Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/273

Rh wheels. But having never had grammatical education, nor time to study the rules of just composition, I acknowledge that I was afraid to put it to the press; and for the same cause I ought to have the same fears still. But having the pleasure to find that this my first work was not ill received, I was emboldened to go on, in publishing my Astronomy, Mechanical Lectures, Tables and Tracts relative to several arts and sciences, the Young Gentleman and Lady's Astronomy, a small treatise on Electricity, and the following sheets.

In the year 1748, I ventured to read lectures on the eclipse of the sun that fell on the 14th of July in that year. Afterwards I began to read astronomical lectures on an orrery which I made, and of which the figures of all the wheelwork are contained in the Gth and 7th plates of this book. I next began to make an apparatus for lectures on mechanics, and gradually increased the apparatus for other parts of experimental philosophy, buying from others what I could not make for myself, till I brought it to its present state. I then entirely left off drawing pictures, and employed myself in the much pleasanter business of reading lectures on mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, pneumatics, electricity, and astronomy; in all which, my encouragement has been greater than I could have expected.

The best machine I ever contrived is the eclipsareon, of which there is a figure in the 13th plate of my Astronomy. It shows the time, quantity, duration, and progress of solar eclipses, at all parts of the earth. My next best contrivance is the universal dialing cylinder, of which there is a figure in the 8th plate of the supplement to my Mechanical Lectures.

It is now thirty years since I came to London, and during all that time I have met with the highest instances of friendship from all ranks of people, both in town and country, which I do here acknowledge with the utmost respect and gratitude; and particularly the goodness of our present gracious sovereign, who, out of his privy purse, allows me fifty pounds a year, which is regularly paid without any deduction."

To this narrative we shall add the few particulars which are necessary to complete the view of Ferguson's life and character.

Ferguson was honoured with the royal bounty, which he himself mentions, through the mere zeal of king George III. in behalf of science. His majesty had attended some of the lectures of the ingenious astronomer, and often sent for him, after his accession, to converse upon scientific and curious topics. He had the extraordinary honour of being elected a member of the royal society, without paying either the initiatory or the annual fees, which were dispensed with in his case from a supposition of his being too poor to pay them without inconvenience. From the same idea, many persons gave him very handsome presents. But to the astonishment of all who knew him, he died worth about six thousand pounds.

"Ferguson," says Charles Hutton, in his Mathematical Dictionary, "must be allowed to have been a very uncommon genius, especially in mechanical con-