INTRODUCTION. Vll 



We have advanced to our present position in the scale 

 of nations by the efforts of a few chosen minds. Every 

 branch of human industry has been benefited by the 

 discoveries of science. The discoverers are therefore 

 deserving of that hero-worship which, sooner or later, 

 they receive from all. 



The following pages are intended to convey to the 

 general reader a brief but correct account of the illustrious 

 dead, whose names are for ever associated with one of the 

 most brilliant eras in British science. It will be remem- 

 bered that, in the earliest years of the present century, 

 the world witnessed the control and application of steam 

 by Watt, Symington and Trevithick ; the great disco- 

 veries in physics and chemistry by Dalton, Cavendish, 

 Wollaston and Davy, in astronomy by Herschel, Mas- 

 kelyne and Baily; the inventions of the spinning-mule 

 and power-loom by Crompton and Cartwright ; the in- 

 troduction of machinery into the manufacture of paper, 

 by Bryan Donkin and others; the improvements in the 

 printing-press, and invention of stereotype printing, by 

 Charles Earl Stanhope ; the discovery of vaccination by 

 Jenner ; the introduction of gas into general use by 

 Murdock ; and the construction (in a great measure) of 

 the present system of canal communication by Jessop, 

 Chapman, Telford and Rennie. During the same period 

 of time were likewise living Count Rumford ; Robert 

 Brown, the botanist; William Smith, "The Father of 

 English Geology;" Thomas Young, the natural philo- 

 sopher; Brunei; Bentham; Maudslay; and Francis Ro- 

 nalds, who, by securing perfect insulation, was the first 

 to demonstrate the practicability of passing an electric 



