to was the self-constituted
+protector of the Davy family. Old Davy had been a carver in the town,
+and dying, left his widow in very distressed circumstances, when this
+generous friend came forward and took upon himself the charge of the
+widow and her children. Young Humphrey, on leaving school, had been
+placed with Mr. Borlase to be brought up as an apothecary; but he was
+much fonder of rambling about the country, or experimenting in the
+garret which he had constituted his laboratory, than compounding drugs
+behind his master's counter. As a boy he was not particularly smart,
+although he was distinguished for the facility with which he gleaned the
+substance of any book that happened to take his fancy, and for an early
+predilection for poetry. As he grew up, the ardent, inquisitive turn of
+his mind displayed itself more strongly. He was very fond of spending
+what leisure time he had in strolling along the rocky coast searching
+for sea-drift and minerals, or reading some favourite book.
+
+    "There along the beach he wandered, nourishing a youth sublime,
+    With the fairy-tales of science, and the long result of time."
+
+In after life he used often to tell how when tired he would sit down on
+the crags and exercise his fancy in anticipations of future renown, for
+already the ambition of distinguishing himself in his favourite science
+had seized him. "I have neither riches, nor power, nor birth," he wrote
+in his memorandum-book, "to recommend me; yet if I live, I trust I shall
+not be of less service to mankind and my friends than if I had been born
+with all these advantages." He read a great deal, and though without
+much method, managed, in a wonderfully short time, to master the
+rudiments of natural philosophy and chemistry, to say nothing of
+considerable acquaintance with botany, anatomy, and geometry; so that
+though the pestle and mortar might have a quieter time of it than suited
+his master's notions, Humphrey was busy enough in other ways.
+
+[Illustration: HUMPHREY'S EXPERIMENTS ON THE DIFFUSION OF HEAT. Page
+267.]
+
+In his walk along the beach, the nature of the air contained in the
+bladders of sea-weed was a constant subject of speculation with him; and
+he used to sigh over the limited laboratory at his command, which
+prevented him from thoroughly investigating the matter. But one day, as
+good luck would have it, the waves threw up a case of surgical
+instruments from some wrecked vessel, somewhat rusty and sand clogged,
+but in Davy's ingenious hands capable of being turned to good account.
+Out of an old syringe, which was contained in the case, he managed to
+construct a very tolerable air pump; and with an old shade lamp, and a
+couple of small metal tubes, he set himself to work to discover the
+causes of the diffusion of heat. At first sight the want of proper
+instruments for carrying on his researches might appear rather a
+hindrance to his progress in the paths of scientific discovery; but, in
+truth, his subsequent success as an experimentalist has been very
+properly attributed, in no small degree, to that necessity which is the
+parent of invention, and which forced him to exercise his skill and
+ingenuity in making the most of the scanty materials at his command.
+"Had he," says one of his biographers, "in the commencement of his
+career been furnished with all those appliances which he enjoyed at a
+later period, it is more than probable that he might never have acquired
+that wonderful tact of manipulation, that ability of suggesting
+expedients, and of contriving apparatus, so as to meet and surmount the
+difficulties which must constantly arise during the progress of the
+philosopher through the unbeaten track and unexplored regions of
+science!"
+
+While Davy was thus busily engaged qualifying himself for the
+distinguished career that awaited him, Gregory Watt, the son of the
+celebrated James Watt, being in delicate health, came to Penzance for
+change of air, and lodged with Mrs. Davy. At first he and Humphrey did
+not get on very well together, for the latter had just been reading some
+metaphysical works, and was very fond of indulging in crude and flippant
+speculations on such subjects, which rather displeased the shy invalid.
+But one day some chance remark of Davy's gave token of his extensive
+knowledge of natural history and chemistry, and thenceforth a close
+intimacy sprang up between them, greatly to the lad's advantage, for
+Watt's scientific knowledge set him in a more systematic groove of
+study, and encouraged him to concentrate his energies on his favourite
+pursuit.
+
+Another useful friend Davy also found in Mr. Gilbert, afterwards
+President of the Royal Society. Passing along one day, Mr. Gilbert
+observed a youth making strange contortions of face as he hung over the
+hutch gate of Borlase's house; and being told by a companion that he was
+"the son of Davy the carver," and very fond of making chemical
+experiments, he had a talk with the lad, and discovering his talents,
+was ever afterwards his staunch friend and patron.
+
+Through his two friends, Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Watt, Davy formed the
+acquaintance of Dr. Beddoes, who was just setting up at Bristol, under
+the title of Pneumatic Institution, an establishment for investigating
+the medical properties of different gases; and who, appreciating his
+abilities, gave him the superintendence of the new institution.
+
+Although only twenty years of age at this time, Davy was well abreast of
+the science of the day, and soon applied his vigorous and searching
+intellect to several successful investigations. His first scientific
+discovery was the detection of siliceous earth in the outer coating of
+reeds and grasses. A child was rubbing two pieces of bonnet cane
+together, and he noticed that a faint light was emitted; and on striking
+them sharply together, vivid sparks were produced just as if they had
+been flint and steel. The fact that when the outer skin was peeled off
+this property was destroyed, showed that it was confined to the skin,
+and on subjecting it to analysis silex was obtained, and still more in
+reeds and grasses.
+
+As superintendent of Dr. Beddoe's institution, his attention was, of
+course, chiefly directed to the subject of gases, and with the
+enthusiasm of youth, he applied himself ardently to the investigation of
+their elements and effects, attempting several very dangerous
+experiments in breathing gases, and more than once nearly sacrificing
+his life. In the course of these experiments he found out the peculiar
+properties of nitrous oxide, or, as it has since been popularly called,
+"laughing gas," which impels any one who inhales it to go through some
+characteristic action,--a droll fellow to laugh, a dismal one to weep
+and sigh, a pugnacious man to fight and wrestle, or a musical one to
+sing.
+
+At twenty-two years of age, such was the reputation he had acquired,
+that he got the appointment of lecturer at the Royal Institution, which
+was just then established, and found himself in a little while not only
+a man of mark in the scientific, but a "lion" in the fashionable world.
+Natural philosophy and chemistry had begun to attract a good deal of
+attention at that time; and Davy's enthusiasm, his clear and vivid
+explanations of the mysteries of science, and the poetry and imagination
+with which he invested the dry bones of scientific facts, caught the
+popular taste exactly. His lecture-room became a fashionable lounge, and
+was crowded with all sorts of distinguished people. The young lecturer
+became quite the rage, and was petted and feted as the lion of the day.
+It was only six years back that he was the druggist's boy in a little
+country town, alarming and annoying the household with his indefatigable
+experiments. He could hardly have imagined, as one of his day-dreams at
+the sea-side, that his fame would be acquired so quickly.
+
+In spite of all the flatteries and attentions which were showered upon
+him, Davy stuck manfully to his profession; and if his reputation was
+somewhat artificial and exaggerated at the commencement, he amply earned
+and consolidated it by his valuable contributions to science during the
+rest of his career.
+
+The name of Humphrey Davy will always be best known from its association
+with the ingenious safety lamp which he invented, and which well
+entitles him to rank as one of the benefactors of mankind. It was in the
+year 1815 that Davy first turned his attention to this subject. Of
+frequent occurrence from the very first commencement of coal-mining, the
+number of accidents from fire-damp had been sadly multiplied by the
+increase of mining operations consequent on the introduction of the
+steam engine. The dreadful character of some of the explosions which
+occurred about this time, the appalling number of lives lost, and the
+wide-spread desolation in some of the colliery districts which they had
+occasioned, weighed heavily on the minds of all connected with such
+matters. Not merely were the feelings of humanity wounded by the
+terrible and constant danger to which the intrepid miners were exposed,
+but it began to be gravely questioned whether the high rate of wage
+which the collier required to pay him not only for his labour, but for
+the risk he ran, would admit of the mines being profitably worked. It
+was felt that some strenuous effort must be made to preserve the miners
+from their awful foe. Davy was then in the plenitude of his reputation,
+and a committee of coal-owners besought him to investigate the subject,
+and if possible provide some preventative against explosions. Davy at
+once went to the north of England, visited a number of the principal
+pits, obtained specimens of fire-damp, analyzed them carefully, and
+having discovered the peculiarities of this element of destruction,
+after numerous experiments devised the safety-lamp as its antagonist.
+
+The principles upon which this contrivance rests, are the modification
+of the explosive tendencies of fire-damp (the inflammable gas in mines)
+when mixed with carbonic acid and nitrogen; and the obstacle presented
+to the passage of an explosion, if it should occur, through a hole less
+than the seventh of an inch in diameter; and accordingly, while the
+small oil lamp in burning itself mixes the surrounding gas with carbonic
+acid and nitrogen, the cylinder of wire-gauze which surrounds it
+prevents the escape of any explosion. It is curious that George
+Stephenson, the celebrated engineer, about the same time, hit on much
+the same expedient.
