332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



was very small, but, Laving ulterior objects in view, I considered the 

 instruction received as some set-off to the smallness of the pay. It 

 might prevent some of you young Birkbeckians from considering your 

 fate specially hard, or from being daunted, because from a very low 

 level you have to climb a very steep hill, when I tell you that, on quit- 

 ting the Ordinance Survey in 1843, my salary was a little under twenty 

 shillings a week. I have often wondered since at the amount of genu- 

 ine happiness which a young fellow, of regular habits, not caring for 

 either pipe or mug, may extract even from pay like that. Then came a 

 pause, and after it the mad time of the railway mania, when I was able 

 to turn to account the knowledge I had gained upon the Ordinance 

 Survey. In Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Durham, and York- 

 shire, more especially in the last, I was in the thick of the fray. It was a 

 time of ten-ible toil. The day's work in the field usually began and 

 ended with the day's light, while frequently in the ofiice, and more 

 especially as the awful 30th of November — the latest date at which 

 plans and sections of jDrojected lines could be deposited at the Board of 

 Trade — drew near, there was little difference between day and night, 

 every hour of the twenty-four being absorbed in the work of prejDara- 

 tion. Strong men were broken down by the strain and labor of that 

 arduous time. Many pushed through, and are still among us in robust 

 vigor ; but some collapsed, while others retired with large fortunes, 

 but with intellects so shattered that, instead of taking their places 

 in the front rank of English statesmen, as their abilities entitled them 

 to do, they sought rest for their brains in the quiet lives of country 

 gentlemen. In my own modest sphere I well remember the refresh- 

 ment I occasionally derived from five minutes' sleep on a deal table, 

 with " Babbage and Callet's Logarithms " under my head for a pillow. 

 On a certain day, under grave penalties, certain levels had to be fin- 

 ished, and this particular day was one of agony to me. The atmos- 

 phere seemed filled with mocking demons, laughing at the vanity of 

 my efforts to get the work done. My leveling staves were snapped, 

 and my theodolite was overthrown by the storm. When things are at 

 their worst a kind of anger often takes the place of fear. It was so in 

 the present instance : I pushed doggedly on, and just at nightfall, 

 when barely able to read the figures on my leveling-staff, I planted 

 my last " bench-mark " on a tombstone in Haworth churchyard. Close 

 at hand was the vicarage of Mr. Bronte, where the genius was nursed 

 which soon afterward burst forth and astonished the world. It was 

 a time of mad unrest — of downright monomania. In private residences 

 and public halls, in London reception-rooms, in hotels and the stables 

 of hotels, among gypsies and costermongers, nothing was spoken of 

 but the state of the share-market, the j)rospects of projected lines, the 

 good fortune of the ostler or pot-boy who by a lucky stroke of busi- 

 ness had cleared ten thousand pounds. High and low, rich and poor, 

 joined in the reckless game. During my professional connection with 



