. In 1802, he applied the compressed
air of the Blast Engine employed to blow the cupolas of the Soho
Foundry, for the purpose of driving the lathe in the pattern shop. It
worked a small engine, with a 12-inch cylinder and 18-inch stroke,
connected with the lathe, the speed being regulated as required by
varying the admission of the blast. This engine continued in use for
about thirty-five years.

In 1803 Murdock experimented on the power of high-pressure steam in
propelling shot, and contrived a steam-engine with which he made many
trials at Soho, thereby anticipating the apparatus contrived by Mr.
Perkins many years later.

In 1810 Murdock took out a patent for boring steam-pipes for water, and
cutting columns out of solid blocks of stone, by means of a cylindrical
crown saw. The first machine was used at Soho, and afterwards at Mr.
Rennie's Works in London, and proved quite successful. Among his other
inventions were a lift worked by compressed air, which raised and
lowered the castings from the boring-mill to the level of the foundry
and the canal bank. He used the same kind of power to ring the bells
in his house at Sycamore Hill, and the contrivance was afterwards
adopted by Sir Walter Scott in his house at Abbotsford.

Murdock was also the inventor of the well-known cast-iron cement, so
extensively used in engine and machine work. The manner in which he
was led to this invention affords a striking illustration of his
quickness of observation. Finding that some iron-borings and
sal-ammoniac had got accidently mixed together in his tool-chest, and
rusted his saw-blade nearly through, he took note of the circumstance,
mixed the articles in various proportions, and at length arrived at the
famous cement, which eventually became an article of extensive
manufacture at the Soho Works.

Murdock's ingenuity was constantly at work, even upon matters which lay
entirely outside his special vocation. The late Sir William Fairbairn
informed us that he contrived a variety of curious machines for
consolidating peat moss, finely ground and pulverised, under immense
pressure, and which, when consolidated, could be moulded into beautiful
medals, armlets, and necklaces. The material took the most brilliant
polish and had the appearance of the finest jet.

Observing that fish-skins might be used as an economical substitute for
isinglass, he went up to London on one occasion in order to explain to
brewers the best metho