【国外文学】Life of Robert Stevenson.docx

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1、【国外文学】Life of Robert StevensonPREFACEThe addresses made to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Institution of Civil Engineers, at the opening meetings of the session1851, contained obituary notices of Robert Stevenson. The late Alan Stevenson, his eldest son, also wrote a short Memoir of his fat

2、her, which was printed for private circulation.But Robert Stevensons long practice as a Civil Engineerthe important works he executedand the valuable contributions he made to Engineering and Scientific literature, seem to me to require a fuller notice of his life than has hitherto been given.This ha

3、s been attempted in the following Memoir, which will be found to consist of extracts from Mr. Stevensons Professional Reportsof notes from his Diaryand of communications to Scientific Journals and Societies, between the years 1798 and 1843, when he retired from active practice.vi These papers embrac

4、e a wide field of Engineering, including Lighthouses, Harbours, Rivers, Roads, Railways, Ferries, Bridges, and other cognate subjects.Some of them describe Engineering practice which is now obsolete, but not on that account, I think, uninteresting to such modern Engineers as have regard for the anti

5、quities of their Profession.Some of them, I am aware, can only be appreciated by those who are specially interested in the city of Edinburgh.All of them will, I venture to think, be found worthy of preservation as interesting Engineering records of an era that has passed away. It formed no part of m

6、y duty to criticise them, in the light of modern Engineering, and, unaltered in form of expression or statement of opinion, they are now reproduced as they came from my fathers pen.I offer no apology for presenting these Extracts as the outlines of the life of one who occupied a prominent place amon

7、g the Civil Engineers who practised during the beginning of the present, and end of the last century, shortly after British Engineering, with Smeaton as its founder, may be said to have had its origin.D. S.Edinburgh, July 1878.CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE. 17721798. BirthMr. Smiths improvements in Lighthou

8、se illuminationOrigin of the Scottish Lighthouse BoardActs as Assistant to their EngineerStudent at Andersonian Institution, Glasgow, and University of EdinburghSucceeds Mr. Smith as Engineer to the Northern Lighthouse BoardTour of inspection of English lights in 1801Is taken for a French spy.Robert

9、 Stevenson, maltster in Glasgow, was born in 1720, and, as stated on his tombstone, in the burial-ground of the Cathedral, died in 1764.His fourth son, Alan, was partner in a West India house in Glasgow, and died of fever in the island of St. Christopher, in 1774, while on a visit to his brother, wh

10、o managed the foreign business of the house at that place.The only son of Alan Stevenson was Robert, the subject of this Memoir, who was born at Glasgow on the 8th of June 1772.When his father died, Robert Stevenson, then an infant, was left in circumstances of difficulty, for the same epidemic feve

11、r which deprived him of his father carried off his uncle also, at a time when their loss operated most disadvantageously on the business which they conducted; and, strange to say, on account of2 legal difficulties, nearly half a century elapsed before any patrimonial funds in which my father had an

12、interest were realised.Under these circumstances his mother (Jean Lillie, daughter of David Lillie, builder in Glasgow, who died, as stated on his tombstone, in the Cathedral burying-ground, in 1774) resolved to go to Edinburgh to reside with a married sister, and when her son reached the age of bei

13、ng able for school she wisely took advantage of one of the hospitals in that city for his education; and the spirit of the man is well brought out by the fact that he devoted his first earnings in life, at the Cumbrae Lighthouse, to making a contribution to the funds of the Orphan Hospital in paymen

14、t of what he regarded as a debt.It appears from “Memoranda” left by my father for the information of his family, that his mother was a woman of great prudence and remarkable fortitude, based on deep convictions of religion; and, even in their time of trial, which lasted over his school days, he says

15、,“My mothers ingenuous and gentle spirit amidst all her difficulties never failed her. She still relied on the providence of God, though sometimes, in the recollection of her fathers house and her younger days, she remarked that the ways of Providence were often dark to us. The Bible, and attendance

16、 on the ministrations, chiefly of Mr. Randall of Lady Yesters Church, afterwards Dr. Davidson of the Tolbooth,1 and at other churches,3 where I was almost always her constant attendant, were the great sources of her comfort.“Her intention was that I should be trained for the ministry, with a view to

