324 The Naturalist of Cumbrae. 



beyond anything that could be available in our way. 

 There were wonderful sights representing the improve- 

 ments being made in the various industries, the result 

 of the highest skilled workmanship, from the huge 

 machines to the darning needle that encased a second 

 within, and again a second encased a third, and the 

 third a fourth, and the fourth a fifth, and, if I 

 remember right, the fifth encased a sixth, and all in 

 perfectly good sewing condition ! 



"Mrs. Robertson was with me at the Fishery 

 Exhibition. I cannot say that my impressions of it 

 differed much from that of 1851, except that the 

 Fisheries, from my point of view, was greatly made up 

 of large shops and small retailers. There was little 

 connected with my own hobby that came under my 

 notice, further than a few naturalist's dredges. We 

 were much taken with the collection of the shells of 

 Hull mounted on small tablets, an inch and a half 

 square. They looked very nice, and brought a large 

 series of mollusca under view in a very small space. 

 I do not think that the whole covered more than four 

 feet square. We were also much interested with the 

 cooperage, where they were making herring barrels 

 by machinery, the staves, bottom and top hooped 

 together ready for use in a few minutes. 



"These were all matters of course, without any 

 special interest, a sample of what could be told by 

 each of the thousands that were there." 



Although in these later years Mr. Robertson did 

 not go skirmishing about from one end of Great 

 Britain and Ireland to the other so freely as he had 

 done in earlier times, he was far from letting scientific 