+
+To control a "power that in its tremendous effects seems to emulate the
+lightning and the earthquake," and to enclose it in a net of the most
+slender texture, was indeed a grand achievement; and when we consider
+the many thousand lives which it has been the means of saving from a
+sudden and cruel death, it must be acknowledged to be one of the noblest
+triumphs, not only of science, but of humanity, which the world has ever
+seen. Honours were showered upon Davy, from the miners and coal-owners,
+from scientific associations, from crowned heads; but all must agree
+with Playfair in thinking that "it is little that the highest praise,
+and that even the voice of national gratitude when most strongly
+expressed, can add to the happiness of one who is conscious of having
+done such a service to his fellow-men." Davy himself said he "valued it
+more than anything he ever did." When urged by his friends to take out a
+patent for the invention, he replied,--"No, I never thought of such a
+thing. My sole object was to serve the cause of humanity, and if I have
+succeeded, I am amply rewarded by the gratifying reflection of having
+done so."
+
+The honours of knighthood and baronetage were successively conferred on
+Davy as a reward for his scientific labours; and the esteem of his
+professional brethren was shown in his election to the President-ship
+of the Royal Institution, in which, oddly enough, he was succeeded by
+his old friend Mr. Gilbert, who had first taken him by the hand, and
+whom he had got ahead of in the race of life.
+
+Davy died at Geneva before he had completed his fifty-first year, no
+doubt from over-exertion and the unhealthy character of the researches
+he prosecuted so recklessly. Assiduous as he was in his devotion to his
+favourite science, he found time also to master several continental
+languages; to keep himself well acquainted with, and also to contribute
+to the literature of the day; and to indulge his passion for
+fly-fishing, at which he was a keen and practised adept.
+
+Eminent as were the talents of Sir Humphrey Davy, and valuable as his
+discovery of the safety-lamp has proved, it is but fair to own that his
+credit to the latter has been very openly denied. Two persons of
+scientific celebrity have been put forward as the real inventors of the
+safety-lamp--namely, Dr. Reid Clanny of Newcastle, and the great
+railway-engineer, George Stephenson. Of Clanny's safety-lamp a
+description appeared in the _Philosophical Transactions_ in 1813--that
+is, ten years before Sir Humphrey made his communication to the Royal
+Society. However, it was a complicated affair, which required the whole
+attention of a boy to work it, and was based on the principle of forcing
+in air through water by the agency of bellows.
+
+Stephenson's was a very different apparatus. In its general principle it
+resembled Davy's, the chief difference being, that he inserted a glass
+cylinder inside the wire-gauze cylinder, and inside the top of the glass
+cylinder a perforated metallic chimney--the supply of air being kept up
+through a triple circle of small holes in the bottom.
+
+Stephenson's claim has, of course, been disputed by the friends and
+admirers of Sir Humphrey Davy; but Mr. Smile has conclusively proved
+that his lamp, the "Geordy," was in use at the Killingworth collieries
+at the very time that Davy was conducting the experiments which led to
+his invention. It is not to be inferred, however, that Davy knew aught
+of what Stephenson had accomplished. It seems to be one of those rare
+cases in which two minds, working independently, and unknown each to the
+other, have both arrived simultaneously at the same result.
+
+
+
+
+Penny Postage.
+
+
+    SIR ROWLAND HILL.
+
+
+
+
+Penny Postage.
+
+    "He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
+    News from all nations lumb'ring at his back,--
+    Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks;
+    Births, deaths, and marriages; epistles wet
+    With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks
+    Fast as the periods of his fluent quill;
+    Or charged with am'rous sighs of absent swains,
+    Or nymphs responsive."
+
+                                                                 COWPER.
+
+
+The growth of the postal system is a sure measure of the progress of
+industry, commerce, education, and all that goes to make up the sum of
+civilization; and there is no more striking illustration to be found of
+the strides which our country has made in that direction since the
+century began than the introduction of a cheap and rapid delivery of
+letters, and the craving which it has at once satisfied and augmented.
+Nothing gives us so forcible an idea of the difference between the
+Britain of the present day and the Britain of the Stuart or even of the
+Georgian period, than the contrast between the postal communication of
+these times and of our own. The itch of writing is now so strong in us,
+we are so constantly writing or receiving letters, our appetite for them
+is so ravenous, that we wonder how people got on in the days when the
+postman was the exclusive messenger of the king, and when even majesty
+was so badly served that, as one old postmaster[D] wrote in
+self-exculpation of some delay, "when placards are sent (to order the
+immediate forwarding of some state despatches) the constables many times
+be fayne to take the horses oute of plowes and cartes, wherein," he
+gravely adds, "can be no extreme diligence." It was a sure sign that the
+country was going ahead when Cromwell (1656) found it worth while to
+establish posts for the people at large, and was able to farm out the
+post office for L10,000 a year. The profits of that establishment were
+doubled by the time the Stuarts returned to the throne, and more than
+doubled again before the close of the seventeenth century. The country
+has kept on growing out of system after system, like a lad out of his
+clothes, and at different times has had new ones made to its measure.
+Brian Tuke's easy plan of borrowing farmers' horses on which to mount
+his emissaries, gave place to regular relays of post-boys and
+post-horses; and, in course of time, when the robbery of the mails by
+sturdy highwaymen had become almost the rule, and their safe conveyance
+the exception, post-boys were in turn supplanted by a system of
+stage-coaches, convoyed by an armed guard. This was thought a great
+advance; and so it was. A pushing, zealous man named Palmer originated
+the scheme. Amidst many other avocations, he found time to travel on the
+outside of stage-coaches, for the sake of talking with the coachmen and
+observing the routes, here, there, and everywhere all over England, and
+thus matured all the details of his plan from personal experience. "None
+but an enthusiast," said Sheridan in a rapture of admiration in the
+House of Commons, "could have conceived, none but an enthusiast could
+have practically entertained, none but an enthusiast could have carried
+out such a system."
+
+Still, in spite of the exactitude with which Palmer's scheme was
+declared to fit the wants of the country, it soon began to be grown out
+of like the rest. It became too short, too tight, too straitened every
+way, and impeded the circulation of correspondence,--no unimportant
+artery of our national system. The cost of postage was too high, the
+mode of delivery too slow, and the consequence was, that people either
+repressed their desire to write letters, or sent them through some
+cheaper and illegitimate channel. Sir Walter Scott knew a man who
+recollected the mail from London reaching Edinburgh with only a single
+letter. Of all the tens of thousands of the modern Babylon, only one
+solitary individual had got anything to say to anybody in the metropolis
+of the sister kingdom worth paying postage for. "We look back now,"
+writes Miss Martineau, "with a sort of amazed compassion to the old
+crusading times, when warrior-husbands and their wives, grey-headed
+parents and their brave sons, parted with the knowledge that it must be
+months or years before they could hear of one another's existence. We
+wonder how they bore the depth of silence! And we feel the same now
+about the families of Polar voyagers. But, till a dozen years ago, it
+did not occur to many of us how like this was the fate of the largest
+class in our own country. The fact is, there was no full and free
+epistolary intercourse in the country, except between those who had the
+command of franks. There were few families in the wide middle class who
+did not feel the cost of postage a heavy item in their expenditure; and
+if the young people sent letters home only once a fortnight, the amount
+at the year's end was a rather serious matter. But it was the vast
+multitudes of the lower orders who suffered like the crusading families
+of old, and the geographical discoverers of all times. When once their
+families parted off from home it was a separation almost like that of
+death. The hundreds of thousands of apprentices, of shopmen, of
+governesses, of domestic servants, were cut off from family relations as
+if seas or deserts lay between them and home. If the shilling for each
+letter could be saved by the economy of weeks or months at first, the
+rarity of correspondence went on to increase the rarity; new interests
+hastened the dying out of old ones; and the ancient domestic affections
+were but too apt to wither away, till the wish for intercourse was gone.
+The young girl could not ease her heart by pouring out her cares and
+difficulties to her mother before she slept, as she can now, when
+the penny and the sheet of paper are the only condition of the
+correspondence. The young lad felt that a letter home was a serious
+and formal matter, when it must cost his parents more than any
+indulgence they ever thought of for themselves; and the old fun and
+light-heartedness were dropped off from such domestic intercourse as
+there was. The effect upon the morals of this kind of restraint is
+proved beyond a doubt by the evidence afforded in the army. It was a
+well-known fact, that in regiments where the commanding officer was kind
+and courteous about franking letters for the privates, and encouraged
+them to write as often as they pleased, the soldiers were more sober and
+manly, more virtuous and domestic in their affections, than where
+difficulty was made by the indolence or stiffness of the franking
+officer."
