was very small, but, having ulterior objects in view, I considered the instruction received as some set-off to the smallness of the pay. It might prevent some of you young Birkbeckians from considering your fate specially hard, or from being daunted, because from a very low level you have to climb a very steep hill, when I tell you that, on quitting the Ordinance Survey in 1843, my salary was a little under twenty shillings a week. I have often wondered since at the amount of genuine happiness which a young fellow, of regular habits, not caring for either pipe or mug, may extract even from pay like that. Then came a pause, and after it the mad time of the railway mania, when I was able to turn to account the knowledge I had gained upon the Ordinance Survey. In Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Durham, and Yorkshire, more especially in the last, I was in the thick of the fray. It was a time of terrible toil. The day's work in the field usually began and ended with the day's light, while frequently in the office, and more especially as the awful 30th of November—the latest date at which plans and sections of projected lines could be deposited at the Board of Trade—drew near, there was little difference between day and night, every hour of the twenty-four being absorbed in the work of preparation. Strong men were broken down by the strain and labor of that arduous time. Many pushed through, and are still among us in robust vigor; but some collapsed, while others retired with large fortunes, but with intellects so shattered that, instead of taking their places in the front rank of English statesmen, as their abilities entitled them to do, they sought rest for their brains in the quiet lives of country gentlemen. In my own modest sphere I well remember the refreshment I occasionally derived from five minutes' sleep on a deal table, with "Babbage and Callet's Logarithms" under my head for a pillow. On a certain day, under grave penalties, certain levels had to be finished, and this particular day was one of agony to me. The atmosphere seemed filled with mocking demons, laughing at the vanity of my efforts to get the work done. My leveling staves were snapped, and my theodolite was overthrown by the storm. When things are at their worst a kind of anger often takes the place of fear. It was so in the present instance: I pushed doggedly on, and just at nightfall, when barely able to read the figures on my leveling-staff, I planted my last "bench-mark" on a tombstone in Haworth churchyard. Close at hand was the vicarage of Mr. Brontë, where the genius was nursed which soon afterward burst forth and astonished the world. It was a time of mad unrest—of downright monomania. In private residences and public halls, in London reception-rooms, in hotels and the stables of hotels, among gypsies and costermongers, nothing was spoken of but the state of the share-market, the prospects of projected lines, the good fortune of the ostler or pot-boy who by a lucky stroke of business had cleared ten thousand pounds. High and low, rich and poor, joined in the reckless game. During my professional connection with
