6 REMINISCENCES OF 



art of enamelling in gold leaf upon glass ; this he did 

 very beautifully, but by a secret method lost at his 

 death. The son, Walton Crawford, who succeeded 

 to his father's business, also developed a special art, 

 and made peculiar butterfly brooches from local 

 stones. 



I was for years in the habit of spending much 

 time in their workshops, watching them cutting and 

 working with the diamond and emery wheels the 

 various agates then obtained abundantly amongst 

 the gravels of the coast, and manufacturing them 

 into pins, bracelets, brooches, and other personal 

 ornaments a youthful training which became of 

 the utmost value to me more than a third of a 

 century later, when scientific research required me 

 to devote much of my own time to similar work. 

 My eldest brother died of meningitis, in all pro- 

 bability from over-education at too early an age. 

 My father, having himself enjoyed no educational 

 advantages, determined that any child he might 

 have should start life under less difficult con- 

 ditions ; but unfortunately he knew nothing of the 

 dangers attending the over-stimulation of an infantile 

 brain. The child in question, when under six years 

 of age, being accidentally taken into a friend's 

 printing-office, and seeing a frame of type prepared 

 for printing part of a small newspaper, astonished 

 those who were with him by reading the type, not- 

 withstanding its reversed position. No wonder the 

 child died when little more than five years old. 