+
+Under the costly postal system, the revenue of the post office did not,
+as it had hitherto done, and should have continued to do, keep pace with
+the progress of the country. The appetite for communication between
+distant friends or men of business was evidently either decaying, or
+finding vent in an unlawful way. The latter was chiefly the case. There
+were vast numbers of people separated from each other by long weary
+miles, too many to permit of visits, who could not resist writing to
+each other,--the doating parent to the child, the lover to his
+mistress, the merchant to his agents, the lawyer to his clients. Those
+who could not afford postage, were the very class who could not get
+franks; for the principle was, that those who could best afford postage
+money should have plenty of franks, which were, of course, quite out of
+the way of poor, humble folks,--the fat sow had his ear well greased,
+the lean, starving one had to consume his own fat, like the bear, or go
+without. The consequence was, that those who were eager to write and
+could not get letters through the post, found other means of forwarding
+them to the evasion of the law. There was no limit to the exercise of
+ingenuity in this direction. Three or four letters were written on one
+piece of paper, to be cut up and distributed separately by one of the
+recipients; newspapers were turned into letters by underscoring or
+pricking with a pin the letters required to form the various words of
+the communication; some peculiarity in the style of address on the
+outside was arranged between correspondents, the sight of which was
+enough to indicate a message, and the letter was then rejected, having
+served its purpose; and so on, in a hundred other ways, fraudulent means
+were found of evading the law. Some carriers had a large and profitable
+business in smuggling letters. In many populous districts the number of
+letters conveyed by carriers at a penny each in an illegal way far
+exceeded those sent through the post. In Manchester, for every letter
+that went by the postman, six went by the carrier; and in Glasgow the
+proportion was as one to ten. All this was notorious. The most
+honourable people saw no great harm in cheating the post to send a word
+of comfort or encouragement to an absent friend,--it was a vice that
+leaned to virtue's side. But it was a bad thing for the country that
+people should be driven to such devices, in obeying a natural and proper
+impulse. The man who began by smuggling letters, might end by smuggling
+tobacco or brandy; and the system was morally pernicious. All felt the
+evil, but remedy seemed impossible. As the urgency for a change grew to
+a head, the man came to effect it,--a man "of open heart, who could
+enter into family impulses; a man of philosophical ingenuity, who could
+devise a remedial scheme; a man of business, who could fortify such a
+scheme with impregnable accuracy"--that man was Rowland Hill.
+
+When quite a young man, on a pedestrian excursion through the lake
+district, Rowland Hill, passing a cottage door, observed the postman
+deliver a letter to a woman, and overheard her, after looking anxiously
+at the envelope, and then returning it, say she had no money to pay the
+postage. The man was about to put it back in his wallet and pass on, for
+it was an every-day thing for him to receive such a reply from the poor
+countryfolk, when Mr. Hill in his goodness of heart, out of compassion
+for the woman, stepped forward and paid the shilling, regardless of
+many shakes of the head, and hints of remonstrance from her, which he
+interpreted as merely unwillingness to trespass on a stranger's bounty.
+As soon as the postman was out of sight she broke the seal, and showed
+him why she did not want him to pay for the letter. The sheet was a
+blank, and the envelope had served as a means of communication between
+her and her correspondent. It appeared that she had arranged with her
+brother, that as long as all went well with him he should send a blank
+sheet in that way once a quarter, and thus she had tidings of him
+without paying the postage.
+
+As he pursued his walk, Mr. Hill could not help meditating on the
+incident, which had made a deep impression on his mind. He could not
+blame the poor woman and her brother for the trick they had played upon
+the post office in order to correspond with each other; and yet he felt
+there must be something wrong in a system which put it out of their
+reach, and of others similarly circumstanced, to do so in a lawful
+manner. Every country post-master had a budget of touching stories of
+poor folk who were tantalized with the sight of a letter from some dear
+one, full, perhaps, of kind words and cheering news, or asking sympathy
+and condolence in misfortune, or transmitting money to help them in
+their straits; as well as of countless little frauds of the sort
+described, which they could not always harden themselves to circumvent
+and punish, so piteously eager did the poor souls appear to be to get
+word of their friends. And yet, in spite of all sorts of frauds, to
+people in humble life letters came like "angels' visits, few and far
+between."
+
+Mr. Hill asked himself whether there was no means of lessening the cost
+of postage, whether the government could not afford to charge a lower
+rate, or manage to get the work done more cheaply? Keeping his ears and
+eyes open, always on the alert to pick up a fact as regarded the
+present, or a hint for the future, examining the mode of carriage and
+delivery, the routes chosen, and the time occupied, Mr. Hill, after a
+while, arrived at the conviction, that the postage rates might not only
+be reduced, but that the transmission of letters might be more quickly
+performed by a remodelling of the system. He ascertained that the cost
+of mere transit incurred upon a letter sent from London to Edinburgh, a
+distance of 400 miles, was not more than a thirty-sixth part of a penny,
+and that, therefore, there was a margin, under the existing charge, of
+11-35/36d. for extra expenses and profit. He observed that the twopenny
+posts of London and other large towns were found to answer very well,
+although people, being within easy distances of each other, did not need
+so much as in the country to correspond in writing, and that the
+carriers, in spite of the illegality of the traffic, had loads of
+letters to deliver at a penny each, and that penny paid them for their
+trouble, as well as their risk of detection. He therefore came to the
+conclusion, that what was wanted, and what it was quite possible to
+establish, was a uniform penny postage rate over the whole of the United
+Kingdom. He calculated that if that were adopted, the number of people
+then in the habit of writing letters would write a great many more than
+ever; that others, who had been precluded by the expense from
+corresponding, would come into the field; and that hundreds of letters
+forwarded illegally would now pass through the post, so that the number
+of letters sent by post would be increased fourfold, and the revenue, at
+first, perhaps a trifle curtailed, would soon mount up again.
+
+The post-office authorities were greatly shocked and disgusted at so
+audacious and utopian a proposal. But the public were greatly delighted
+with it, only doubting whether it was not too good news to be true.
+First by means of an anonymous pamphlet, then by direct and personal
+application to the government, Mr. Hill endeavoured to get his plans
+taken into consideration--no easy matter, for circumlocution officials
+had passed from contemptuous indifference to active hostility, as they
+gradually discovered how formidable an antagonist in the truth and
+accuracy of his calculations, the sincerity and earnestness of his
+purpose, they had to deal with. It was a great national cause Mr. Hill
+was fighting, and he was not to be put down. The people took his side,
+Parliament granted an inquiry, and the result was a report in favour of
+his scheme. On the 17th of August 1839--why is not the anniversary kept
+with rejoicings?--penny postage became the law of the land.
+
+During the last weeks of the year a uniform fourpenny rate was charged
+by way of accustoming people to the cheap system, and saving official
+feelings from the rude shock of a sudden descent from the respectable
+rate of a shilling, to the vulgar one of a penny. On the 10th January
+1840 the penny system came into force. At first Mr. Hill availed himself
+of a suggestion thrown out some years before by Mr. Charles Knight, that
+the best way of collecting the penny postage on newspapers would be to
+have stamped covers; but subsequently stamped envelopes were done away
+with, and queen's heads introduced. The franking privilege, of course,
+died with the dear postage.
+
+Upon the adoption of the scheme, Mr. Hill received an appointment in the
+post office in order to superintend its working; but he had an uneasy
+berth of it. His plan was adopted only in part,--the postage rate was
+lowered, while the other compensating and essential features were thrown
+aside; official jealousy of reform showed itself in various attempts to
+thwart his efforts, and to fulfil its prediction of failure to the
+scheme. The consequence was, that the immediate results were not so
+satisfactory as could have been wished. The increase in the number of
+letters was certainly very great. During the last month of the old
+system the total number of letters passing through the post office was
+little more than two millions and a half, of which only a fifth were
+paid letters; while a twelvemonth after the introduction of the new
+system the total number of letters had risen to nearly six millions per
+month, of which the unpaid letters formed less than a twelfth part. Very
+heavy expenses, however, not connected with the new plan, had been
+incurred; and the consequence was, that the profits of the post office
+were only a fourth of what they had been. Advantage was taken of this to
+get Mr. Hill ousted from his post; but, after he had transferred his
+services for some years to the management of the London and Brighton
+Railway, the authorities were glad to receive him back again, to place
+the remodelling of the system in his hands, and to allow him to
+introduce the other parts of his scheme which had before been neglected.
+In this work Mr. Hill was busily engaged for a number of years, and most
+of his plans were gradually carried out with great advantage to the
+public. In 1846 a public testimonial of L13,360 was presented to Mr.
+Hill in acknowledgment of his distinguished services to the country; and
+at a later date he was made a Knight of the Bath.
+
+Cheap postage has now been fairly tried, and must be pronounced a grand
+success. It has become part and parcel of our national life, and has
+been found precious as the gift of a new faculty. We should miss the
+loss of cheap and rapid correspondence with our friends and
+acquaintances almost as much as the loss of speech or the loss of sight.
+The postman has now to find his way to the humblest, poorest districts,
+where twenty years back his knock was never heard; and what was once a
+rare luxury, has now come to be considered a common necessary of life.
+Instead of only seventy-six millions of letters passing through the post
+in a year, as in 1838, the number has risen to between seven and eight
+hundred millions. On the average every individual in England receives
+twenty-eight letters a-year (in London the individual average is
+forty-six), in Scotland eighteen, and in Ireland nine.
+
+The gross revenue derived from these sources is over four millions; and
+some of the railway companies each make more money out of the conveyance
+of the mails in a year, than the annual revenue of the whole kingdom in
+the days of William and Mary.
