"I have been showing your drawing of 'Udolpho Castle' and 'The Astrologer's Tower' to the Duchess of Sutherland, who is enchanted with the beauty of the architectural details, and wishes she had seen them before Dunrobin was finished; for hints might have been taken from bits of your work. —Very truly yours,
ARGYLL." …]
In the year following the meeting of the British Association at Edinburgh, the great Exhibition of all nations at London took place. The Commissioners appointed for carrying out this noble enterprise had made special visits to Manchester and the surrounding manufacturing districts for the purpose of organising local committees, so that the machinery and productions of each might be adequately represented in the World's Great Industrial Exhibition. The Commissioners were met with enthusiasm; and nearly every manufacturer was found ready to display the results of his industry. The local engineers and tool-makers were put upon their mettle, and each endeavoured to do his best. Like others, our firm contributed specimens of our special machine tools, and a fair average specimen of the steam hammer, with a 30 cwt. hammer-block.
I also sent one of my very simple and compact steam-engines, in the design of which I had embodied the form of my steam hammer—placing the crank where the anvil of the hammer usually stands. The simplicity and grace of this arrangement of the steam-engine were much admired. Its merits were acknowledged in a way most gratifying to me, by its rapid adoption by engineers of every class, especially by marine engineers. It has been adopted for driving the shafts of screw-propelled steamships of the largest kind. The comparatively small space it occupies, its compactness, its get-at-ability of parts, and the action of gravity on the piston, which, working vertically, and having no undue action in causing wearing of the cylinder on one side (which was the case with horizontal engines), has now brought my Steam Hammer Engine into almost universal use* [footnote… Sir John Anderson, in his Report on the machine tools, textile, and other machinery exhibited at Vienna in 1873, makes the following observations: —"Perhaps the finest pair of marine engines yet produced by France, or any other country, were those exhibited by Schneider and Company, the leading firm in France. These engines were not large, but were perfect in many respects; yet comparatively few of those who were struck with admiration seemed to know that the original of this style of construction came from the same mind as the Steam Hammer. Nasmyth's Infant Hercules was the forerunner of all the steam hammer engines that have yet been made from that type, which is now being so extensively employed for working the screw propeller of steam vessels." …]
The Commissioners, acting on the special recommendation of the jury, awarded me a medal for the construction of this form of steam-engine* [footnote… The Council of the Exhibition thus describe the engine in the awards: — "Nasmyth, J., Patricroft, Manchester, a small portable direct-acting steam-engine. The cylinder is fixed, vertical and inverted, the crank being placed beneath it, and the piston working downwards. The sides of the frame which support the cylinder serve as guides, and the bearings of the crank-shaft and fly-wheel are firmly fixed in the bed-plate of the engine. The arrangement is compact and economical, and the workmanship practically good and durable." (See illustration of the design, page 424.) …] as it was merely a judicious arrangement of the parts, and not, in any correct sense of the term, an invention, I took out no patent for it, and left it free to work its own way into general adoption. It has since been used for high as well as low-pressure steam— an arrangement which has come into much favour on account of the great economy of fuel which results from using it.
A Council Medal was also awarded to me for the Steam Hammer. But perhaps what pleased me most was the Prize Medal which I received for my special hobby—the drawings of the Moon's surface. I sent a collection of these, with a map, to the Exhibition. They attracted considerable attention, not only because of their novelty, but because of the accurate and artistic style of their execution. The Jurors, in making the award, gave the following description of them: "Mr. Nasmyth exhibits a well-delineated map of the Moon on a large scale, which is drawn with great accuracy, the irregularities upon the surface being shown with much force and spirit; also separate and enlarged representations of certain portions of the Moon as seen through a powerful telescope: they are all good in detail, and very effective."
My drawings of the Moon attracted the special notice of the Prince Consort. Shortly after the closing of the Exhibition, in October 1851, the Queen and the Prince made a visit to Manchester and Liverpool, during which time they were the guests of the Earl of Ellesmere at Worsley Hall. Finding that I lived near at hand, the Prince expressed his desire to the Earl that I should exhibit to Her Majesty some of my graphic lunar studies.
On receiving a note to that effect from the Countess of Ellesmere, I sent a selection of my drawings to the Hall, and proceeded there in the evening. I had then the honour of showing them to the Queen and the Prince, and explaining them in detail. Her Majesty took a deep interest in the subject, and was most earnest in her inquiries. The Prince Consort' said that the drawings opened up quite a new subject to him, which he had not before had the opportunity of considering. It was as much as I could do to answer the numerous keen and incisive questions which he put to me. They were all so distinct and cogent. Their object was, of course, to draw from me the necessary explanations on this rather recondite subject. I believe, however, that notwithstanding the presence of Royalty, I was enabled to place all the most striking and important features of the Moon's surface in a clear and satisfactory manner before Her Majesty and the Prince,
I find that the Queen in her Diary alludes in the most gratifying manner to the evening's interview. In the Life of the Prince Consort (vol. ii. p. 398), Sir Theodore Martin thus mentions the subject: — "The evening was enlivened by the presence of Mr. Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam hammer, who had extensive works at Patricroft. He exhibited and explained the map and drawings in which he had embodied the results of his investigations of the conformations of the surface of the Moon. The Queen in her Diary dwells at considerable length on the results of Mr. Nasmyth's inquiries. The charm of his manner, in which the simplicity, modesty, and enthusiasm of genius are all strikingly combined, are warmly dwelt upon. Mr. Nasmyth belongs to a family of painters, and would have won fame for himself as an artist —for his landscapes are as true to Nature as his compositions are full of fancy and feeling—had not science and mechanical invention claimed him for their own. His drawings were submitted on this occasion. and their beauty was generally admired.* [footnote… In his lecture on the "Geological Features of Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood," in the following year, Hugh Miller, speaking of the Castle Rock, observed: —"The underlying strata, though geologically and in their original position several hundred feet higher than those which underlie the Castle esplanade, are now, with respect to the actual level, nearly 200 feet lower. In a lecture on what may be termed the geology of the Moon, delivered in the October of last year before Her Majesty and Prince Albert by Mr. Nasmyth, he referred to certain appearances on the surface of that satellite that seemed to be the results, in some very ancient time, of the sudden falling in of portions of an unsupported crust, or a retreating nucleus of molten matter; and took occasion to suggest that some of the great slips and shifts on the surface of our own planet, with their huge downcasts, may have had a similar origin. The suggestion is at once bold and ingenious." …]
The next time I visited Edinburgh was in the autumn of 1853. Lord Cockburn, an old friend, having heard that I was sojourning in the city, sent me the following letter, dated "Bonally, 3rd September," inviting me to call a meeting of the Faithful: