ave for a school companion the son
of an iron founder. Every spare hour that I could command was devoted
to visits to his father's iron foundry, where I delighted to watch the
various processes of moulding, iron-melting, casting, forging,
pattern-making, and other smith and metal work; and although I was only
about twelve years old at the time, I used to lend a hand, in which
hearty zeal did a good deal to make up for want of strength. I look
back to the Saturday afternoons spent in the workshops of that small
foundry, as an important part of my education. I did not trust to
reading about such and such things; I saw and handled them; and all the
ideas in connection with them became permanent in my mind. I also
obtained there--what was of much value to me in after life--a
considerable acquaintance with the nature and characters of workmen.
By the time I was fifteen, I could work and turn out really respectable
jobs in wood, brass, iron, and steel: indeed, in the working of the
latter inestimable material, I had at a very early age (eleven or
twelve) acquired considerable proficiency. As that was the pre-lucifer
match period, the possession of a steel and tinder box was quite a
patent of nobility among boys. So I used to forge old files into
'steels' in my father's little workshop, and harden them and produce
such first-rate, neat little articles in that line, that I became quite
famous amongst my school companions; and many a task have I had excused
me by bribing the monitor, whose grim sense of duty never could
withstand the glimpse of a steel.

"My first essay at making a steam engine was when I was fifteen. I
then made a real working; steam-engine, 1 3/4 diameter cylinder, and 8
in. stroke, which not only could act, but really did some useful work;
for I made it grind the oil colours which my father required for his
painting. Steam engine models, now so common, were exceedingly scarce
in those days, and very difficult to be had; and as the demand for them
arose, I found it both delightful and profitable to make them; as well
as sectional models of steam engines, which I introduced for the
purpose of exhibiting the movements of all the parts, both exterior and
interior. With the results of the sale of such models I was enabled to
pay the price of tickets of admission to the lectures on natural
philosophy and chemistry delivered in the University of Edinburgh.
About the same time (1826) I was so happy as to be