ng from the schoolmaster for my neglect. Thus I got
to know every workshop and every workman in the town. At any rate I
picked up a smattering of a variety of trades, which afterwards proved
of the greatest use to me. The chief of these was wooden shipbuilding,
a branch of industry then extensively carried on by Messrs. William and
Robert Tindall, the former of whom resided in London; he was one of the
half-dozen great shipbuilders and owners who founded "Lloyd's."
Splendid East Indiamen, of some 1000 tons burden, were then built at
Scarborough; and scarcely a timber was moulded, a plank bent, a spar
lined off, or launching ship-ways laid, without my being present to
witness them. And thus, in course of time, I was able to make for
myself the neatest and fastest of model yachts.

At that time, I attended the Grammar School. Of the rudiments taught,
I was fondest of drawing, geometry, and Euclid. Indeed, I went twice
through the first two books of the latter before I was twelve years
old. At this age I was sent to the Edinburgh Academy, my eldest
brother William being then a medical student at the University. I
remained at Edinburgh two years. My early progress in mathematics
would have been lost in the classical training which was then insisted
upon at the academy, but for my brother who was not only a good
mathematician but an excellent mechanic. He took care to carry on my
instruction in that branch of knowledge, as well as to teach me to make
models of machines and buildings, in which he was himself proficient.
I remember, in one of my journeys to Edinburgh, by coach from
Darlington, that a gentleman expressed his wonder what a screw
propeller could be like; for the screw, as a method of propulsion, was
then being introduced. I pointed out to him the patent tail of a
windmill by the roadside, and said, "It is just like that!"

In 1844 my mother died; and shortly after, my brother having become
M.D., and obtained a prize gold medal, we returned to Scarborough. It
was intended that he should assist my father; but he preferred going
abroad for a few years. I may mention further, with relation to him,
that after many years of scientific research and professional practice,
he died at Hong Kong in 1858, when a public monument was erected to his
memory, in what is known as the "Happy Valley."

I remained for a short time under the tuition of my old master. But as
the time was rapidly approaching when I too mu