Runcorn, so as to connect Liverpool and Manchester by water in a thoroughly practical way. The distance to be accomplished was thirty miles, and there were two rivers and many deep and wide valleys to be crossed, the one by aqueducts, the other by broad and lofty embankments. Notwithstanding these obstacles, the undertaking was completed in five years. There were but ten locks on the whole line, and these were constructed on such easy principles that they could be worked with little or no delay. The next in order to the Bridgewater canals was that which the proprietors designed to call the Trent and Mersey Canal, but to which Brindley gave the name of the Grand Trunk, because he was convinced that many branches would be extended from it, as was subsequently the case. This work was ninety-three miles in length, united the ports of Hull and Liverpool, and required seventy-six locks, three aqueducts, and five tunnels to carry it through the route. Here was an opportunity for the display of the highest engineering skill, and Brindley availed himself of it with avidity. An eminence called Harecastle Hill was considered the great obstacle of the line. Brindley made up his mind that it should be tunneled, and, notwithstanding innumerable difficulties, arising from the nature of the soil, succeeded in boring the hill at the distance of seventy yards from the surface. The tunnel is more than a mile and a half long.

Now that the entire practicability of canal navigation had been fully established, Brindley found himself overwhelmed with business. His enthusiasm led him to undertake more than he could well attend to without encroaching on his constitution. He was destined to fall a martyr to the cause in which he was engaged. For some years previous to his death he suffered constantly from intermittent fever, aggravated, of course, by frequent exposure to moist, unwholesome atmospheres. His system became completely worn out, and on the 27th of September, 1772, he died, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.

The character of Brindley was quiet, modest, and unassuming. Devoted entirely to his occupations, and accustomed to find every resource within himself, he did not cultivate society, or feel much at home in it. His appearance was rather against him than otherwise, being boorish and provincial; but his conversation is described as pleasing, and strongly colored with the warm imagination of a man who would not see an impossibility. During the latter years of his life, his whole soul was absorbed in specula

tions respecting canals; he meditated on them not only by day, but dreamed of them by night. Most of his schemes were remarkable for their vastness and practicability, but, in common with other ingenious men, he had his wild dreams of the impracticable. To this order belonged his scheme for uniting Ireland to England by means of a navigable canal. He had such faith in aqueducts that he believed even the sea might be spanned by them. A funny circumstance is recorded concerning the fixity of his ideas on these subjects. While he was under examination before a committee of the House of Commons, he spoke so slightingly of rivers that a member asked him for what purpose he supposed them to have been created. "To feed navigable canals," replied Brindley. Once, and but once in his life, he saw a play. It happened while he was in London, and for several days afterward he complained that it had confused his ideas and unfitted him for business. So strong and disagreeable was the effect produced, that he declared nothing on earth should ever induce him to see another play.

When any extraordinary difficulty occurred to Mr. Brindley in the execution of his works, having little or no assistance from books, or the labors of other men, his resources lay within himself. In order, therefore, to be quiet and uninterrupted while he was in search of the necessary expedients, he generally retired to his bed; and he has been known to lie there one, two, or three days, till he had attained the object in view. He would then get up, and execute his design without any drawing or model. Indeed, it never was his custom to make either, unless he was obliged to do it to satisfy his employers. His memory was so remarkable, that he often declared he could remember and execute all the parts of the most complex machine, provided he had time, in his survey of it, to settle in his mind the several departments, and their relations to each other. His method of calculating the powers of any machine invented by him was peculiar to himself. He worked the question for some time in his head, and then put down the results in figures. After this, taking it up again in this stage, he worked it further in his mind for a certain time, and set down the results as before. In the same way he still proceeded, making use of figures only at stated periods of the question. Yet the ultimate result was generally true, though the road he traveled in search of it was unknown to any one but himself; and perhaps it would not have been in his power to have shown it to another.

was the son of a shoemaker, and was born in London on the 10th of December, 1745. The paternal Holcroft was, in many respects, a remarkable character. He possessed a passion for making experiments in all sorts of businesses; he dealt in greens and oysters as well as shoes, and, finding that this was not sufficient, he added the undignified calling of horse-dealer. For this latter business he conceived a strong affection, which manifested itself in an ardent desire to teach Master Thomas to ride. When the latter was very young, his father discarded his petticoats, and placed him in pantaloons, in order that he might straddle a horse in the proper way. One accomplishment led to another. elder Holcroft conceived a fresh notion that his son was a great musical genius, and immediately placed him under the tuition of a violin player. What progress he made in the instrument is unknown, but he says himself that at the age of seven he had wholly forgotten all he had learned.

About this time a change took place in his father's circumstances, and he left London in great embarrassment. The fam

ily removed to Berkshire, where Thomas obtained a small amount of schooling. This was the most remarkable era in his life, and he notes it with enthusiasm. He made such rapid progress, and gave such extraordinary evidence of a remarkable memory, that his father was completely astonished, and made him a show-child. He imposed heavy tasks on him too, and set him eleven chapters of the Bible to learn every day. A neighboring farmer caught the youth with his Bible in his hand, and asked him if he could read already. Holcroft answered yes, began at the place where the book was open, read fluently, and afterward told him that, if he pleased, he should hear the tenth chapter of Nehemiah. At this the farmer seemed still more amazed, and, wishing to be convinced, bade him read. After listening till he found he could really pronounce the uncouth Hebrew names so much better and more easily than he supposed to be within the power of so young a child, he patted his head, gave him a penny, and said he was an uncommon boy. "It would be hard to say," writes Holcroft, "whether his praise or his gift was the most flattering to me."

After a short residence in Berkshire, Holcroft's family led a wandering sort of life, and eventually settled once more in London, in very straitened circumstances. So poor were they, indeed, that Mrs. Holcroft had to turn peddler, and vended pins, needles, tape, etc., through the streets, accompanied by her son, who trotted after her. Notwithstanding these exertions, it seemed impossible to make a living in the metropolis, and the family started on a peddling tour through the provinces. They came at length to a village which Holcroft thought remarkably clean, and which Mr. Holcroft pronounced to be the handsomest in the kingdom. "We must have been very poor at this time," says the author, "for it was here that I was sent one day by myself to beg from house to house. Young as I was, I had considerable readiness in making out a story, and on this day my little inventive faculties shone forth with much brilliancy. I told one story at one house, and another at another, and continued to vary my tale just as the suggestions arose. The consequence was, I moved the good people exceedingly. One called me a poor fatherless child; another exclaimed, 'What a pity! I had so much sense;' a third patted me on the head, and prayed God to bless me, that I might make a good man. The result of this expedition was that I brought away as much as I could carry to the place of

We have not the space to follow Smith in all his bold adventures, although they are eminently interesting, and characterized by the noble bearing, courage, and disinterestedness of his chivalric nature. It must suffice that under his rule the colony became as prosperous as it was possible for it to become with such a strange population of worthless, ill-tempered, idle fellows. Quantities of tar, pitch, and soap ashes were collected; a successful experiment was made in the manufacture of glass; twenty new houses were built, with a more convenient church; and nets for fishing were manufactured. To defend themselves, the colonists also erected two or three wooden forts, or block-houses, and, to provide for the next year, planted nearly forty acres with vegetables and grain. Altogether the prospects were cheering to every one except the London speculators, who, not having received large cargoes of virgin gold or bags full of precious stones, were greatly dissatisfied with the way things had been managed. To such an extent did they carry their dissatisfaction, that in 1609 they obtained a new charter from the king, annulling the former one. Immediately afterward they dispatched nine ships, with 500 emigrants, to take possession of the colony, and regulate it according to the latest system of colonial wisdom. When the proper officers had arrived, Smith made preparations to return to England. The magnanimity of his character was illustrated in the cheerful assistance he rendered to his successors, many of whom were pigheaded and insolent, and very jealous of Smith's popularity. Those poor creatures who had worked and suffered in the colony were very sorry when they heard that their brave president was about to leave them, and they tried all they could to get him to stay; but Smith suffered severely from an accident he had met with, occasioned by the explosion of a bag of gunpowder, and felt sure that if he did not go back and get good medical advice he would infallibly die. So Captain John Smith, after a wonderfully active and wonderfully troubled career of more than two years, took his departure for the land of his fathers. Immediately afterward the colony sunk into a state of great confusion; "large parties were cut off by the savages; a division of authority produced entire disorganization; improvidence wasted the stores which had been accumulated, and the settlers fell into the last stage of abasement and misery. Within six months after the loss of their virtuous president, the number at Jamestown was not