Written by Himself, and continued by the Editor.

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AS this is probably the last book I shall ever publish, I beg leave to prefix to it a short account of myself, and of the manner I first began, and have since prosecuted my studies. For, as my setting out in life from a very low station, and in a remote part of the Island, has occasioned some false, and indeed very improbable particulars, to be related of me, I therefore think it the better way instead of contradicting them one by one, to give a faithful and circumstantial detail of my whole proceedings, from my first obscure beginning to the present time; wherein, if I should insert some particulars of little moment, I hope the goodnatured reader will kindly excuse me.

I was born in the year 1710, a few miles from Keith, a little village in Bamffshire, in the North of Scotland; and can with pleasure say, that my

1 parents, though poor, were religious and honest ;

lived in good repute with all who knew them, and died with good characters.

As my father had nothing to support a large family but his daily labour, and the profits arising from a few acres of land which he rented, it was not to be expected that he could bestow much on the education of his children; yet they were not neglected; for, at his leisure hours, he taught them to read and write. And it was while he was teaching my elder brother to read the Scotch Catechism that I acquired my reading. Ashamed to ask my father to instruct me, I used, when he and my brother were abroad, to take the Catechism, and study the lesson which he had been teaching my brother: and when any difficulty occurred, I went to a neighbouring old woman, who gave me such help as enabled me to read tolerably well before my father had thought of teaching me.

Some time after, he was agreeably surprised to find me reading by myself; he thereupon gave me further instruction, and also taught me to write; which, with about three months I afterwards had at the grammar-school at Keith, was all the education I ever received.

My taste for mechanics arose from an odd accident.-When about 7 or 8 years of age, a part of the roof of the house being decayed, my father, desirous of mending it, applied a prop and lever to an upright spar to raise it to its former situation; and, to my great astonishment, I saw him without considering the reason, lift up the ponder

ous roof as if it bad been a small weight. I attributed this at first to a degree of strength that excited my terror as well as wonder; but thinking farther of the matter, I recollected that he had

applied his strength to that end of the lever which was furthest from the prop; and finding on enquiry, that this was the means whereby the seeming wonder was effected, I began making levers (which I then called bars ;) and by applying weights to them different ways, I found the power gained by my bar was just in proportion to the lenghts of the different parts of the bar on either side of the prop.-I then thought it was a great pity that, by means of this bar, a weight could be raised but a very little way. On this, I soon imagined, that, by pulling round a wheel, the weight might be raised to any height by tying a rope to the weight, and winding the rope round the axle of the wheel ; and that the power gained must be just as great as the wheel was broader than the axle was thick ; and found it to be exactly so, by hanging one weight to a rope put round the wheel, and another to the rope that coiled round the axle. So that in, these two machines, it appeared very plain, that their advantage was as great as the space gone through by the working power exceeded the space gone through by the weight; and this property I also thought must take place in a wedge for cleaving wood; but then, I happened not to think of the screw.-By means of a turning lathe which my father had, and sometimes used, and a little knife, I was enabled to make wheels and other things necessary for my purpose.

I then wrote a short account of these machines, and sketched out figures of them with a pen,

jmagining it to be the first treatise of the kind that ever was written; but found my mistake, when I afterwards shewed it to a gentleman, who told me that these thiugs were known long before, and shewed me a 'printed book in which they were treated of: and I was much pleased when I found, that my account (so far as I had carried it) agreed with the principles of mechanics in the book he shewed me. And from that time

my

mind preserved a constant tendency to improve in that science.

But, as my father could not afford to maintain me while I was in pursuit of these matters only, and I was rather too young and weak for hard labour, be put me out to a neighbour to keep sheep, which I continued to do for some years; and in that time I used to study the stars in the night. In the day-time I amused myself by making models of mills, spinning-wheels, and such other things as I happened to see.

I then went to serve a considerable farmier in the neighbourhood, whose name was James Glashan. I found him very kind and indulgent; but he soon observed, that in the evenings, when my work was over, I went into a field with a blanket about me, lay down on my back, and stretched a thread with small beads upon it, at arms'

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length, between my eye and the stars; sliding the beads upon it till they bid such and such stars from my eye, in order to take their apparent distances from one another; and then, laying a thread down on a paper, I marked the stars thereon by the beads, according to their respective positions, having a candle by me. My master at first laughed at me; but, when I explained my meaning to him, he encouraged me to go on : and that I might make fair copies in the day-time of what I bad done in the night, he often worked for me bimself. I shall always have a respect for the memory of that man.

Nne day he happened to send me with a message to the Reverend Mr. John Gilchrist, minister at Keith, to whom I had been known from my childhood. I carried my star papers to shew them to him, and found him looking over a large parcel of maps, which I surveyed with great pleasure, as they were the first I had ever seen. He then told me that the earth is round like a ball, and explained the map of it to me. quested him to lend me that map, to take a copy of it in the evenings. He cheerfully consented to this, giving me at the same time a pair of compasses, a ruler, pens, ink, and paper; and dismissing me with an injunction not to neglect my master's business by copying the map, which I might keep as long as I pleased.

For this pleasant employment, my master gave me more time than I could reasonably expect;

I re