I well remember the visit I received from my dear friend Warren de la Rue
in the year 1840.  I was executing some work for him with respect to a
new process which he had contrived for the production of white lead.
I was then busy with the casting of my thirteen-inch speculum.
He watched my proceedings with earnest interest and most careful
attention.  He told me many years after, that it was the sight of my
special process of casting a sound speculum that in a manner caused him
to turn his thoughts to practical astronomy, a subject in which he has
exhibited such noble devotion as well as masterly skill.  Soon after
his visit I had the honour of casting for him a thirteen-inch speculum,
which he afterwards ground and polished by a method of his own.
He mounted it in an equatorial instrument of such surpassing excellence
as enabled him, aided by his devotion and pure love of the subject,
to record a series of observations and results which will hand his name
down to posterity as one of the most faithful and patient of
astronomical observers.

[Image]  Fireside, Patricroft.  After a drawing by James Nasmyth

But to return to my own little work at Patricroft.  I mounted my
ten-inch home-made reflecting telescope, and began my survey of the
heavens.  Need I say with what exquisite delight the harmony of their
splendour filled me.  I began as a learner, and my learning grew with
experience.  There were the prominent stars, the planets, the Milky Way
--with thousands of far-off suns--to be seen.  My observations were
at first merely general; by degrees they became particular.
I was not satisfied with enjoying these sights myself;
I made my friends and neighbours sharers in my pleasure;
and some of them enjoyed the wonders of the heavens as much as I did.

In my early use of the telescope I had fitted the speculum into a light
square tube of deal to which the eye-piece was attached, so as to have
all the essential parts of the telescope combined together in the most
simple and portable form.  I had often to remove it from place to place
in my small garden at the side of the Bridgewater Canal, in order to
get it clear of the trees and branches which intercepted some object in
the heavens which I wished to see.  How eager and enthusiastic I was in
those days!  Sometimes I got out of bed in the clear small hours of the
morning, and went down to the garden in my night-shirt.  I would take
the telescope in my arms and plant it in some suitable spot, where I
might get a peep at some special planet or star then above the horizon.

It became bruited about that a ghost was seen at Patricroft!
A barge was silently gliding along the canal near midnight,
when the boatman suddenly saw a figure in white.
"It moved among the trees with a coffin in its arms!"
The apparition was so sudden and strange that he immediately concluded
that it was a ghost.  The weird sight was reported at the stations
along the canal, and also at Wolverhampton, which was the boatman's
headquarters.  He told the people at Patricroft on his return journey
what he had seen, and great was the excitement produced.  The place was
haunted:  there was no doubt about it!  After all, the rumour was
founded on fact, for the ghost was merely myself in my night-shirt,
and the coffin was my telescope, which I was quietly shifting from one
place to another in order to get a clearer sight of the heavens at
midnight.

My ambition expanded.  I now resolved to construct a reflecting
telescope of considerably greater power than that which I possessed.
I made one of twenty inches diameter, and mounted it on a very simple
plan, thus removing many of the inconveniences and even personal risks
that attend the use of such instruments.  (For illustration of the plan
of mounting a large telescope, see p. 338) It had been necessary to
mount steps or ladders to get at the eyepiece, especially when the
objects to be observed were at a high elevation above the horizon.
I now prepared to do some special work with this instrument.
In 1842 I began my systematic researches upon the Moon.  I carefully
and minutely scrutinised the marvellous details of its surface,
a pursuit which I continued for many years, and still continue with
ardour until this day.  My method was as follows: --

I availed myself of every favourable opportunity for carrying on the
investigation.  I made careful drawings with black and white chalk on
large sheets of grey-tinted paper, of such selected portions of the
Moon as embodied the most characteristic and instructive features of
her wonderful surface.  I was thus enabled to graphically represent the
details with due fidelity as to form, as well as with regard to the
striking effect of the original in its masses of light and shade.
I thus educated my eye for the special object by systematic and careful
observation, and at the same time practised my hand in no less careful
delineation of all that was so distinctly presented to me by the
telescope--at the side of which my sheet of paper was handily fixed.
I became in a manner familiar with the vast variety of those distinct
manifestations of volcanic action, which at some inconceivably remote
period had produced these wonderful features and details of the moon's
surface.  So far as could be observed, there was an entire absence of
any agency of change, so that their formation must have remained
absolutely intact since the original cosmical heat of the moon had
passed rapidly into space.  The surface, with all its wondrous details,
presents the same aspect as it did probably millions of ages ago.

This consideration vastly enhances the deep interest with which we look
upon the moon and its volcanic details.  It is totally without an
atmosphere, or of a vapour envelope, such as the earth possesses,
and which must have contributed to the conservation of the cosmical
heat of the latter orb.  The moon is of relatively small mass,
and is consequently inferior in heat-retaining power.  It must thus
have parted with its original stock of cosmical heat with such rapidity
as to bring about the final termination of those surface changes which
give it so peculiar an aspect.  In the case of the earth the internal
heat still continues in operation, though in a vastly reduced degree of
activity.  Again in the case of the moon, the total absence of water as
well as atmosphere has removed from it all those denudative activities
which, in the earth, have acted so powerfully in effecting changes of
its surfaces as well as in the distribution of its materials.
Hence the appearance of the wonderful details of the moon's surface
presents us with objects of inconceivably remote antiquity.

