MR. SCOTT Russell's letter. 89 



ground he rested that claim. Mr. Napier wrote according 

 to Mr. Smith's direction, and the following was Mr. Scott 

 Russell's reply : — 



"37, Gkeat George Street, Westminster, 

 May 6, 1857. 



" My dear Sir, — I wish you had sent me Mr. Assheton 

 Sniith's letter, as I should like to have known exactly what 

 he now thinks on the subject of your letter, because his 

 own statements to me personally have never amounted to 

 any claim for himself of priority over me, or of ray having 

 taken anything from him. On the contrary, what he has 

 stated to me is this, that he had long entertained a belief 

 that hollow water lines were the best, but that he had 

 never been able to try the experiment until the first trial 

 of the Fire-king, in 1839, and this was after he had seen a 

 full account of my * lines' published in the Athenceum. 

 You, on the contrary, seem to think that I had derived my 

 knowledge of the subject through being present at the trial 

 of the Fire-king, in 1839. I am glad you have written to 

 me on this subject, because you must, in your own mind, 

 have been doing me great injustice in supposing that I 

 learned anything at the trial of the Fire-king that was new 

 to me ; on the contrary, I was delighted with the Fire- 

 king, as an independent proof made by other parties of 

 the advantage of hollow water lines. I have therefore 

 referred back to the records of my early proceedings, 

 which were published at the time in the Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and also in the accounts of 

 the Proceedings of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science ; and I find the following dates established 

 beyond dispute : — 



" * 1834 — I discovered the wave of translation in the 

 Bummer of 1834, and I gave an account of its nature to the 

 British Association at their meeting in Edinburgh in that 

 year. 1835 — I commenced the building of my first vessel 



