Of the precise nature of the improved system of founding by which the two young Scotchmen proposed to prosecute their undertaking, the narrative given by Mr. Hansard affords no information. It has been suggested by some that it was no other than that of stereotyping by a method similar to, or better than, that attempted a few years earlier by Ged. But whatever it may have been, further experiment failed to justify the scheme as one of practical utility, and the two partners, who had by this time quitted the metropolis and returned to {260} St. Andrews, determined to abandon it and to fall back on the ordinary method of manufacturing type. “In their attempt to prosecute this speculation,” continues Mr. Hansard, still quoting the narrative furnished him by Dr. Wilson’s successors, “they found themselves in a more sure, though still in a difficult track, and in which they had no guide whatever but their own talent of invention and mechanical ability; and it was by the aid of these that they carried things forward until, at length, they were enabled to cast a few founts of Roman and Italic characters: after which they hired some workmen, whom they instructed in the necessary operations, and at last opened their infant letter-foundry at St. Andrews in the year 1742.” The Scotch printers were not slow in showing their appreciation of the convenience afforded them by the establishment of a foundry in their midst, and from the first Messrs. Wilson and Baine appear to have received liberal encouragement in their new venture. They added steadily to the variety of their founts, and finding the demand for their type on the increase, not only in Scotland, but in Ireland and North America, they decided in 1744 to remove from St. Andrews to a more convenient centre at Camlachie, a small village a mile eastward of Glasgow. In 1747 the claims of their Irish business necessitated the residence of one of the partners in Dublin.[527] Mr. Baine was selected by lot for the duty, and accordingly departed for Ireland, leaving Mr. Wilson at Camlachie. Two years later the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent, and Mr. Baine quitted the business to make an independent venture in type founding.[528] {261} Left to himself, Mr. Wilson actively prosecuted his business, and although no specimen of the foundry is known to exist, either during the partnership between Wilson and Baine, or, indeed, during the entire period of its location at Camlachie, its productions very shortly attained some considerable celebrity.