hich he began business in Manchester were
made by his own hands in his father's little workshop at Edinburgh, He
was on one occasion "hard up" for brass with which to make a wheel for
his planing machine. There was a row of old-fashioned brass
candlesticks standing in bright array on the kitchen mantelpiece which
he greatly coveted for the purpose. His father was reluctant to give
them up; "for," said he, "I have had many a crack with Burns when these
candlesticks were on the table." But his mother at length yielded;
when the candlesticks were at once recast, and made into the wheel of
the planing machine, which is still at work in Manchester.

[3] Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts, ii. 739.

[4] Matsys' beautiful wrought-iron well cover, still standing in front
of the cathedral at Antwerp, and Rukers's steel or iron chair exhibited
at South Kensington in 1862, are examples of the beautiful hammer work
turned out by the artisans of the middle ages. The railings of the
tombs of Henry VII. and Queen Eleanor in Westminster Abbey, the hinges
and iron work of Lincoln Cathedral, of St. George's Chapel at Windsor,
and of some of the Oxford colleges, afford equally striking
illustrations of the skill of our English blacksmiths several centuries
ago.

[5] Mr. Nasmyth has lately introduced, with the assistance of Mr.
Wilson of the Low Moor Iron Works, a new, exceedingly ingenious, and
very simple contrivance for working the hammer. By this application
any length of stroke, any amount of blow, and any amount of variation
can be given by the operation of a single lever; and by this
improvement the machine has attained a rapidity of action and change of
motion suitable to the powers of the engine, and the form or
consistency of the articles under the hammer.--Mr. FAIRBAIRN'S Report
on the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855, p. 100.

[6] See Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of
Manchester, 3rd series, vol. 1. 407.

[7] Sir John Herschel adds, "Spots of not very irregular, and what may
be called compact form, covering an area of between seven and eight
hundred millions of square miles, are by no means uncommon. One spot
which I measured in the year 1837 occupied no less than three thousand
seven hundred and eighty millions, taking in all the irregularities of
its form; and the black space or nucleus in the middle of one very
nearly round one would have allowed the earth to drop through it,
leaving a thousand clea