[Image]  General structure of Lunar craters.

Another striking characteristic of the moon's surface is the enormous
magnitude of its volcanic crater formations.  In comparison with these,
the greatest on the surface of the earth are reduced to insignificance.
Paradoxical as the statement may at first appear, the magnitude of the
remains of the primitive volcanic energy in the moon is simply due to
the smallness of its mass.  Being only about one-eightieth part of the
bulk of the earth, the force of gravity on the moon's surface is only
about one-sixth.  And as eruptive force is quite independent,
as a force, of the law of gravitation, and as it acted with its full
energy on matter, which in the moon is little heavier than cork,
it was dispersed in divergent flight from the vent of the volcanoes,
free from any atmospheric resistance, and thus secured an enormously
wider dispersion of the ejected scoriae.  Hence the building up of
those enormous ring-formed craters which are seen in such vast numbers
on the moon's surface--some of them being no less than a hundred
miles in diameter, with which those of Etna and Vesuvius are the merest
molehills in comparison.

I may mention, in passing, that the frequency of a central cone within
these ring-shaped lunar craters supplies us with one of the most
distinct and unquestionable evidences of the true nature and mode of
the formation of volcanoes.

They are the result of the expiring energy of the volcanic discharge,
which, when near its termination, not having sufficient energy to eject
the matter far from its vent, becomes deposited around it, and thus
builds up the central cone as a sort of monument to commemorate its
expiring efforts.  In this way it recalls the exact features of our own
terrestrial craters, though the latter are infinitely smaller in
comparison.  When we consider how volcanoes are formed--
by the ejection and exudation of material from beneath the solid crust--
it will be seen how the lunar eminences are formed; that is, by the
forcible projection of fluid molten matter through cracks or vents,
through which it makes its way to the surface.

[Image]  Pico, an isolated Lunar Mountain 8000 feet high.

It was in reference to this very interesting subject that I made a
drawing of the great isolated volcanic mountain Pico, about 8000 feet
high.*
 [footnote...
this illustration exhibits a class of volcanic formations that may be
seen on many portions of the moon's surface.  They are what I would
term exudative volcanic mountains, the results of a comparatively
gentle discharge of volcanic matter, which has resulted in heaped up
eminences; a vast group of which were displayed in the illustration,
some of them being upwards of 20,000 feet high.
 ...]

It exhibits a very different appearance from that of our mountain
ranges, which are for the most part the result of a tangential action.
In the case of the earth, the hard stratified crust had to adapt itself
to the shrunken diameter of the once much hotter globe. This tangential
action is illustrated in our own persons, when age causes the body to
shrink in bulk, while the skin, which does not shrink to the same
extent, has to accommodate itself to the shrunken interior, and so
forms wrinkles--the wrinkles of age.  This theory opens up a chapter
in geology and physiology well worthy of consideration.  It may alike
be seen in the structure of the surface of the earth, in an old apple,
and in an old hand.*
 [footnote...
The shrunken hand on the other side is that of Mr. Nasmyth,
photographed by himself.  According to The Psychonomy of the Hand,
by R.  Beamish, F.R.S., author of The Life of Sir M. I. Brunel,
it exhibits a thoroughly mechanical hand, as well as the hand of a
delicate manipulator; illustrating that remarkable expression in the
Book of Job, that "in the hand of all the sons of men God places marks,
that all the sons of men may know their own works."--ED.
 ...]

[Image]  Shrunken Apple and Hand.*
 [footnote...
These illustrations serve to illustrate one of the most potent of
geological agencies which has given the earth's surface its grandest
characteristics.  I mean the elevation of mountain ranges through the
contraction of the globe as a whole.  By the action of gravity the
former larger surface crushes down, as it were, the contracting
interior; and the superfluous matter, which belonged to a bigger globe,
arranges itself by tangential displacement, and accommodates itself to
the altered or decreased size of the globe. Hence our mountain ranges,
which though apparently enormous when seen near at hand are merely the
wrinkles on the face of the earth.
 ...]

While earnestly studying the details of the moon's surface, it was a
source of great additional interest to me to endeavour to realise in
the mind's eye the possible landscape effect of its marvellous
elevations and depressions.  Here my artisic faculty came into
operation.  I endeavoured to illustrate the landscape.  scenery of the
Moon, in like manner as we illustrate the landscape scenery of the
Earth.  The telescope revealed to me distinctly the volcanic craters,
the cracks, and the ranges of mountains--by means of the light and
shade on the moon's surface.  One of the most prominent conditions of
the awful grandeur of lunar scenery is the brilliant light of the sun,
far transcending that which we experience upon the earth--enhanced by
the contrast with the jet-black background of the lunar heavens,--
the result of the total absence of atmosphere.  One portion of the
moon, on which the sun is shining, is brilliantly illuminated,
while all in shade is dark.

