NIMMO NORTH AMERICA 



701 



the college of Edinburgh. He was an excellent 

 Greek and Latin scholar ; and the higher branches 

 of mathematics and algebra were his favourite 

 studies. At the age of nineteen he was appointed 

 rector of the Inverness academy, by the unani- 

 mous vote of the proprietors, after a severe con- 

 test with other candidates of no ordinary attain- 

 ments, during an examination of three days. 

 "Whilst occupying this office, he was first employed 

 in a public capacity, at the recommendation of Mr 

 Telford, by the parliamentary commissioners for 

 fixing and determining the boundaries of the Scot- 

 tish counties. This undertaking he accomplished 

 during the vacations, and performed it in the most 

 able and satisfactory manner. His report, which 

 is of considerable magnitude, is one of the most 

 interesting documents ever published in that form. 

 Shortly after this performance, he was again re- 

 commended by Mr Telford to the commissioners 

 for reclaiming the bogs of Ireland. In this situa- 

 tion he became well acquainted with the habits 

 and wants of the Irish peasantry, and his reports 

 and maps of the Irish bogs were in the highest 

 degree creditable to him. After completing the 

 bog surveys, Mr Nimmo went to France, Ger- 

 many, and Holland, and personally inspected the 

 great works of those nations. On his return he 

 was employed in the construction of Dunmore 

 harbour, a work of immense magnitude and 

 utility, on a shore much exposed to the roll of the 

 Atlantic, and where the depth of water at the 

 extremity of the pier exceeds that of the Plymouth 

 Breakwater. Mr Nimmo was employed by the 

 Fishery Board in making surveys of the harbours 

 of Ireland, and constructing harbours and piers all 

 round the coast. He was also employed by the 

 Ballast Board to make a chart of the whole coast, 

 which was executed with great skill and accuracy. 

 He likewise compiled a book of sailing directions 

 of St George's Channel and the Irish coast. During 

 the great distress in the year 1822, he was appointed 

 engineer to the " Western District " of Ireland ; 

 and from the outlay of 167,000, up to 1830, he 

 caused, by the improvement of land and the forma- 

 tion of what may be termed new settlements, no 

 less an increase of revenue in that district than 

 106,000 per annum. In reviewing Mr Nimmo's 

 professional practice, its extent and variety are cal- 

 culated to excite surprise. Upwards of thirty piers 

 or harbours on the Irish coast were built under 

 his direction ; also Perth Cawl in South Wales ; 

 he designed the Wellesley bridge and docks, at 

 Limerick ; and latterly was engaged in Lancashire, 

 projecting a railway from Liverpool to Leeds, and 

 also the Manchester, Bolton, and Bury railway. 

 He was consulting engineer to the Duchy of Lan- 

 caster, the Mersey arid Irwell navigation, the St 

 Helen's and Runcorn Gap railway, the Preston and 

 Wigan railway, and Birkenhead and Chester rail- 

 way. In addition to his classical and mathematical 

 knowledge, he was well versed in modern languages, 

 particularly French, German, Dutch, and Italian, 

 and was also well acquainted with practical astro- 

 nomy, chemistry, and geology. To the last 

 named science he was much attached, and wrote 

 an excellent paper, showing how it might become 

 available in navigation, which was published in the 

 Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. He 

 was also the author of the article on Inland Navi- 

 gation in Brewster's Cyclopaedia ; also, in conjunc 

 tion with Mr Telford, of that on Bridges, and with 

 Mr Nicholson, of that on Carpentry. Besides 



these, he wrote several papers for various periodi- 

 cals. His evidence on the trial, which took 

 place between the corporation of Liverpool and 

 the Mersey Company, is highly interesting to 

 engineers and practical mathematicians. Lord 

 Brougham was the counsel by whom Mr Nimmo 

 was cross-examined; and the latter was undoubt- 

 edly the only engineer of the age who could at all 

 have competed with his lordship's knowledge of the 

 higher mathematics and natural philosophy, on 

 which the whole subject in dispute depended. Mr 

 Nimmo's death took place at Dublin, on the 20th 

 Jan. 1832, aged 49. 



NODULE; a round irregular shaped mass, from 

 nodus, a knot. Various mineral substances are 

 found of this shape, as Hints, iron-stone, and cal- 

 careous and argillaceous nodules. The nuclei of 

 all these is generally some organized substance, 

 as a piece of sponge, a shell, a leaf, a fish, or 

 the excrement of fishes or other animals called 

 coprolites. These nodules appear to be formed 

 around the central substance, by some chemi- 

 cal affinity between the earths or metallic mat- 

 ters and the decomposing animal or vegetable 

 body. Flint nodules are very common in chalk, 

 exhibiting a proof of the existence of quartz, in a 

 fluid state, at the period of their formation. Iron- 

 stone nodules also abound in the coal measures, 

 and in the old red sandstone. Calcareous nodules, 

 inclosing fishes, are by no means uncommon in cer- 

 tain localities. 



NORTH AMERICA, (a.} In the year 1837, 

 a work was published at Copenhagen, by the 

 Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, in which 

 incontestible evidence is adduced, founded on an- 

 cient Icelandic MSS., to prove that portions of 

 North America were known to the Scandinavians 

 five hundred years before Columbus. Traditions 

 to this effect had long existed; but although the 

 fact could not, or should not, tarnish the true glory 

 of Columbus, who did not, like the Northmen, 

 stumble upon a new world by accident, but ivho 

 went to seek, and found one, still the general inclina- 

 tion of the popular mind, in the reading community, 

 was against the reality of this Scandinavian dis- 

 covery of America. Washington Irving expresses 

 himself with distrust on the subject, although he 

 admits that there is no great improbability, " that 

 such enterprisiug and roving voyagers as the Scan- 

 dinavians may have wandered to the northern shores 

 of America, about the coast of Labrador, or the 

 shores of Newfoundland." Messrs. Leslie, Jameson, 

 and Murray, in their " Discovery and Adventures 

 in the Polar Seas and Regions," reject the opinion 

 of a visit to any part of the American coast by the 

 Norwegians. They explain the traditions on the 

 hypothesis, that the first discoveries of Greenland, 

 made by the Norwegians, were in a high northern 

 latitude, and that Vinland (the name bestowed 

 on the discovered land) was but another and a 

 more southern portion of the same territory. Ot> 

 the other hand, M. Malte-Brun entertains no doubt 

 on the subject. After giving a brief abstract of 

 the tradition, he adds, " to entertain a doubt of the 

 truth of accounts so simple and probable would be 

 an excess of scepticism; and if we admit them, it 

 is in vain to look for Vinland, except on the coast 

 of North America. That part of the world, then, 

 was discovered by Europeans, five centuries before 

 Columbus ; and this discovery, the first of which 

 there is historical proof, was not perhaps wholly 

 unknown to the bold and skilful Genoese, who first 



