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proceeded to teach me the elements of geometry; but, to my inexpressible grief, just as I was beginning that branch of science, he left Mr Grant, and went to the late earl of Fife's, at several miles distance. The good family I was then with could not prevail with me to stay after he was gone; so I left them, and went to my father's.

He had made me a present of Gordon's "Geographical Grammar," which, at that time, was to me a great treasure. There is no figure of a globe in it, although it contains a tolerable description of the globes, and their use. From this description I made a globe in three weeks at my father's, having turned the ball thereof out of a piece of wood; which ball I covered with paper, and delineated a map of the world upon it; made the meridian ring and horizon of wood; covered them with paper, and graduated them; and was happy to find, that, by my globe (which was the first I ever saw) I could solve the problems.

But this was not likely to afford me bread, and I could not think of staying with my father, who I knew full well could not maintain me in that way, as it would be of no service to him; and he had, without my assistance, hands sufficient for all his work.

I then went to a miller, thinking it would be a very easy business to attend the mill, and that I should have a great deal of leisure time to study decimal arithmetic and geometry. But my master, being too fond of tippling at an ale-house, left the whole care of the mill to me, and almost starved me for want of victuals; so that I was glad when I could have a little oatmeal mixed with cold water to eat. I was engaged for a year in this man's service, at the end of which I left him, and returned in a very weak state to my father's.

Soon after I had recovered my former strength, a neighbouring farmer, who practised as a physician in that part of the country, came to my father's, wanting to have me as a labouring servant. My father advised me to go to doctor Young, telling me that the doctor would instruct me in that part of his business. This he

promised to do, which was a temptation to me. But instead of performing his promise, he kept me constantly to very hard labour, and never once showed me one of his books. All his servants complained that he was the hardest master they had ever lived with; and it was my misfortune to be engaged with him for half a year. But, at the end of three months, I was so much overwrought, that I was almost disabled, which obliged me to leave him and he was so unjust as to give me nothing at all for the time I had been with him, because I did not complete my half-year's service; though he knew that I was not able, and had seen me working for the last fortnight, as much as possible, with one hand and arm, when I could not lift the other from my side. And what I thought was particularly hard, he never once tried to give me the least relief, farther than once bleeding me, which rather did me hurt than good, as I was very weak, and much emaciated. I then went to my father's, where I was confined for two months on account of my hurt, and despaired of ever recovering the use of my left arm. And during all that time, the doctor never once came to see me, although the distance was not quite two miles. But my friend Mr Cantley hearing of my misfortune, at twelve miles distance, sent me proper medicines and applications, by means of which I recovered the use of my arm; but found myself too weak to think of going into service again, and had entirely lost my appetite, so that I could take nothing but a draught of milk once a day for many weeks.

In order to amuse myself in this low state, I made a wooden clock, the frame of which was also of wood; and it kept time pretty well. The bell, on which the hammer struck the hours, was the neck of a broken bottle.

Having then no idea how any time-keeper could go but by a weight and a line, I wondered how a watch could go in all positions; and was sorry that I had never thought of asking Mr Cantley, who could very easily have informed me. But happening one day to

