68 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1750. 



high, as the inner box is hung very free on its centres, the better to answer its 

 Other purposes, it will be necessary to slacken the milled nut, placed on one of 

 the axes that supports the ring, and to tighten the nut on the outside that cor- 

 responds to it. By this means the inner box and ring will be lifted up from the 

 edges, on which they rest, when free ; and the friction will be increased, and 

 that to any degree necessary to prevent the too great vibrations ; which otherwise 

 would be occasioned by the motion of the ship. 



To make the compass useful in taking the magnetic azimuth, or amplitude of 

 the sun and stars, as also the bearings of head-lands, ships, and other objects at 

 a distance ; the brass edge, designed at first to support the card, and throw its 

 weight as near the circumference as possible, is itself divided into degrees and 



playtliings were not those of children, but the tools men work with ; and he had always more amuse- 

 ment in observing artificers work, and asking them questions, than in any thing else. Continually 

 occupied in such pursuits, Mr. S. acquired, at 18 years of age, an extensive set of tools, and the art 

 of working in most of the mechanical trades ; which he continued to work with occasionally to the 

 end of his life. 



Mr. Smeaton's father being an attorney, he thought of bringing up his son to the same profession. 

 Accordingly he was s«nt up to London in 1742 -, where after some time employed in tliat line, find- 

 ing that the practice of the law did not suit the bent of his genius, as he used to express it, he wrote 

 a strong memorial on the subject to his father, whose good sense, from that moment, left Mr. S. to 

 pursue the bent of his genius in his own way. After this, Mr. S. continued to reside in London, 

 where, before the date of the above paper, 1750, he had commenced philosophical instrument maker, 

 which he continued to exercise for some time, and formed an acquaintance with most of the ingenious 

 men of that time. 



In 17J3 Mr. S. was admitted f. r.s., and in 1759 he was honoured with the Society's gold 

 medal, for his paper on the natural jxjwers of water and wind, to turn mills, and other machines de- 

 pending on a circular motion. From about 1753 or 1754 Mr. S. seems to have practised as an 

 engineer ; soon after which he undertook to rebuild the Edystone light-house, which he completed 

 with stone in 1759. In 1764 he was appointed one of the receivers of the forfeited Derwentwater 

 estate, applied to the uses of Greenwich hospital; which office beheld till 1777, when he resigned 

 it in favour of Sir John Turner, a son of the Earl of Sandwich, then first lord of the admiralty. 



After this, Mr. S. going into full employment as an engineer, it would be endless to attempt to 

 particularize all the great works he so ably conducted, as mills, wheels, engines, levels, canals, 

 bridges, harbours, &c. in all which he was equally eminent. Particularly he saved from immediate 

 destruction London bridge, after the opening of its great arch. Indeed as a civil engineer Mr. S. was 

 perhaps unrivalled, certainly not excelled by any one. Astronomy was also, for amusement, a fa- 

 vourite pursuit of Mr. S., and he made several curious instruments nf this kind for his friends, as 

 well as for himself; with which, to the time of his death, he continued to make many observations. 

 The chief of Mr S.'s publications, was his History of Edystone Lighthouse. Besides which, many 

 of his reports and memorials on the different works he was concerned in, were occasionally printed 

 in his life-time; as well as an ajlditional volume of the same since his death. He had also inserted 

 in the Philos. Trans, a considerable number of valuable papers, both mechanical and astronomical, in 

 most of the volumes from the year 1750 to 1776. A much larger account of this ingenious and 

 worthy man may be seen in Dr. Hutton's Dictionary, from which the above particulars are extracted ; 

 ot in the account of his life prefixed to the volume of his reports above mentioned. 



