to carry improvements into whatever articles he manufactured, and he possessed such an ardour, and so enterprizing a spirit, that he succeeded in greatly improving the qualities of all those articles which bore the stamp of his name. The Editor well recollects, that in his infancy (now upwards of half a century since), his father was established as a tool, file, and saw manufacturer, and in the practice of employing both Lancashire and Sheffield workmen, in making the numerous articles comprised in those different branches. And, even at the present day, smooth files of his father's making, when but a youth, are yet in use, and are valued by their possessors at more than their weight in gold, from their superior quality of not clogging in their teeth, as such files generally do. So, likewise, the saws of his early manufacture, continued perfect to the end of their duration, and what had, perhaps, originally been a hand-saw, finally ended in becoming a key-hole saw, from the continual filing away of its teeth in sharpening it, thus narrowing its original breadth, and yet its quality continued perfect to the last.

It would be impossible for the Editor, at this distance of time, to recollect the manifold articles which his late father was in the habit of manufacturing in his early days; amongst others, however, he is able to mention steel elastic plated spurs, things then unheard of, the plated spurs usually made being clumsy heavy things, too stiff to bend ; whereas his were light and pleasant to wear; and the test of their goodness was their branches being capable of springing or bending until their extremities met, and then flying back again to their original extent, when set at liberty.

In his business of saw-making, he had occasion to harden pit-saws of considerable length, and they being made of cast-steel, the greatest nicety was required in uniformly heating them from end to end previous to quenching them in the hardening liquid. This difficult task he accomplished by erecting a reverberatory furnace of sufficient

length, having a fire-place at one end of it, and the flame. and heated air from which, passing along the horizontal flue or working part of the furnace, was then again returned in another flue, formed above the furnace, a thin layer of earthen tubes or quarries, supported upon iron cross-bars, forming the separation between the flues; and from thence the heated air and flame passed up the chimney. In this way, and notwithstanding the fire was at one end of this long furnace, yet the flame being made to pass twice through it, the heat was rendered nearly uniform, and its equality of temperature was still further insured by means of small air-registers, built in the external wall of the furnace, towards that end of it where the fire was placed, and which had iron doors to them, and by opening which doors the excess of heat towards the fire-place could be abated when necessary, always however carefully shutting them again previously to heating the saws in the furnace, in order to prevent their oxidation by the air, which would otherwise have entered at the register doors. A hangingdoor at the opposite end of the furnace to that in which the fire was made, could be raised and lowered when necessary, in order to place the saws in the furnace to heat them, and to withdraw them again to quench and harden them.

A reverberatory furnace of the above kind is useful in many other branches of manufacture besides saw-making, and indeed his father frequently employed it for uniformly heating other cast-steel articles; in particular, he had made numerous steel ribs, intended to stretch the feathers forming the wings and tail of an artificial bird, made large enough to contain a man within its body, and who, by means of proper machinery, could put the wings and tail into motion. This contrivance was the work of a projector, previous to the use of balloons, and who thought he should thus be able to cause the bird to mount into the air, carrying the man with it. We need hardly say, that beyond making an exhibition of his bird at the Pantheon, in this metropolis,

and where it astonished crowds, who flocked to see it wave its wings, and move its tail, it totally failed in its object, and the projector, after endeavouring to ascend from the roof of a barn, and of course falling to the earth, fled away himself, leaving the costs of constructing his bird unpaid for! However, this afforded the Editor's father an opportunity of evincing his great skill in the difficult art of working, hardening, and tempering cast-steel, in the manufacturing of the above-mentioned steel ribs, some of the largest of which were upwards of nine feet in length, and yet weighed not more than nine ounces each! These ribs were made square, and tapered away gradually from their thickest parts, or where they were united to the machine, to their ends; and yet were so perfectly hardened and tempered, that they were as elastic as a waggoner's whip; and, in fact, his father frequently caused the trees in his garden to be beaten with them, to exhibit their wonderful perfection to his_visiters, without in the least degree injuring their quality!