17、 which I had been sent, after leaving my first school, to Mr. Macintyre, a famous linguist of his day, where I made the acquaintance of Patrick Neill, afterwards the well-known printer, and still better known naturalist, who remained my most intimate friend through life, and of William Blackwood, th

18、e no less celebrated publisher.”* * * * *Circumstances, however, occurred which entirely changed my fathers prospects and pursuits. Soon after he had attained his fifteenth year his mother was married to Mr. Thomas Smithson of a shipowner, and member of the Trinity House of Dundee,who himself was, m

19、y father says, a “furnishing iron-merchant, shipowner, and underwriter” in Edinburgh, and who being also a lamp-maker and an ingenious mechanician, appears at a very early date to have directed his attention to the subject of lighthouses, and endeavoured to improve the mode of illumination then in u

20、se, by substituting lamps with mirrors, for the open coal-fires which were at that early time the only beacons to guide the mariner.Mr. Smiths improvements attracted the notice of Professor Robison, Sir David Hunter Blair, and Mr. Creech, the publisher and honorary secretary to the Chamber of Commer

21、ce. I find from the minutes of that body, that in 1786, a complaint was made to them by shipmasters as to the defective state of the coal light on4 the Isle of May, which was a “private light” belonging to the family of the Duke of Portland.The Chamber sent a deputation of their number to inquire in

22、to the truth of the objections that had been made, who fully confirmed the justice of the complaints.When the result of the examination was reported to the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Smith submitted to them “a plan for improving the light by dispensing with the coal-fire,” and after fully considering

23、his suggestions, the Chamber, at their meeting of 24th May 1786, resolved “that while they allowed much ingenuity to Mr. Smiths plan of reflectors, they were of opinion that a coal light should be continued.”* * * * *The Board of Northern Lighthouses was constituted by Act of Parliament in 1786; its

24、 members were the Lord Advocate and Solicitor-General, the chief magistrates of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, and Campbeltown, and the Sheriffs of the maritime counties of Scotland. These Commissioners, happily for the interests of navigation, took a more enlightened view of their duties

25、than the Chamber of Commerce of Edinburgh, and after hearing and considering Mr. Smiths proposals, formally appointed him their Engineer.The preamble of the Act constituting the Northern Lighthouse Board, states that it would greatly conduce to the security of navigation and the fisheries if four li

26、ghthouses were erected in the north part of Great Britain. Such, it would seem, was the limited state of trade in Scotland, that the erection of these four lighthouses was5 all that was contemplated, on a coast, extending to about 2000 miles, of perhaps the most dangerous navigation in Europe. It is

27、 now marked by sixty lighthouse stations for the guidance of the sailor, but new claims continue to be made, and new lighthouses are still admitted to be required.The newly established Lighthouse Board at once entered on its important duties, and the first light they exhibited was Kinnaird Head, whi

28、ch was designed by Mr. Smith and lighted in 1787.* * * * *These pursuits being very congenial to my fathers mechanical turn of mind, he had rendered himself useful to Mr. Smith in carrying them out, and was intrusted, at the early age of nineteen, to superintend the erection of a lighthouse on the i

29、sland of Little Cumbrae, in the river Clyde, according to a design which Mr. Smith had furnished to the Cumbrae Light Trustees. This connection soon led to his adoption as Mr. Smiths partner in business, and, in 1799, to his union with his eldest daughter by a former marriage.During the cessation of

30、 the works at Cumbrae in winter, my father, who had determined to follow the profession of a Civil Engineer, applied himself, as appears from class note-books in my possession, with great zeal to the practice of surveying and architectural drawing, and to the study of mathematics at the Andersonian

31、Institution at Glasgow. Of the kindness of Dr. Anderson, who presided over that Institution, he ever entertained a most grateful remembrance, and often6 spoke of him as one of his best advisers and kindest friends, and in the Memoranda already noticed he records his obligations to him in the followi

32、ng words:“It was the practice of Professor Anderson kindly to befriend and forward the views of his pupils; and his attention to me during the few years I had the pleasure of being known to him was of a very marked kind, for he directed my attention to various pursuits, with the view to my coming fo

33、rward as an engineer.”After completing the Cumbrae Lighthouse he was further engaged, under Mr. Smith, in erecting two lighthouses on the Pentland Skerries in Orkney, where, in view of what lay before him at the Bell Rock, he had the useful experience of living four months in a tent on an uninhabite

