66 INTRODUCTORY NARRATIVE. [Lesson L 



The country was truly picturesque, and from some points of the surrounding 



scenery 



" The cottage chimneys, half conceal'd from view 



By their embowering foliage, sent on high 

 Their pallid wreaths of smoke, unruffled to the sky." 



Afar off, the river might be seen, like a glistening serpent, winding amidst the luxuriant 

 trees that decked its hanks. 



Sometimes, when the labours of the day were not quite so severe, the father would 

 instruct the elder children to read and write; but this was only in his leisure hours. 

 Although his family was large, yet it was still further increased by another boy, who 

 was born in the year 1710, and duly christened at the proper time James Ferguson. 



The history of Ferguson, written by himself, and prefixed to his Select Mechanical 

 Exercises, published in 1778, (second edition,) is so instructive and interesting, that it 

 urill be better to give it in his own words. 



When writing respecting the manner in which he acquired a knowledge of reading, 

 he tells us that it was during the time his father was teaching his elder brother to read 

 the Scotch Catechism. 



11 Ashamed to ask my father to instruct me, I used, when he and my brother were 

 abroad, to take the Catechism, and study the lesson which he had been teaching my 

 brother; and when any difficulty occurred, I went to a neighbouring old woman, who 

 gave me such help as enabled me to read tolerably well before my father had thought of 

 teaching me. 



" Some time after, he was agreeably surprised to find me reading by myself ; he there- 

 upon gave me further instruction, and also taught me to write; which, with about tJiree 

 months I afterwards had at tlie grammar school at Keith, was all the education I ever 

 received. 



" My taste for mechanics arose from an odd accident: When about seven or eight 

 years of age, a part of the roof of the house being decayed, my father, desirous of mending 

 it, applied a prop and lever to an upright spar, to raise it to its 

 former situation ; and, to my great astonishment, / saw him, 

 without considering tJie reason, lift up the ponderous roof as if it 

 had been a small weight. I attributed this at first to a degree 

 of strength that excited my terror as well as wonder ; but think- 

 ing further of the matter, I recollected that he had applied his 

 strength to that end of the lever which was furthest from the 

 prop ; and finding, on inquiry, that this was the means whereby 

 the seeming wonder was effected, / began making levers (which 

 I then called bars) ; and by applying wights to them different ways, 

 I found the power gained by my bar was just in proportion 

 to the lengths of the different parts of the bar on either side of 

 the prop. I then thought it was a great pity that, by means of this bar, a weight could be 



* F iy. 1. " Let a b be a wheel, c d its axle, and suppose the circumference of the wheel to be eight 

 times as great as the circumference of the axle ; then, a power, p, equal to one pound, hanging by the 

 cord , which goes round the wheel, will balance a weight, w, of eight pounds, hanging by the rope k, 

 which goes round the axle ; and as the friction on the pivots, e f, or gudgeons of the axle is but small, 

 a small addition to the power will cause it to descend, and raise the weight; but the weight will rise 

 with only an eighth part of the velocity wherewith, the power descends, and consequently, through no 

 more than an eighth part of an equal space, in the same time. If the wheel be pulled round by the 

 handles. *, , the power will be increased in proportion to their length, g is a ratchet-wheel on one 

 nd of tbe axle, with a catch, A, to fall in its teeth." Ferguson's Lecturet, 10th Edition, p. 55. 



