Thomson performed in science, and its history and literature, a very great amount of valuable labour, and acquired a distinguished reputation both as an original discoverer, and as a practical teacher of his favourite science. He died in 1852, at the age of seventy-nine, and has left behind him a son who bears his name, now (1860) superintendent of the East India Company's Botanic Gardens at Calcutta, and one of the most distinguished scientific botanists of the day.--_Encyclopædia Britannica_, Eighth Edition.--_English Cyclopædia._ London, 1858. RICHARD TREVITHICK. Born April 13, 1771. Died April 22, 1833. Richard Trevithick, inventor of the first high pressure steam-engine, and the first steam-carriage used in England, was born in the parish of Illogan, in Cornwall. He was the son of a purser of the mines in the district, and although he received but little early education, his talents were great in his own special subject, mechanics. When a boy he had no taste for school exercises, and being an only son, was allowed by his parents to do much as he pleased; so that most of his time was passed either in strolling over the mines amidst which he lived, or in working out schemes which had already begun to fill his youthful imagination, seated under a hedge, with a slate in his hand. Trevithick was a pupil of William Bull, an engineer practising at that time in Cornwall, employed in erecting Watt's engines, and who afterwards accompanied Trevithick to South America. When he had attained the age of twenty-one, Trevithick was appointed engineer to several mines, a more responsible situation than the one held by his father, who, on hearing of his son's appointment, expressed great surprise, and even considered it his duty to remonstrate with the gentlemen who had proposed the appointment. About this period (in 1792) he was also employed to test one of Hornblower's engines, and even before this, had, with the assistance of William Bull, constructed several engines which did not come under Watt's patent. Trevithick's duties, as engineer, at this time, frequently required him to visit Mr. Harvey's iron foundry at Hayle, who was in the habit of inviting him to his house; this ultimately resulted in his becoming attached to Mr. Harvey's daughter, to whom he was married on the 7th of November, 1797. After his marriage Trevithick lived at Plane-an-quary in Redruth for a few months, then at Camborne for ten years. From about 1808 to 1810 he resided in London; but after his unfortunate failure in attempting to tunnel the Thames, returned to Penponds in the parish of Camborne, where he lived for five or six years, at the house of his mother, afterwards living at Penzance, from which town he sailed for Peru on the 20th October, 1816. While residing at Camborne, Trevithick influenced perhaps by the success of Murdock's model steam-carriage, determined to build one adapted to ordinary road traffic. One Andrew