Mr. Gill was also one of the earliest improvers of the cotton-spinning machinery, and for some time carried on that business on his own account with great success, having at an early period spun cotton threads as fine as one hundred and eighty hanks to the pound. However, some of his early friends became desirous of uniting in partnership with him in this undertaking, and, in consequence, the machines were increased in number, and part of a large building, erected as a steam-mill, at Birmingham, was filled with them. The undertaking would, no doubt, have finally proved exceedingly advantageous to all the parties concerned; but, in consequence of some great failures taking place amongst the Lancashire cotton-spinners, his partners became alarmed, and insisted upon disposing of the whole of the machinery by auction. At the sale, it was purchased by the late celebrated Mr. James Watt, for his friend David Dale, and, no doubt, became the models for his celebrated Lanark cotton-works. Mr. Watt, after completing his

purchase, stated, that it was the finest machinery of the kind that he had ever seen in his life. A high compliment indeed from one so eminently qualified to judge of the value of machinery.

Mr. Gill was early honoured by the friendship of, and was continually applied to by, the late Matthew Boulton, Esq., the founder of that magnificent establishment, the Soho, near Birmingham, in all cases where his superior knowledge in the treatment of steel was deemed useful, and this before Mr. Boulton had united in partnership with Mr. Watt; and even after that event, he was constantly in the habit of furnishing the cast-steel, which was formed into springs by their workmen, suitable for their uses in their steam-engines, and which were afterwards hardened and tempered by him, and never failed to perform their destined offices. On one occasion he was employed to make the steel springs used in actuating a machine in the nature of the catapulta, and which was contrived by a Frenchman, named Loyaute, to throw hand-grenades. This machine was put to trial in Mr. Boulton's pleasuregrounds, at the Soho; and the Editor having placed himself behind it, in a convenient posture to watch the path of the grenade about to be thrown from it, was nearly killed by an iron compound pulley-block, or sheave, which was employed in drawing down the arm of the catapulta, by means of an iron chain; and the chain breaking, the pulley-block was projected with such force backwards, as to strike off the arm of a tree immediately above the Editor's head.

One of the most important pursuits which Mr. Gill ever engaged in, was his retrieving the reputation of English swords, which, in the year 1783, had fallen into such deserved ill-repute, that an English officer would not trust his life to the hazard of the probable failure of his English sword-blade, upon any consideration whatever; although, only a century preceding, James the Second passed an act expressly prohibiting, under severe penalties, the importa

tion of swords from Germany, or any other nation; a clear proof, that, at that period, the English swords were sufficiently good to be relied upon. However, in the year 1783, a petition was presented to the Lords of the Treasury, by the London sword-sellers, praying leave to import swordblades from Germany duty free, under the degrading idea, that those of English manufacture were of an inferior quality. But as a friend to the manufactures of England, the late Duke of Norfolk, then Earl of Surrey, and one of the lords of that board, wrote a letter to a gentleman of Sheffield, Mr. Eyre, dated October 1, to the following purport:

"You will please inform those whom it may concern, that a petition hath been this day presented to the Treasury, praying permission to import swords and sword-blades from Germany, duty free, on account of the inferior quality of English blades. I should be very happy that any ingenious manufacturer of Sheffield would supply me with such information, both as to price and quality, as would enable me to remove so disgraceful a reflection on English ingenuity." The business of sword making being, however, more immediately within the province of the Birmingham manufacturers, Mr. Eyre sent Mr. Gill an extract from his lordship's letter, who thereupon, in December of that year, presented a memorial to the Right Honourable the Lords of the Treasury, stating that sword-blades could be made by him of as good a quality as those from Germany, and praying that the comparative goodness of those of both countries might be examined into. In consequence of which, a letter was written by Mr. Sheridan, to his grace the master general, and board of ordnance, and in answer thereto it was remarked, "that the board of ordnance does not furnish any swords to the regiments of dragoons; but they apprehend the error has arisen from the application of colonels of regiments of dragoons, who supply swords for their own corps; nevertheless, if their lordships wished an investigation of the matter, and they would direct a number of foreign swords to be sent to the