+
+The moral and social effects of the cheap postage are incalculable. It
+has tended to strengthen and perpetuate domestic ties, to bring the most
+scattered and distant members of a family under the benign influences of
+home, and to foster feelings of friendship and sympathy between man and
+man. Upon the education and intelligence of the people, too, it has
+had, concurrently with other causes, a marked effect. Many who looked
+upon the art of writing as only a temptation to forgery, were induced to
+take pen in hand and master the science of pot-hooks and hangers, for
+the sake of corresponding with their friends, and of being able to read
+the letters they received. In 1839 a third of the men and half of the
+women who were married, according to the registrar's returns, could not
+sign their own names; in 1857 that was the case with only a seventh of
+the men, and a fifth of the women; and not a little of this advanced
+education may be attributed to the impulse given by the introduction of
+cheap postage.
+
+Nor have the advantages derived from the post office by the great body
+of the public ended here. It has shown itself the most progressive
+department of the government, and has undertaken many benevolent
+branches of work which were never contemplated by Sir Rowland Hill. Thus
+it carries on an extensive savings-bank system, worked out by Mr. Frank
+Ives Scudamore, adopted by Mr. Gladstone when Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, and established by Act of Parliament in 1861. This valuable
+department, whose operations are now of a very extensive character,
+keeps a separate account for every depositor, acknowledges the receipt,
+and, on the requisite notice being furnished, sends out warrants
+authorizing post-masters to pay such sums as depositors may wish to
+withdraw. The deposits are handed over to the Commissioners for the
+reduction of the National Debt, and repaid to the depositors through the
+post office. The rate of interest payable to depositors is two and a
+half per cent. Each depositor has his savings-bank book, which is sent
+to him yearly for examination, and the increasing interest calculated
+and allowed.
+
+The post office now acts, too, as a life-insurance society, offering
+advantages to the operative which no other society can offer, and which
+the public are beginning to appreciate.
+
+In 1869 the entire telegraphic system of the United Kingdom passed into
+the hands of the post office, whose administrators have shown themselves
+anxious to offer increased facilities to the public for the transaction
+of business. The number of telegraphic stations has been greatly
+increased, and the rate reduced at which messages are flashed from one
+part of the island to the other.
+
+Finally, a recent innovation, made entirely in the interest of the
+public weal, is the introduction of _Halfpenny Post Cards_. On one side
+of these missives the sender writes the name and address of his
+correspondent; on the other, the communication intended for him. The
+card already bears a halfpenny stamp impressed, and nothing more remains
+to be done but to deposit it in the nearest office or pillar-post. We
+think, then, it may fairly be said that the post office has shown itself
+anxious to "keep abreast" with the ever-increasing wants of the
+commercial classes of Great Britain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While these pages are passing through the press, the following
+particulars, apparently issued under official direction, have attracted
+our attention. We append them here, as they cannot fail to interest the
+reader:--"It appears that there are in the United Kingdom 6 miles 712
+yards of _pneumatic tubes_ in connection with the postal telegraphic
+system (1871). Of these, 4 miles 638 yards exist in London, and 2 miles
+74 yards in the provinces--the latter being confined to Liverpool,
+Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow. Of the total length of tubes now
+existing, only 2 miles 1324 yards existed prior to the transfer of the
+telegraphs to the post office; so that no less than 3 miles 1148 yards
+have been laid since that date; or, in other words, the system has been
+considerably more than doubled in less than a year. The total length of
+new tubes ordered and in progress exceeds 3 miles, and when these are
+completed, the system will be nearly 10 miles in length. All of the
+tubes in the provinces, and all but two of those in London, are worked
+on Clark's system. The two which form an exception are those between
+Telegraph Street and St. Martin's-le-Grand, which are worked on Siemens'
+system. The former are made of lead, with a diameter varying from 1-1/4
+to 2-1/4 inches--the more frequent size being 1-1/2 inches. The latter
+are made of iron, and have a diameter of 3 inches. The idea of iron
+tubes worked on Siemens' principle is derived, we believe, from Berlin,
+where the system is entirely of this description; and of the new tubes
+in progress, that from St. Martin's-le-Grand to Temple Bar will be of
+this kind. All of the tubes now in existence are worked in both
+directions by means of alternate pressure and vacuum; the motive power,
+in the shape of a steam-engine, being stationed at the central office,
+with which the out-stations have communication by this means. It is
+interesting to note the difference of time occupied by the different
+tubes in London in passing the 'carriers' through from one end to the
+other--the speed being governed by the length and diameter of the tube,
+and by the circumstance whether it is carried in a straight line, or has
+to encounter sharp curves and bends on its way. The great advantage of
+this means of communication, for short distance, over the electric is,
+that the tubes are not liable to sudden blocks of work as the wires are,
+and that a dozen or more messages may be sent through, at one blow, if
+desired. For local telegraphs in great towns the pneumatic system is
+invaluable, and is certain to be greatly extended under the postal
+administration."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[D] Brian Tuke, master of the post to King Henry VIII.
+
+
+
+
+The Overland Route.
+
+
+    LIEUTENANT WAGHORN.
+
+
+
+
+The Overland Route.
+
+
+
+
+LIEUTENANT WAGHORN.
+
+
+Worthy to stand on a par with, or at lowest, in the very next rank to,
+the men who originate great inventions, are those whose foresight and
+energy discover the means of extending their utility; and in shortening
+the journey between Europe and India, by the establishment of the
+overland route, Lieutenant Waghorn practically achieved as great a
+triumph over time and space, as if he had invented a machine for the
+purpose that would have traversed the old route in the same time.
+
+It was in 1827 that Thomas Waghorn first promulgated the idea of steam
+communication between our Eastern possessions and the mother country. He
+was then twenty-seven years of age, and had just returned to Calcutta
+from rough and arduous service in the Arracan war. When a midshipman of
+barely seventeen, he had passed the "navigation" examination for
+lieutenant,--the youngest, it appears, who ever did so; but although,
+consequently, eligible for that rank, he had never reached it up to this
+time, in spite of the distinction he had acquired in various actions.
+His health had been so much shattered by a fever caught in Arracan, that
+he had to return to England; but he did not leave Calcutta without
+communicating his design to the government there, and obtaining a letter
+of credence from Lord Combermere (then vice-president in council) to the
+East India Company, recommending him, in consequence of his meritorious
+conduct in the recent war, "as a fit and proper person to open steam
+navigation with India, _via_ the Cape of Good Hope."
+
+The idea, however, was just then in advance of the time, and all
+Waghorn's agitation in its favour proved of no avail. In the meantime,
+the idea of saving the time spent in "doubling the Cape," by means of a
+route through the Mediterranean, across the Isthmus of Suez, and down
+the Red Sea, had occurred to him; and in 1829 he procured a commission
+from the East India Directory to report on the probability of Red Sea
+navigation, and at the same time to convey certain despatches to Sir
+John Malcolm, Governor of Bombay.
+
+He got notice of this mission on the 24th October, and was desired to be
+at Suez by the 8th December, in order to catch the steamer _Enterprise_,
+and proceed in her to India. He took only four days to make ready for
+the journey, and on the 28th left London on the top of the _Eagle_
+stage-coach from Gracechurch Street. Circumstances were anything but
+propitious all through this expedition of his; and yet he defied and
+disregarded them all. Bridges broke down at central points, falling
+avalanches had to be kept clear of, an accident disabled the steamer,
+and he had to go some hundred and thirty miles out of his way in
+consequence. In spite of all that, he dashed through five kingdoms, and
+reached Trieste in nine days, or little more than half the time occupied
+by the post-office mails on the same journey. Impatient of delay, he
+learned that an Austrian brig had left for Alexandria the night before,
+but the breeze had fallen, and she was still to be caught a glimpse of
+from the hill-tops. A fresh posting carriage was got out, and off he
+went in chase of the vessel, hoping to make up to her at Pesano, twenty
+miles down the Gulf of Venice. The calm still prevailed; and as he went
+dashing along he could catch sight, now and then, as the carriage passed
+some open part of the road and disclosed the sea, of the brig creeping
+lazily along. Every hour he gained on her; instead of a dull, black
+speck upon the horizon, he began to make out her hull, her sails, and
+rigging. He urged the post-boys with redoubled vehemence--kept them
+going at a furious pace. He was within three miles of the vessel--it was
+crawling, he was flying--another half hour would see him safe on board,
+and then heigh for India. But stay, surely that was the wind among the
+trees; could the breeze have risen? It had indeed. A strong northerly
+wind sprang up; gradually the sails of the brig swelled out before
+it, and poor Waghorn, with his panting, jaded horses, was left far
+behind. The chase was hopeless now--so he went back mournfully to
+Trieste--"exhausted in body with fatigue, and racked by disappointment
+after the previous excitement."
