[1] Article “Government,” in ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’
[2] The principle of the Æolipile is the same as that embodied in Avery and Ruthven’s engines for the production of rotary motion. “These engines,” says Bourne, “are more expensive in steam than ordinary engines, and travel at an inconvenient speed; but in other respects they are quite as effectual, and their construction is extremely simple and inexpensive.”
[3] See Bennet Woodcroft’s ‘Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria,’ from the original Greek. London, 1851.
[4] Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes, avec diverses machines tant utiles que plaisantes, &c., par Solomon de Caus, Ingénieur et Architecte du Roy. Frankfort, 1615.
[5] De Caus eventually returned to France, and was appointed engineer to the King. During the later years of his life he was employed in carrying out plans for the better supply of Paris with water. The story so often told of De Caus having been shut up in the Bicêtre turns out to be a fiction. Though a Huguenot, he was not persecuted by Richelieu, but was, on the contrary, employed by him; and in 1624 he dedicated to that prelate his treatise entitled ‘Horologes Solitaires.’ Mr. Charles Read, editor of several interesting memoirs of early French Protestants, has recently brought to light and published in the ‘Gazette des Tribunaux’ the proofs of the patronage of De Caus by Richelieu, and reproduced the original documents, which he discovered slumbering in the dust of the State Records at Paris. In 1621 De Caus is found proposing to Louis XIII. to adopt measures for cleansing Paris and the faubourgs of dirt and uncleanness, by a system of reservoirs established at elevated points, and by fountains at various places which he indicated. The king and his council sent the propositions to the chief magistrate of Paris, and Mr. Read transcribes the deliberation which took place on the subject at the City Council, as handed down in the records deposited in the Imperial Archives. De Caus died at Paris, and was buried in the church of La Trinité in February, 1626.
[6] Dr. Bayly, in his ‘Apothegms’ (1682), p. 87, describes the fright given to some Puritan visitors on the occasion of their searching Raglan Castle for arms, the Marquis of Worcester being a known Papist. “Having carried them up and down the castle, his lordship at length brought them over a high bridge that arched over the moat between the castle and the great tower, wherein the Lord Herbert had lately contrived certain water-works, which, when the several engines and wheels were set agoing, much quantity of water through the hollow conveyances of the aqueducts was to be let down from the top of an high tower.” When all was ready for the surprise, the water was let in, and it made such a hideous and fearful noise by reason of the hollowness of the tower, and the neighbouring echoes of the castle, that the men stood amazed and terror-struck. At this point up came a man staring and running, who exclaimed, “Look to yourselves, my masters, for the lions are got loose.” Whereupon the Puritans fled down the narrow staircase in such haste that they lost footing and fell, tumbling one over the other, and never halted until they had got the castle out of sight. Mr. Dircks, in his able and exhaustive ‘Life, Times, and Scientific Labours of the Marquis of Worcester,’ London, 1865, says that this hydraulic apparatus “probably depended for its operation on the influence of heat from burning fuel acting on a suitably constructed boiler, and so arranged as to be able to apply the expansive force of steam to the driving of water through vertical pipes to a considerable elevation.” But it does not seem to us that the facts stated are sufficient to warrant this assumption.
[7] Mr. Dircks says “it was a machine consisting of a wheel 14 feet in diameter, carrying forty weights of forty pounds each, and is supposed to have rotated on an axle supported on two pillars or upright frames,” as indicated in the ‘Century of Inventions,’ Art. 56.
[8] ‘Weld’s Royal Society,’ i. 53.
[9] ‘Industrial Biography,’ p. 57.
[10] ‘A Century of the Names and Scantlings of such Inventions as at present I can call to mind to have tried and perfected, which (my former Notes being lost) I have, at the instance of a powerful Friend, endeavoured now, in the year 1655, to set these down in such a way as may sufficiently instruct me to put any of them in practice.’ London, 1663.
