Indies, and the Continent, are often to be found three deep along nearly the whole length of the harbour. A few years ago the harbour was only 730 feet long; it is now 3340 feet long on the north side of the river, and 1260 on the south. Till of late years there were only a few punts and ploughs for the purpose of dredging the river; now there are four dredging machines with powerful steam apparatus, and two diving bells. Till lately there were no covering for goods at the harbour, and but one small crane for loading and discharging; now the shed accommodation on both sides of the river is most ample, and one of the cranes for shipping steamboat boilers, and other articles of thirty tons, made by Messrs. Claud Girdwood and Co., may, for the union of power with elegance of construction, challenge all the ports in the kingdom.

The river, for seven miles below the city, is confined within narrow bounds; and the sloping banks, formed of whinstone, in imitation of ashlar, are unequalled in the kingdom, whether their utility or their beauty be taken into account. By the year 1831, vessels drawing thirteen feet six inches of water, were enabled to come up to the harbour of the Broomielaw. The increase of trade on the Clyde having far exceeded what even the most sanguine could have contemplated: we think that some parts of the river may be widened with advantage. In 1834, the trustees appointed Mr. Logan, civil engineer, a gentleman of great talent and experience, to direct the improvements of the river.

Till 1834, the river and harbour dues were annually disposed of by public sale, but they have since been collected by the trustees.*

The burgesses of Dumbarton are exempt from river dues, in virtue of an old charter.†

The river dues have been greatly increased by steam navigation.‡

There is, perhaps, few features in the history of Glasgow more remarkable than the changes which have taken place within the last thirty years in the facilities of communication to "watering places." Little more than that space of time has elapsed since the introduction of steam navigation to the Clyde; previously to which period, such of our citizens as after a hard year's toil,

*The following is a statement of the amount of dues in the years specified. In 1771, the first year's dues were £1021; in 1810, £4959; in 1812, £5525; in 1814, £6128; in 1833, £20,260; and in 1834, £21,260; exclusive of shed dues, which in 1833 amounted to £1283, and in 1834 to £1564.

From the time the exemption was first claimed, on 9th July, 1825, to 8tb July, 1834, they amounted to £4722 13s. viz. sailing vessels, £803 13s. 4d., steam ditto £3918 19s. 8d. less £170 3s. ld. paid by shareholders in steam-boats who were not burgesses of Dumbarton.

From 8th July, 1833, to 9th July 1834, the river dues collected stood to the gross revenue as follows: Total tonnage on merchandize, 70 1-4th per cent.; ditto by sailing vessels, including ferries, 38 5-6ths per cent.; ditto by steam ditto, 31 3-3ths per cent.; quay dues by ditto, 15 1-6th per cent.; ditto by sailing ditto, 51-5th per cent.; shed dues 57-12ths per cent; ferries 3 5-8ths per cent. Total steam to total sailing vessels as 87 7-60ths to 100. Since 1834 the amount of dues has considerably increased.

were desirous of wooing health to their emaciated cheeks by a short season of relaxation on the coast, were obliged to resort to a means of transporting themselves thither, as to a modern Glasgowegian appears as indicative of the public spirit of the fifteenth century, as the “Ærial Balloon," that of the twentieth.

Yet strange as it is to be averred, it is nevertheless absolutely true, that during the last thirty years, we poor erring mortals have acquired the skill to transport ourselves to the distance of three thousand miles in as brief a space of time, as our immediate ancestors would have reckoned an ordinary passage to the place where " our king Alexander killed the bold and haughty Danes."

Prior to the year 1812, the vehicles of communication to the port of Greenock—which can now be reached per mare in the space of an hour and a half,—were a species of wherry-built nutshells designated "Fly Boats," the justice of which appellation will be sufficiently apparent when it is considered that they generally completed their voyage in the short space of ten hours! The conveyances of goods and passengers to places more remote, were a more ambitious sort of machine, generally known by the name of "Packet," which, with a fair wind, could reach the Isle of Bute in three days; but when adverse, thought it "not wonderful" to plough the billowy main for as many weeks!

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Shade of M'Ure! thou who erst sang of the thousand gabbarts" which received their commands at the "Bremylaw," ere proceeding to the foreign shores of

P

Dumbarton,-wake from thy tomb! and having gazed upon the wonders of thy descendants, hide thy diminished head, and shout aloud, "Of a verity, my children, I know you not!"

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CHAPTER XIII.

EMINENT NATIVES OF GLASGOW.

"Sola doctorum monumenta vatum

Nesciunt Fati imperium severi,

Sola contemnunt Phlegethonta et Orei
Jura superbi.”

BUCHANAN.

BIOGRAPHY may be regarded as probably the most instructive of all species of reading, inasmuch, as presenting to the mind an account of such individuals, who by their honourable exertions have gained a name among their fellow-mortals, they afford a strong incitement to honourable ambition, and it is not too much to observe, that it will be confessed by almost any individual who has become famous for his intellectual eminence, that a devotion to such reading was the first source which wafted that spark to his aspiring, but yet unkindled heart, which afterwards enabled him to spread a blaze of glory round himself and the place of his training.