to business. He removed to Oldhams, a retired place two miles to the north of Bolton, where he farmed several acres, kept three or four cows, and span in the upper storey of his house. His yarn was still the best and finest in the market, and, as a consequence, he was plagued with visitors, who came prying about, under the idea that he had effected some improvement in his invention. His servants were continually bribed away from him, in the hope that they might be able to reveal something that was worth knowing. Sir Robert Peel (the first baronet) visited him at Oldhams, and offered him a situation with a large salary, and the prospect of a partnership; but Crompton had a morbid dislike to Peel, and he declined the overtures which might have led to his lasting comfort and prosperity.

Aided by the mule, the cotton manufacture prodigiously developed itself; but thirty years elapsed ere any serious attempt was made to recompense the ingenuity and perseverance to which the increase was owing. At last, in 1812, it was resolved to bring Crompton's claim before Parliament. It was proved that 4,600,000 spindles were at work on his mules, using up 40,000,000 lbs. of cotton annually; that 70,000 persons were engaged in spinning; and 150,000 more in weaving the yarn so spun; and that a population of full half-amillion derived their daily bread from the machinery his skill had devised. The case was clear, and Mr. Percival, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was ready to propose a handsome vote of money, when Crompton's usual ill-luck intervened in a most shocking manner.

It was the afternoon of the 11th of May, 1812, and Crompton was standing in the lobby of the House of Commons, conversing with Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Blackburne, when one of

them observed, “Here comes Mr. Percival" The group was instantly joined by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who addressed them with the remark, “You will be glad to know that I mean to propose £20,000 for Crompton; do you think it will be satisfactory?" Hearing this, Crompton moved off from motives of delicacy, and did not hear the reply. He was scarcely out of sight, when the madman Bellingham came up and shot Percival dead. This frightful catastrophe lost Crompton £15,000. Six weeks intervened before his case could be brought before Parliament, and then, on the 24th June, Lord Stanley moved that he should be awarded £5000, which the House voted without opposition; £20,000 might have been had as easily, and no reason appears to have been given for the reduction of Mr. Percival's proposal. All conversant with Crompton's merits felt the grant to be inadequate, whether measured by the intrinsic value of his service, or by the rate of rewards accorded by Parliament to other inventors.

HENRY BELL.

Steam navigation was introduced on American waters in 1807, Fulton launching his steamboat on the Hudson on the 3rd of October of that year. It was not, however, till 1812 that the first regular passenger steamer made its appearance in this country on the Clyde. This was the Comet, built for Mr. Henry Bell, the proprietor of the Helensburgh baths on the Clyde, and who had long been a most zealous advocate of steam propulsion.

Henry Bell was born in Linlithgowshire, in 1767. Dr. Cleland, in his work on Glasgow, speaks of him as an “ingenious, untutored engineer and citizen of Glasgow,” and states that it may be said, without the hazard of impropriety,

that Mr. Bell "invented" the steam-propelling system, "for he knew nothing of the principles which had been so successfully followed out by Mr. Fulton."

The construction of the Comet was begun in 1811, and the boat was so named in consequence of the appearance of a large comet that year. Mr. Bell was his own engineer, and in January, 1812, the first trial took place on the Clyde.

The little vessel was forty feet long on the keel, and ten feet six inches beam, propelled by a steam-engine of three or four horse-power, with a vertical cylinder, and working on the bell-crank principle—the engine being placed on one side of the vessel, and the boiler, of wrought-iron, on the other. She had two small paddle-wheels on each side, each wheel having four boards only.

For some time the Comet plied regularly between Glasgow and Greenock, at a speed of about five miles an hour. She was afterwards transferred to the Forth, where she ran for many years between the extremity of the Forth and Clyde Canal and Newhaven, near Edinburgh. The distance is 27 miles, and is stated by Mr. Bell to have been performed, on the average, in 3 hours, being at the rate of above 7 miles an hour.

Mr. Bell's experiments did not realise to himself those pecuniary advantages which were due to his enterprise. From the city of Glasgow he received in his latter years a small annuity, in acknowledgment of his services to commerce and civilisation. He died at Helensburgh, on the Clyde, in 1830. A monument was erected to his memory near Bowling.

SIR DAVID BREWSTER.

In the whole history of science there is not, perhaps, any discovery of ancient or of modern date that promised so rich a

reward to the inventor, and was so completely anticipated, as in the case of the kaleidoscope. The very announcement of the patent, by which the discovery was intended to be secured, was immediately followed by an infringement so extensive as to leave all legal redress unattainable. But the piracy did not terminate here; for various attempts were made to deprive its author, Sir David Brewster, of the merits of the discovery, and to refer it to Baptista Porta, Harris, Wood, Bradley, &c. All these were very satisfactorily answered by Sir David Brewster, confirmed by Professor Playfair, Mr. Watt, and Professor Pictet, who attested the originality of the invention.

It was in the year 1814, when Sir David Brewster was engaged in experiments on the polarization of light by successive reflections between plates of glass, the reflectors being in some cases inclined to each other, that he had occasion to remark the circular arrangement of the images of a candle round a centre, or the multiplication of the sectors formed by the extremities of the glass plates. In repeating at a subsequent period the experiments of M. Biot on the action of fluids upon light, Brewster placed the fluids in a trough formed by two plates of glass cemented together at an angle. The eye being neces sarily placed at one end, some of the cement which had been pressed through between the plates appeared to be arranged into a regular figure. The symmetry of this figure being very remarkable, Sir David Brewster set himself to investigate the cause of the phenomenon, and in doing this he discovered the leading principles of the kaleidoscope.

Upon these principles Sir David Brewster constructed an instrument, in which he fixed permanently, across the ends of the reflectors, pieces of coloured glass and other irregular ob jects; but the great step towards the completion of the instru

ment remained yet to be made, and it was not till some time afterwards that the idea occurred to the inventor of giving motion to objects, such as pieces of coloured glass, &c., which were placed loosely in a cell at the end of the instrument. When this idea was carried into execution, the kaleidoscope in its simple form was completed.

The next, and by far the most important step of the invention, was to employ a draw-tube and lens, by means of which beautiful forms could be created from objects of all sizes, and at all distances from the observer. In this way the power of the kaleidoscope was indefinitely extended, and every object in nature could be introduced into the picture, in the same manner as if these objects had been reduced in size, and actually placed at the end of the reflectors.

The kaleidoscope being now completed, Brewster was urged by his friends to secure the exclusive property of it. After the patent was signed, and the instruments in a state of forwardness, the gentleman who was employed to manufacture them under the patent, carried one to show to the principal London opticians, for the purpose of taking orders for them. These gentlemen naturally made one for their own use and the amusement of their own friends; and the character of the instruments being thus made public, the manufacture extended to tinmen and glaziers; and kaleidoscopes were soon hawked about the streets of London at all prices, some even as low as a shilling. No proof of the originality of the kaleidoscope could be stronger than the sensation which it created in London and Paris. In the memory of man, no invention and no work, whether addressed to the imagination or the understanding, ever produced such an effect. A universal mania for the instrument seized all classes, from the lowest to the highest, from the most