James Nasmyth was born in 1808, the tenth in a family of eleven children. Like all of his brothers and sisters, he inherited his father’s artistic tastes. If he had not been an engineer he would probably have become distinguished as an artist. He was ambidextrous, and to the end of his life his skill with his pencil was a constant source of pleasure and convenience. The notebook in which the later record of his mathematical ideas is contained, is crowded with funny little sketches, landscapes, little devils and whimsical figures running in and out among the calculations. The leaf in this book on which he made his first memorandum of the steam hammer is shown in Fig. 23. In 1817, Watt, then in his eighty-first year, visited Edinburgh and was entertained at the Earl of Buchan’s, where Alexander Nasmyth met him at dinner. Watt delighted all with his kindly talk, and astonished them with the extent and profundity of his information. The following day Watt visited Nasmyth to examine his artistic and other works. James Nasmyth, a nine-year-old boy, returning from school, met him at the doorstep as he was leaving, and never forgot the tall, bent figure of “the Great Engineer.” [Illustration: FIGURE 22. JAMES NASMYTH FROM AN ETCHING BY PAUL RAJON] Nasmyth’s father had a private workshop which was well equipped for those days. Nasmyth played there from childhood and had mastered the use of all the tools while still a schoolboy. “By means of my father’s excellent foot lathe,” he says, “I turned out spinning tops in capital style, so much so that I became quite noted amongst my school companions. They would give any price for them. The peeries were turned with perfect accuracy, and the steel shod, or spinning pivot, was centered so as to correspond with the heaviest diameter at the top. They could spin twice as long as the bought peeries. When at full speed they would ‘sleep,’ that is, turn round without a particle of waving. This was considered high art as regarded top-spinning.”[84] He established a brisk business in these, in small brass cannon, and especially in large cellar keys, which he converted into a sort of hand cannon, with a small touch-hole bored into the barrel and a sliding brass collar which allowed them to be loaded, primed, and then carried around in the pocket. [84] _Ibid._, p. 89.