After Smeaton had retired from his profession, he was often pressed to superintend certain works; when these entreaties were backed by personal offers of emolument, he used to send for an old woman who took care of his chambers in Gray's Inn, and say, "Her attendance suffices for all my wants!" a reply which conveyed the intimation that a man whose personal wants were so simple, was not likely to break through a pre-arranged line of conduct for mere pecuniary considerations.
Smeaton's magnum opus is the Eddystone lighthouse, which has withstood the storms of more than a century. One of its severest perils was in a terrific hurricane in November, 1824, when the men in the lighthouse appear to have been in a most critical situation; alive to their danger, and conscious of being beyond the hope of human aid. The report made by one of the light-keepers states, that on the morning of the 23rd, "the sea was tremendous, and broke with such violence on the top and round the building, as to demolish in an instant five panes of the lantern glass, and sixteen cylinder glasses, the former of unusual thickness. The house shook with so much violence as to occasion considerable motion of the cylinder glasses fixed in the lamps; and at times the whole building appeared to sway as if resting on an elastic body. The water came from the top of the edifice in such quantities that we were overwhelmed, and the sea made a breach from the top of the house to the bottom."
CHILDHOOD OF CUVIER.
Cuvier, like Sir Isaac Newton, was born with such a feeble and sickly constitution, that he was scarcely expected to reach the years of manhood. His affectionate mother watched over his varying health, instilled into his mind the first lessons of religion, and had taught him to read fluently before he had completed his fourth year. She made him repeat to her his Latin lessons, though ignorant herself of the language; she conducted him every morning to school; made him practise drawing under her own superintendence, and supplied him with the best works on history and literature. His father had destined him for the army. In the library of the Gymnasium, where he stood at the head of the classes of history, geography, and mathematics, he lighted upon a copy of Gesner's History of Animals and Serpents, with coloured plates; and, about the same time, he had discovered a complete copy of Buffon among the books of one of his relatives. His taste for Natural History now became a passion. He copied the figures which these works contained, and coloured them in conformity with the descriptions; whilst he did not overlook the intellectual beauties of his author.
In the fourteenth year of his age he was appointed president of a society of his schoolfellows, which he was the means of organising, and of which he drew up the rules; and seated on the foot of his bed, which was the president's chair, he first showed his oratorical powers in the discussion of various questions, suggested by the reading of books of natural history and travels, which was the principal object of the society.
When at the age of nineteen, the casual dissection of a colmar, a species of cuttle-fish, induced Cuvier to study the anatomy of the mollusca; and the examination of some fossil terebratulæ, which had been dug up near Fécamp, in June, 1791, suggested to him the idea of comparing fossil with living animals; and thus, as he himself said, "the germ of his two most important labours—the comparison of fossil with living species, and the reform of the classification of the animal kingdom—had their origin at this epoch."
WATT'S DISCOVERY OF THE COMPOSITION
OF WATER.
A controversy a good many years ago agitated the philosophical world, as to the discovery of the Composition of Water—whether the merit was due to Watt or Cavendish. One of Watt's letters, dated May 15th, 1784, seems to compress the matter into a nutshell. Writing to his friend, Mr. Fry of Bristol, Mr. Watt says, that "he has had the honour of having had his ideas pirated;" that Dr. Blagden explained his theory to Lavoisier, at Paris; that M. Lavoisier soon after invented it himself; and that "since that, Mr. Cavendish has read a paper to the Royal Society on the same idea, without making the least mention of me." "The one," he continues, "is a French financier, and the other a member of the illustrious house of Cavendish, worth above 100,000l. (1,000,000l.) and does not spend 1000l. a year. Rich men may do mean actions; may you and I always persevere in our integrity, and despise such doings."