see a gentleman ride by my father's house (which was close by a public road) I asked him what o'clock it then was he looked at his watch, and told me. As he did that with so much good-nature, I begged of him to show me the inside of his watch: and though he was an entire stranger, he immediately opened the watch, and put it into my hands. I saw the spring-box with part of the chain round it, and asked him what it was that made the box turn round: he told me that it was turned round by a steel spring within it. Having then never seen any other spring than that of my father's gun-lock, I asked how a spring within a box could turn the box so often round as to wind all the chain upon it. He answered, that the spring was long and thin; that one end of it was fastened to the axis of the box, and the other end to the inside of the box; that the axis was fixed, and the box was loose upon it. I told him I did not yet thoroughly understand the matter. Well, my lad, says he, take a long thin piece of whalebone, hold one end of it fast between your finger and thumb, and wind it round your finger: it will then endeavour to unwind itself; and if you fix the other end of it to the inside of a small hoop, and leave it to itself, it will turn the hoop round and round, and wind up a thread tied to the outside of the hoop.-I thanked the gentleman, and told him that I understood the thing very well. I then tried to make a watch with wooden wheels, and made the spring of whalebone; but found that I could not make the watch go when the balance was put on, because the teeth of the wheels were rather too weak to bear the force of a spring sufficient to move the balance; although the wheels would run fast enough when the balance was taken off. I enclosed the whole in a wooden case, very little bigger than a breakfast tea-cup but a clumsy neighbour one day looking at my watch, happened to let it fall; and turning hastily about to pick it up, set his foot upon it, and crushed it all to pieces; which so provoked my father, that he was almost ready to beat the man; and discouraged me so much, that I never attempted to make such another

machine again, especially as I was thoroughly_convinced I could never make one that would be of any real use.

As soon as I was able to go abroad, I carried my globe, clock, and copies of some other maps besides that of the world, to the late sir James Dunbar, of Durn, (about seven miles from where my father lived,) as I had heard that sir James was a very good-natured, friendly, inquisitive gentleman. He received me in a very kind manner, was pleased with what I showed him, and desired I would clean his clocks. This, for the first time I attempted; and then began to pick up some money in that way about the country, making sir James's house my home, at his desire.

Two large globular stones stood on the top of his gate; on one of them I painted (with oil colours) a map of the terrestrial globe, and on the other a map of the celestial, from a planisphere of the stars which I copied on paper from a celestial globe belonging to a neighbouring gentleman. The poles of the painted globes stood toward the poles of the heavens; on each, the twentyfour hours were placed around the equinoctial, so as to show the time of the day when the sun shone out, by the boundary where the half of the globe at any time enlightened by the sun was parted from the other half in the shade; the enlightened parts of the terrestrial globe answering to the like enlightened parts of the earth at all times. So that, whenever the sun shone on the globe, one might see to what places the sun was then rising, to what places it was setting, and all the places where it was then day or night, throughout the earth.

During the time I was at sir James's hospitable house, his sister, the honourable the lady Dipple, came there on a visit, and sir James introduced me to her. She asked me whether I could draw patterns for neediework on aprons and gowns. On showing me some, I

undertook the work, and drew several for her; some of which were copied from her patterns, and the rest I did according to my own fancy. On this, I was sent for by

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other ladies in the country, and began to think myself growing very rich by the money I got for such drawings; out of which I had the pleasure of occasionally supplying the wants of my poor father.

Yet all this while I could not leave off star-gazing in the nights, and taking the places of the planets among the stars by my above-mentioned thread. By this I could observe how the planets changed their places among the stars, and delineated their paths on the celestial map, which I had copied from the above-mentioned celestial globe.

By observing what constellations the ecliptic passed through in that map, and comparing these with the starry heaven, I was so impressed as sometimes to imagine that I saw the ecliptic in the heaven, among the stars, like a broad circular road for the sun's apparent course; and fancied the paths of the planets to resemble the narrow ruts made by cart-wheels, sometimes on one side of a plain road and sometimes on the other, crossing the road at small angles, but never going far from either side of it.

Sir James's house was full of pictures and prints, several of which I copied with pen and ink: this made him think I might become a painter.

Lady Dipple had been but a few weeks there, when William Baird, Esq, of Auchmedden, came on a visit: he was the husband of one of that lady's daughters, and I found him to be very ingenious and communicative: he invited me to go to his house and stay some time with him, telling me that I should have free access to his library, which was a very large one; and that he would furnish me with all sorts of implements for drawing. I went thither, and staid about eight months; but was much disappointed in finding no books of astronomy in his library, except what was in the two volumes of Harris's "Lexicon Technicum," although there were many books on geography and other sciences: several of these indeed were in Latin, and more in French; which being languages that I did not under

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