James Nasmyth: Engineer; an autobiography Part 25

This plan was at once adopted. Messrs. Fox and Henderson, the well-known railway roofing contractors, were entrusted with the order; and in a very short time the a.r.s.enal was provided with a n.o.ble set of light and airy workshops, giving ample accommodation for present requirements, as well as surplus s.p.a.ce for many years to come.

In order to supply steam power to each of these beautiful workshops, and for working the various machines placed within them, I reverted to my favourite system of small separate steam-engines. This was adopted, and the costly ranges of shafting that would otherwise have been necessary were entirely dispensed with.

A series of machine tools of the most improved modern construction, specially adapted for the various cla.s.ses of work carried on in the a.r.s.enal, together with improved ranges of smiths' forge hearths, blown by an air blast supplied by fans of the best construction, and a suitable supply of small hand steam hammers, completed the arrangements; and quite a new era in the forge work of the a.r.s.enal was begun.

I showed the managers and the workmen the docile powers of the steam hammer, in producing in a few minutes, by the aid of dies, many forms in wrought-iron that had heretofore occupied hours of the most skilful smiths, and that, too, in much more perfect truth and exact.i.tude.

Both masters and men were delighted with the result: and as such precise and often complex forms of wrought-iron work were frequently required by hundreds at a time for the equipment of naval gun carriages and other purposes, it was seen that the steam hammer must henceforward operate as a powerful auxiliary in the productions of the a.r.s.enal.

In the introduction of all these improvements I received the frank and cordial encouragement of the chief officers of the Board of Ordnance and Admiralty. My suggestions were zealously carried out by Colonel J. N. Colquhoun, then head of the chief mechanical department of the Ordnance works at Woolwich. He was one of the most clear-headed and intelligent men I have ever met with. He had in a special degree that happy power of inspiring his zeal and energy into all who worked under his superintendence, whether foremen or workmen. A wonderfully sympathetic effect is produced when the directing head of the establishment is possessed of the valuable faculty of cheerful and well-directed energy. It works like an electric thrill, and soon pervades the whole department. I may also mention General Dundas, director of the Royal Gun-Factory, and General Hardinge, head of the Royal Laboratories.*

[footnote...

The term "Laboratory" may appear an odd word to use in connection with machinery and mechanical operations. Yet its original signification was quite appropriate, inasmuch as it related to the preparation of explosive substances, such as sh.e.l.ls, rockets, fusees, cartridges, and percussion caps, where chemistry was as much concerned as mechanism in producing the required results.

This latter department included all processes connected with explosives.

It was superintended by Captain Boxer, an officer of the highest talent and energy, who brought everything under his control to the highest pitch of excellence. I must also add a most important person, my old and much esteemed friend John Anderson, then general director of the Machinery of the a.r.s.enal. He was an admirable mechanic, a man of clear practical good sense and judgment, and he eventually raised himself to the highest position in the public service.

The satisfactory performance of the machinery which had been supplied to the workshops of the royal dock yards and a.r.s.enals, led to further demands for similar machinery for foreign Governments. Foreign visitor were allowed freely to inspect all that had been done whatever may be said of the wisdom of this proceeding it is certainly true that no mechanical improvement can long be kept secret nowadays. Everything is published and ill.u.s.trated in our engineering journals. And if the foreigners had not been allowed to obtain their new machines from England, they were provided with facilities enough for constructing them for themselves. At all events, one result of the improved working of the new machines at the Royal a.r.s.enal at Woolwich, was the receipt of large orders for our firm for the supply of foreign Governments.

For instance, that of Spain employed us liberally, princ.i.p.ally tor the equipment of the royal dockyards of Ferrol and Cartagena.

These orders came to us through Messrs. Zuluatta Brothers, who conducted their proceedings with us in a prompt and business-like way for many years. Through the same firm we obtained orders to furnish machinery for the Spanish royal dockyard at Havana.

In 1849 we received an extensive order from the Russian Government.

This was transmitted to us through the Imperial Consulate in London.

The machinery was required for the equipment of a very extensive rope factory at the naval a.r.s.enal of Nicolaiev, on the Black Sea This order included all the machinery requisite for the factory, from the heckling of the hemp to the twisting of the largest ropes and cables required in the Russian naval service. The design and organisation of this machinery in its minutest detail caused me to made a special study of the art of rope-making. It was a comparatively new subject to me; but I found it full of interest. It was difficulty, and therefore to be overcome.

And in this lies a great deal of the pleasure of contriving and inventing.

During the progress of the work I had the advantage of the frequent presence of an able Russian officer, Captain Putchkraskey, whose intelligent supervision was a source of much satisfaction.

We had also occasional visits from Admiral Kornileff, a man of the highest order of intelligence. He was not only able to appreciate our exertions to execute the order in first-rate style, but to enter into all the special details and contrivances of the work while in progress.

I had often occasion to meet Russian officers while at the Bridgewater Foundry. They were usually men of much ability, selected by the Russian Government to act as their agents abroad, in order to keep them well posted up in all that had a bearing upon their own interests.

They certainly reflected the highest credit on their Government, as proving their careful selection of the best men to advance the interests of Russia.

