s "Blast Furnace" and "Blowing
Machine" for Rees's Cyclopaedia. The two latter articles had a
considerable influence on the opposition to the intended tax upon iron
in 1807, and were frequently referred to in the discussions on the
subject in Parliament. Mr. Mushet died in 1847.

[1] Dr. Roebuck's grandson, John Arthur Roebuck, by a singular
coincidence, at present represents Sheffield in the British Parliament.

[2] The carronade was invented by General Robert Melville [Mr. Nasmyth
says it was by Miller of Dalswinton], who proposed it for discharging
68 lb, shot with low charges of powder, in order to produce the
increased splintering or SMASHING effects which were known to result
from such practice. The first piece of the kind was cast at the Carron
Foundry, in 1779, and General Melville's family have now in their
possession a small model of this gun, with the inscription:--"Gift of
the Carron Company to Lieutenant-general Melville, inventor of the
smashers and lesser carronades, for solid, ship, shell, and carcass
shot, &c. First used against French ships in 1779."

[3] Wilkie the painter once paid him a visit there while in Scotland
studying the subject of his "Penny Wedding;" and Dugald Stewart found
for him the old farm-house with the cradle-chimney, which he introduced
in that picture. But Kinneil House has had its imaginary inhabitants
as well as its real ones, the ghost of a Lady Lilburn, once an occupant
of the place, still "haunting" some of the unoccupied chambers. Dugald
Stewart told Wilkie one night, as he was going to bed, of the unearthly
wailings which he himself had heard proceeding from the ancient
apartments; but to him at least they had been explained by the door
opening out upon the roof being blown in on gusty nights, when a
jarring and creaking noise was heard all over the house. One advantage
derived from the house being "haunted" was, that the garden was never
broken into, and the winter apples and stores were at all times kept
safe from depredation in the apartments of the Lady Lilburn.

[4] Dr. Roebuck had been on the brink of great good fortune, but he did
not know it. Mr. Ralph Moore, in his "Papers on the Blackband
Ironstones" (Glasgow, 1861), observes:--"Strange to say, he was leaving
behind him, almost as the roof of one of the seams of coal which he
worked, a valuable blackband ironstone, upon which Kinneil Iron Works
are now founded. The coal-field continued to be worke