Ossian Collection > Journal of a tour in Scotland in

PREFACE
The manuscript of this Journal, which is
in the library of the Institution of Civil
Engineers, was presented to that library in
1885 by the late Sir Robert Rawlinson,
K.C.B., who was President of the Institution
in 1894-5. It bears a note by him to the
effect that he purchased it in Keswick from
the Rev. Mr Southey in August 1864.
The exhibition of the manuscript on the
occasion of the celebration, in June 1928, of
the Centenary of the grant of a Royal Charter
to the Institution — obtained largely through
the instrumentality of Thomas Telford, its
first President — drew attention to the interest
of the Journal, not only as a contemporary
account of the great works which Telford
was then carrying out in Scotland, but also as
the diary of a shrewd and travelled observer,
depicting social and industrial conditions in
Scotland in the early years of the nineteenth
century.
Tlie Council of the Institution therefore