During the visit of the Grand Duke Constantine to England about that time, he resided for some days with the Earl of Ellesmere at Worsley Hall, about a mile and a half from Bridgewater Foundry.

We were favoured with several visits from the Grand Duke, accompanied by Baron Brunnow, Admiral Hoyden, and several other Russian officials.

They came by Lord Ellesmere's beautiful barge, which drew up alongside our wharf, where the party landed and entered the works. The Grand Duke carefully inspected the whole place, and expressed himself as greatly pleased with the complete mastery which man had obtained over obdurate materials, through the unfailing agency of mechanical subst.i.tutes for manual dexterity and muscular force.

I was invited to meet this distinguished party at Worsley Hall on more than one occasion, and was much pleased with the frank and intelligent conversation of the Grand Duke, in his reference to what he had seen in his visits to our works. It was always a source of high pleasure to me to receive visits from Lord Ellesmere, as he was generally accompanied by men of distinction who were well able to appreciate the importance of what had been displayed before them. The visits, for instance, of Rajah Brooke, the Earl of Elgin, the Duke of Argyll, Chevalier Bunsen, and Count Flahault, stand out bright in my memory.

But to return to my rope-making machinery. It was finished to the satisfaction of the Russian officers. It was sent off by ship to the Black Sea in July 1851, and fitted up at Nicolaiev shortly after.

I received a kind and pressing invitation from Admiral Kornileff to accompany him on the first trip of a magnificent steamer which had been constructed in England under his supervision. His object was, not only that I might have a pleasant voyage in his company, but that I might see my machinery in full action at Nicolaiev, and also that I might make a personal survey of the a.r.s.enal workshops at Sebastopol.

It would, no doubt, have been a delightful trip, but it was not to be.

The unfortunate disruption occurred between our Government and that of Russia, which culminated in the disastrous Crimean War.

One of the first victims was Admiral Kornileff. He was killed by one of our first shots while engaged in placing some guns for the defence of the entrance to the harbour of Sebastopol.

CHAPTER 18. Astronomical pursuits.

Let me turn for a time from the Foundry, the whirr of the self-acting tools, and the sound of the steam hammers, to my quieter pursuits at home.

There I had much tranquil enjoyment in the company of my dear wife.

I had many hobbies. Drawing was as familiar to me as language.

Indeed, it was often my method of speaking. It has always been the way in which I have ill.u.s.trated my thoughts. In the course of my journeys at home and abroad I made many drawings of places and objects, which were always full of interest, to me at least; and they never ceased to bring up a store of happy remembrances.

Now and then I drew upon my fancy, and with pen and ink I conjured up "The Castle of Udolpho," " A Bit of Old England," "The Fairies are Out,"

and "Everybody for Ever." The last is crowded with thousands of figures and heads, so that it is almost impossible to condense the drawing into a small compa.s.s. To these I added "The Alchemist," "Old Mortality,"

"Robinson Crusoe," and a bit of English scenery, which I called "Gathering Sticks." I need not say with how much pleasure I executed these drawings in my evening hours. They were not "published," but I drew them with lithographic ink, and had them printed by Mr. Maclure.

I afterwards made presents of the series to some of my most intimate friends.

[Image] The Antiquarian. By James Nasmyth (Facsimile)

In remembrance of the great pleasure which I had derived from the perusal of Washington Irving's fascinating works, I sent him a copy of my sketches. His answer was charming and characteristic.

His letter was dated " Sunnyside," Ma.s.sachusetts, where he lived.

He said (17th January 1859):

DEAR SIR--Accept my most sincere and hearty thanks for the exquisite fancy sketches which you have had the kindness to send me, and for the expressions of esteem and regard in the letter which accompanied them.

It is indeed a heartfelt gratification to me to think that I have been able by any exercise of my pen to awaken such warm and delicate sympathies, and to call forth such testimonials of pleasure and approbation from a person of your cultivated taste and intellectual elevation. With high respect and regard, I remain, nay dear sir, your truly obliged friend, Washington Irving."

[Image] The Fairies. By James Nasmyth. (Facsimile)

Viscount Duncan, afterwards Earl Camperdown, also acknowledged receipt of the drawings in a characteristic letter. He said: --"We are quite delighted with them, especially with 'The Fairies,' which a lady to whom I showed them very nearly stole, as she declared that it quite realised her dreams of fairyland. I am only surprised that amidst your numerous avocations you have found time to execute such detailed works of art; and I shall have much pleasure in being reminded as I look at the drawings that the same hand and head that executed them invented the steam hammer, and many other gigantic pieces of machinery which will tend to immortalise the Anglo-saxon race."

But my most favourite pursuit, after my daily exertions at the Foundry, was Astronomy. There were frequently clear nights when the glorious objects in the Heavens were seen in most attractive beauty and brilliancy.

I cannot find words to express the thoughts which the impressive grandeur of the Stars, seen in the silence of the night, suggested to me; especially when I directed my Telescope, even at random, on any portion of the clear sky, and considered that each Star of the mult.i.tude it revealed to me, was a SUN! the centre of a system!

