1 66 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 



enfeebled state, he made a wooden clock, and also a watch, 

 after having once seen the inside of such a piece of mechanism. 

 His ingenuity obtained for him new friends, and employment 

 suited to his taste, which was that of cleaning clocks, and 

 drawing patterns for ladies needlework; and he was thus enabled 

 not only to supply his own wants, but to assist his father. 

 Having improved in the art of drawing, he was induced to 

 draw portraits from the life with Indian ink on vellum. This 

 art, which he practised with facility, afforded him a considerable 

 subsistence for several years, and allowed him leisure for 

 pursuing those favourite studies which ultimately raised him to 

 eminence. 



" My taste for mechanics," says Mr. Ferguson, in a sketch of 

 his own life, " 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 applied a prop and lever to an upright spar 

 to raise it to its former situation ; and, to my great astonish- 

 ment, I saw him, without considering the 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 thinking further of the matter, I recollected 

 that he had applied his strength to that end of the lever which 

 was farthest from the prop, and finding, on inquiry, that this 

 was the means by which the seeming wonder was effected, 1 

 began making levers (which I then called bars), and by apply- 

 ing weights to them different ways, I found the power given 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 

 ivas a great pity that by means of this bar a weight could be 

 raised but a very little way. On this I soon imagined that, by 

 pulling round a wheel, the weight might be raised to any height 



