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 steam-engine, many of which, however, probably became merged in the general work of the establishment, and cannot now be identified. The well-known 'sun and planet motion,' which is included in Watt's patent of 1781, was contrived by Murdock, as Smiles indubitably shows (Lives of Boulton and Watt, 1874, p. 245). In 1784 or 1785 he made a wooden model of an oscillating engine (now exhibited at South Kensington on loan from its owner, the inventor's great grandson, William Murdock of Govilon, near Abergavenny), and it is figured and described in Muirhead's 'Mechanical Inventions of Watt,' vol. i. p. ccxvii, and vol. iii. plate 34; and also in the same author's 'Life of Watt,' 2nd ed. p. 438. He does not appear to have 'proceeded any further in the matter, but he is entitled to the credit of the first suggestion of this form of engine. His patent of 1799 (No. 2340) includes a method of driving machines for boring cylinders, a method of casting jacketed cylinders in one piece, and a 'sliding eduction pipe,' which was afterwards modified and became the long D slide-valve, eventually displacing the complicated gear of Watt's earlier engines. A particular form of rotary engine is also described in the specification; but, like many other similar projects, it was not a practical success, though Murdock used it in his experimental workshop for many years. In conjunction with John Southern, another of Watt's assistants at Soho, he designed what was probably the earliest form of independent or self-contained engine, adapted to stand on the ground without requiring support from the walls of a building. From the shape of one of the parts it was called a 'bell-crank engine,' and, according to Farey (Steam Engine, p. 677, and plate 16), it was brought out in 1802. These engines were well adapted for purposes where a small power only was required, and where space was an object. Some engines of this type were still at work in Birmingham until within the last thirty years. In the later form of these engines the valve was worked by an eccentric, the invention of which Farey (op. cit.) attributes to Murdock.

Murdock's miscellaneous inventions comprise a method of treating mundic to obtain paint for protecting ships' bottoms, for which he obtained a patent in 1791 (No. 1802). In 1810 he took out a patent (No. 3292) for making stone pipes, which he sold to the Manchester Stone Pipe Company, a company established in Manchester for the purpose of supplying that city with water, he also devised apparatus for utilising the force of compressed air; the bells in his house at Sycamore Hill were rung by that method, and it was afterwards adopted by Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford (, Life of Scott, p. 500). As early as 1803 he made a steam gun, which was tried at Soho. The invention of ' iron cement,' which consists of a mixture of sal-ammoniac and iron filings, largely used by engineers to this day, is also attributed to him.

In 1883 a proposal, which came to nothing, was made to purchase Murdock's house at Handsworth, and to convert it into an international gas museum. On 29 July 1892 the centenary of gas-lighting was celebrated, and Lord Kelvin unveiled a bust of Murdock, by D. W. Stevenson, in the 1882 the Wallace Monument at Stirling. In National Gas Institute founded the Murdock medal, which is awarded periodically to the authors of useful inventions connected with gas-making.

A portrait of Murdock in oil, by John Graham-Gilbert, is in the possession of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and there is another by the same artist in the Art Gallery, Birmingham. The bust by Chantrey in Handsworth Church is said to be an admirable likeness. A copy of this bust, by Papworth, is in the Art Gallery, Birmingham. It has been frequently engraved.

 MURE, WILLIAM (1594–1657), poet, was the third successive owner of Rowallan, Ayrshire, with the same name and title. Sir William, his grandfather, a man 'of a meik and gentle spirit,' who 'delyted much in the study of phisick,' died in 1616; and Sir William, his father, who was 'ane strong man of bodie, and delyted much in hounting and balking,' died in 1639 (Hist. and Descent of the House of Rowallane, pp. 92-4). Mure's mother was Elizabeth Montgomerie, sister of Alexander Montgomerie (fl. 1590) [q. v.], author of the 'Cherrie and the Slae.' To this relationship Muir makes reference in a set of verses addressed to Charles, prince of Wales, afterwards Charles I. His muse, he says, can make but little boast, Save from Montgomery she her birth doth claim (, Ancient Ballads and Songs, 1827). Mure was liberally educated, being probably an alumnus of Glasgow University, like his 