+
+The next ship, a Spanish one, was not to sail for three days. That was
+more than Waghorn could endure; he went to the captain, urged him,
+bribed him with fifty dollars to make it two days, instead of three, and
+succeeded. In eight and forty hours he was somewhat consoled for his
+former discouragement, to find himself at length at sea. In sixteen days
+he was at Alexandria, and after a rest of only five hours there, hired
+donkeys and was off to Rosetta. The donkeys were in the conspiracy
+against him, as well as the wind and the avalanches. The first day they
+trotted and walked along as brisk as may be, and our indefatigable
+traveller worked them well. It is well known that the donkey of the east
+is a paragon of wisdom, compared with his dunce of a brother in Europe;
+and upon a night's reflection, Mr. Waghorn's donkeys seem to have
+clearly perceived that he had no notion of easy stages, and was bent on
+keeping them going as fast as he could, and as long as daylight
+suffered. So the second day they managed to stumble, and limp, and fall
+down intentionally four or five times, and to put on a pitiful
+affectation of fatigue and weariness,--a common dodge, the drivers said,
+of those knowing animals.
+
+Fortunately he was soon able to dispense with the deceitful donkeys; and
+embarking on the Nile, undertook to navigate the boat himself, in order
+to take soundings and make observations in regard to the route. After
+brief repose at Rosetta, he set out for Cairo on a _cange_, a sort of
+boat of fifteen tons burthen, with two large latteen sails. The captain
+undertook to land him at Cairo in three days and four nights; but the
+boat went aground on a shoal, and after tacking for five days and
+nights, Waghorn lost all patience, and proceeded to his destination upon
+donkeys. He crossed the desert from Cairo to Suez in four days, on two
+of which he travelled seventy-four miles. He was thus able to keep his
+appointment and be at Suez by the 8th December, but there was no sign of
+the steamer. The wind was blowing right in her teeth; so after waiting
+two days, with feverish impatience, Mr. Waghorn determined to sail down
+the centre of the Red Sea, in an open boat, in the hope of meeting the
+steamer somewhere above Cossier. All the seamen of the locality held up
+their hands at the proposal of the mad Englishman, and tried to dissuade
+him. It was the opinion, he knew, of nautical authorities at the time,
+that the Red Sea was not navigable. But he could not rest quiet at Suez;
+he had important despatches to deliver; he was commissioned to inquire
+into the navigability of these waters; and out he would go in an open
+boat, let folk say what they would, and so he did.
+
+"He embarked," says the narrator of his "Life and Labours," in
+_Household Words_,[E] "in an open boat, and without having any personal
+knowledge of the navigation of this sea, without chart, without compass,
+or even the encouragement of a single precedent for such an
+enterprise--his only guide the sun by day, and the north star by
+night--he sailed down the centre of the Red Sea. Of this most
+interesting and unprecedented voyage Mr. Waghorn gives no detailed
+account. All intermediate things are abruptly cut off with these very
+characteristic words: '_Suffice it_ to say, _I arrived_ at Juddah, 620
+miles in six and a half days, in that boat!' You get nothing more than
+the sum total. He kept a sailor's log-journal; but it is only meant for
+sailors to read, though now and then you obtain a glimpse of the sort of
+work he went through. Thus: '_Sunday, 13th_--Strong, N.W. wind, half a
+gale, but scudding under storm-sail. Sunset, anchored for the night.
+Jaffateen Islands out of sight to the N. Lost two anchors during the
+night,' &c. The rest is equally nautical and technical. In one of the
+many scattered papers collected since the death of Mr. Waghorn, we find
+a very slight passing allusion to toils, perils, and privations, which,
+however, he calmly says, were 'inseparable from such a voyage under such
+circumstances,'--but not one touch of description from first to last. A
+more extraordinary instance of great practical experience and
+knowledge, resolutely and fully carrying out a project which must of
+necessity have appeared little short of madness to almost everybody
+else, was never recorded. He was perfectly successful, so far as the
+navigation was concerned, and in the course he adopted, notwithstanding
+that his crew of six Arabs mutinied. It appears (for he tells us only
+the bare fact) they were only subdued on the principle known to
+philosophers in theory, and to high-couraged men, accustomed to command,
+by experience,--namely, that the one man who is braver, stronger, and
+firmer than any individual of ten or twenty men, is more than a match
+for the ten or twenty put together. He touched at Cossier on the 14th,
+not having fallen in with the _Enterprise_. There he was told by the
+governor that the steamer was expected every hour. Mr. Waghorn was in no
+state of mind to wait very long; so, finding she did not arrive, he
+again put to sea in his open boat, resolved, if he did not fall in with
+her, to proceed the entire distance to Juddah--a distance of 400 miles
+further. Of this further voyage he does not leave any record, even in
+his log, beyond the simple declaration that he 'embarked for Juddah--ran
+the distance in three days and twenty-one hours and a quarter--and on
+the 23d anchored his boat close to one of the East India Company's
+cruisers, the _Benares_.' But now comes the most trying part of his
+whole undertaking--the part which a man of his vigorously constituted
+impulses was least able to bear as the climax of his prolonged and
+arduous efforts, privations, anxieties, and fatigue. Repairing on board
+the _Benares_ to learn the news, the captain informed him that, in
+consequence of being found in a defective state on her arrival at
+Bombay, 'the _Enterprise_ was not coming at all.' This intelligence
+seems to have felled him like a blow, and he was immediately seized with
+a delirious fever. The captain and officers of the _Benares_ felt great
+sympathy and interest in this sad result of so many extraordinary
+efforts, and detaining him on board, bestowed every attention on his
+malady."
+
+It was six weeks before he could proceed by sailing vessel to Bombay,
+where he arrived on the 21st March, having, in spite of all the
+drawbacks in his way, accomplished the journey in four months and
+twenty-one days--quite an extraordinary rapidity at that time. Had he
+escaped the fever at Juddah, and fallen in with the _Enterprise_ at the
+right time, nearly two months might have been saved.
+
+He had proved the practicability of the overland route, and he now
+devoted himself to its establishment. In an address to the Home
+Government and the East India Company, he thus expresses his views:--
+
+"Of myself, I trust I may be excused when I say, that the highest object
+of my ambition has ever been an extensive usefulness; and my line of
+life--my turn of mind--my disposition, long ago impelled me to give all
+my leisure, and all my opportunities of observation, to the introduction
+of steam-vessels, and permanently establishing them as the means of
+communication between India and England including all the colonies on
+the route. The vast importance of three months' earlier information to
+his Majesty's government, and to the Honourable Company,--whether
+relative to a war or a peace--to abundant or to short crops--to the
+sickness or convalescence of a colony or district, and oftentimes even
+of an individual; the advantages to the merchant, by enabling him to
+regulate his supplies and orders according to circumstances and demands;
+the anxieties of the thousands of my countrymen in India for accounts,
+and further accounts, of their parents, children, and friends at home;
+the corresponding anxieties of those relatives and friends in this
+country;--in a word, the speediest possible transit of letters to the
+tens of thousands who at all times in solicitude await them, was, to my
+mind, a service of the greatest general importance; and it shall not be
+my fault if I do not, and for ever establish it."
+
+The scheme which he thus resolutely and enthusiastically declared his
+adoption of, he lived to carry out, but at the cost of years of weary
+advocacy, agitation for help, desperate attempts on his own account, or
+in conjunction with a few enterprising associates, in the teeth of
+constant discouragement, official indifference, jealousy, and disguised
+hostility. The East India Company told him there was no need of steam
+navigation to the East at all, ordered him to mind his own business and
+return to field service, circulated reports of his insanity through
+their agents in Egypt when Waghorn went there to enlist the Pasha in his
+cause. The overland route, however, was no theory, but an undoubted
+fact. Waghorn never for a moment relaxed his grasp of it, or doubted its
+value; and in the end, after unheard of difficulties, disappointments,
+and opposition, into the long, painful story of which we need not enter,
+succeeded in establishing the overland route. When he left Egypt in
+1841, he had provided English carriages, vans, and horses, for the
+conveyance of passengers across the desert, placed small steamers on the
+Nile and Alexandrian Canal, and built the eight halting-places on the
+desert between Cairo and Suez. He also set up the three hotels in the
+same quarter "in which every comfort, and even some luxuries, were
+provided and stored for the passing traveller,--among which should be
+mentioned iron tanks with good water, ranged in cellars beneath;--and
+all this in a region which was previously a waste of arid sands and
+scorching gravel, beset with wandering robbers and their camels. These
+wandering robbers he converted into faithful guides, as they are now
+found to be by every traveller; and even ladies with their infants are
+enabled to cross and re-cross the desert with as much security as if
+they were in Europe."
+
+In acknowledgment of his services, Mr. Waghorn received the rank of
+lieutenant in the Royal Navy, a grant of L1500, and an annuity of L200
+a-year from Government, and another annuity of L200 from the East India
+Company; but he did not live long to enjoy his well-earned rewards. The
+care, and anxiety, and fatigue he had undergone had shattered his
+constitution. Through some misunderstanding or mismanagement on the part
+of the East India Company, rivals were allowed to step in and carry off
+the chief profits of the overland system, and his last years were
+embittered by various disputes with the authorities. He died in the end
+of 1849, by years only in the prime of life; but old, and worn by his
+labours before his time. Such was the career of the "pioneer of the
+Overland Route."
