Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/253

Rh sanguine as to its results. His hopes were justified by a striking experiment. A station called Slieve Snaught, in Donegal, had long been looked for in vain from Davis' Mountain, near Belfast, about sixty-six miles distant, with the haze of Lough Neagh lying between. To overcome this difficulty, Drummond repaired to Slieve Snaught, accompanied by a small party, and taking with him one of his lamps. The night on which the experiment was made was dark but cloudless, and the mountain covered with snow, when the shivering surveyors left their cold encampment to make the decisive trial. The hour had been fixed, and an Argand lamp had been placed on an intermediate church tower, to telegraph the appearance of the light on Slieve Snaught to those on Davis' Mountain. The hour had past, and the sentry was about to leave his post, when the light suddenly burst out like a brilliant star from the top of the hitherto invisible peak, to the delight of the astonished spectators, who were watching with intense anxiety from the other station of survey. Another invention of almost equal importance with the Drummond's light was his heliostat, by which the difficulty arising from the rapid motion of the earth in its orbit round the sun, was obviated by the most simple means, and the work of survey made no longer dependent upon a complicated apparatus that required frequent shifting and removal; so that, while it could take observations at the distance of a hundred miles, a single soldier was sufficient to carry and plant the instrument upon the requisite spot.

The high scientific knowledge which Drummond possessed, and the valuable services he had rendered to the Irish survey, were not lost sight of, and demands soon occurred to call him into a higher sphere of duty. These were, the preparations necessary before the passing of the Reform Bill, by laying down the boundaries to the old and the new boroughs. This very difficult task he discharged so ably, and so much to the satisfaction of the public, as to silence the murmurs of cavillers, who complained because a young lieutenant of engineers had been appointed to so important a charge. After it was finished, he returned to his work of surveying; but in the midst of it was appointed private secretary to Lord Spencer, in which office he continued till the dissolution of the government, when he was rewarded with a pension of ₤300 per annum, obtained for him through the interest of Lord Brougham. In 1835, he was appointed under-secretary for Ireland, where he was placed at the head of the commission on railways; but his incessant labour in this department, along with his other duties of a political nature, are supposed to have accelerated his death, which occurred April 15, 1840. His memory will continue to be affectionately cherished, not only by the distinguished statesmen with whom he acted, but by society at large; while the scientific will regret that public duties should have latterly engrossed a mind so admirably fitted for the silent walks of invention and discovery.

—This excellent divine, whose life was so distinguished by active practical usefulness, was born at Lochrutton manse, on the 8th of October, 1774. His father, the Rev. George Duncan, was minister of the parish of Lochrutton, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and his grandfather had also held the same parochial charge. Indeed, both by father and mother, Henry Duncan traced his descent from a line of ministers that almost reached to the days of the Covenant, so that he was wont to compare his family to the tribe of Levi. It was not wonderful, therefore, that not only himself, but his younger brother, Thomas, should direct their choice and their studies to the V.