When I went with Ormerod, Grierson & Co., they were deep in the execution of a large order known as the Oporto Crystal Palace. Portugal was behind every other country in Europe in its arts and manufactures. In fact, it had none at all. At Oporto there was a large colony of English merchants, by whom all the trade of the port was carried on. These had conceived the idea of holding at Oporto an international exposition, which idea was put into execution. Our firm had secured the contract for all the iron-work for a pretty large iron and glass building, and for the power and shafting for the Machinery Hall. I was soon called on for the plans for an Allen engine to be shown there. This was to be a non-condensing engine, 14×24, to make 150 revolutions per minute, and which accordingly was made and sent, with two Lancashire boilers. I went on to attend the opening of the exposition on the first of May, 1865, and see that the engine was started in good shape. I sailed from London on a trading-steamer for Oporto, and on the voyage learned various things that I did not know before. One of these was how to make port wine. I asked the captain what his cargo consisted of. He replied: “Nine hundred pipes of brandy.” “What are you taking brandy to Portugal for?” “To make wine.” “But what kind of brandy is it that you take from _England_?” “British brandy.” “What is it made from?” “Corn.” By this word he meant wheat. In England Indian corn is called maize. I do not know whether “corn” included barley and rye or not. We had the pleasure in Oporto of meeting a Portuguese inventor. In England there then existed the rude method of announcing at each principal seaport the instant of noon by firing a cannon by an electric current from the Greenwich Observatory. The more accurate method now in use substitutes sight for sound. This inventor proposed planting a cannon for this purpose in an opening in a church tower, of which there were plenty. The hammer, by the fall of which a pill of fulminate was to be exploded and the cannon fired, was to be held up by a string. The rays of the sun were focused by a burning-glass on a point, which at the instant that the sun reached the meridian would reach this string. The string would be burned off, and the cannon would go off. In the rare case for Oporto of a cloudy day, or if for any reason the automatic action failed, it would be the duty of a priest, after waiting a few minutes to be sure of the failure, to go up and fire the gun. The enthusiastic inventor urged it on the English. It was thought, however, that the more feeble power of the sun’s rays in the higher latitude of England would not warrant the application of this ingenious invention there, and besides neither perforated church towers nor idle priests were available for the purpose.