152 CORT. 



retired and died three years afterwards, in 1799. His health, never 

 robust, was precarious at all times from a weakness in the bronchia 

 and chest, but he prolonged life by a system of strictest abstinence, 

 frequently subsisting for days together on watergruel and diluted 

 milk. He was never married. He lived in a select circle of friends, 

 the most illustrious men of the times in science and in letters ; 

 Watt, Hutton, Hume, Robertson, Smith ; and afterwards with the 

 succeeding generation of Scottish worthies, Robison, Playfair, and 

 Stewart. He was extremely averse to publication, contemning the 

 impatience with which so many men of science hurry to the press, 

 often while their speculations are crude and their inquiries not 

 finished. He never published any work himself with the exception 

 of his { Experiments on Magnesia, &c.,' and two papers, one in the 

 'London Philosophical Transactions' for 1775 on the Freezing of 

 boiled Water; the other in the second vol. of the ' Edinburgh Trans- 

 actions,' on the Iceland Hot Springs. 



Dr. Black expired in the seventy-first year of his age, without any 

 convulsion, shock, or stupor to announce or retard the approach of 

 death. Being at table with his usual fare, some bread, a few prunes, 

 and a measured quantity of milk diluted with water, and having the 

 cup in his hand when the last stroke of the pulse was given, he set 

 it down on his knees, which were joined together, and kept it steady 

 with his hand in the manner of a person perfectly at his ease ; and 

 in this attitude he expired without a drop being spilt or a feature in 

 his countenance changed. His servant coming in saw him in this 

 posture and left the room, supposing him asleep. On returning soon 

 after, he saw him sitting as before and found that he had expired. 

 Brougham's Lives of Philosophers. London and Glasgow, 1855. 

 Encyclopaedia, Britannica, Eighth Edition. 



RICHARD CORT. 



Born 1740. Died 1800. 



The sad history of this great inventor, who has been well sur- 

 named " The Father of the iron trade," is comparatively soon told. 

 Although his discoveries in the manufacture of iron were so impor- 

 tant as to have been one of the chief causes in the establishment of 

 our modern engineering, little is known of the life of the unfortunate 

 inventor. He was born in 1740 at Lancaster, where his father 

 carried on the trade of a builder and brickmaker. In 1765, at the 

 age of twenty-five, he was engaged in the carrying on of the busi- 

 ness of a navy agent in Surrey Street, Strand, in which he is said to 



