Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/124

 hydraulic power the holes in the links of a chain bridge then being constructed by the firm.

From a very early age he took great interest in astronomy, and in 1827 he constructed with his own hands a very effective reflecting telescope of six inches diameter. His first appearance as a writer on the subject was in 1843, when he contributed a paper on the train of the great comet to the ‘Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society’ (v. 270). This was followed in 1846 by one on the telescopic appearance of the moon (Mem. Royal Astron. Soc. xv. 147). The instrument with which most of his work was done was a telescope with a speculum of twenty inches diameter, mounted on a turntable according to a plan of his own invention, the object being viewed through one of the trunnions, which was made hollow for that purpose. He devoted himself more particularly to a study of the moon's surface, and made a series of careful drawings, which he sent to the exhibition of 1851, and for which he received a prize medal. In 1874 he published, in conjunction with James Carpenter, an elaborate work under the title of ‘The Moon considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite.’ This work embodied the results of many years' observations, and its object was to give ‘a rational explanation of the surface details of the moon which should be in accordance with the generally received theory of planetary formation.’ The illustrations consist of photographs taken from carefully constructed models placed in strong sunlight, which give a better idea of the telescopic aspect of the moon than photographs taken direct. He was the first to observe in June 1860 a peculiar mottled appearance of the sun's surface, to which he gave the name of ‘willow leaves,’ but which other observers prefer to call ‘rice grains.’ He communicated an account of this phenomenon to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester in 1861 (Memoirs, 3rd ser. i. 407). The discovery attracted much attention at the time, and gave rise to considerable discussion; but no satisfactory explanation of the willow leaves has yet been propounded.

In 1856 he retired from business, and settled at Penshurst, Kent, where he purchased the house formerly belonging to F. R. Lee, R.A. This he named Hammerfield, from his ‘hereditary regard for hammers, two broken hammer-shafts having been the crest of the family for hundreds of years.’ He died at Bailey's Hotel, South Kensington, on 7 May 1890. Nasmyth married, on 16 June 1840, Miss Hartop, daughter of the manager of Earl Fitzwilliam's ironworks near Barnsley.

[James Nasmyth: an Autobiography, ed. Smiles, 1883; Griffin's Contemporary Biog. in Addit. MS. 28511, f. 212. A list of his scientific papers is given in the Royal Soc. Cat., and his various patents are described in the Engineer, 16 and 23 May 1890.] 

NASMYTH, PATRICK (1787–1831), landscape-painter, born in Edinburgh on 7 Jan. 1787, was the eldest son of Alexander Nasmyth [q. v.] the painter, and his wife Barbara Foulis. He early displayed a turn for art, and was fond of playing truant from school in order that he might wander in the fields and sketch the scenes and objects that surrounded him. He received his earliest instruction in art from his father, and studied with immense care and industry, painting with his left hand after his right had been incapacitated by an injury received while on a sketching expedition with the elder Nasmyth. He also suffered from deafness, the result of an illness produced by sleeping in a damp bed when he was about seventeen years of age. From 1808 to 1814 he exhibited his works in the rooms of the Society of Associated Artists, Edinburgh; and he contributed to the Royal Institution, Edinburgh, 1821–8, and to the Scottish Academy in 1830 and 1831. In 1808 he removed to London, but he did not exhibit in the Royal Academy till 1811 (compare catalogues), when he was represented by a ‘View of Loch Katrine,’ and he afterwards contributed at intervals till 1830. In 1824 he became a foundation member of the Society of British Artists, with whom, as also in the British Institution, he exhibited during the rest of his life. His earliest productions dealt chiefly with Scottish landscape, but in the neighbourhood of London he found homely rustic scenes better suited to his brush. He delighted to render nature in her humbler aspects, painting hedgerow subjects with great care and delicacy, his favourite tree being the dwarfed oak. He also closely studied the Dutch landscape-painters, and imitated their manner with such success that he has been styled ‘the English Hobbema,’ so precise and spirited is his touch, so brilliant are the skies that appear above the low-toned fields and foliage in his pictures. In all monetary matters he was singularly careless, and he seems to have fallen into habits of dissipation which undermined his constitution. While recovering from an attack of influenza he caught a chill as he was sketching a group of pollard willows on the Thames; and he died at Lambeth on 17 Aug. 1831, propped up in bed at his own request, that he might witness