34、d island, and arranging the landing of the whole of the materials of the lighthouses in the difficult navigation of the Pentland Firth. But here also he had a personal experience of Gods overruling Providence, which clung to him through life, and, as we shall find, proved his stay in times of danger

35、, when personal resources had ceased to prove availing. In returning from the Pentland Skerries, in 1794, he embarked in the sloop Elizabeth of Stromness, and proceeded as far as Kinnaird Head, when the vessel was becalmed about three miles from the shore. The captain kindly landed my father, who co

36、ntinued his journey to Edinburgh by land. A very different fate, however, awaited his unfortunate shipmates. A violent gale came on, which drove the Elizabeth back to Orkney, where she was totally wrecked, and all on board unhappily perished.7 Notwithstanding my fathers active duties in summer, he w

37、as so zealous in the pursuit of knowledge that he contrived, during several successive winters, on his return from his practical work, to avail himself of the Philosophical classes at the University of Edinburgh. In this manner he attended Professor Playfairs second and third Mathematical courses, t

38、wo sessions of Robisons Natural Philosophy, two courses of Chemistry under Dr. Hope, and two of Natural History under Professor Jameson. To these he added a course of Moral Philosophy under Dugald Stewart, a course of Logic under Dr. Ritchie, and one of Agriculture under Professor Low. “I was preven

39、ted, however,” he remarks, in the Memoranda, “from following my friend Dr. Neill for my degree of M.A. by my slender knowledge of Latin, in which my highest book was the Orations of Cicero, and by my total want of Greek.” Such zeal in the pursuit of knowledge, and views so enlarged of the benefits a

40、nd value of a liberal education, were characteristics of a mind of no ordinary vigour; so that, early trained to practical work, and inspired with a true love of his profession, it was not unnatural that on the resignation of Mr. Smith the Board should have appointed Mr. Stevenson to succeed him as

41、their Engineer.The first annual report made by him to the Board is dated June 1798, and he continued annually to prepare one up to the time of his resignation in 1843.The first occasion on which he was sent by the Board on a special mission was in 1801, when he was deputed by the Commissioners to vi

42、sit and report on the Lighthouses8 on the coasts of England, Wales, and the Isle of Man. The report he submitted to the Board is a most elaborate and valuable document. After describing upwards of twenty Public, Private, and Harbour lights which he had examined, he proceeds fully to discuss the diff

43、erent systems of management in use, and particularly to compare the system adopted by the Scotch Board with that practised in England by the Trinity House, most readily advising the adoption of what seemed improvements in the administration of the Southern Board. In reporting as to the Isle of Man h

44、e takes occasion to suggest that the lighting of that island should be taken up by the Northern Commissionersa proposal which was acted on in 1815. He says: “I had several communications with William Scott, Esq., Receiver-General of the Customs, upon the subject of Lighthouses. At his request I went

45、 to the Point of Langness, and to the Calf of Man; the former a very dangerous point of land, the latter a situation that seems every way answerable to the general purposes of a site for a lighthouse. “As this island occupies a middle situation between Great Britain and Ireland, and is not included

46、in any of these Acts of Parliament which relate to the erecting or maintaining of Lights, on either side of the Channel, perhaps it might answer to include the Isle of Man under the same Act which refers to the Northern Lighthouses; and by extending your powers this island might no longer stand a mo

47、nument of darkness, and a great obstruction to the navigation of St. Georges Channel, particularly from the want of a light upon the Calf of Man. “Such a light, together with the late improvement of the9 Copeland light, and the erection of the Kilwarlin light upon the Irish coast, would in an eminen

48、t degree improve the navigation of the Irish Channel. From the central situation of the Isle of Man, a light would soon pay itself, by serving the trade of Maryport, Workington, Whitehaven, Lancaster and Liverpool, on the one side of the Channel, with Dublin and Newry on the other.”With reference to

49、 this suggestion the Commissioners, in January 1802, adopted the following resolution: “In the above report Mr. Stevenson has stated very strongly the great utility of a lighthouse upon the Calf of Man; but not being within the jurisdiction either of the Trinity House of London, or of the Commissioners for the Northern Lighthouses, both of them are thereby prevented from accomplishing an