The next character deserves to be recorded as one that was eminently useful in his day and generation. John Smeaton, born near Leeds, in 1724, was an eminent civil engineer. The strength of his understanding, and the originality of his genius, appeared at an early age: his playthings were not the playthings of children, but the tools which men employ . and he appeared to have greater entertainment in seeing the men in the neighbourhood work, and in asking them questions, than in any thing else. One day he was seen (to the distress of his friends) on the top of his father's barn, fixing up something like a windmill: another time he attended some men fixing a pump, at a neighbouring village, and observing them cut off a piece of bored pipe, he was so lucky as to procure it, and he actually made with it a working pump that raised water. This happened while he was in petticoats, and most likely before he had attained his sixth year.

John Smeaton.