Part 27 (1/2)

We returned to the city in tih Miller on the Boulder Clay

He illustrated it by sohbourhood of Edinburgh He brought the subject before his audience in his own clear and adyll was in the chair, and a very animated discussion took place on this novel and difficult subject

It was hu, a shrewd and learned geologist Likeat definite conclusions on this mysterious subject He concluded his re 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 do terh

I, too, contributed my little quota of information to the ht with raphic illustrations of the details of the Moon's surface I gave a viva voce account ofof 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 s, when the enerally present It was quite a new thing for e hall of the assee Street was croith 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 nu for the words of the lecturer, is a soht But the novelty of the subject and the graphic illustrations helped me very much I was quite full of the Moon The words caht; and I believe the lecture went off very well, and ter 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 ofthe 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 ere not to fail to pay hih that we should carry out our promise, and spend some days with him at Inverary before our return home We were most cordially welcoly We had the pleasure of seeing the splendid scenery of the Western Highlands the nificent hoary-headed Ben Cruachan, requiring a base of more than twenty miles to support hihbourhood

But ical 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 botto 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 fore of a reain, as preserved in their clay envelope, after they had lain for ages and ages under what must have been the e, and which now formed the rock-bound coast of Mull, filled one's th of time that eological 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 exahbourhood Having scraht, 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 sost ical 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 coain scrambled up to the he out a sufficient quantity of the charred branches, which I sent to the Duke, in confirin of the leaf-beds at Mull

[footnote

I received the following reply froyll dated ”Inverary, Nov 19, 1850”: --

”MY DEAR SIR--A, from the description which; you were so kind as to send to nite bed, with its superincumbent basalts, lies above those particular columnar basalts which form the far-fareat thickness, and in sonite 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

[Iers Tower--A Day Dream By Ja 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 theht have been taken from bits of your work --Very truly yours,

ARGYLL”

In the year following the reat Exhibition of all nations at London took place

The Co out this noble enterprise hadlocal coht 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 specie specimen of the steam hammer, with a 30 cwt

hammer-block

I also sent one of n of which I had e the crank where the anvil of the haeine were ed in a way ineers of every class, especially bythe shafts of screw-propelled steaest kind The coet-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 ine into almost universal use

[footnote

Sir John Anderson, in his Report on the machine tools, textile, and otherobservations: --”Perhaps the finest pair of ines yet produced by France, or any other country, were those exhibited by Schneider and Coe, but were perfect in many respects; yet comparatively few of those ere struck with adinal of this style of construction came from the same mind as the Steam Hammer

Nasmyth's Infant Hercules was the forerunner of all the steaines that have yet beenso extensively e the screw propeller of stea on the special recommendation of the jury, awarded ine

[footnote

The Council of the Exhibition thus describe the engine in the awards: -- ”Nasmyth, J, Patricroft, Manchester, a sine The cylinder is fixed, vertical and inverted, the crank being placed beneath it, and the piston working doards