94 REMINISCENCES, ETC. 



use in this matter, it would give me great pleasure to 

 receive your commands. 



" I am, dear Madam, 



" With most sincere regard, 

 " Yours respectfully, 



" E. Napier." 



The following letter from Sir Roderick Murchison 



ascribes originality of invention to both Mr. Assheton 



Smith and Mr. Scott Russell, and thus analyses the merits 



of each claimant : — 



"16, Belgrave Square, Nov. 25th, 1859. 



" My dear Sir, — In your letter of the 5th of November, 

 you seek to obtain my opinion on the scientific knowledge 

 possessed by the late Mr. Thomas Assheton Smith, and par- 

 ticularly as respects the discovery of the ' wave principle ' 

 in ship-building, which he claimed as well as Mr. J. Scott 

 Russell. 



" In reply, let me first say that, when my old friend and 

 myself were associated in Leicestershire, about forty years 

 ago, neither of us talked much on any subject save ' the 

 noble science,' in the pursuit of which Tom Smith had then 

 been long 'facile princeps.* 



" But when, after a quarter of a century of stone-break- 

 ing on my part, our intimacy was renewed, and I visited 

 him both among his slate rocks of Caernarvon and at his 

 seat in Hampshire, he often proved to me in conversation, 

 that he could well handle, and even master, scientific sub- 

 jects after his own shrewd practical manner. 



"Among these subjects he spoke of his having been the 

 first to carry out what he considered to be the wave line 

 form in ship-building. His attention was, as he assured 

 me, called to this form by reflecting upon the simple experi- 

 ment pointed out to him, when he was a boy at Eton, by 

 Mr. Walker, the lecturer on natural philosophy, — that 

 when a flat stone was thrown into the Thames it made a 

 gentle curve in sinking to the bottom of the river. 