While the disc of the sun appears a vast electric light of overpowering
rayless brilliancy, every star and planet in the black vault of the
lunar heavens is shining with steady brightness at all times;
as, whether the Sun be present or absent during the long fourteen days'
length of the lunar day or night, no difference on the absolutely black
aspect of the lunar heavens can appear.  That aspect must be eternal
there.  No modification*
 [footnote...
a small degree of illumination is, however, given to some portions of
the Moon's surface by the Earth-shine, when the earth is in such a
position with regard to the Moon, as to reflect some light on to it,
as the Moon does to the earth.
 ...]
of the darkness of shadows in the Moon can result from the illuminative
effect, as in our case in the earth, from light reflected into shadows
by the blue sky of our earthly day The intensity of the contrast
between light and shade must thus lend another awful aspect to the
scenery of the Moon, while deprived of all those charming effects which
artists term "aerial perspective," by which relative distances are
rendered cognisable with such tender and exquisite beauty.  The absence
of atmosphere on the Moon causes the most distant objects to appear as
close as the nearest; while the comparatively rapid curvature of the
moon, owing to its being a globe only one-fourth the diameter of the
earth, must necessarily limit very considerably the range of view.

[Image]  Lunar Mountains and Extinct Volcanic Craters

It is the combination of all these circumstances, which we know with
absolute certainty must exist in the Moon, that gives to the
contemplation of her marvellous surface, as revealed by the aid of
powerful telescopes,--one of the grandest and most deeply interesting
subjects that can occupy our thoughts; especially when we regard the
physical constitution and the peculiar structure of her surface,
as that of our nearest planetary neighbour, and also as our serviceable
attendant by night.

Then there are the Tides, so useful to man, preserving the sanitary
condition of the river mouths and tide-swept shores.
We must be grateful for the Moon's existence on that account alone.
She is the grand scavenger and practical sanitary commissioner of the
earth. Then consider the work she does!  She moves hundreds of ships and
barges, filled with valuable cargoes, up our tidal rivers,
to the commercial cities on their banks.  She thus performs a vast
amount of daily and nightly mechanical drudgery.  She is the most
effective of all Tugs; and now that we understand the convertibility
and conservation of force, we may be able to use her Tide-producing
powers through the agency of electricity for mechanical purposes.
It is even possible that the Tides may yet light our streets and
houses!*
 [footnote...
It is not quite a century since London was in part supplied with water
by the Moon, through employing the tidal action by the waters at
Old London Bridge, where the tide mills worked the water-supplying pumps.
 ...]

Is the moon inhabited?  It seems to me that the entire absence of
atmosphere and water forbids the supposition--at least of any form of
life with which we are acquainted.  Add to this adverse condition,
the fact of the moon's day being equal to fourteen of our days;
the sun shining with much more brilliancy of effect in the moon than on
the earth, where atmosphere and moisture act as an important agent in
modifying its scorching rays; whilst no such agency exists in the moon.
The sun shines there without intermission for fourteen days and nights.
During that time the heat must accumulate to almost the melting point
of lead; while, on the other hand, the absence of the sun for an equal
period must be followed by a period of intense cold, such as we have no
experience of, even in the Arctic regions.  The highest authorities
state that the cold during the Moon's long night must reach as low as
250 degrees below the freezing point of water.  These considerations,
I think, reasonably suggest that the existence of any form of life in
the Moon is in the highest degree improbable.

The first occasion on which I exhibited my series of drawings of the
Moon, together with a map six feet in diameter of its entire visible
surface, was at the meeting of the British Association at Edinburgh in
1850.  I always looked forward to these meetings with great pleasure,
and attended them with supreme interest.  My dear wife always
accompanied me.  It was our scientific holiday.  It was also our
holiday of friendship.  We met many of our old friends, and made many
new friends.  Alas, how many of them have departed!  Herschel, Faraday,
Robinson, Taylor, Phillips, Brewster, Rosse, Fairbairn, Lassell,
and a host of minor stars, who, although perhaps wanting in the
brightness or magnitude of those I have named, made good amends by the
warmth of their cheerful rays.  We saw the younger lights emerging
above the horizon:  the men who still continue to shed their glory over
the meetings of the Association.

How delightful was our visit to Edinburgh in 1850. It was
"mine own romantic town."  I remembered its striking features so well.
There was the broad mass of the Old Town, with its endless diversity of
light and shade.  There was the grand old fortress, with its towers and
turrets and black portholes.  Towards evening the distant glories of
the departing sun threw forward, in dark outline, the wooded hill of
Corstorphine.  The rock and Castle assumed a new aspect every time I
looked at them.  The long-drawn gardens filling the valley between the
Old Town and the New, and the thickly-wooded scars of the Castle rock,
were a charm of landscape and a charm of art.  Arthur's Seat, like a
lion at rest, seemed perfect witchcraft.  And from the streets in the
New Town, or from Calton Hill, what singular glances of beauty were
observed in the distance--the gleaming waters of the Firth,
and the blue shadows among the hills of Fife.

I remembered it all, from the days in which I sat, as a child, beside
the lassies watching the "claes" on the Calton Hill and hearing the
chimes of St. Giles's tinkling across the Nor' Loch from the Old Town;
the walks, when a boy, in the picturesque country round Edinburgh,
with my father and his scientific and artistic friends; my days at the
High School, and then my evenings at the School of Arts; my castings of
brass in my bedroom, and the technical training I enjoyed in the
workshop of my old schoolfellow; my roadway locomotive and its success;
and finally, the making of my tools and machines intended for Manchester,
at the foundry of my dear old friend Douglass.  It all came back to me
like a dream.  And now, after some twenty years, I had returned to
Edinburgh on a visit to the British Association.  Many things had been
changed--many relatives and friends had departed--but still Edinburgh
remained to me as fascinating as ever.

