ii8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



formed intimacies with fellow-pupils that proved of value to him: 

 with a youth whose father had a foundry, where he spent profit- 

 able hours, and with another whose father had a special genius 

 for practical chemistry, and made colors and white lead ; signals 

 were arranged with this boy, so that when anything particular 

 was going on at the laboratory Nasmyth was notified of it; and 

 the boys made their own reagents, and acquired considerable skill 

 in producing various substances. 



Nasmyth left the high school at the end of 1820, not much the 

 better for his small acquaintance with the dead languages, but the 

 mathematical studies had developed his reasoning powers. He 

 practiced accuracy in drawing, made his own tools and chemical 

 apparatus, and interested himself in the volcanic geology of Edin- 

 burgh. He attended the Edinburgh School of Arts from 1821 to 

 1826, and at seventeen years of age he was constructing steam en- 

 gines of different designs and for various purposes. He heard the 

 lectures at the university on chemistry, geometry and mathemat- 

 ics, and natural philosophy. He established a brass foundry in his 

 bedroom, but did his heavier work at George Douglas's foundry, 

 for which he made an engine to drive the lathes, the operation of 

 which had such an enlivening effect on the workmen that the pro- 

 prietor affirmed that the output was nearly doubled for the same 

 wages. He made an expansometer or instrument for measuring in 

 bulk all metals and solid substances, which so pleased Dr. Brewster 

 that he described and figured it in the Edinburgh Philosophical 

 Journal. He experimented upon steam carriages for highways, 

 and hit upon a device for increasing the draught of the engine 

 chimney by the use of waste steam that George Stephenson had 

 adopted, and which has given the locomotive its efficiency. 



When it became possible, Nasmyth went to London to visit 

 Henry Maudsley, the great manufacturer of machines, and seek 

 employment in his establishment there. Maudsley's experience 

 with pupil apprentices had not been pleasant, and he was not 

 at first willing to employ him; but when the young man said he 

 would consider himself fortunate if he could even be employed 

 to clean the ashes from the furnaces, Maudsley answered, " So you 

 are of that sort, are you ? " and his heart was opened at once. 

 Nasmyth exhibited his drawings the next day, and Maudsley 

 instituted him his assistant workman, or private secretary, as no 

 apprenticeship was needed in his case. His first work was on a 

 machine fpr generating "original screws"; next, in connection 

 with the construction of two small models of engines, he invented 

 a device for exactly reducing bolt-nuts. Being given a month's 

 vacation in the fall of 1830, he went to Liverpool to witness the 

 X)erformance of George Stephenson's locomotive, " The Rocket." 

 With the desire to see all he could on his return of the mechan- 