[11] The writer of the elaborate article “Lock,” in the supplement to the ‘Penny Cyclopædia’ (ii. 217), in describing the combination lock, says: “The Marquis of Worcester, in whose ‘Century of Inventions’ several different kinds of lock, which lay claim to the most marvellous properties, are enumerated, would appear, from his 72nd article, to have devised an improvement on this apparatus; as he refers to ‘an escutcheon to be placed before any of these locks,’ one of the properties of which he describes as being that ‘the owner, though a woman, may, with her delicate hand, vary the ways of coming to open the lock ten millions of times beyond the knowledge of the smith that made it, or of me who invented it.’ The details of this invention are not given; but in the third volume of the ‘Transactions of the Society of Arts,’ pp. 160–5, is an escutcheon of similar character, invented by Mr. Marshall, and rewarded by the Society in 1784. The details of this ingenious contrivance are fully given in the volume referred to.”
[12] His words are these:—“One of the most curious things that I wished to see was an hydraulic machine which the Marquis of Worcester has invented, and of which he is making trial. I went with all speed to Fox-hall, on the other side of the Thames, a little below Lambeth, which is the Palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in sight of London. This machine will raise to the height of forty feet, by the strength of one man only, and in a minute of time, four large buckets of water through a pipe of eight inches. But what will be the most powerful help to the wants of the public is the work which is performed by another ingeniously-constructed machine, which can be seen raised on a wooden tower on the top of Somerset House, which supplies that part of the town with water, but with some difficulty, and a smaller quantity than could be desired. It is somewhat like our Samaritane water-work on the Pont Neuf; and on the raising-pump they have added an impulsion which increases the force; but for what we obtain by the power of the Seine, they employ one or two horses, which incessantly turn the machine, as the river changes its course twice a day, and the spring or wheels which are used for the ebbing tide would not do for the flow.”—Sorbière, ‘Relation d’un Voyage en Angleterre.’
[13] The Works of the Hon. Robert Boyle, v. 532.
[14] Dircks’s ‘Life and Times,’ &c., 356.
[15] Mr. Woodcroft is, however, of opinion that the Marquis’s contrivance was but a boat with paddle-wheels, with an axis across it, which axis was turned by the action of the stream on the paddles, and thus wound up a rope and dragged the boat onward to the other end of the rope fixed by an anchor; certainly a more clumsy and less notable contrivance than that of a steamboat.
[16] Letter to some person unknown, quoted by Mr. Dircks from the Badminton MSS.—Dircks’s ‘Life, Times,’ &c., 276.
[17] We are informed that Morland’s Tuba Stentorphornica, or speaking-trumpet, is still to be seen at Trinity College, Cambridge. Butler, in his ‘Hudibras,’ alludes to the invention:—
[18] His first idea seems to have been to employ gunpowder for the production of motive power, for in the ‘Calendar of State Papers’ (Dom) we find the following entry:—“Decr. 11th, 1691.—Warrant for a grant to Sir Samuel Morland of the sole use for 14 years of his invention for raising water out of pits, &c., to a reasonable height, by the force of powder and air conjointly.”—(‘Entry Book,’ V., p. 85.) In vol. XLVI., p. 49, we find this entry under the same date:—“Warrant for a grant to Sir S. Morland of the sole making of an engine invented by him for raising water in mines or pits, draining marshes, or supplying buildings with water.”
[19] The ‘Harleian Miscellany’ (Brit. Mus.), No. 5771, contains the following brief tract in French, written by Morland in 1682. It is on vellum, and entitled ‘Les Principes de la Nouvelle Force de Feu:’—“L’eau estant evaporée par la force de feu, ces vapeurs demandent incontinant une plus grand’espace [environ deux mille fois] que l’eau n’occupoiet auparavant, et plus tost que d’etre toujours emprisonnés, feroient crever une piece de canon. Mais estant bien gouvernées selon les regles de la statique, et par science reduites a la mesure au poids, et à la balance, alors elles portent paisiblement leurs fardeaux [comme des bons chevaux] et ainsy seroient elles du grand usage au gendre humain, particulièrement pour l’elevation des eaux, selon la table suivante que marque les nombres des livres qui pourrant estre levés 1800 fois par heure, à 6 pouces de levée, par de cylindres à moitie remplies d’eau, ausi bien que les divers diametres et profondeurs des dit cylindres.” Tables are then given, showing the power requisite to raise given quantities of water to certain heights by cylinders of different dimensions.