The excursions formed our principal source of enjoyment during these
scientific gatherings.  The season was then at its happiest.
Nature was in her most enjoyable condition, and the excursionists were
usually in their holiday mood.  The meeting of the British Association
at Edinburgh was presided over by Sir David Brewster.  The geologists
visited the remarkable displays of volcanic phenomena with which the
neighbourhood of Edinburgh singularly abounds.  Indeed, Edinburgh owes
much of its picturesque beauty to volcanoes and earthquake upheavings.
Our excursions culminated in a visit to the Bass Rock. The excursion
had been carefully planned, and was successfully carried out.
The day was beautiful, and the party was of the choicest.
After reaching the little cove of Canty Bay, overlooked by the gigantic
ruins of Tantallon Castle, we were ferried across to the Bass;
through a few miles of that capricious sea, the Firth of Forth, near to
where it joins the German Ocean.  We were piloted by that fine old
British tar, Admiral Malcolm, while the commissariat was superintended
by General Pasley.

We were safely landed on that magnificent sea-girt volcanic rock--
the Bass.  After inspecting the ruins of what was once a castellated
State prison, where the Covenanters were immured for conscience' sake,
we wandered up the hill towards the summit.  There we were treated
to a short lecture by Professor Owen on the Solan Goose,
which was illustrated by the clouds of geese flying over us.
They freely exhibited their habits on land as well as in mid-air,
and skimmed the dizzy crags with graceful and apparently effortless
motions. The vast variety of seafowl screamed their utmost,
and gave a wonderfully illustrative chorus to the lecture.
It was a most impressive scene.  We were high above the deep blue sea of
the German Ocean, the waves of which leapt up as if they would sweep us
away into the depths below.

Another of our delightful excursions was made under the guidance of my
old and dear friend Robert Chambers.*
 [footnote...
I cannot pass over the mention of Robert Chambers's name without adding
that I was on terms of the most friendly intimacy with him from a very
early period of his life to its termination in 1871.
I remember when he made his first venture in business in Leith Walk.
By virtue of his industry, ability, and energy, he became a prosperous
man.  I had the happiness of enjoying his delightful and instructive
society on many occasions. We had rare cracks on all subjects, but
especially respecting old places and old characters whom we had known
at Edinburgh.  His natural aptitude to catch up the salient and most
humorous points of character, with the quaint manner in which he could
describe them, gave a vast charm to his company and conversation.
Added to which, the wide range and accuracy of his information,
acquired by his own industry and quick-witted penetration, caused the
hours spent in his society to remain among the brightest points in my
memory.
 ...]

The object of this excursion was to visit the remarkable series of
grooved and scratched rocks which had been discovered*
 [footnote...
They had been first seen, some twenty years before, by Sir James Hall,
one of the geologic lights of Edinburgh.
 ...]
on the western edge of the cliff-like boundary of Corstorphine Hill.
The glacial origin of these groovings on the rocks was then occupying
the attention of geologists.  It was a subject that Robert Chambers had
carefully studied, in the Lowlands, in the Highlands, in Rhine-land,
in Switzerland, and in Norway.  He had also published his Ancient Sea
Margins and his Tracings of the North of Europe in illustration of his
views.   He was now enabled to show us these groovings and scratchings
on the rocks near Edinburgh.  In order to render the records more
accessible, he had the heather and mossy turf carefully removed--
especially from some of the most distinct evidences of glacial
rock-grooving.  Thus no time was lost, and we immediately saw the
unquestionable markings.  Such visits as these are a thousand times
more instructive and interesting than long papers read at scientific
meetings.  They afford the best opportunity for interchange of ideas,
and directly produce an emphatic result; for one cannot cavil about
what he has seen with his eyes and felt with his hands.

We returned to the city in time to be present at a most interesting
lecture by Hugh Miller on the Boulder Clay.
He illustrated it by some scratched boulders which he had collected
in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.  He brought the subject before his
audience in his own clear and admirable viva voce style.
The Duke of Argyll was in the chair, and a very animated discussion
took place on this novel and difficult subject.
It was humorously brought to a conclusion by the Rev. Dr. Fleming,
a shrewd and learned geologist.  Like many others, he had encountered
great difficulties in arriving at definite conclusions on this
mysterious subject.  He concluded his remarks upon it by describing the
influence it had in preventing his sleeping at night.
He was so restless on one occasion that his wife became seriously alarmed.
"What's the matter wi' ye, John? are ye ill?" "On no," replied the doctor,
"it's only that confounded Bounder Clay!"  This domestic anecdote
brought down the house, and the meeting terminated in a loud and hearty
laugh.

I, too, contributed my little quota of information to the members of
the British Association.  I had brought with me from Lancashire a
considerable number of my large graphic illustrations of the details of
the Moon's surface.  I gave a viva voce account of my lunar researches
at a crowded meeting of the Physical Section A.  The novel and
interesting subject appeared to give so much satisfaction to the
audience that the Council of the Association requested me to repeat the
account at one of the special evenings, when the members of all the
various sections were generally present.  It was quite a new thing for
me to appear as a public lecturer; but I consented.  The large hall of
the Assembly Rooms in George Street was crowded with an attentive
audience.  The Duke of Argyll was in the chair.  It is a difficult
thing to give a public lecture especially to a scientific audience.
To see a large number of faces turned up, waiting for the words of the
lecturer, is a somewhat appalling sight.  But the novelty of the
subject and the graphic illustrations helped me very much.  I was quite
full of the Moon.  The words came almost unsought; and I believe the
lecture went off very well, and terminated with "great applause."
And thus the meeting of the British Association at Edinburgh came to an
end.