Myriads of such stars, invisible to the una.s.sisted eye, were rendered perfectly distinct by the aid of the telescope. The magnificence of the sight was vastly increased when the telescope was directed to any portion of the Milky Way. It revealed such countless mult.i.tudes of stars that I had only to sit before the eyepiece, and behold the endless procession of these glorious objects pa.s.s before me.

The motion of the earth a.s.sisted in changing this scene of inexpressible magnificence, which reached its climax when some object such as the "Cl.u.s.ter in Hercules" came into sight. The component stars are so crowded together there as to give the cl.u.s.ter the appearance of a gray spot; but when examined with a telescope of large aperture, it becomes resolved into such myriads of stars as to defy all attempts to count them. Nothing can convey to the mind, in so awful and impressive a manner, the magnificent and infinite extent of Creation, and the inconceivable power of its Creator!

I had already a slight acquaintance with Astronomy. My father had implanted in me the first germs. He was a great admirer of that sublimest of sciences. I had obtained a sufficient amount of technical knowledge to construct in 1827 a small but very effective reflecting telescope of six inches diameter. Three years later I initiated Mr. Maudslay into the art and mystery of making a reflecting telescope.

I then made a speculum of ten inches diameter, and but for the unhappy circ.u.mstance of his death in 1831, it would have been mounted in his proposed observatory at Norwood. After I had settled down at Fireside, Patricroft, I desired to possess a telescope of considerable power in order to enjoy the tranquil pleasure of surveying the heavens in their impressive grandeur at night.

As I had all the means and appliances for casting specula at the factory, I soon had the felicity of embodying all my former self-acquired skill in this fine art by producing a very perfect casting of a ten-inch diameter speculum. The alloy consisted of fifteen parts of pure tin and thirty-two parts of pure copper, with one part of a.r.s.enic. It was cast with perfect soundness, and was ground and polished by a machine which I contrived for the purpose.

The speculum was so brilliant that when my friend William La.s.sell saw it, he said "it made his mouth water." It was about this time (1840) that I had the great happiness of becoming acquainted with Mr. La.s.sell,*

[footnote...

Mr. La.s.sell was a man of superb powers. Like many others who have done so much for astronomy, he started as an amateur. He was first apprenticed to a merchant at Liverpool. He then began business as a brewer. Eventually he devoted himself to astronomy and astronomical mechanics. When in his twenty-first year he began constructing reflecting telescopes for himself. He proceeded to make a Newtonian of nine inches aperture, which he erected in an observatory at his residence near Liverpool, happily named "Starfield."

With this instrument he worked diligently, and detected the sixth star in the trapezium of Orion. In 1844 he conceived the bold idea of constructing a reflector of two feet aperture, and twenty feet focal length, to be mounted equatorially. Sir John Herschel, in mentioning Mr. La.s.sell's work, did me the honour of saying "that in Mr Nasmyth he was fortunate to find a mechanist capable of executing in the highest perfection all his conceptions, and prepared by his own love of astronomy and practical acquaintance with astronomical observations, and with the construction of specula, to give them their full effect."

With this fine instrument Mr. La.s.sell discovered the satellite of Neptune. He also discovered the eighth satellite of Saturn, of extreme minuteness, as well as two additional satellites of Ura.n.u.s.

But perhaps his best work was done at Malta with a much larger telescope, four feet in aperture, and thirty-seven feet focus, erected there in 1861. He remained at Malta for three years, and published a catalogue of 600 new nebulae, which will be found in the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society. One of his curious sayings was, "I have had a great deal to do with opticians, some of them--like Cooke of York--are really opticians; but the greater number of them are merely shopticians!"

and profiting by his devotion to astronomical pursuits and his profound knowledge of the subject. He had acquired much technical skill in the construction of reflecting telescopes, and the companionship between us was thus rendered very agreeable. There was an intimate exchange of opinions on the subject, and my friendship with him continued during forty successive years. I was perhaps a little ahead of him in certain respects. I had more practical knowledge of casting, for I had begun when a boy in my bedroom at Edinburgh. In course of time I contrived many practical "dodges" (if I may use such a word), and could nimbly vault over difficulties of a special kind which had hitherto formed a barrier in the way of amateur speculum makers when fighting their way to a home-made telescope. I may mention that I know of no mechanical pursuit in connection with science, that offers such an opportunity for practising the technical arts, as that of constructing from first to last a complete Newtonian or Gregorian Reflecting Telescope.

Such an enterprise brings before the amateur a succession of the most interesting and instructive mechanical arts, and obliges the experimenter to exercise the faculty of delicate manipulation.

If I were asked what course of practice was the best to instil a true taste for refined mechanical work, I should say, set to and make for yourself from first to last a reflecting telescope with a metallic speculum. Buy nothing but the raw material, and work your way to the possession of a telescope by means of your own individual labour and skill. If you do your work with the care, intelligence, and patience that is necessary, you will find a glorious reward in the enhanced enjoyment of a night with the heavens--all the result of your own ingenuity and handiwork. It will prove a source of abundant pleasure and of infinite enjoyment for the rest of your life.

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 n.o.ble 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 surpa.s.sing 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 Ca.n.a.l, 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.