[20] M. Bergenroth says the documents at Simancas consist of—1. A holograph letter of Blasco Garay to the Emperor, dated Malaga, 10th Sept., 1540, containing his report on the trial trip of one of his paddle-wheel ships; 2. The report of the Captain Antonio Destigarura on the same trial trip; 3. The report of the Provcedores of Malaga concerning the same trip, dated 27th July, 1540; 4. The report of Blasco Garay to the Emperor, dated 6th July, 1543, concerning the trial trip of another of his paddle-wheel ships made at Barcelona in June, 1543; 5. A letter of Blasco Garay to Carrs, dated 20th June, 1543. In none of these is there to be found any reference to steam-power; but only to the power of men employed in driving the paddle-wheels. This is confirmed by the independent examination of the same documents by J. Macgregor, Esq., of the Temple, who gives the result in a Letter to Bennet Woodcroft, Esq., inserted as a note to the ‘Abridgments of the Specifications relating to Steam Propulsion,’ pp. 105–7.
[21] Burn, ‘History of Foreign Protestant Refugees,’ 261.
[22] In a letter, dated Shilston, August 9th, 1727, he writes:—“The late Mr. Thomas Savery, inventor of the engines for rowing, and raising water by fire, was, I believe, well known to several of the Royal Society, perhaps to the President; but as I am a perfect stranger, do acquaint you that his father was youngest brother to my grandfather. The late Servington Savery, M.D., of Marlborough, was one of my family, viz., a brother to my deceased father.”
[23] It is now in the possession of Capt. Lowe, of the 26th Regiment, whose grand-aunt was a Miss Savery of Shilston.
[24] ‘Navigation Improved; or the Art of Rowing Ships of all rates in calms, with a more easy, swift and steady motion than oars can. Also, a description of the engine that performs it; and the Author’s answer to all Mr. Drummer’s objections that have been made against it. By Tho. Savery, Gent. London, 1698.’
[25] Mr. Davies Gilbert says even this method was comparatively modern, as he remembered a carpenter who used to boast that he had assisted in making the first whim ever seen westward of Hayle.—Davies, ‘Parochial History of Cornwall,’ London, 1838, ii. 83.
[26] Borlase, ‘Natural History of Cornwall,’ 175–6.
[27] The absurd story is told by Dr. Desaguliers (‘Experimental Philosophy,’ ii. 465) that Savery, having read the Marquis’s book, “was the first to put in practice the raising of water by fire, which he proposed for the draining of mines;” and having copied the Marquis’s engine, “the better to conceal the matter, bought up all the Marquis of Worcester’s books that he could purchase in Paternoster-row and elsewhere, and burned ’em in the presence of the gentleman, his friend, who told me this!” It need scarcely be said that it was very unlikely that Savery should have attempted thus to conceal an invention recorded in a printed book which had been in circulation for more than forty years.
[28] Switzer, ‘System of Hydrostaticks and Hydraulicks,’ London, 1729.
[29] The patent is dated the 25th July, 1698, and is entitled, “A grant to Thomas Savery, Gentl., of the sole exercise of a new invenc̃on, by him invented, for raiseing of water, and occasioning moc̃on to all sort of mill works, by the impellant force of fire, which will be of great use for draining mines, serving towns with water, and for the working of all sorts of mills when they have not the benefit of water nor constant winds; to hold for 14 years; with usual clauses.”
[30] ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ No. 252. Weld’s ‘Royal Society,’ i. 357.
[31] ‘The Miner’s Friend, or an Engine to Raise Water by Fire, described, and of the manner of fixing it in Mines, with an account of the several uses it is applicable unto; and an answer to the objections made against it. By Tho. Savery, Gent.’ London, 1702.
[32] Two boilers, a large, A, and a smaller, B, were fixed in a furnace, and connected together at the top by a pipe, C. The larger boiler was filled two-thirds full, and the smaller quite full of water. When that in the larger one was raised to the boiling-point, the handle of the regulator, D, was thrust back as far as it would go, by which the steam forced itself through the pipe connected with the vessel E, expelling the air it contained through the clack at F. The handle of the regulator being then drawn towards you, the communication between the boiler and the vessel, E, was closed, and that between the boiler and the second vessel, G, was opened, which latter was also filled with steam, the air being in like manner discharged through the clack, H. Cold water was then poured from the water-cock, I, on to the vessel E, by which the steam was suddenly condensed, and a vacuum being thereby caused, the water to be raised was drawn up through the sucking-pipe, J, its return being prevented by a clack or valve at K. The handle of the regulator D being again thrust back, the steam was again admitted, and pressing upon the surface of the water in E, forced it out at the bottom of the vessel and up through the pipe L, from which it was driven into the open air. The handle of the regulator was then reversed, on which the steam was again admitted to G, and the water in like manner expelled from it, while E, being again dashed with cold water, was refilling from below. Then the cold water was turned upon G, and thus alternate filling and forcing went on, and a continuous stream of cold water kept flowing from the upper opening. The large boiler was replenished with water by shutting off the connection of the small boiler with the cold water pipe, M, which supplied it from above, on which the steam contained in the latter forced the water through the connecting pipe, C, into the large boiler, and kept it running in a continuous stream until the surface of the water in the smaller boiler was depressed below the opening of the connecting pipe, which was indicated by the noise of the clack, when it was refilled from the cold water pipe, M, as before.
[33] Switzer, ‘Introduction to a General System of Hydrostaticks and Hydraulicks,’ 237.
[34] Dr. Wilkes in ‘Shaw’s History of Staffordshire,’ i. 85, 119.
[35] Bradley, ‘Discourses on Earth and Water, &c.’ Westminster, 1727.
[36] We are informed by Quartermaster Conolly, R.E., who has given much attention to the early history of the Royal Engineers, that the book of Warrants and Appointments, anno 1712, No. 172½, in the Tower Record-room, contains the following memorandum in pencil on the inside cover:—[Thomas] “Savery, Engineer officer, 1702–14.”
[37] A pamphlet published in 1712, entitled ‘An Impartial Inquiry into the Management of the War in Spain,’ contains the following reference to Savery:—“Sums allowed by Parliament for carrying on the war in Spain ... for the year 1710. To Thomas Savery, Esq., for Thomas Cale, surgeon, for care of disabled soldiers, 306l. 6s. 4d.”
[38] Newcomen’s house occupies the centre of the above engraving—the house with the peaked gable-end supported by timbers.
[39] Pamphlet on ‘Dartmouth: the advantages of its Harbour as a Station for Foreign Mail Packets, and a Short Notice of its Ancient and Present Condition.’ By A. H. Holdsworth. London, 1841.
[40] Switzer, ‘Introduction to a System of Hydrostatics and Hydraulics,’ p. 342.
[41] Harris, ‘Lexicon Technicum.’
[42] It has been stated that Newcomen took out a patent for his invention in 1705; but this is a mistake, as no patent was ever taken out by Newcomen. It is supposed that Savery, having heard of his invention, gave him notice that he would regard his method of producing a speedy vacuum by condensation, as an infringement of his patent, and that Newcomen accordingly agreed to give him an interest in the new engine during the term of Savery’s patent. It will, however, be observed that the principle on which Newcomen’s engine worked was entirely different from that of Savery.
[43] Scogging is a north country word, meaning skulking one’s work, from which probably the boy gave the contrivance its name. Potter, however, grew up to be a highly-skilled workman. He went abroad about the year 1720, and erected an engine at a mine in Hungary, described by Leupold in his ‘Theatrum Machinarum,’ with many encomiums upon Potter, who was considered the inventor.
[44] The illustration shows the several parts of Newcomen’s atmospheric engine. a is the boiler; b, the piston moving up and down; c, the cylinder; d, a pipe proceeding from the top of the boiler, and inserted into the bottom of the cylinder, having a cock, e, to interrupt the flow of steam at pleasure; f, cold-water cistern, from which the cold water is conveyed by the pipe g, called the injection-pipe, and thrown in a jet into the cylinder, b, on turning the injection-cock, h; the snifting-valve, i, enables the air to escape from the cylinder, while the siphon-pipe, j, enables the condensed steam to flow from the same cavity in the form of water; k, the main lever beam; l, the counterpoise or weight hung on the balance-beam, or on m, the pump-rod which works the pump, n.
[45] Mr. Lemon eventually became the principal merchant and tin-smelter of Cornwall. Mr. Davies Gilbert says:—“The energies of his mind were not limited to these undertakings, great though they were. He cultivated a taste for literature, and, which is extremely unusual, acquired, amidst business, and at a middle age, the power of reading the classic authors in their original language.... He was distinguished in his district as “the great Mr. Lemon,” but such were the impressions of his abilities, his exertions, and general merit, that a progress so rapid and unexampled does not appear to have excited envy, or any of those bad passions which usually alloy the enjoyment of prosperity.”—‘History of Cornwall,’ ii. 84.
[46] “It may be interesting to know that it required three hands to work Newcomen’s first engines. I have heard it said that when the engine was stopped, and again set at work, the words were passed “Snift Benjy!” “Blow the fire, Pomery!” “Work away, Joe!” The last let in the condensing water. Lifting the condensing clack was called “snifting,” because on opening the valve, the air rushing through it made a noise like a man snifting. The fire was increased through artificial means by another hand, and all being ready, the machine was set in motion by a third.”—Cyrus Redding, ‘Yesterday and To-day.’ London, 1863. The “snifting clack” was a valve in the cylinder opening outwards, which permitted the escape of air or permanently elastic fluid, which could not be condensed by cold and run off through the eduction-pipe.
[47] In 1737 he published a Treatise on the subject entitled, ‘A description and Draught of a new-invented Machine for carrying Vessels or Ships out of or into any Harbour, Port, or River, against Wind or Tide, and in a Calm,’ by Jonathan Hulls.
[48] In describing his mode of obtaining rotary motion by ratchet wheels, a weight, and ropes, Hulls states that he uses two axes, one behind the other, each of which is essential to the object; and he then adds, that when his tow-boat is to be used in shallow rivers, the machine works by two cranks fixed to the hindermost axis; to which cranks are fixed two shafts (or poles) of proper length to reach the bottom of the river, and which move alternately forward from the motion of the wheels by which the vessel is carried on: so that the cranks, as described by Hulls, receive rotary motion from the axis on which they are placed, and do not, as has been erroneously stated, impart that motion to it.—Bennet Woodcroft, ‘Sketch of the Origin and Progress of Steam Navigation.’ London, 1848.
[49] There are several versions of the same satire current to this day in the villages of Campden and Hanging Aston.
[50] Borlase, ‘Natural History of Cornwall,’ p. 175.
[51] Among the few household articles belonging to him which descended to his son, and afterwards to his grandson the engineer, were two portraits, one of Sir Isaac Newton, and the other of John Napier, the inventor of Logarithms.
[52] The mansion house of the Shaws is now principally occupied as manorial offices. The fine old garden and pleasure-grounds have been presented by Sir John Shaw to the people of Greenock as a public park for ever. It is now called “The Watt Park,” and a more beautiful spot (bating the smoke of the busy town below) is scarcely to be found in Britain.
[53] In 1715 the Greenock and Cartsdyke men kept strict watch and ward for eighty days against a threatened visit of Rob Roy and his caterans. The conduct of these unruly neighbours continued to cause apprehensions amongst the townspeople until a much later period, especially during fair time, then the great event of the year. The fair was the occasion of the annual gathering of the people from the neighbouring country to buy and to sell. Highlandmen came from the opposite shores and from the lochs down the Clyde, men caring little for Lowland law, but duly impressed by a display of force. Their boats were drawn up on the beach with their prows to the High Street, the north side of which at that time lay open to the sea. The Highland folk lived and slept on board, each boat having a plank or gangway between it and the shore. On the first day of the fair Sir John Shaw, the feudal superior, convened the local dignitaries, the deacons and the trades, and after drinking the King’s health and throwing the glasses amongst the populace, they formed in procession and perambulated the town.
[54] Some of her neighbours thought her stately and unbending, and that she affected a superior style of living. In the ‘Memorials of Watt,’ by the late George Williamson, Esq., Greenock, are to be found many curious and interesting details as to the Watt family; collected partly from tradition and partly from local records. Of Mrs. Watt’s “superior style of living,” compared with the custom of the period, the following anecdote is given:—“One of the author’s informants on such points, a venerable lady in her eightieth year, was wont to speak of the worthy baillie’s wife with much characteristic interest and animation. As illustrative of the internal economy of the family, the old lady related an occasion on which she had spent an evening, when a girl, at Mrs. Watt’s house, and remembered expressing with much naïveté to her mother on returning home, her childish surprise that ‘Mrs. Watt had two lighted candles on the table.’ Among these and other reminiscences of her youth, our venerable informant described James Watt’s mother, in her expressive Doric, as ‘a braw, braw woman—none now to be seen like her.’” p. 128–9.
[55] The truth in regard to young Watt’s first years in the public school is, that, owing doubtless to infirm health, to the suffering and depression which affected his whole powers, he was prevented for a considerable time displaying even a very ordinary and moderate aptitude for the common routine of school lessons; and during those years he was regarded by his schoolmasters as slow and inapt. Although to some minds facts of such a nature may be conceived to mar the romance of a great man’s history, yet, seeing they rest on authenticity which cannot be impugned, there appears no reasonable ground on which it may be thought that they ought to be passed over as if they had not existed, or were altogether unfounded.—Williamson’s ‘Memorials of Watt,’ p. 130.
[56] The Shaw baronetcy was the reward of the feudal superior’s services on the occasion. The banner carried by the tenantry in the civil war was long preserved in Greenock, and was hung up with the other town flags in one of the public rooms.
[57] According to Smeaton’s report in 1755, there were in spring tides only 3 feet 8 inches water at Pointhouse Ford. Measures were taken to deepen the river, and operations with that object were begun in 1768. Salmon abounded in the Clyde, and was so common that servants and apprentices were accustomed to stipulate that they should not have salmon for dinner more than a certain number of days in the week.
[58] The “middens” in the street were sometimes complained of as a nuisance; and in 1776, the magistrate threatened a penalty of 5s. if middens of which complaint had been made were not removed within 48 hours.
[59] The Highland gentry and people regarded the Lowlanders as their natural enemies, fair subjects for plunder at all times as opportunities offered. The Lowlanders, on their part, regarded the Highlanders very much as the primitive settlers of North America regarded the Cherokee and Chocktaw Indians. Sometimes a band of uncouth half-clad Highlandmen would suddenly rush down upon the Lowlands, swoop up all the cattle within their reach, and drive them off into the mountains. Hence the Lowlanders and the Highlanders were always in a state of feud. Long after the ’45 a Highlandman would “thank God that he had not a drop of Lowland blood in his veins.”