This, however, was not the end of our visit to Scotland.
I was strongly urged by the Duke of Argyll to pay him a visit at his
castle at Inverary.  I had frequently before had the happiness of
meeting the Duke and Duchess at the Earl of Ellesmere's mansion at
Worsley Hall He had made us promise that if we ever came to Scotland we
were not to fail to pay him a visit.  It was accordingly arranged at
Edinburgh that we should carry out our promise, and spend some days
with him at Inverary before our return home.  We were most cordially
welcomed at the castle, and enjoyed our visit exceedingly.  We had the
pleasure of seeing the splendid scenery of the Western Highlands the
mountains round the head of Loch Fyne, Loch Awe, and the magnificent
hoary-headed Ben Cruachan, requiring a base of more than twenty miles
to support him,--besides the beautiful and majestic scenery of the
neighbourhood.

But my chief interest was in the specimens of high geological interest
which the Duke showed me.  He had discovered them in the Island of Mull,
in a bed of clay shale, under a volcanic basaltic cliff over eighty feet
high, facing the Atlantic Ocean.  He found in this bed many beautifully
perfect impressions of forest tree leaves, chiefly of the plane-tree
class.  They appeared to have been enveloped in the muddy bottom of a
lake, which had been sealed up by the belching forth from the bowels of
the earth of molten volcanic basaltic lava, and which indeed formed the
chief material of the Island of Mull.  This basaltic cliff now fronts
the Atlantic, and resists its waves like a rock of iron.  To see all
the delicate veins and stalklets, and exact forms of what had once been
the green fresh foliage of a remotely primeval forest, thus brought to
light again, as preserved in their clay envelope, after they had lain
for ages and ages under what must have been the molten outburst of some
tremendous volcanic discharge, and which now formed the rock-bound
coast of Mull, filled one's mind with an idea of the inconceivable
length of time that must have passed since the production of these
Wonderful geological phenomena.

I felt all the more special interest in these specimens, as I had many
years before, on my return visit from Londonderry, availed myself of
the nearness of the Giant's Causeway to make a careful examination of
the marvellous volcanic columns in that neighbourhood. Having scrambled
up to a great height, I found a thick band of hematitic clay underneath
the upper bed of basalt, which was about sixty feet thick.  In this
clay I detected a rich deposit of completely charred branches of what
had once been a forest tree.  The bed had been burst through by the
outburst of molten basalt, and converted the branches into charcoal.
I dug out some of the specimens, and afterwards distributed them
amongst my geological friends.  The Duke was interested by my account,
which so clearly confirmed his own discovery.  On a subsequent occasion
I revisited the Giant's Causeway in company with my dear wife.
I again scrambled up to the hematitic bed of clay under the basaltic cliff,
and dug out a sufficient quantity of the charred branches, which I sent
to the Duke, in confirmation of his theory as to the origin of the
leaf-beds at Mull.*
 [footnote...

I received the following reply from the Duke of Argyll dated "Inverary,
Nov. 19, 1850": --

"MY DEAR SIR--Am I right in concluding, from the description which;
you were so kind as to send to me, that the lignite bed, with its
superincumbent basalts, lies above those particular columnar basalts
which form the far-famed Giant's Causeway?  I see from your sketch that
basalts of great thickness, and in some views beautifully columnar,
do underlie the lignite bed; but I am not quite sure that these
columnar basalts are those precisely which are called the Causeway.
I had never heard before that the Giant's Causeway rested on chalk,
which all the basalts in your sketch do.

[Image] The Astrologers Tower--A Day Dream.  By James Nasmyth.
        (Facsimile.)

"I have been showing your drawing of 'Udolpho Castle' and
'The Astrologer's Tower' to the Duchess of Sutherland, who is enchanted
with the beauty of the architectural details, and wishes she had seen
them before Dunrobin was finished; for hints might  have been taken
from bits of your work. --Very truly yours,

ARGYLL."
 ...]

In the year following the meeting of the British Association at
Edinburgh, the great Exhibition of all nations at London took place.
The Commissioners appointed for carrying out this noble enterprise had
made special visits to Manchester and the surrounding manufacturing
districts for the purpose of organising local committees, so that the
machinery and productions of each might be adequately represented in
the World's Great Industrial Exhibition.  The Commissioners were met
with enthusiasm; and nearly every manufacturer was found ready to
display the results of his industry.  The local engineers and tool-makers
were put upon their mettle, and each endeavoured to do his best.  Like
others, our firm contributed specimens of our special machine tools,
and a fair average specimen of the steam hammer, with a 30 cwt.
hammer-block.

