[27]. Sir John Richardson, p. 308.
[28]. Ibid., i., pp. 309-318.
[29]. Sir John Richardson, i., p. 321.
[30]. Ibid., p. 326.
[31]. Sir John Richardson, i., p. 331.
[32]. This year was enlisted a calculating youth named Alexander Gwin, a native of Londonderry, who had a brother and an uncle in the corps. When only eight years of age, he had “committed to memory the logarithms of all the natural numbers from one to a thousand.” Two years later, his fame having spread, his precocity was tested at Limerick “in the presence of Colonel Colby, Lord Adare, and several other gentlemen of distinction,” to whom he repeated the whole series, without a mistake, taking up two hours and a half to deliver himself of that gigantic mental effort! “His rapidity and correctness in calculating trigonometrical distances, triangles, &c.” were equally remarkable. “In less than one minute, he could make a return in acres, roods, perches, &c., of any quantity of land, by giving him the surveyor’s chained distances; while,” it is added, “the greatest mathematician with all his knowledge would certainly take nearly an hour to do the same, and not be sure of truth in the end.”—‘Year-Book of Facts,’ 1842. ‘Boys’ Own Book,’ p. 381, published by Bogue. This calculating boy, making allowance for the hyperbole of his admirers, was without doubt a youthful prodigy. He is now a corporal on the survey, useful and energetic in his duties; but as the opportunities for improving his faculty for figures have been considerably lessened by the nature of his employments, he has not become what his infantine capabilities promised—another Bidder.
[33]. He never received any additional remuneration at the close of the work, but his high rate of working-pay may have been considered a sufficient equivalent for his services.
[34]. Sergeant James Anderson was one of those who was thus favoured. On obtaining his discharge, with a pension of 1s. 10d. a day, in August, 1845, he received an appointment in Worsley-yard, belonging to the estate of Lord Ellesmere, as superintendent and storekeeper of the yard, at a salary of 120l. a-year, with a residence. Since then, such has been his scrupulous character for honesty and careful supervision, that a very handsome addition has been made to his income, and the utmost confidence is reposed in him.
Another was colour-sergeant John Ross, a very ingenious mechanic, who after his discharge, in April, 1848, was appointed engineer at Runcorn, to attend to a small steam fleet in the canal, under the Bridgewater Trust. He invented the drawbridge at the entrance of Fort Albert, Bermuda, the largest of its class in any military fortification, and which can be easily worked by two men, either in throwing it across the ditch, or pulling it in. Many years of his life had been spent in perfecting a new system of locomotion for ships. His great idea was the construction of a vessel which should ride above the control of the waves, resting upon an arrangement of large cylinders, to serve, like the piers of a bridge, as the natural supports of the ship, and within which should be placed his revolving paddle-wheels, to be moved by steam appliances. By a very ingenious contrivance he provided that the sea, which should come in contact with the paddles, should not only be deprived of its resistance, but made to assist in the propulsion of the vessel. The speed he calculated to obtain by his system was almost incredible. Personal trials of an imperfect model, in the waters at Bermuda, convinced him of the practicability of his bold scheme. After quitting Runcorn, ambitious of higher employment, he emigrated to Canada, where he is pursuing the study and development of his novel notions of shipbuilding and locomotion. He received a gratuity and medal for his services in the corps, and might have been promoted to the rank of sergeant-major, but, restless and speculative, he preferred to try what his mechanical genius would yield him in civil life.
[35]. ‘Cape and the Kaffirs,’ by Mrs. Captain Ward. Bohn’s edit. 1851, p. 230.