+
+But in connection with England's route to India, the name of Monsieur de
+Lesseps must never be forgotten, nor the great enterprise which, at so
+much cost, and in spite of so many obstacles, he successfully carried
+out--the Suez Canal. When he first projected it he met with most of the
+obstacles which are thrown in the way of great inventions. England,
+jealous of a scheme which seemed likely to throw into the hands of a
+foreign power the nearest route to her beloved India, stood sullenly
+aloof, and refused to contribute moral or pecuniary support; while some
+of the most eminent English and foreign engineers openly declared that
+it could never be carried out. M. de Lesseps, however, was one of those
+men who, when they have seized a great idea, can never be thrown off it.
+It had taken full possession of his imagination, judgment, and
+intellect! he felt that it _could_, and he determined that it _should_
+be realized. He conquered every difficulty: he raised funds; he secured
+the support of his own government; and in 1856 he obtained from the
+Pasha of Egypt the exclusive privilege of constructing a ship-canal from
+Tyneh, near the ruins of the ancient Pelusium, to Suez.
+
+M. de Lesseps determined that his canal should be cut in a straight
+line, with an average width of 330 feet, and at an uniform depth of 20
+feet under low-water mark, while at each end was to be constructed a
+sluice-lock, 330 feet long by 70 wide. Further, at each end he proposed
+to execute a magnificent harbour; that at the Mediterranean end was to
+be extended five miles into the sea, so as to obtain a permanent depth
+of water for a ship drawing twenty-three feet, on account of the
+enormous quantity of mud annually silted up by the Nile; that at the Red
+Sea end was to be three miles long.
+
+In 1865 the great canal was begun. The Mediterranean entrance is at Port
+Said, about the middle of the narrow neck of land between Lake Menzaleh
+and the sea, in the eastern part of the Delta. Thence it is carried for
+about twenty miles across Menzaleh Lake, being 112 yards wide at the
+surface, 26 yards at the bottom, and 26 feet deep. On each side an
+artificial bank rises some 15 feet high. The distance thence to Abu
+Ballah Lake is 11 miles, through ground which varies from 15 to 30 feet
+above the level of the sea. This lake being traversed, there is land
+again--a troublesome and shifty soil--to Timsah Lake, the canal being
+cut at a depth below the sea-level of 50 to 100 feet. On the shore of
+Timsah Lake has risen a new and busy town, the central point of the
+canal, and named Ismailia, in honour of the present Pasha of Egypt.
+
+A space of eight miles intervenes between the Timsah Lake and the Bitter
+Lakes, and in this space the cuttings are very deep and difficult. The
+soil being almost purely sand, the constant labour of powerful dredging
+machines is constantly required, to prevent the channel from filling up.
+The deepest cutting occurs at El Guisr, or Girsch, and is no less than
+85 feet below the surface: at the water-level it is 112 yards wide, at
+the summit-level 173 yards. In traversing the Bitter Lakes the course of
+the canal is marked by embankments. From the southern end of these lakes
+to Suez, a distance of about thirteen miles, the cuttings are heavy and
+deep.
+
+After many discouraging failures, M. de Lesseps' great work was
+completed last year, and the formal opening of the canal took place in
+the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and a goodly number of
+princes, potentates, and distinguished personages. It is now open to
+navigation from end to end, and ships of considerable tonnage have
+successfully accomplished the passage. Whether the canal is a
+_commercial_ success may still be doubted. The cost of further deepening
+and enlarging it, and of maintaining its banks and harbours, amounts to
+a sum which, as yet, the traffic charges are not at all likely to
+defray. But, in an engineering sense, the Suez Canal is one of the
+wonders of this wonderful nineteenth century.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[E] August 17, 1850.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Beautifully Illustrated Works.
+
+
+EARTH AND SEA. From the French of LOUIS FIGUIER. Translated, Edited, and
+Enlarged by W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS, Illustrated with Two Hundred and
+Fifty Engravings by FREEMAN, GIACOMELLI, YAN D'ARGENT, PRIOR, FOULQUIER,
+RIOU, LAPLANTE, and other Artists. Imperial 8vo. Handsomely bound in
+cloth and gold. Price 15s.
+
+This volume is founded upon M. Figuier's "_La Terre et Les Mers_," but
+so many additions have been made to the original, and its aim and scope
+have been so largely extended, that it may almost be called a new work.
+These additions and this extension were deemed necessary by the Editor,
+in order to render it more suitable for the British public, and in order
+to bring it up to the standard of geographical knowledge.
+
+
+THE DESERT WORLD. From the French of ARTHUR MANGIN. Translated, Edited,
+and Enlarged by the Translator of "The Bird," by Michelet. With One
+Hundred and Sixty Illustrations by W. FREEMAN, FOULQUIER, and YAN
+D'ARGENT. Imperial 8vo, full gilt side and gilt edges. Price 12s. 6d.
+
+    SATURDAY REVIEW.--"_The illustrations are numerous, and
+    extremely well cut. Two handsomer and more readable volumes than
+    this and 'The Mysteries of the Ocean' it would be difficult to
+    produce._"
+
+
+THE MYSTERIES OF THE OCEAN. From the French of ARTHUR MANGIN. By the
+Translator of "The Bird." With One Hundred and Thirty Illustrations by
+W. FREEMAN and J. NOEL. Imperial 8vo, full gilt side and gilt edges.
+Price 10s. 6d.
+
+    PALL MALL GAZETTE.--"_Science walks to-day in her silver
+    slippers. We have here another sumptuously produced popular
+    manual from France. It is an account, complete in extent and
+    tolerably full in detail, of the Sea. It is eminently
+    readable.... The illustrations are altogether excellent; and the
+    production of such a book proves at least that there are very
+    many persons who can be calculated on for desiring to know
+    something of physical science._"
+
+
+THE BIRD. By JULES MICHELET, Author of "History of France," &c.
+Illustrated by Two Hundred and Ten Exquisite Engravings by GIACOMELLI.
+Imperial 8vo, full gilt side and gilt edges. Price 10s. 6d.
+
+    WESTMINSTER REVIEW.--"_This work consists of an exposition of
+    various ornithological matters from points of view which could
+    hardly be thought of, except by a writer of Michelet's peculiar
+    genius. With his argument in favour of the preservation of our
+    small birds we heartily concur. The translation seems to be
+    generally well executed; and in the matter of paper and
+    printing, the book is almost an _ouvrage de luxe_. The
+    illustrations are generally very beautiful._"
+
+    THE ART JOURNAL.--"_It is a charming book to read, and a most
+    valuable volume to think over.... It was a wise, and we cannot
+    doubt it will be a profitable, duty to publish it here, where it
+    must take a place second only to that it occupies in the
+    language in which it was written.... Certainly natural history
+    has never, in our opinion, been more exquisitely illustrated by
+    wood-engraving than in the whole of these designs by M.
+    Giacomelli, who has treated the subject with rare delicacy of
+    pencil and the most charming poetical feeling--a feeling
+    perfectly in harmony with the written descriptions of M.
+    Michelet himself._"
+
+
+
+
+THE "SCHOeNBERG-COTTA" SERIES OF BOOKS.
+
+_In Cloth Binding, 6s. 6d. each; in Morocco, 12s. each._
+
+
+CHRONICLES OF THE SCHOeNBERG-COTTA FAMILY.
+
+    THE TIMES.--"_We are confident that most women will read it with
+    keen pleasure, and that those men who take it up will not easily
+    lay it down without confessing that they have gained some pure
+    and ennobling thoughts from the perusal._"
+
+
+DIARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN: A Story of the Times of Whitefield and
+the Wesleys.
+
+    GLASGOW CITIZEN.--"_The various characters are well
+    discriminated, and the story flows on naturally and pleasantly
+    to the end._"
+
+
+THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS: A Story of the Civil Wars.
+
+    DAILY REVIEW.--"_It is the most interesting of all the
+    authoress' productions._"
+
+
+ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA: A Story of the Commonwealth and the
+Restoration.
+
+    ATHENAEUM.--"_A good deal of ingenuity has been employed for the
+    purpose of grouping together many of the well-known characters
+    of that day; and in spite of the general gravity of the
+    narrative, there is evidence of a considerable sense of quiet
+    humour both in the characters and in the language employed._"
+
+
+WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN.
+
+    ECLECTIC.--"_Very acceptable to many thousands, and only needing
+    to be mentioned to be sought for and read._"
+
+
+THE MARTYRS OF SPAIN AND THE LIBERATORS OF HOLLAND; or, The Story of the
+Sisters Dolores and Costanza Cazalla.
+
+
+SKETCHES OF CHRISTIAN LIFE IN ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME.
+
+
+DIARY OF BROTHER BARTHOLOMEW, WITH OTHER TALES AND SKETCHES OF CHRISTIAN
+LIFE IN DIFFERENT LANDS AND AGES.
+
+
+WANDERINGS OVER BIBLE LANDS AND SEAS. With a Photograph, and other
+Illustrations.
