ell
adapted for cannon, which was for some time the principal article of
manufacture at the Welsh works.

[12] It may be worthy of note that the first locomotive run upon a
railroad was that constructed by Trevithick for Mr. Homfray in 1803,
which was employed to bring down metal from the furnaces to the Old
Forge. The engine was taken off the road because the tram-plates were
found too weak to bear its weight without breaking.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE--DR. ROEBUCK DAVID MUSHET.

"Were public benefactors to be allowed to pass away, like hewers of
wood and drawers of water, without commemoration, genius and enterprise
would be deprived of their most coveted distinction."--Sir Henry
Englefield.

The account given of Dr. Roebuck in a Cyclopedia of Biography, recently
published in Glasgow, runs as follows:--"Roebuck, John, a physician and
experimental chemist, born at Sheffield, 1718; died, after ruining
himself by his projects, 1794." Such is the short shrift which the man
receives who fails. Had Dr. Roebuck wholly succeeded in his projects,
he would probably have been esteemed as among the greatest of
Scotland's benefactors. Yet his life was not altogether a failure, as
we think will sufficiently appear from the following brief account of
his labours:--

At the beginning of last century, John Roebuck's father carried on the
manufacture of cutlery at Sheffield,[1] in the course of which he
realized a competency. He intended his son to follow his own business,
but the youth was irresistibly attracted to scientific pursuits, in
which his father liberally encouraged him; and he was placed first
under the care of Dr. Doddridge, at Northampton, and afterwards at the
University of Edinburgh, where he applied himself to the study of
medicine, and especially of chemistry, which was then attracting
considerable attention at the principal seats of learning in Scotland.
While residing at Edinburgh young Roebuck contracted many intimate
friendships with men who afterwards became eminent in literature, such
as Hume and Robertson the historians, and the circumstance is supposed
to have contributed not a little to his partiality in favour of
Scotland, and his afterwards selecting it as the field for his
industrial operations.

After graduating as a physician at Leyden, Roebuck returned to England,
and settled at Birmingham in the year 1745 for the purpose of
practising his profession. Birmingham