[21] The importation of coal in 1883 amounted to over 700,000 tons.
[22] We are indebted to the obliging kindness of the Right Hon. Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster-General for this return. The total number of depositors in the Post Office Savings banks in the Parliamentary borough of Belfast is 10,827 and the amount of their deposits, including the interest standing to their credit, on the 31st December, 1882, was 158,064L. 0s. 1d.
An important item in the savings of Belfast, not included in the above returns, consists in the amounts of deposits made with the various Limited Companies, as well as with the thriving Building Societies in the town and neighbourhood.
CHAPTER XI.
SHIPBUILDING IN BELFAST—ITS ORIGIN AND PROGRESS.
BY SIR E. J. HARLAND, ENGINEER AND SHIPBUILDER.
"The useful arts are but reproductions or new combinations by the art of man, of the same natural benefactors. He no longer waits for favouring gales, but by means of steam he realises the fable of AEolus's bag, and carries the two-and-thirty winds in the boiler of his boat."—Emerson.
"The most exquisite and the most expensive machinery is brought into play where operations on the most common materials are to be performed, because these are executed on the widest scale. This is the meaning of the vast and astonishing prevalence of machine work in this country: that the machine, with its million fingers, works for millions of purchasers, while in remote countries, where magnificence and savagery stand side by side, tens of thousands work for one. There Art labours for the rich alone; here she works for the poor no less. There the multitude produce only to give splendour and grace to the despot or the warrior, whose slaves they are, and whom they enrich; here the man who is powerful in the weapons of peace, capital, and machinery, uses them to give comfort and enjoyment to the public, whose servant he is, and thus becomes rich while he enriches others with his goods."—William Whewell, D.D.
I was born at Scarborough in May, 1831, the sixth of a family of eight. My father was a native of Rosedale, half-way between Whitby and Pickering: his nurse was the sister of Captain Scoresby, celebrated as an Arctic explorer. Arrived at manhood, he studied medicine, graduated at Edinburgh, and practised in Scarborough until nearly his death in 1866. He was thrice Mayor and a Justice of the Peace for the borough. Dr. Harland was a man of much force of character, and displayed great originality in the treatment of disease. Besides exercising skill in his profession, he had a great love for mechanical pursuits. He spent his leisure time in inventions of many sorts; and, in conjunction with the late Sir George Cayley of Brompton, he kept an excellent mechanic constantly at work.