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and raked out of the mud of the slob-land-was first used for ship-building purposes. Robert Hickson & Co. then commenced operations by laying down the Mary Stenhouse, a wooden sailing-ship of one thousand two hundred and eighty-nine tons' register, and the vessel was launched in the following year. The operations of the firm were continued until the year 1859, when the ship-building establishments on Queen's Island were acquired by Mr. E. J. Harland (afterwards Harland & Wolff), since which time the development of this great branch of industry in Belfast has been rapid and complete.

From the history of this firm, it will be found that energy is the most profitable of all merchandise, and that the fruit of active work is the sweetest of all fruits. Harland & Wolff are the true Watt & Boulton of Belfast. At the beginning of their great enterprise the works occupied about four acres of land; they now occupy over thirty-six acres. The firm has

imported not less than two hundred thousand tons of iron, which have been converted by skill and labor into one hundred and sixty-eight ships of two hundred and fifty-three thousand total tonnage. These ships, if laid close together, would measure nearly eight miles in length.

The advantage to the wage-earning class can only be shortly stated. Not less than thirty-four per cent. is paid in labor on the cost of the ships turned out. The number of persons employed in the works is three thousand nine hundred and twenty; and the weekly wages paid to them is £4000, or over £200,000 annually. Since the commencement of the undertaking, about two millions sterling have been paid in wages. All this goes towards the support of the various industries of the place. That the working-classes of Belfast are thrifty and frugal may be inferred from

the fact that, at the end of 1882, they held deposits in the Savings Bank to the amount of £230,289, besides £158,064 in the Post-office Savings Banks.* Nearly all the better class of working people of the town live in separate dwellings, either rented or their own property. There are ten building societies in Belfast, in which industrious people may store their earnings, and in course of time either buy or build their own houses. The example of energetic, active men always spreads. Belfast contains two other ship-building yards, both the outcome of Harland & Wolff's enterprise-those of Messrs. Macilwaine & Lewis, employing about four hundred men, and of Messrs. Workman & Clarke, employing about a thousand. The heads of both these firms were trained in the parent ship-building works of Belfast. There is no feeling of rivalry between the firms, but all work together for the good of the town.

In “Plutarch's Lives" we are told that Themistocles said on one occasion, ""Tis true that I have never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness." So might it be said of Harland & Wolff. They have given Belfast not only a potency for good, but a world-wide reputation. Their energies overflow. Mr. Harland is the active and ever-prudent chairman of the most important of the local boards,

* We are indebted to the obliging kindness of the Right Honorable Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster-general, for this return: The total number of depositors in the Post-office Savings Banks in the parliamentary borough of Belfast is ten thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, and the amount of their deposits, including the interest standing to their credit, on the 31st of December, 1882, was £158,064 0s. 1d.

An important item in the savings of Belfast, not included in the above returns, consists in the amounts of deposits made with the various limited companies, as well as with the thriving building societies in the town and neighborhood.

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the Harbor Trust of Belfast, and exerts himself to promote the extension of the harbor facilities of the port as if the benefits were to be exclusively his, while Mr. Wolff is the chairman of one of the latest-born industries of the place, the Belfast Rope-work Company, which already gives employment to over six hundred persons.

This last-mentioned industry is only about six years old. The works occupy over seven acres of ground, more than six acres of which are under roofing. Although the whole of the raw material is imported from abroad-from Russia, the Philippine Islands, New Zealand, and Central America—it is exported again in a manufactured state to all parts of the world.

Such is the contagion of example, and such the everbranching industries with which men of enterprise and industry can enrich and bless their country. The following brief memoir of the career of Mr. Harland has been furnished at my solicitation, and I think that it will be found full of interest as well as instruction.

CHAPTER XI.

SHIP-BUILDING IN BELFAST-ITS ORIGIN AND PROG

RESS.

BY E. J. HARLAND, ENGINEER AND SHIP-BUILDER.

"The useful arts are but reproductions or new combinations, by the art of man, of the same natural benefactors. He no longer waits for favoring gales, but by means of steam he realizes the fable of Æolus's bag, and carries the two-and-thirty winds in the boiler of his boat."EMERSON.

"The most exquisite and the most expensive machinery is brought into play where operations on the most common materials are to be performed, because these are executed on the widest scale. This is the meaning of the vast and astonishing prevalence of machine work in this country; that the machine, with its million fingers, works for millions of purchasers, while in remote countries, where magnificence and savagery stand side by side, tens of thousands work for one. There Art labors for the rich alone; here she works for the poor no less. There the multitude produce only to give splendor and grace to the despot or the warrior, whose slaves they are, and whom they enrich; here the man who is powerful in the weapons of peace, capital and machinery, uses them to give comfort and enjoyment to the public, whose servant he is, and thus becomes rich while he enriches others with his goods."-WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D.

I was born at Scarborough, in May, 1831, the sixth of a family of eight. My father was a native of Rosedale, half-way between Whitby and Pickering: his nurse was the sister of Captain Scoresby, celebrated as an Arctic explorer. Arrived at manhood, he studied medicine, graduated at Edinburgh, and practised in Scarborough until nearly his death, in 1866. He was thrice mayor, and a justice of the peace for the borough. Dr. Harland was a man of much force of

Dr. Harland of Scarborough.

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character, and displayed great originality in the treatment of disease. Besides exercising skill in his profession, he had a great love for mechanical pursuits. He spent his leisure time in inventions of many sorts; and, in conjunction with the late Sir George Cayley, of Brompton, he kept an excellent mechanic constantly at work.

In 1827 he invented and patented a steam-carriage for running on common roads. Before the adoption of railways the old stage-coaches were found slow, and insufficient for the traffic. A working model of the steam-coach was perfected, embracing a multitubular boiler for quickly raising high-pressure steam, with a revolving surface-condenser for reducing the steam to water again, by means of its exposure to the cold draught of the atmosphere through the interstices of extremely thin laminations of copper plates. The entire machinery, placed under the bottom of the carriage, was borne on springs, the whole being of an elegant form. This model steam-carriage ascended with perfect ease the steepest roads. Its success was so complete that Dr. Harland designed a full-sized carriage; but the demands upon his professional skill were so great that he was prevented going further than constructing the pair of engines, the wheels, and a part of the boiler, all of which remnants I still preserve, as valuable links in the progress of steam locomotion.

Other branches of practical science—such as electricity, magnetism, and chemical cultivation of the soil -received a share of his attention. He predicted that three or four powerful electric lamps would yet light a whole city. He was also convinced of the feasibility of an electric cable to New York, and calculated the probable cost. As an example to the neighborhood, he successfully cultivated a tract of moorland, and