I also sent one of my very simple and compact steam-engines, in the
design of which I had embodied the form of my steam hammer--placing the
crank where the anvil of the hammer usually stands.  The simplicity and
grace of this arrangement of the steam-engine were much admired.
Its merits were acknowledged in a way most gratifying to me,
by its rapid adoption by engineers of every class, especially by marine
engineers.  It has been adopted for driving the shafts of
screw-propelled steamships of the largest kind.  The comparatively
small space it occupies, its compactness, its get-at-ability of parts,
and the action of gravity on the piston, which, working vertically,
and having no undue action in causing wearing of the cylinder on one
side (which was the case with horizontal engines), has now brought my
Steam Hammer Engine into almost universal use*
 [footnote...
Sir John Anderson, in his Report on the machine tools, textile, and
other machinery exhibited at Vienna in 1873, makes the following
observations: --"Perhaps the finest pair of marine engines yet produced
by France, or any other country, were those exhibited by Schneider and
Company, the leading firm in France.  These engines were not large,
but were perfect in many respects; yet comparatively few of those who
were struck with admiration seemed to know that the original of this
style of construction came from the same mind as the Steam Hammer.
Nasmyth's Infant Hercules was the forerunner of all the steam hammer
engines that have yet been made from that type, which is now being so
extensively employed for working the screw propeller of steam vessels."
 ...]

The Commissioners, acting on the special recommendation of the jury,
awarded me a medal for the construction of this form of steam-engine*
 [footnote...
The Council of the Exhibition thus describe the engine in the awards: --
"Nasmyth, J., Patricroft, Manchester, a small portable direct-acting
steam-engine.  The cylinder is fixed, vertical and inverted, the crank
being placed beneath it, and the piston working downwards.
The sides of the frame which support the cylinder serve as guides,
and the bearings of the crank-shaft and fly-wheel are firmly fixed in
the bed-plate of the engine.  The arrangement is compact and economical,
and the workmanship practically good and durable."
(See illustration of the design, page 424.)
 ...]
as it was merely a judicious arrangement of the parts, and not, in any
correct sense of the term, an invention, I took out no patent for it,
and left it free to work its own way into general adoption.
It has since been used for high as well as low-pressure steam--
an arrangement which has come into much favour on account of the great
economy of fuel which results from using it.

A Council Medal was also awarded to me for the Steam Hammer.
But perhaps what pleased me most was the Prize Medal which I received
for my special hobby--the drawings of the Moon's surface.  I sent a
collection of these, with a map, to the Exhibition.  They attracted
considerable attention, not only because of their novelty, but because
of the accurate and artistic style of their execution.  The Jurors, in
making the award, gave the following description of them:  "Mr. Nasmyth
exhibits a well-delineated map of the Moon on a large scale, which is
drawn with great accuracy, the irregularities upon the surface being
shown with much force and spirit; also separate and enlarged
representations of certain portions of the Moon as seen through a
powerful telescope:  they are all good in detail, and very effective."

My drawings of the Moon attracted the special notice of the Prince
Consort.  Shortly after the closing of the Exhibition, in October 1851,
the Queen and the Prince made a visit to Manchester and Liverpool,
during which time they were the guests of the Earl of Ellesmere at
Worsley Hall.  Finding that I lived near at hand, the Prince expressed
his desire to the Earl that I should exhibit to Her Majesty some of my
graphic lunar studies.

On receiving a note to that effect from the Countess of Ellesmere,
I sent a selection of my drawings to the Hall, and proceeded there in
the evening.  I had then the honour of showing them to the Queen and
the Prince, and explaining them in detail.  Her Majesty took a deep
interest in the subject, and was most earnest in her inquiries.
The Prince Consort' said that the drawings opened up quite a new
subject to him, which he had not before had the opportunity of
considering.  It was as much as I could do to answer the numerous keen
and incisive questions which he put to me.  They were all so distinct
and cogent.  Their object was, of course, to draw from me the necessary
explanations on this rather recondite subject.  I believe, however,
that notwithstanding the presence of Royalty, I was enabled to place
all the most striking and important features of the Moon's surface in a
clear and satisfactory manner before Her Majesty and the Prince,

I find that the Queen in her Diary alludes in the most gratifying
manner to the evening's interview.  In the Life of the Prince Consort
(vol. ii. p. 398), Sir Theodore Martin thus mentions the subject: --
"The evening was enlivened by the presence of Mr. Nasmyth, the inventor
of the steam hammer, who had extensive works at Patricroft.
He exhibited and explained the map and drawings in which he had
embodied the results of his investigations of the conformations of the
surface of the Moon.  The Queen in her Diary dwells at considerable
length on the results of Mr. Nasmyth's inquiries.  The charm of his
manner, in which the simplicity, modesty, and enthusiasm of genius are
all strikingly combined, are warmly dwelt upon.  Mr. Nasmyth belongs to
a family of painters, and would have won fame for himself as an artist
--for his landscapes are as true to Nature as his compositions are
full of fancy and feeling--had not science and mechanical invention
claimed him for their own.  His drawings were submitted on this
occasion.  and their beauty was generally admired.*
 [footnote...
In his lecture on the "Geological Features of Edinburgh and its
Neighbourhood," in the following year, Hugh Miller, speaking of the
Castle Rock, observed: --"The underlying strata, though geologically
and in their original position several hundred feet higher than those
which underlie the Castle esplanade, are now, with respect to the
actual level, nearly 200 feet lower.  In a lecture on what may be
termed the geology of the Moon, delivered in the October of last year
before Her Majesty and Prince Albert by Mr. Nasmyth, he referred to
certain appearances on the surface of that satellite that seemed to be
the results, in some very ancient time, of the sudden falling in of
portions of an unsupported crust, or a retreating nucleus of molten
matter; and took occasion to suggest that some of the great slips and
shifts on the surface of our own planet, with their huge downcasts, may
have had a similar origin.  The suggestion is at once bold and ingenious."
 ...]