+
+
+WATCHWORDS FOR THE WARFARE OF LIFE (From the Writings of Luther).
+Translated and Arranged by the Author of "The Schoenberg-Cotta Family."
+
+
+POEMS. By the Author of "Chronicles of the Schoenberg-Cotta Family."
+CONTENTS:--The Women of the Gospels--The Three Wakings--Songs and
+Hymns--Memorial Verses. Crown 8vo, gilt edges.
+
+
+
+
+VALUABLE WORKS.
+
+
+BY THE REV. J. C. RYLE, B.A.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE LAST CENTURY; or, England a Hundred Years
+Ago. By the Rev. J. C. RYLE, B.A., Christ Church, Oxford, Author of
+"Expository Thoughts," &c. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 7s. 6d.
+
+    PALL MALL GAZETTE.--"_Mr. Ryle has evidently a complete
+    acquaintance with his subject, such as a mere critical historian
+    would never be likely to acquire; and we believe there is no
+    book existing which contains nearly the same amount of
+    information upon it._"
+
+
+BY THE REV. WILLIAM ARNOT.
+
+LAWS FROM HEAVEN FOR LIFE ON EARTH--ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOOK OF
+PROVERBS. New Edition. Complete in One Volume. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price
+7s. 6d.
+
+    FAMILY TREASURY.--"_A noble volume by one of the freshest and
+    most vigorous writers of the present day."_
+
+THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. Crown 8vo, cloth antique. Price 7s. 6d.
+
+    REV. JAMES HAMILTON, D.D.--"_The best family book on the
+    Parables._"
+
+    SPURGEON.--"_Mr. Arnot is the fittest man living to expound the
+    Parables, for he is himself a great master of metaphorical
+    teaching. In the valuable work before us there is, as is usual
+    with the author, much striking originality, and much unparaded
+    learning. The first will make it popular, the second will
+    commend it to the thoughtful. Many writers have done well upon
+    this subject, but in some respects, as far as space would permit
+    him, our friend excels them all. 'The Parables' will be a fit
+    companion to 'The Proverbs,' and both books will be immortal._"
+
+
+BY THE REV. A. A. HODGE, D.D.
+
+OUTLINES OF THEOLOGY. Edited by the Rev. W. H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of
+Biblical Literature and Church History, Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. Price 6s.
+6d.
+
+    SPURGEON.--"_We can best show our appreciation of this able Body
+    of Divinity by mentioning that we have used it in our college
+    with much satisfaction both to tutor and students. We intend to
+    make it a class-book, and urge all young men who are anxious to
+    become good theologians to master it thoroughly. Of course we do
+    not endorse the chapter on baptism. To a few of the Doctor's
+    opinions in other parts we might object, but as a Hand-book of
+    Theology, in our judgment, it is like Goliath's sword--'there is
+    none like it.'_"
+
+THE ATONEMENT. Edited by the Rev. W. H. Goold, D.D., Crown 8vo. Price
+5s.
+
+    EXTRACT FROM LETTER BY THE AUTHOR TO THE EDITOR OF THIS
+    EDITION.--"_This work has been written with a view to meet the
+    rationalistic speculations of the present day as to the nature
+    of sin, the extent of human depravity and moral ability, the
+    nature of our connection with Adam, the nature and extent of the
+    Atonement, &c. &c. So much has been written that is positively
+    false, or fatally defective, by Maurice, Jowett, Bushnell, and
+    others, that it appeared high time that those who love the truth
+    should rouse themselves to do what they can to defend and exalt
+    it._"
+
+
+BY THE REV. ISLAY BURNS, D.D.
+
+HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST: With a Special View to the Delineation
+of Christian Faith and Life. With Notes, Chronological Tables, Lists of
+Councils, Examination Questions, and other Illustrative Matter. (From
+A.D. 1 to A.D. 313.) Crown 8vo, cloth antique. Price 5s.
+
+
+
+
+Beautifully Illustrated Books for the Young.
+
+
+THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON; or, Adventures of a Shipwrecked Family on a
+Desolate Island. A New and Unabridged Translation. With an Introduction
+from the French of CHARLES NODIER. Illustrated with upwards of Three
+Hundred Engravings. Crown 8vo, cloth extra. Price 6s.
+
+This is a new and _unabridged translation_ of a work which has acquired
+a great and well-merited popularity from its happy combination of
+instruction and amusement, of the interest of romance with the
+discoveries of science.
+
+
+PAUL AND VIRGINIA. From the French of BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE. An
+Entirely New Translation, with Botanical Notes, and upwards of Ninety
+Engravings. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 4s.
+
+
+THE WORLD AT HOME: Pictures and Scenes from Far-off Lands. By MARY and
+ELIZABETH KIRBY. With upwards of One Hundred and Thirty Illustrations.
+Square 8vo. Cloth, richly gilt. Price 6s.
+
+    THE TIMES.--"_An admirable collection of adventures and
+    incidents in foreign lands, gleaned largely from foreign
+    sources, and excellently illustrated._"
+
+    BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW.--"_A very charming book; one of the
+    best popular wonder-books for young people that we have seen. In
+    language of singular simplicity, and with a very profuse use of
+    very effective woodcuts, the distinctive features of far-off
+    lands--their natural history, the manners and customs of their
+    inhabitants, their physical phenomena, &c.--are brought home to
+    the fireside in a way to entrance alike the children of five or
+    six years old, and the older folk who instruct them. No better
+    book has appeared this season._"
+
+
+BOOK FOR BOYS--ILLUSTRATED BY GUSTAVE DORE.
+
+GEOFFREY THE KNIGHT. A Tale of Chivalry of the Days of King Arthur. With
+Twenty Full-page Engravings by GUSTAVE DORE. Post 8vo, cloth extra, gilt
+edges. Price 4s.
+
+    THE SCOTSMAN.--"_'Geoffrey the Knight' appears now in perhaps
+    the most attractive form it has yet assumed. Printed in the best
+    style, it is still further enriched by a number of admirable
+    engravings by Gustave Dore, illustrating all the most thrilling
+    adventures related._"
+
+
+CATS AND DOGS; or, Notes and Anecdotes of Two Great Families of the
+Animal Kingdom. By Mrs. HUGH MILLER. New Edition. With upwards of Forty
+Engravings. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+    THE TIMES.--"_A full and well-written account of both the feline
+    and the canine species. It is filled with spirited engravings,
+    many of which, giving pictures of tiger and lion hunting, will
+    have special attractions for the Gordon Cummings and Gerrards
+    and Livingstones of the future, who are now in our
+    school-rooms._"
+
+
+NEW GIFT-BOOK FOR BOYS.
+
+THE PLAYGROUND AND THE PARLOUR. A Hand-Book of Boys' Games, Sports, and
+Amusements. By ALFRED ELLIOTT. With One Hundred Illustrations. Post 8vo.
+Price 3s. 6d.
+
+    ILLUSTRATED TIMES.--"_We have not for some time seen any Book of
+    Sports better got up or more carefully compiled than this._"
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR BOYS.
+
+
+THE FOREST, THE JUNGLE, AND THE PRAIRIE; or, Scenes with the Trapper and
+the Hunter in Many Lands. By ALFRED ELLIOTT. With Thirty Engravings.
+Post 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 5s.
+
+    DAILY NEWS.--"_An excellent volume, in which lessons in zoology
+    are communicated whilst the reader accompanies the hunter in the
+    jungles of India, the lairs of Africa, the prairies of America,
+    and the plains of Ceylon._"
+
+
+BY R. M. BALLANTYNE.
+
+_New and Cheaper Editions._
+
+THE YOUNG FUR-TRADERS: A Tale of the Far North. With Illustrations. Post
+8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+UNGAVA: A Tale of Esquimaux Land. With Illustrations. Post 8vo, cloth.
+Price 3s.
+
+THE CORAL ISLAND: A Tale of the Pacific. With Illustrations. Post 8vo,
+cloth. Price 3s.
+
+MARTIN RATTLER; or, A Boy's Adventures in the Forests of Brazil. With
+Illustrations. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+THE DOG CRUSOE AND HIS MASTER: A Tale of the Western Prairies. With
+Illustrations. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+THE GORILLA HUNTERS: A Tale of Western Africa. With Illustrations. Post
+8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+THE WORLD OF ICE; or, Adventures in the Polar Regions. With Engravings.
+Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+
+BY J. H. FYFE.
+
+MERCHANT ENTERPRISE; or, the History of Commerce from the Earliest
+Times. Caravans of Old--The Phoenicians--Marts of the Mediterranean, &c.
+With Eight Illustrations from designs by CLARK STANTON, Esq., R.S.A.
+Post 8vo, cloth extra. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+BRITISH ENTERPRISE BEYOND THE SEAS; or, The Planting of our Colonies.
+Illustrated. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s.
+
+TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND DISCOVERY. Illustrated. Post 8vo, cloth extra.
+Price 2s. 6d.
+
+
+BY W. H. G. KINGSTON.
