Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/621



. Paris, 1615, in 4to; being an addition to the former.

 ANDERSON (Dr ). The subject of this article, who has been brought into notice, principally from the more recent encouragement given to agriculture, and the versatility of his own genius, was born at the village of Hermandston, in the county of Edinburgh, in the year 1730. His parents were in humble life, and had possessed a farm for some generations, which he was destined to inherit and to cultivate. At that period improvement was in infancy, and the husbandman had to contend with a climate, whose uncertainty seemed to keep pace with the progress of his skill, and which too often disappointed him of the fruits of his industry. Anderson, while yet at an early age, lost his parents; however, his education was uninterrupted, and conceiving that an acquaintance with Chemistry would promote his profession, he attended a course of lectures on that science, then delivered by Dr Cullen. None of the other pupils besides himself took notes of his lectures, which being afterwards surreptitiously obtained from him, with the design of publication, he defeated the intended purpose, apprehensive that his preceptor’s fame might be diminished by these imperfect transcripts. His own active occupations had already commenced, and along with the practice of husbandry, he prosecuted his original taste for literature.

Enlarging the sphere of his employments, Anderson forsook his first possession, for a farm of 1300 acres, which he rented in Aberdeenshire, though nearly in a state of nature, and where agriculture is still behind the southern districts. But, previous to this, he became known to men of letters, by some Essays on planting, which, under the signature Agricola, he ventured to commit to the world through the medium of the Edinburgh Weekly Magazine, in 1771. Soon embarking in a higher sphere of literature, he composed the article Monsoon, for the first edition of this Encyclopædia, in 1773, wherein he threw out some luminous ideas, and among other observations, predicted, from physical facts, and the state of geographical knowledge, that no polar continent would be found by the circumnavigators then employed by Government. In the year 1777, he published a considerable quarto volume, said to have been composed two years preceding, on the means of exerting a spirit of national industry, with regard to Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures, and Fisheries; and in this, he enters into detailed views of many subjects of Political Economy. The interest of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland is in a particular manner considered, and the author maintains, that the only effectual means of increasing agriculture, is by promoting manufactures; as also, that the neglect which the agriculture of these parts of the kingdom experienced, resulted from the neglect of manutactures. Scotland, he affirms, is better adapted than England for the production of wool, and this, as well as other products, he thought, would be best encouraged by premiums. The advantages which might result from attending to the fisheries, he judged would be very great, and the shoals of herring frequenting the coast, could be converted to a source of national wealth under suitable establishments. Dr Anderson, who, soon after, had the degree of Doctor of Laws conferred on him by the University of Aberdeen, did not abandon these inquiries. He printed a tract regarding the fisheries, which was circulated among his friends; and, in consequence of being more widely diffused, he was appointed, by the Lords of the Treasury, to survey the western coast of Scotland, for the purpose of obtaining satisfactory information on the subject. This he did in 1784, and received the full approbation of his employers; and he published a brief account of the Hebrides, a chain of Islands then as little within the general acquaintance of the inhabitants of Great Britain, as if they had been under the dominion of another country. The principal obstacles to the fishery, Dr Anderson considered, were to be found in a duty on salt and coals, and he recommended the repeal of both. It is certain, that, from thenceforward, this great branch of national industry has received infinitely more patronage than before his report, and, while we only shared the labours of the Dutch for centuries, the fisheries on our own coast have since been monopolized by ourselves. Nothing can be more impolitic than to fetter the exertions of the industrious by exorbitant duties; or equally oppressive, with denying fuel to the poorer classes where it is scarce, by duties on its importation.

Dr Anderson had now withdrawn from his northern farm, where he resided above twenty years, and settled in the vicinity of Edinburgh. His agricultural speculations were still continued, and, when a Parliamentary grant was about to be proposed to Mr Elkington, for a particular mode of draining land, be reclaimed the practice as having been observed by himself many years anterior. Repeated examples, indeed, prove that the rewards granted by Parliament for improvement are attended with such slight investigations, that the merits of real invention is overlooked. Dr Anderson now projected a periodical publication, called the Bee, consisting of miscellaneous original matter, which attained the extent of eighteen volumes in octavo. It was published weekly, and a large proportion of it came from his own pen, which is seldom a prudent course in an Editor. The relation of Great Britain and her Colonies, and the political rights of 