The next time I visited Edinburgh was in the autumn of 1853.
Lord Cockburn, an old friend, having heard that I was sojourning in the
city, sent me the following letter, dated "Bonally, 3rd September,"
inviting me to call a meeting of the Faithful:

"MY DEAR Sir--Instead of being sketching, as I thought, in Switzerland,
I was told yesterday that you were in Auld Reekie.  Then why not come
out here next Thursday, or Friday, or Saturday, and let us have a
Hill Day?  I suppose I need not write to summon the Faithful, because
not having been in Edinburgh except once for above a month, I don't
know where the Faithful are.  But you must know their haunts, and it
can't give you much trouble to speak to them.  I should like to see
Lauder here.  And don't forget the Gaberlunzie.--Ever,

H.  COCKBURN"*
 [footnote...
James Ballantine, author of The Gaberlunzie's Wallet.  In August 1865
Mr. Ballantine wrote to me saying:  "If ever you are in Auld Reekie I
should feel proud of a call from you.  I have not forgotten the
delightful day we spent together many years ago at Bonny Bonally with
the eagle-eyed Henry Cockburn!"
 ...]

The meeting came off.  I collected a number of special friends about
me, and I took my wife to the meeting of the Faithful.  There were
present David Roberts, Clarkson Stanfield, Louis and Carl Haag,
Sir George Harvey, James Ballantine, and D. O. Hill--all artists.
We made our way to Bonny Bonally, a charming residence, situated at the
foot of the Pentland Hills.*
 [footnote...
The house was afterwards occupied by the lamented Professor Hodgson,
the well-known Political Economist.
 ...]
The day was perfect--in all respects "equal to bespoke."  With that most
genial of men, Lord Cockburn, for our guide, we wandered far up the
Pentland Hills.  After a rather toilsome walk we reached a favourite
spot.  It was a semicircular hollow in the hillside, scooped out by the
sheep for shelter.  It was carpeted and cushioned with a deep bed of
wild thyme, redolent of the very essence of rural fragrance.

We sat down in a semicircle, our guide in the middle.  He said in his
quaint peculiar way, "Here endeth the first lesson."  After gathering
our breath, and settling ourselves to enjoy our well-earned rest,
we sat in silence for a time.  The gentle breeze blew past us, and we
inhaled the fragrant air.  It was enough for a time to look on, for the
glorious old city was before us, with its towers, and spires, and lofty
buildings between us and the distance.  On one side Arthur's Seat, and
on the other the Castle, the crown of the city.  The view extended far
and wide--on to the waters of the Forth and the blue hills of Fife.
The view is splendidly described by "Delta": --

 "Traced like a map, the landscape lies
 In cultured beauty, stretching wide:
 Here Pentland's green acclivities,--
 There ocean, with its swelling tide,--
 There Arthur's Seat and gleaming through
 Thy Southern wing, Dull Edin blue!
 While, in the Orient, Lammer's daughters,--
 A distant giant range, are seen;
 North Berwick Law, with cone of green,
 And Bass amid the waters."

Then we began to crack, our host leading the way with his humorous
observations.  After taking our fill of rest and talk, we wended our
way down again, with the "wimplin' burn" by our side, fresh from the
pure springs of the hill, whispering its welcome to us.

We had earned a good appetite for dinner, which was shortly laid before us.
The bill of fare was national, and included a haggis:

 "Fair fa' your honest sonsie face,
 Great chieftain o' the puddin' race!
 Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
 As lang's my arm!"

The haggis was admirably compounded and cooked, and was served forth by
our genial host with all appropriate accompaniments.  But the most
enjoyable was the conversation of Lord Cockburn, who was a master of
the art--quick ready, humorous, and full of wit.  At last, the day
came to a close, and we wended our way towards the city.

Let me, however, before concluding, say a few words in reference to my
dear departed friend David Oswald Hill.  His name calls up many
recollections of happy hours spent in his company.  He was, in all
respects, the incarnation of geniality.  His lively sense of humour,
combined with a romantic and poetic constitution of mind, and his fine
sense of the beautiful in Nature and art, together with his kindly and
genial feeling, made him, all in all, a most agreeable friend and
companion.  "D. O. Hill," as he was generally called, was much attached
to my father.  He was a very frequent visitor at our Edinburgh
fireside, and was ever ready to join in our extemporised walks and
jaunts, when he would overflow with his kindly sympathy and humour.
He was a skilful draughtsman, and possessed a truly poetic feeling for
art.  His designs for pictures were always attractive, from the fine
feeling exhibited in their composition and arrangement. But somehow,
when he came to handle the brush, the result was not always
satisfactory--a defect not uncommon with artists.  Altogether,
he was a delightful companion and a staunch friend, and his death made
a sad blank in the artistic society of Edinburgh.


CHAPTER 19.  More about Astronomy.

Astronomy, instead of merely being an amusement, became my chief study.
It occupied many of my leisure hours.  Desirous of having the advantage
of a Reflecting Telescope of large aperture, I constructed one of
twenty-inches diameter.  In order to avoid the personal risk and
inconvenience of having to mount to the eye-piece by a ladder,
I furnished the telescope tube with trunnions, like a cannon, with one
of the trunnions hollow so as to admit of the eye-piece.  Opposite to
it a plain diagonal mirror was placed, to transmit the image to the
eye.  The whole was mounted on a turn-table, having a seat opposite to
the eye-piece, as will be seen in the engraving on the other side.