[60] The only trade which Glasgow carried on with foreign countries previous to the Union, was in coal, grindstones, and fish,—Glasgow-cured herrings being in much repute abroad. After the Union partnerships were formed; vessels were built down the Clyde, and chartered for carrying on the trade with Virginia, Maryland, and Carolina. The first honest vessel crossed the Atlantic from the Clyde in 1719; in 1735 the Virginia merchants in Glasgow had fifteen vessels engaged in the trade, and the town shortly after became the great mart for tobacco. Of the 90,000 hogsheads imported into the United Kingdom in 1772, Glasgow alone imported 49,000, or more than one-half. The American Revolution had the effect of completely ruining the tobacco trade of Glasgow, after which the merchants were compelled to turn to other fields of enterprise and industry. The capital which they had accumulated from tobacco enabled them to enter upon their new undertakings with spirit, and the steam-engine which had by that time been invented by their townsman James Watt, proved their best helper in advancing the prosperity of modern Glasgow. The rapidity of its progress may be inferred from the following facts. In 1735, though the Glasgow merchants owned half the entire tonnage of Scotland, it amounted to only 5600 tons. In that year the whole shipping of Scotland was only one-fortieth part of that of England: it is now about one-fifth. From 1752 to 1770 the total tonnage dues of the harbour of Glasgow amounted to only 147l., or equal to an average of about 8l. per annum. In 1780, the Clyde having been deepened in the interval, they reached 1515l.; and in 1854, they amounted to 86,580l. The increase has been quite as great in later years. In point of value of exports, Glasgow ranks fourth among the ports of the United Kingdom; and Greenock now takes precedence of Bristol.
[61] For many curious particulars of Old Glasgow and its society, see Dr. Strang’s ‘Glasgow and its Clubs.’
[62] a temporary wooden theatre was run up in 1752, but the religious prejudices of the population were violently excited by the circumstance, and the place was attacked by a mob and seriously damaged. The few persons who went there had to be protected from insults. In 1762, when some persons proposed to build a theatre, not a single individual who had ground within the burgh would grant them a site. Two years later the theatre was erected outside the precincts, and on the night on which it was opened it was wilfully set on fire by some persons instigated by the preaching of a neighbouring methodist, when it narrowly escaped destruction.
[63] When the Lowlanders want to drink a cheering cup, they go to the public-house, called the Change-house, and call for a chopin of twopenny, which is their yeasty beverage, made of malt, not quite so strong as the table-beer of England.... The Highlanders, on the contrary, despise the liquor, and regale themselves with whisky, or malt spirit, as strong as Geneva, which they swallow in great quantities, without any signs of inebriation: they are used to it from the cradle, and find it an excellent preservative against the winter cold, which must be extreme on these mountains.—Smollett, ‘Expedition of Humphry Clinker.’
[64] Letter to his father quoted in Muirhead’s ‘Life of Watt,’ p. 39.
[65] The following “letter of Guildry” embodied the local regulations which existed for the purpose of preventing “loss and skaith” to the burgesses and craftsmen of Glasgow by the intrusion of “strangers”:—“The Dean of Guild and his Council shall have full power to discharge, punish, and unlaw all persons, unfreemen, using the liberty of a freeman within the burgh, as they shall think fit, ay and while the said unfreemen be put off the town, and restrained, or else be made free with the town and their crafts; and sic like, to pursue, upon the judges competent, all persons dwelling within this burgh, and usurping the liberty thereof, obtain decrets against them, and cause the same to be put to speedy execution.”
[66] When we visited the room some years since, we found laid there the galvanic apparatus employed by Professor Thomson for perfecting the invention of his delicate process of signalling through the wires of the Atlantic Telegraph.
[67] The illustration does not show the Inner Quadrangle, situated to the left of the Main Court, that part of the building having been added since the view was published.
[68] The author of ‘Glasgow, Past and Present’ thus writes:—“Last week (Nov. 1851) I was crossing the ferry at the west end of Tradeston, and in the course of our passage over we turned round the bow of a large ship. The ferryman, looking up to her leviathan bulwarks, exclaimed, ‘She came up here yesterday, drawing eighteen feet water!’ Now, upon this very spot seventy years ago, when a very little boy, I waded across the river, my feet never being off the ground, and the water not reaching above my arm-pits. The depth at that time could not have been much more than three feet.”
[69] The ‘Glasgow Courant’ of Oct. 22, 1759, contains the following advertisement:—