ROD 



371 



ROE 



ItoUney, 



l>ryde 



Itoebuck 



tion among Mr. Clerk'n friends. * Before going out to 

 taki- tin- i-oinin.-mcl of the fleet in the West Indies, Ad- 

 m j ra j ]{,), u . y sa j<l one day to Mr. Dundas, " Th<-rr is 

 one Clerk, a countryman of yours, who has taught us 

 how to tight, and appears to know more of the matter 

 than any of us. If ever I meet the l-'rench fleet, I in- 

 tend to try his way." 



That Admiral Hodney did try Mr. Clerk's method, 

 we have the testimony both of Lord Melville and Ge- 

 neral Ross, who heard the Admiral distinctly state, 

 " that he owed his success in the West Indies to the 

 manoeuvre of breaking the line, which he learned from 

 Mr. Clerk's book." 



" An anecdote," says Mr. Playfair, " which sets a 

 seal on the great and decisive testimony of the noble 

 Admiral, is worthy of being remembered, and I am 

 glad to be able to record it, on the authority of a noble 

 Karl. The present Lord Haddington met Lord Rod- 

 ney at Spa, in the decline of life, when both his bodily 

 nd his mental powers were sinking under the weight 

 of years. The great commander, who had been the 

 bulwark of his country, and the terror of his enemies, 

 lay stretched on his couch, while the memory of his 

 own exploits seemed the only thing thai interested his 

 feelings, or afforded a subject for conversation. In that 

 situation he would often break out in praise of the Na- 

 val Tactics, exclaiming with great earnestness, ' John 

 Clerk of Eldin for ever." 



As a reward for this brilliant victory, Sir George 

 Rodney was created a Peer of Great Britain, with the 

 title of Baron Rodney of Rodney-Stoke, in the county 

 of Somerset, and to this title was added a pension of 

 2000 a-year, to descend to his heirs. He died in 

 London, on the 24th May 1792, in the 74th year of his 

 age. See our article BRITAIN, Stockdale's edition of 

 Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, and the Edinburgh 

 Transactions, Vol. IX. p. 127. 



RODOLPH I. See AUSTRIA, Vol. III. p. 135. 



ROEBUCK, JOHN, an eminent physician, and a 

 great benefactor to Scotland, was born in Sheffield, in 

 1718. Having completed his clerical education under 

 Dr. Doddridge of Northampton, he studied medicine 

 and chemistry at Edinburgh, from whence he went to 

 Leyden, and took his degree of M. D. in 1743. 



After his return from the continent, he settled as a 

 physician at Birmingham, where the rising science of 

 chemistry attracted his particular attention. In a small 

 laboratory which he fitted up, he spent all his leisure 

 hours; and one of his first discoveries was a new method 

 of refining gold and silver, and of collecting the smaller 

 particles of these precious metals, which had previously 

 been lost. He discovered an improved method of 

 making sublimated hartshorn, and other articles of great 

 use. Having associated himself with Mr. Samuel Gar- 

 but of Birmingham, they established a laboratory on a 

 large scale, and after they had discovered a method of 

 making sulphuric acid in vessels of lead in place of 

 glass, they established, in 1749, the manufacture of 

 sulphuric acid, which still exists at Preston Pans, about 

 nine miles to the east of Edinburgh. Scotland now 

 became the principal residence of our author, and he 

 here conceived the great project of establishing an ex- 

 tensive manufactory of iron ; and having fixed upon 

 Carron as the most appropriate site for it, he obtained 

 plans, &c. of the machinery from Mr. Smeaton. The pre- 



parations for that great national establishment were Roebuck. 

 completed in 17.07. (See our article CAKRON WORKS, Roaner. 

 Vol. V. {>. ;,:,!., for an account of the establishment) Olant - 



When this work was fairly under the routine of its Vy *V^ 

 ordinary managers, Dr. Roebuck took a lease of the 

 Duke of Hamilton's extensive coal and salt works at 

 Borrowetounness ; but after many years of labour and 

 industry, the speculation turned out a most ruinous 

 one, after he had sunk in it his own and bis wife's 

 fortune, as well as numerous sums borrowed from his 

 relations and friends. After withdrawing his capital 

 from the refining work at Birmingham, the vitiiol work 

 at Prestonpans, the iron works at Carron, and parted 

 with his interest in the project of improving the steam 

 engine in which he had become a partner with Mr. 

 Watt, he was allowed by his creditors to draw from 

 his colliery a moderate annual maintenance for him- 

 self and his family during his life. 



These disasters produced a great effect upon his 

 spirits. He was attacked with a complaint which re* 

 quired a dangerous surgical operation, which he sup- 

 ported with his usual resolution. The effect of it, 

 however, never left him, and after being a few days 

 confined to bed, he died on the 17th July 1799, in the 

 76th year of his age. 



Dr. Roebuck was a member of the Philosophical 

 Society of Edinburgh, and became a member of the 

 Royal Society at its establishment in 1783. He read 

 to the Royal Society of Edinburgh the following 

 papers : 



1. Observations on the ripening and filling of corn. 

 Read January 5th, 1784-. He found that corn ripened 

 at a temperature of 43, and he advises farmers to be 

 cautious in cutting down their unripe corn on the false 

 supposition that in a cold autumn it could fill no more. 



2. Account of certain phenomena observed in the 

 air vault of the furnaces of the Devon iron works, to- 

 gether with some practical remarks on the manage* 

 ment of blast furnaces. In a letter to Sir James Hall, 

 Bart. Read July 2c), 1798. Edinbnr^h Transaction*, 

 Vol. V. p. 31. See also the article BLOWING in this 

 work, Vol. III. p. 615-16. 



Dr. Roebuck was elected a fellow of the Royal So- 

 ciety of London on the 12th July, 1764, and he printed 

 in the Philosophical Transactions the following papers: 



1. A comparison of the heat of London and Edin- 

 burgh. Philosophical Transactions, 1775, Vol. 65, 

 p. 459. 



2. Experiments in ignited .bodies. Philosophical 

 Transactions, 1776, Vol. 66, p. 509. 



ROEMER OLAUS, a celebrated Danish astrono- 

 mer, was born at Aarhusen in Jutland, in 1644. He 

 studied mathematics at the university of Copenhagen, 

 and such had been his progress, that Picard and 

 Cassini employed him in 1671, and on their return 

 from their astronomical observations, they carried him 

 along with them to Paris, where he was received as 

 a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1672. 

 In this capital he resided ten years, during which time 

 he made his great discovery of the velocity of light, of 

 which we have given an account in our articles AS- 

 TRONOMY and OPTICS. Here he also discovered the 

 application of the epicycloidal curve to the teeth of 

 wheels, as described in our article on MECHANICS. 



In 1681, Christian V. appointed him professor of 



* In the library of Sir George Clerk, Bart, at Pennicuik, there is a copy of the Naval Tactics, with marginal notes by Lord Rodney. 

 These notes are full of remarks on the justness of Mr. Clerk's views, and contain examples where hit own conduct had been conformable 

 with, them. 



