Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/126

118 formed intimacies with fellow-pupils that proved of value to him: with a youth whose father had a foundry, where he spent profitable hours, and with another whose father had a special genius for practical chemistry, and made colors and white lead; signals were arranged with this boy, so that when anything particular was going on at the laboratory Nasmyth was notified of it; and the boys made their own reagents, and acquired considerable skill in producing various substances.

Nasmyth left the high school at the end of 1820, not much the better for his small acquaintance with the dead languages, but the mathematical studies had developed his reasoning powers. He practiced accuracy in drawing, made his own tools and chemical apparatus, and interested himself in the volcanic geology of Edinburgh. He attended the Edinburgh School of Arts from 1821 to 1826, and at seventeen years of age he was constructing steam engines of different designs and for various purposes. He heard the lectures at the university on chemistry, geometry and mathematics, and natural philosophy. He established a brass foundry in his bedroom, but did his heavier work at George Douglas's foundry, for which he made an engine to drive the lathes, the operation of which had such an enlivening effect on the workmen that the proprietor affirmed that the output was nearly doubled for the same wages. He made an expansometer or instrument for measuring in bulk all metals and solid substances, which so pleased Dr. Brewster that he described and figured it in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. He experimented upon steam carriages for highways, and hit upon a device for increasing the draught of the engine chimney by the use of waste steam that George Stephenson had adopted, and which has given the locomotive its efficiency.

When it became possible, Nasmyth went to London to visit Henry Maudsley, the great manufacturer of machines, and seek employment in his establishment there. Maudsley's experience with pupil apprentices had not been pleasant, and he was not at first willing to employ him; but when the young man said he would consider himself fortunate if he could even be employed to clean the ashes from the furnaces, Maudsley answered, "So you are of that sort, are you?" and his heart was opened at once. Nasmyth exhibited his drawings the next day, and Maudsley instituted him his assistant workman, or private secretary, as no apprenticeship was needed in his case. His first work was on a machine for generating "original screws"; next, in connection with the construction of two small models of engines, he invented a device for exactly reducing bolt-nuts. Being given a month's vacation in the fall of 1830, he went to Liverpool to witness the performance of George Stephenson's locomotive, "The Rocket." With the desire to see all he could on his return of the