Volume 3 > Half-Volume 5

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"swallow-tail" burner, since used all over the
world. The first large roof constructed entirely of
iron was erected by him in the early extensions
of the old works at Kirk Street. Neilson patented
none of these inventions, but gave them to the com-
pany, which in a great measure assisted in bring-
ing them to the very prosperous condition they at
that time enjoyed. The boy Beaumont Neilson re-
ceived a very ordinary education; but in after-life
he prosecuted his studies with great diligence and
perseverance�had no love for society, his books
being his constant companions; and so much was he
impressed with the advantages to be gained by a
study of the practical sciences, that in 1821 he estab-
lished a workman's institution for the benefit of the
men in his employment, with models, laboratory, and
workshop; in fact, a little school for technical edu-
cation.
Dr. Ure, in his Dictionary of Arts and Manufac-
tures, says�"One of the greatest improvements
made by simple means in any manufacture was acci-
dentally observed by my pupil Mr. James Beaumont
Neilson, at a smith's forge." But here the doctor
is in error: the forge was constructed with a furnace
under the hearth in which the air or wind was heated
before being blown into the fire. This arrangement
was not accidental; the experimenter was searching
for some means to improve the blast employed to
excite the combustion of furnaces in which iron is
made, because his attention as a man of science had
been drawn by an ironmaker to the fact of the irre-
gularity of the action of these furnaces, particularly
the difference between winter and summer working.
It was suggested to him that the blast might be sub-
mitted to some purifying process; but Neilson thought
that the object to be aimed at was to increase the
action of the oxygen in the air, and free it from
moisture. Many experiments were made, and the
result was, that the patent for the hot-blast was taken
out on 1st October, 1828, the title having been
written by Lord Brougham. The invention may be
simply described as the heating of the air-blast by
passing it through vessels placed in ovens before it
is blown into the smelting-furnace.
The patentee, who had neither the pecuniary means
nor the influence necessary to introduce his invention
to practice, applied for advice and assistance to his
friends Charles Macintosh (the celebrated inventor
of waterproof cloth), Colin Dunlop of the Clyde
Iron-works, and John Wilson of the Dundyvan Iron-
works. To the two former he gave each three-tenths
of his patent, to the latter one-tenth, reserving only
three-tenths for himself. Great difficulties were
encountered in persuading ironmakers to use the
invention, the general belief being that instead of
heating the blast, it ought to be made as cold as
possible, for which purpose refrigerators had been
used, and even ice applied to them to cool the air to
�the utmost. Ultimately, however, it became univer-
sally adopted, and the great value of the invention was
proved beyond question by the fact, that thirty-two
shillings and sixpence per ton was saved in the manu-
facture of the iron, besides each furnace making twice
the quantity of iron which it formerly did. Coal and
ironstone from which iron was with difficulty made
by the old system, was found most suitable by the
new process. The patentees demanded only one
shilling per ton of royalty.
Like other inventors who had gone before him,
Neilson was subjected to great persecutions from
those he had so much benefited. The ironmakers in
Scotland from time to time attempted to destroy
his patent; and at last, in 1840, a confederation
was secretly formed, united under a formal deed,
in which "they bound themselves to institute, de-
fend, carry on, and follow out to a conclusion such
actions, and generally to adopt such proceedings,
judicial and extrajudicial, as their advocates or sur-
vivors of them shall advise to be expedient and
proper for setting aside the said letters-patent, and
for resisting the enforcement of the claims founded
by the said James Beaumont Neilson, &c. &c."
Now the struggle began in earnest between the
patentees and the confederate ironmasters, and con-
tinued from 1839 to 1844. Twice a jury refused
to deprive the patentee of his rights; twice were
appeals to the House of Lords unsuccessful, two jury
trials occupied sixteen days, about 140 witnesses were
examined, at one and the same time twenty different
actions were carried on, and the litigants spent
between them on law charges alone not less than
^"40,000. Neilson was terribly discouraged and
broken down in health. When the news arrived of
the final decision of the House of Lords in his favour,
he lay insensible under typhus fever not expected to
recover.
Notwithstanding the small share of the patent he
retained, and the losses from litigation, the inventor
of the hot-blast realized a moderate fortune; and it
may be estimated that his country benefited by his
invention to the extent of about twelve millions per
annum, besides the impetus it imparted to all those
great works in which the price and abundance of
iron forms an important element of their success.
Neilson retired to that seclusion he was so fond of
on the island of Bute, where he lived several years
on a property which belonged to the late marquis,
and whose friendship he enjoyed. Married in early
life to an Ayrshire lady, an orphan, Barbara Mont-
gomerie, he had by her several sons and daughters.
She did not live to share that repose which later in
life her husband enjoyed, but by her great spirit and
energy, she cheered and stirred him up when with utter
despondency his health and courage seemed entirely
to fail. In 1851 he bought an estate in Kirkcud-
brightshire, where he lived much loved and respected,
pleasing and instructing all from the store of know-
ledge he had accumulated, and taking an active in-
terest in all that tended to the welfare of those around
him. His love of education never left him. He built
an institution, with library, school, &c., for the in-
struction of the people on his estate�was a member
of the Church of Scotland, but left it with the Free
Church at the disruption; a strict Presbyterian, with
perhaps a little too much of the Puritan in his char-
acter; severe and exacting in all questions of truth
or honour. He died 18th January, 1865, at Queens-
hill, now the property of his eldest son, Walter
Montgomerie Neilson, the well-known engineer and
locomotive-engine maker of Glasgow.
NICHOL, JOHN PRINGLE, LL.D. This learned
professor and popular lecturer on science was one of
those many Scotsmen who have raised themselves
by their talents and persevering industry from a
humble origin to high mark and position in the in-
tellectual world. His father was a respectable trader
in the town of Brechin, and there John was born on
the 13th of January, 1804. He was the eldest of a
family of three sons, all of whom were distinguished
by a more than ordinary share of talent, activity, and
enterprise. At first he received such an ordinary
education as might qualify him for his father's busi-
ness; but even at school he was so much distinguished
by precocious ability and superiority to his class-
fellows, that the situation of a provincial trader was
thought unworthy of him. It was accordingly re-
solved that the church should be his future sphere,