+
+_New Editions, Illustrated._
+
+ROUND THE WORLD: A Tale for Boys. With Fifty-two Engravings. Post 8vo,
+cloth extra. Price 5s.
+
+OLD JACK: A Sea Tale. With Sixty Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth extra.
+Price 5s.
+
+MY FIRST VOYAGE TO SOUTHERN SEAS. With Forty-two Engravings. Post 8vo,
+cloth extra. Price 5s.
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.
+
+   ART JOURNAL.--"_Among the best Publishers of Books for the Young
+   we must rank the names of the Messrs. Nelson._"
+
+
+AFAR IN THE FOREST; or, Pictures of Life and Scenery in the Wilds of
+Canada. By Mrs. TRAILL, Author of the "Canadian Crusoes," &c.
+Illustrated. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.
+
+FAITHFUL AND TRUE; or, The Evans Family. By the Author of "Tony Starr's
+Legacy," &c. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+THINGS IN THE FOREST. By MARY AND ELIZABETH KIRBY. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 1s. 6d.
+
+THE HISTORY OF A PIN. By F. M. S. Illustrated. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 1s. 6d.
+
+OLD ROBIN AND HIS PROVERB. By Mrs. HENRY F. BROCK. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 1s. 6d.
+
+TRUTH IS ALWAYS BEST; or, A Fault Confessed is Half Redressed. By MARY
+AND ELIZABETH KIRBY. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+TRUTHS AND FANCIES FROM FAIRY LAND; or Fairy Stories with a Purpose.
+With Four Steel Plates. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+SCENES OF THE OLDEN TIME. By the Author of "Records of Noble Lives,"
+"The Boy Makes the Man," &c. With Four Steel Plates. Foolscap 8vo,
+cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+ALICE STANLEY, and other Stories. By Mrs. S. C. HALL. With Four Steel
+Engravings. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+THE PLAYFELLOW, and other Stories. By Mrs. S. C. HALL. With Four Steel
+Engravings. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+THE WAY OF THE WORLD, and other Tales. By Mrs. S. C. HALL. With Four
+Steel Engravings. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+STORIES FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY. By the Rev. JAMES WOOD. With Four Steel
+Plates. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+
+_New Illustrated Edition._
+
+PAUL AND VIRGINIA. With Seventy Cuts. Royal 32mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+Price 1s.
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.
+
+
+ISABEL'S SECRET; or, A Sister's Love. By the Author of "The Story of a
+Happy Little Girl." Post 8vo, cloth. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+ANNA LEE: The Maiden--The Wife--The Mother. By T. S. ARTHUR. Post 8vo,
+cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+TRUE RICHES; or, Wealth without Wings. By T. S. ARTHUR. With Five
+Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+WOODLEIGH HOUSE; or, The Happy Holidays. With Eight Engravings. Post
+8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+MISSIONARY EVENINGS AT HOME. By H. L. L. Post 8vo, cloth extra, gilt
+edges. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+THE GOLDEN MISSIONARY PENNY, and other Addresses to the Young. By the
+late Rev. JAMES BOLTON, Kilburn. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+MARION'S SUNDAYS; or, Stories on the Commandments. With Engravings.
+Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.
+
+ANNALS OF THE POOR. With Memoir of the Author. With Eight Plates printed
+in Colours. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.; or, cloth extra, gilt edges,
+price 3s.
+
+NELLY NOWLAN'S EXPERIENCE, and other Stories. By Mrs. S. C. HALL.
+Illustrated. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s.
+
+THE STORY OF THE WHITE-ROCK COVE. A Tale for the Young. With Six
+Engravings. Post 8vo, cloth extra. Price 3s.
+
+FAR AND NEAR; or, Stories of a Christmas Tree. By ITA. With Coloured
+Frontispiece. Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+THE FLOWER OF THE FAMILY: A Tale of Domestic Life. Foolscap 8vo, cloth.
+Price 2s.
+
+THE WORLD'S BIRTHDAY. By the Rev. Professor L. GAUSSEN. With Plates.
+Foolscap 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+WOODRUFF; or, "Sweetest when Crushed." A Tale. By Mrs. VEITCH. Foolscap
+8vo, cloth. Price 2s.
+
+THE REGULAR SERVICE; or, the Story of Reuben Inch. By the Author of
+"Village Missionaries," "Under the Microscope," &c. Illustrated. Post
+8vo, cloth. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+THE A. L. O. E. SERIES OF BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.
+
+BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED AND ELEGANTLY BOUND.
+
+    CHURCH OF ENGLAND SUNDAY-SCHOOL MAGAZINE.--"_With A. L. O. E.'s
+    well-known powers of description and imagination, circumstances
+    are described and characters sketched, which we believe many
+    readers will recognize as their own._"
+
+
+_Post 8vo, Cloth._
+
+CLAUDIA. A Tale. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+HEBREW HEROES. A Tale founded on Jewish History. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+ON THE WAY; or Places Passed by Pilgrims. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+THE TRIUMPH OVER MIDIAN. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+HOUSE BEAUTIFUL; or, The Bible Museum. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+RESCUED FROM EGYPT. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+PRIDE AND HIS PRISONERS. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+THE GOLDEN FLEECE. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+THE ROBY FAMILY. With Seven Illustrations. Gilt edges. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+THE ROBBERS' CAVE: A Story of Italy. With Seven Illustrations. Gilt
+edges, with beautifully illuminated side. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES. Vignette Title. Gilt edges. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+STORY OF A NEEDLE. With Seven Illustrations. Gilt edges, with
+beautifully illuminated side. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+MY NEIGHBOUR'S SHOES; or, Feeling for Others. Illustrated. Gilt edges,
+with beautifully illuminated side. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+
+_Foolscap 8vo, Cloth._
+
+IDOLS IN THE HEART. A Tale. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+THE SILVER CASKET; or, Love not the World. A Tale. Illustrated. Price
+3s.
+
+WAR AND PEACE. A Tale of the Retreat from Cabul. Illustrated. Price 3s.
+
+THE HOLIDAY CHAPLET. Illustrated. Cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 3s.
+
+THE SUNDAY CHAPLET. Illustrated. Cloth extra, gilt edges. Price 3s.
+
+MIRACLES OF HEAVENLY LOVE IN DAILY LIFE. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+WHISPERING UNSEEN; or, "Be ye Doers of the Word, and not Hearers Only."
+Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+PARLIAMENT IN THE PLAY-ROOM. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+THE MINE; or, Darkness and Light. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+FLORA; or, Self-Deception. Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+THE CROWN OF SUCCESS; or, Four Heads to Furnish. Price 2s. 6d.
+
+ZAIDA'S NURSERY NOTE-BOOK. A Book for Mothers. Price 2s.
+
+POEMS AND HYMNS. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+RAMBLES OF A RAT. Illustrated. Price 2s.
+
+STORIES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS. Illustrated. Price 1s. 6d.
+
+WINGS AND STINGS. 18mo Edition. Illustrated. Price 1s.
+
+
+_New Editions, Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cloth Extra._
+
+THE YOUNG PILGRIM. A Tale Illustrating the Pilgrim's Progress. With
+Twenty-Seven Engravings. Price 4s.
+
+THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM. With Forty Engravings. Price 5s.
+
+EXILES IN BABYLON; or, Children of Light. Thirty-four Cuts. Price 5s.
+
+PRECEPTS IN PRACTICE. With Forty Engravings. Price 4s.
+
+THE GIANT-KILLER. With Forty Engravings. Price 4s.
+
+FAIRY KNOW-A-BIT. With Thirty-four Illustrations. Price 3s. 6d.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+T. NELSON AND SONS, LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK.
+
+[Transcriber's Note:
+
+Ligature occurrences of oe have been represented as two separate letters,
+such as in "Koenig" and "Phoenicians".
+
+The following alterations have been made to the text as originally
+printed:
+   Page 30: Changed quotes from double to single: 'Recuyell of the
+            Historyes of Troye,'
+   Page 64: "reader." changed to "reader,"
+   Page 65: "home," changed to "home."
+   Page 128: Added closing quote: ... and working efficiency."
+   Page 131: Added closing quote: ... of solid masonry."
+   Page 136: "porportion" changed to "proportion"
+   Page 166: "better then an arm" changed to "better than an arm"
+   Page 187: "paddle-wheels Through" changed to "paddle-wheels. Through"
+   Page 197: "a mortal sickness:" changed to "a mortal sickness;"
+   Page 249: "own, Thus" changed to "own. Thus"
+   Page 250: "condition Only" changed to "condition. Only"
+   Page 295: Changed double quotes to single quotes: passing the
+             'carriers' through
+   Page 295: Added closing quote: ... under the postal
+             administration."
+   Page 315: Added closing quote: ... present day."
+   Page 316: "Dore" changed to "Dore"
+]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in
+Art and Science, by J. Hamilton Fyfe
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIUMPHS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 36768.txt or 36768.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/6/36768/
+
+Produced by Sharon Joiner, Jana Srna, Bill Keir, Erica
+Pfister-Altschul and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/36768.zip b/36768.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0203ea5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36768.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cb438e8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #36768 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36768)