sed "outsides," with whom I had taken my
chance, I alighted in Wick, at the inn-door, a little after six o'clock
in the evening. The following morning was wet and dreary; and a tumbling
sea, raised by the wind of the previous day and night, came rolling into
the bay; but the waves bore with them no steamer; and when, some five
hours after the expected time, she also came rolling in, her darkened
and weather-beaten sides and rigging gave evidence that her passage from
the south had been no holiday trip. Impatient, however, of looking out
upon the sea for hours, from under dripping eaves, and through the
dimmed panes of streaming windows, I got aboard with about half-a-dozen
other passengers; and while the Wick goods were in the course of being
transferred to two large boats alongside, we lay tossing in the open
bay. The work of raising box and package was superintended by a tall
elderly gentleman from the shore, peculiarly Scotch in his
appearance,--the steam company's agent for this part of the country.

"That," said an acquaintance, pointing to the agent, "is a very
extraordinary man,--in his own special walk, one of the most
original-minded, and at the same time most thoroughly practical, you
perhaps ever saw. That is Mr. Bremner of Wick, known now all over
Britain for his success in raising foundered vessels, when every one
else gives them up. In the lifting of vast weights, or the overcoming
the _vis inertiae_ of the hugest bodies, nothing ever baffles Mr.
Bremner. But come, I must introduce you to him. He takes an interest in
your peculiar science, and is familiar with your geological writings."

I was accordingly introduced to Mr. Bremner, and passed, in his company
the half-hour which we spent in the bay, in a way that made me wish the
time doubled. I had been struck by the peculiar style of masonry
employed in the harbor of Wick, and by its rock-like strength. The gray
ponderous stones of the flagstone series of which it is built, instead
of being placed on their flatter beds, like common ashlar in a building,
or horizontal strata in a quarry, are raised on end, like staves in a
pail or barrel, so that at some little distance the work looks as if
formed of upright piles or beams jambed fast together. I had learned
that Mr. Bremner had been the builder, and adverted to the peculiarity
of his style of building. "You have given a vertical tilt to your
strata," I said: "most men would have preferred the horizontal p