In the _Scots Magazine_ for May 1789, there is a report by Captain Philip d’Auvergne, of the Narcissus frigate, on the practical utility of Kenneth M’Culloch’s sea compasses. The captain, after an eighteen months’ trial of their merits, compared with those of all the other kinds in use at the time, describes them as immensely superior, and earnestly recommends to the Admiralty their general introduction into the navy. In passing, on one occasion, through the race of Alderney in the winter of 1787, there broke out a frightful storm, and so violent was the opposition of the wind and tide, that while his vessel was sailing at the rate of eleven miles on the surface, she was making scarce any headway by the land. The sea rose tremendously--at once short, high, and irregular; and the motions of the vessel were so fearfully abrupt and violent, that scarce a seaman aboard could stand on deck. At a time so critical, when none of the compasses supplied from his Majesty’s stores _would stand_, but vacillated more than three points on each side, “it commanded,” says the captain, “the admiration of the whole crew, winning the confidence of even the most timorous--to see how quickly and readily M’Culloch’s steering compass recovered the vacillations communicated to it by the motion of the ship and the shocks of the sea, and how truly in every brief interval of rest the needle pointed to the Pole.” It is further added, that on the Captain’s recommendation these compasses were tried on board the Andromeda, commanded at the time by Prince William Henry, our present king, and so satisfied was the Prince of the utility of the invention, that he too became a strenuous advocate for their general introduction, and testified his regard for the ingenious inventor, by appointing him his compass-maker. M’Culloch, however, did not long survive the honour, dying a few years after, and I have been unable to trace with any degree of certainty the further history of his improved compasses. But though only imperfectly informed regarding his various inventions, and they are said to have been many, and singularly practical, I am tolerably well acquainted with the story of his early life; and as it furnishes a striking illustration of that instinct of genius, if I may so express myself, which leads the possessor to exactly the place in which his services may be of most value to the community, by rendering him useless and unhappy in every other, I think I cannot do better than communicate it to the reader.