[Image]  "Trunnion Vision" Reflecting telescope of 20-inch diameter
         mounted on a turn-table.

The observer, when seated, could direct the telescope to any part of
the heavens without moving from his seat.  Although this arrangement
occasioned some loss of light, that objection was more than compensated
by the great convenience which it afforded for the prosecution of the
special class of observations in which I was engaged namely, that of
the Sun, Moon, and Planets.

I wrote to my old friend Sir David Brewster, then living at St. Andrews,
in 1849, about this improvement and he duly congratulated me upon my
devotion to astronomical science.  In his letter to me he brought to
mind many precious memories.

"I recollect," he said, "with much pleasure the many happy hours that I
spent in your father's house; and ever since I first saw you in your
little workshop at Edinburgh,--then laying the foundation of your
future fortunes,--I have felt a deep interest in your success, and
rejoiced at your progress to wealth and reputation.

"I have perused with much pleasure the account you have sent me of your
plan of shortening and moving large telescopes, and I shall state to
you the opinion which I have formed of it.  If you will look into the
article 'Optics' in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia (vol. xv. p. 643),
you will find an account of what has been previously done to reduce by
one-half the length of reflecting telescopes.  The advantage of
substituting, as you propose, a convex for a plane mirror arises from
two causes that a spherical surface is more easily executed than a
plane one; and that the spherical aberration of the larger speculum,
if it be spherical, will be diminished by the opposite aberration of
the convex one.  This advantage, however, will disappear if the plane
mirror of the old construction is accurately plane; and in your case,
if the large speculum is parabolic and the small one elliptical in
their curvature.

"The only objection to your construction is the loss of light;
first of one-fourth of the whole incident light by obstruction, and
then one-half of the remainder by reflection from the convex mirror,
thus reducing 100 rays of incident light to 37 1/2 before the pencil is
thrown out of the tube by a prism or a third reflector.  This loss of
light, it is true, may be compensated by an additional inch or two to
the margin of the large speculum; but still it is the best part of the
large speculum that is made unproductive by the eclipse of it by the
convex speculum.  "With regard to the mechanical contrivance which you
propose for working the instrument, I think it is singularly ingenious
and beautiful, and will compensate for any imperfection in the optical
arrangements which are rendered necessary for its adoption.
The application of the railway turn-table is very happy, and not less
so is the extraction of the image through the hollow trunnions.

"I am much obliged to you for the beautiful drawing of the apparatus
for grinding and polishing specula, invented by Mr. Lassell and
constructed by yourself.  I shall be glad to hear of your further
progress in the construction of your telescope; and I trust that I
shall have the pleasure of meeting you and Mr. Lassell at the
Birmingham meeting of the British Association.

In the course of the same year (1849) I sent a model of my Trunnion
turn-table telescope for exhibition at a lecture at the Royal
Institution, given by my old friend Edward Cowper.  In the model I had
placed a neat little figure of the observer, but the head had
unfortunately been broken off during its carriage to London.
Mrs. Nasmyth had made the wearing apparel; but Edward Cowper wrote to
her, before the lecture, that he had put "Sir Fireside Brick" all to
rights in respect of his garb.  His letter after the lecture was quite
characteristic.

"The lecture," he said, "went off very well last night.
All the models performed their duty, and were duly applauded for doing so.
My new equatorial was approved of by astronomers and by instrument-makers.
The last gun I fired was a howitzer, but mounted swivel-gun fashion;
on a sort of revolving platform, or something like a turn-table proper
--the gunner at the side of the carriage.  Do you know anything of the
kind?  Bang!  Invented by one Nasmyth.  Bang!  The observer is sitting at
ease; the stars are brought down to you instead of your creeping up a
scaffolding after the stars.  Well, the folks came to the table after
the lecture, and 'The Nasmyth Telescope' kept banging away for a
quarter of an hour, and was admired by everybody.  The loss of light
was not much insisted on, but it was said that you ran the risk of
error of form in three surfaces instead of two.  I see that Sir J. South
states that Lord Rosse would increase the light of his telescope from
five to seven by adopting Herschel's plan.

"De La Rue was quite delighted.  He said, 'Well, I congratulate you on
a most splendid lecture--I cannot call it anything else.' My father,
who takes very little interest in these things, said, 'Well, Edward has
made me understand more about telescopes than I ever did in my life.'
The theatre was full, gallery and all.  They were very attentive,
and I never felt more comfortable in a lecture.  I am happy to say that,
having administered a dose of cement to Mrs. Nasmyth's friend,
Sir Fireside Brick of Green Lanes, he is now in a convalescent state.
The lecture is to be repeated in another fortnight.  With many thanks
for your kind assistance, yours very sincerely,

"EDWARD COWPER."

In the course of my astronomical inquiries I had occasion to consider
the causes of the sun's light.  I observed the remarkable phenomena of
the variable and some times transitory brightness of the stars.  In
connection with geology, there was the evidence of an arctic or glacial
climate in regions where such cannot now naturally exist; thus giving
evidence of the existence of a condition of climate, for the
explanation of which we look in vain for any at present known cause.
I wrote a paper on the subject, which I sent to the Astronomical
Society.  It was read in May 1851.  In that paper I wrote as follows: