Self Help - Samuel Smiles (children's ebooks free online TXT) 📗
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subject was almost incessant; and it is estimated that in the
course of his life he devoted not less than 25,000 hours to its
experimental and chemical investigation. He was at the same time
carrying on an extensive private practice, and officiating as
lecturer at St. Thomas’s Hospital and other Medical Schools. It
will scarcely be credited that the paper in which he embodied his
discovery was rejected by the Royal Society, and was only accepted
after the lapse of seventeen years, when the truth of his views had
become acknowledged by scientific men both at home and abroad.
The life of Sir William Herschel affords another remarkable
illustration of the force of perseverance in another branch of
science. His father was a poor German musician, who brought up his
four sons to the same calling. William came over to England to
seek his fortune, and he joined the band of the Durham Militia, in
which he played the oboe. The regiment was lying at Doncaster,
where Dr. Miller first became acquainted with Herschel, having
heard him perform a solo on the violin in a surprising manner. The
Doctor entered into conversation with the youth, and was so pleased
with him, that he urged him to leave the militia and take up his
residence at his house for a time. Herschel did so, and while at
Doncaster was principally occupied in violin-playing at concerts,
availing himself of the advantages of Dr. Miller’s library to study
at his leisure hours. A new organ having been built for the parish
church of Halifax, an organist was advertised for, on which
Herschel applied for the office, and was selected. Leading the
wandering life of an artist, he was next attracted to Bath, where
he played in the Pump-room band, and also officiated as organist in
the Octagon chapel. Some recent discoveries in astronomy having
arrested his mind, and awakened in him a powerful spirit of
curiosity, he sought and obtained from a friend the loan of a two-foot Gregorian telescope. So fascinated was the poor musician by
the science, that he even thought of purchasing a telescope, but
the price asked by the London optician was so alarming, that he
determined to make one. Those who know what a reflecting telescope
is, and the skill which is required to prepare the concave metallic
speculum which forms the most important part of the apparatus, will
be able to form some idea of the difficulty of this undertaking.
Nevertheless, Herschel succeeded, after long and painful labour, in
completing a five-foot reflector, with which he had the
gratification of observing the ring and satellites of Saturn. Not
satisfied with his triumph, he proceeded to make other instruments
in succession, of seven, ten, and even twenty feet. In
constructing the seven-foot reflector, he finished no fewer than
two hundred specula before he produced one that would bear any
power that was applied to it,—a striking instance of the
persevering laboriousness of the man. While gauging the heavens
with his instruments, he continued patiently to earn his bread by
piping to the fashionable frequenters of the Pump-room. So eager
was he in his astronomical observations, that he would steal away
from the room during an interval of the performance, give a little
turn at his telescope, and contentedly return to his oboe. Thus
working away, Herschel discovered the Georgium Sidus, the orbit and
rate of motion of which he carefully calculated, and sent the
result to the Royal Society; when the humble oboe player found
himself at once elevated from obscurity to fame. He was shortly
after appointed Astronomer Royal, and by the kindness of George
III. was placed in a position of honourable competency for life.
He bore his honours with the same meekness and humility which had
distinguished him in the days of his obscurity. So gentle and
patient, and withal so distinguished and successful a follower of
science under difficulties, perhaps cannot be found in the entire
history of biography.
The career of William Smith, the father of English geology, though
perhaps less known, is not less interesting and instructive as an
example of patient and laborious effort, and the diligent
cultivation of opportunities. He was born in 1769, the son of a
yeoman farmer at Churchill, in Oxfordshire. His father dying when
he was but a child, he received a very sparing education at the
village school, and even that was to a considerable extent
interfered with by his wandering and somewhat idle habits as a boy.
His mother having married a second time, he was taken in charge by
an uncle, also a farmer, by whom he was brought up. Though the
uncle was by no means pleased with the boy’s love of wandering
about, collecting “poundstones,” “pundips,” and other stony
curiosities which lay scattered about the adjoining land, he yet
enabled him to purchase a few of the necessary books wherewith to
instruct himself in the rudiments of geometry and surveying; for
the boy was already destined for the business of a land-surveyor.
One of his marked characteristics, even as a youth, was the
accuracy and keenness of his observation; and what he once clearly
saw he never forgot. He began to draw, attempted to colour, and
practised the arts of mensuration and surveying, all without
regular instruction; and by his efforts in self-culture, he shortly
became so proficient, that he was taken on as assistant to a local
surveyor of ability in the neighbourhood. In carrying on his
business he was constantly under the necessity of traversing
Oxfordshire and the adjoining counties. One of the first things he
seriously pondered over, was the position of the various soils and
strata that came under his notice on the lands which he surveyed or
travelled over; more especially the position of the red earth in
regard to the lias and superincumbent rocks. The surveys of
numerous collieries which he was called upon to make, gave him
further experience; and already, when only twenty-three years of
age, he contemplated making a model of the strata of the earth.
