-SYA' WILLIAM \/AM//;.V.\ I'.R.S. 283 



.M< B8T8. I'oole and Carpmacl, who rcrrhvd me kindly and provided 

 in.- with u letter of introduction to Mr. Klkington. Armed with 

 this letter, I proceeded to Birmingham to plead my cause before 

 your townsman. 



In looking hack to that time, I wonder at the patience with 

 which Mr. Klkington listened to what I had to say, being very 

 young, and scarcely able to find English words to convey my 

 iiK-aniii^. After showing me what he was doing already in the 

 wav of electro-plating, Mr. Elkington sent me back to London in 

 order to read some patents of his own, asking me to return if, 

 after perusal, I still thought I could teach him anything. To my 

 great disappointment I found that the chemical solutions I had 

 iieen using were actually mentioned in one of his patents, although 

 in a manner that would hardly have sufficed to enable a third 

 person to obtain practical results. 



On my return to Birmingham I frankly stated what I had 

 found, and with this frankness I evidently gained the favour of 

 another townsman of yours, Mr. Josiah Mason, who had just 

 joined Mr. Elkington in business, and whose name as Sir Josiah 

 Mason will ever be remembered for his munificent endowment of 

 education. It was agreed that I should not be judged by the 

 novelty of my invention, but by the results which I promised, 

 namely, of being able to deposit with a smooth surface 30 dwt. of 

 silver upon a dish-cover, the crystalline structure of the deposit 

 having theretofore been a source of difficulty. In this I suc- 

 ceeded, and I was able to return to my native country and my 

 mechanical engineering a comparative Croesus. 



But it was not for long, as in the following year I again landed 

 in the Thames with another invention, worked out also with my 

 brother, namely, the Chronometric Governor, which, though less 

 successful, commercially speaking, than the first, obtained for me 

 the advantage of bringing me into contact with the engineering 

 world, and of fixing me permanently in this country. This inven- 

 tion was in course of time applied by Sir George Airy, the then 

 Astronomer Royal, for regulating the motion of his great transit 

 and touch recording instrument at the Royal Observatory, where 

 it still continues to be employed. 



Another early subject of mine, the anastatic printing process, 

 found favour with Faraday, " the great and the good," who made 



