But if the machinery department were especially attractive for the striking evidence it afforded of the supremacy of this nation over all others in mechanical genius and industry—exhibiting at once the cause and effect of Britain’s greatness—assuredly the mineral department, though having less surface attractions, still displayed our peculiar national characteristics. Without our coal and without our iron, where would have been our machinery?
Watt, Arkwright, Stevenson, born in another quarter of the globe that possessed less metallic treasures, might have lived and died mere clods perhaps, removed from the minerals that were necessary both to the production and achievement of their genius; and more marvellous than all is it, after having cast the eye over the several huge lumps of ore that here are to be seen, to pass into the several branches of manufactures, and behold the things of special interest that the skill and genius of man have learned to fashion them into—to contrast the dull-looking iron ore with the glittering, bright-polished, and sharp-edged steel instruments that are made from it—to see the opaque and powdery sand, and then behold the pellucid and massive glass fountains, chandeliers, and vases into which we have learned to convert it.
CHAPTER XIV.
“But now the lang-expected mworn
Of murriment arrives,
Wheyle helter-skelter frae a’ airts
I’ swarms the country drives,
The lasses in their feyne pearce claes,
The lads baith trig an’ souple;