194 Biographical Sketch of the late 



Mr Macintyre. Circumstances, however, occurred which 

 entirely changed his prospects and pursuits. Soon after he 

 had attained his fifteenth year, his mother was married to 

 Mr Thomas Smith, an ingenious man, who had commenced life 

 as a tinsmith in Edinburgh, and who afterwards directed 

 his attention to the subject of Lighthouses. So successful 

 were Mr Smith's endeavours to improve the mode of illumina- 

 tion, by substituting oil lamps with parabolic mirrors for 

 the open coal fires, which formerly served for beacons to the 

 mariner, that he obtained the patronage of Professor Eobison 

 and Sir David Hunter Blair, and was appointed engineer to 

 the Lighthouse Board, immediately after its constitution by 

 the Act of 17b6. In these pursuits, my father had rendered 

 himself useful to Mr Smith, who entrusted him, at the early 

 age of nineteen, with the superintendence of the erection of a 

 lighthouse on the Island of Little Cumbrae in the River Clyde, 

 according to a plan which he had furnished to the Trustees 

 for the Clyde Navigation. This connection soon led to his 

 adoption as Mr Smith's partner in business, and in 1799 to 

 his marriage with his eldest daughter ; and as the entire 

 management of the lighthouse business had already for 

 some years, with the concurrence of the Board, devolved upon 

 him, he naturally succeeded Mr Smith as engineer, an office 

 which he resigned in 1843, after having fulfilled its arduous 

 duties for about half a century. 



During the cessation of the works at Cumbrae in 

 winter, Mr Stevenson, who, even at that time, had deter- 

 mined to follow out the profession of a civil engineer, 

 and had began to feel the want of systematic training, 

 applied himself with great zeal to the physical sciences 

 in the Andersonian Institution at Glasgow, as well as 

 to the mathematics, the practice of surveying, and to 

 architectural and mechanical drawing. Of the kindness 

 of Dr Anderson, who presided over that institution, he ever 

 entertained a most grateful remembrance, and often spoke 

 of him as one of his best advisers and kindest friends. In 

 the manuscript memoranda already noticed, he thus records 

 his obligations to Dr Anderson. It was *' the practice of 

 Professor A. kindly to befriend and forward the views of his 