While engaged in levelling for a proposed canal in Gloucestershire,
the idea of a general law occurred to him relating to the strata of
that district. He conceived that the strata lying above the coal
were not laid horizontally, but inclined, and in one direction,
towards the east; resembling, on a large scale, “the ordinary
appearance of superposed slices of bread and butter.” The
correctness of this theory he shortly after confirmed by
observations of the strata in two parallel valleys, the “red
ground,” “lias,” and “freestone” or “oolite,” being found to come
down in an eastern direction, and to sink below the level, yielding
place to the next in succession. He was shortly enabled to verify
the truth of his views on a larger scale, having been appointed to
examine personally into the management of canals in England and
Wales. During his journeys, which extended from Bath to Newcastle-on-Tyne, returning by Shropshire and Wales, his keen eyes were
never idle for a moment. He rapidly noted the aspect and structure
of the country through which he passed with his companions,
treasuring up his observations for future use. His geologic vision
was so acute, that though the road along which he passed from York
to Newcastle in the post chaise was from five to fifteen miles
distant from the hills of chalk and oolite on the east, he was
satisfied as to their nature, by their contours and relative
position, and their ranges on the surface in relation to the lias
and “red ground” occasionally seen on the road.
The general results of his observation seem to have been these. He
noted that the rocky masses of country in the western parts of
England generally inclined to the east and south-east; that the red
sandstones and marls above the coal measures passed beneath the
lias, clay, and limestone, that these again passed beneath the
sands, yellow limestones and clays, forming the table-land of the
Cotswold Hills, while these in turn passed beneath the great chalk
deposits occupying the eastern parts of England. He further
observed, that each layer of clay, sand, and limestone held its own
peculiar classes of fossils; and pondering much on these things, he
at length came to the then unheard-of conclusion, that each
distinct deposit of marine animals, in these several strata,
indicated a distinct sea-bottom, and that each layer of clay, sand,
chalk, and stone, marked a distinct epoch of time in the history of
the earth.
This idea took firm possession of his mind, and he could talk and
think of nothing else. At canal boards, at sheep-shearings, at
county meetings, and at agricultural associations, ‘Strata Smith,’
as he came to be called, was always running over with the subject
that possessed him. He had indeed made a great discovery, though
he was as yet a man utterly unknown in the scientific world. He
proceeded to project a map of the stratification of England; but
was for some time deterred from proceeding with it, being fully
occupied in carrying out the works of the Somersetshire coal canal,
which engaged him for a period of about six years. He continued,
nevertheless, to be unremitting in his observation of facts; and he
became so expert in apprehending the internal structure of a
district and detecting the lie of the strata from its external
configuration, that he was often consulted respecting the drainage
of extensive tracts of land, in which, guided by his geological
knowledge, he proved remarkably successful, and acquired an
extensive reputation.
One day, when looking over the cabinet collection of fossils
belonging to the Rev. Samuel Richardson, at Bath, Smith astonished
his friend by suddenly disarranging his classification, and re-arranging the fossils in their stratigraphical order, saying—
“These came from the blue lias, these from the over-lying sand and
freestone, these from the fuller’s earth, and these from the Bath
building stone.” A new light flashed upon Mr. Richardson’s mind,
and he shortly became a convert to and believer in William Smith’s
doctrine. The geologists of the day were not, however, so easily
convinced; and it was scarcely to be tolerated that an unknown
land-surveyor should pretend to teach them the science of geology.
But William Smith had an eye and mind to penetrate deep beneath the
skin of the earth; he saw its very fibre and skeleton, and, as it
were, divined its organization. His knowledge of the strata in the
neighbourhood of Bath was so accurate, that one evening, when
dining at the house of the Rev. Joseph Townsend, he dictated to Mr.
Richardson the different strata according to their order of
succession in descending order, twenty-three in number, commencing
with the chalk and descending in continuous series down to the
coal, below which the strata were not then sufficiently determined.
To this was added a list of the more remarkable fossils which had
been gathered in the several layers of rock. This was printed and
extensively circulated in 1801.
He next determined to trace out the strata through districts as
remote from Bath as his means would enable him to reach. For years
he journeyed to and fro, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback,
riding on the tops of stage coaches, often making up by night-travelling the time he had lost by day, so as not to fail in his
ordinary business engagements. When he was professionally called
away to any distance from home—as, for instance, when travelling
from Bath to Holkham, in Norfolk, to direct the irrigation and
drainage of Mr. Coke’s land in that county—he rode on horseback,
making frequent detours from the road to note the geological
features of the country which he traversed.
For several years he was thus engaged in his journeys to distant
quarters in England and Ireland, to the extent of
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