THE NATURALIST OF CUMBRAE, 



CHAPTER I. 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 



DAVID ROBERTSON was born in Great Hamilton 

 Street, Glasgow, in the year 1806. His birthday was 

 the 28th of November, reckoning by the Old Style, 

 which, it is curious to notice, his friends still used* 

 although the New Style had been introduced into our 

 calendar by Act of Parliament fifty-five years before. 

 The year of his birth was memorable in Glasgow on 

 two accounts. Prior to this the citizens had no other 

 supply of water than from twenty-eight pump wells 

 in the streets, and, as some of these wells were very 

 limited, and the water often of a bad quality, a number 

 of the inhabitants now procured an Act incorporating 

 them as the Glasgow Waterworks Company. The 

 population of the town having at this time risen to 

 about a hundred thousand, such a measure was evi- 

 dently by no means premature. The public spirit of 

 the people was at the same epoch exhibited by their 

 being the first in the kingdom to erect a monument to 



B 



