In addition to his workshop under the Natural Philosophy class, a shop for the sale of his instruments was also appropriated to Watt by the Professors. It formed the ground-floor of the house situated next to the Principal’s Gate, being part of the University Buildings, and was entered directly from the pavement of the High Street. It has been described to us, on the authority of Professor Fleming, as an old house, with a sort of arcade in front, supported on pillars. In making some alterations in the building the pillars were too much weakened, and the house, excepting the basement, had to be taken down. The shop occupied by Watt is the little tenement shown on the right hand of the following engraving; but the lower story of the building has since been altered and repaired, and is now totally different from what it was in Watt’s time. [Illustration: ISOMETRIC VIEW OF GLASGOW COLLEGE, 1693, FROM SLEYER’S ‘THEATRUM SCOTIÆ.’[67]] [67] The illustration does not show the Inner Quadrangle, situated to the left of the Main Court, that part of the building having been added since the view was published. Though his wants were few, and he lived on humble fare, Watt found it very difficult to earn a subsistence by his trade. His father sent him remittances from time to time; but the old man had suffered serious losses in his own business, and had become much less able to help his son with money. After a year’s trial, Watt wrote to his father, that “unless it be the Hadley’s instruments there is little to be got by it, as at most other jobs I am obliged to do the most of them myself; and, as it is impossible for one person to be expert at everything, they often cost me more time than they should do.” Of the quadrants, he could make three in a week, with the help of a lad; but the profit upon the three was not more than 40_s._ The customers for these were very few in number, as seagoing ships with their captains could not yet reach Glasgow.[68] [68] The author of ‘Glasgow, Past and Present’ thus writes:--“Last week (Nov. 1851) I was crossing the ferry at the west end of Tradeston, and in the course of our passage over we turned round the bow of a large ship. The ferryman, looking up to her leviathan bulwarks, exclaimed, ‘She came up here yesterday, drawing eighteen feet water!’ Now, upon this very spot seventy years ago, when a very little boy, I waded across the river, my feet never being off the ground, and the water not reaching above my arm-pits. The depth at that time could not have been much more than three feet.”