1 6 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



must then all run away as fast as your legs can carry 

 you." No sooner said than done ! The result was 

 such a fearful stench that each boy will carry down the 

 recollection of that moment to his grave, and will re- 

 member to his dying day the formula which Balmain 

 wrote on the blackboard 



FeS + HO + SO 3 = FeOSOs + HS. 



Hugo Reid, our teacher of natural philosophy or 

 physics, as it is now called was a very remarkable 

 man, and from him we learnt the history of the steam- 

 engine and the properties of gases as well as the 

 rudiments of mechanics and dynamics. He taught us 

 well, and we had to keep accurate notes of the lessons. 

 When I was ten years old I was able to write out a 

 fairly good account of the rise and history of the steam- 

 engine, including the atmospheric engine of Newcomen. 

 One of these engines I actually saw at work in a 

 Cheshire coal-pit in my early days. I recollect quite 

 well that I understood the mechanism of this engine ; 

 and I suppose that there are not many people now living 

 who can remember seeing a Newcomen at work. 



I also came under the influence of another very 

 genial teacher, W. B. Hodgson, who afterwards be- 

 came Professor of Political Economy in the University 

 of Edinburgh. He was a singularly interesting man, 

 and I attribute a good deal of any literary facility 

 which I may possess to the practice in essay-writing 

 which he gave us and to the criticisms which he 

 made upon our work. Hodgson was a man of varied 

 and extensive reading. This is evident in his little 

 book, Errors in the Use of English, which was pub- 

 lished by his widow in 1881. Many of the author's 

 observations on the errors committed by English 

 writers, both great and small, exhibit the kindly 



