106 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Glton Hill.
money appropriated for the work was totally exhausted,
and the luckless observatory was once
more left to its fate, and when thus abandoned,
was the scene of a singular disturbance in 1788.
It was assailed by ten armed persons, who severely
wounded a gentleman who endeavoured to oppose
them ?in capturing the place, which was next
literally stormed by the City Guard, ?without
any killed or wounded,? says Kincaid, ?but in
the hurry of conducting their prisoners to the
guard-house, they omitted to take a list of the
stores and ammunition found there.? On the 26th
February, 1789, there were arraigned by the Procurator
Fiscal these ten persons, among whom were
Jacobina, relict of Thomas Short, optician in Edinburgh,
John McFadzean, medical student, for
forcibly entering, on the 7th November, ?the
observatory formerly possessed by Thomas Short,
optician, in order to dispossess therefrom James
Douglas, grandson of the said Thomas Short, with
pistols, naked swords, cutlasses, and other lethal
weapons, attacking and wounding Robert Maclean,
accountant of Excise,? &c. For this, eight were
dismissed from the bar, and two were imprisoned
.and fined 500 merks each. (Edin. Advert., 1789.)
In 1792 the observatory was completed by the
magistrates, but in a style far inferior to what the
utility of such an institution deserved ; and being
without proper instruments, or a fund for procuring
them, it remained in this condition till 1812, when
a more fortunate attempt was made to establish an
observatory on a proper footing by the formation
in Edinburgh of an Astronomical Institution, and
the old edifice is how used for a self-registering
anemometer, or rain-gauge, in connection with the
new edifice.
The latter had its origin in a few public-spirited
individuals, who, in 1812, formed themselves into
the Astronomical Institution, and circulated an
address, written by their President, Professor Playfair,
urging the necessity for its existence and
progress. ? He used to state,? says Lord Cockburn,
? in order to show its necessity, that a foreign
vessel had been lately compelled to take refuge in
Leith, and that before setting sail again, the master
wished to adjust his timepiece, but found that he
had come to a large and learned metropolis, where
nobody could tell him what o?clock it was.?
A little to the east of the old institution, the
new observatory was founded on the 25th April,
I 8 I 8, by Sir George Mackenzie, Vice-President, from
a Grecian design by W. H. Playfair, after the model
of the Temple of the Winds, and consists of a
central cross of sixty-two feet, with four projecting
pedimentssupported bysix columns fronting the four
points of the compass. The central dome, thirteen
feet in diameter, contains a solid cone or pillar
nineteen feet high, for the astronomical circle. To
the east are piers for the transit instrument and astronomical
clock; in the west end are others for
the mural circle and clock.
? The original Lancastrian School,? says Lord
Cockburn, ?? was a long wood and brick erection,
stretched on the very top of the Calton Hill, where
it was then the fashion to stow away anything
that was too abominable to be tolerated elsewhere.??
, The great prison buildings of the city occupy
the summit of the Doiv Craig, to which we have
referred more than once.
The first of these, the ? Bridewell,? was founded
30th November, 179r, by the Earl of Morton,
Grand Master of Scotland, heading a procession
which must have ascended the hill by the tortuous
old street at the back of the present Convening
Rooms. The usual coins and papers were enclosed
in two bottles blown at the glass-house in Leith,
and deposited in the stone, with a copper plate
containing a long Latin inscription. The architect
was Robert Adam.
Prior to this the city had an institution of a
similar kind, named the House of Correction, f a
the reception of strolling poor and loose characters.
It had been projected as far back as 1632,
and the buildings therefor had been situated near
Paul?s Work. Afterwards a building near the
Charity Workhouse was used for the purpose, but
being found too small, after a proposal to establish
a new one at the foot of Forrester?s Wynd, the
idea was abandoned, the present new one projected
and camed out. It was finished in ~796, at the
expense of the city and county, aided by a petty
grant from Government. In front of it, shielded
by a high wall and ponderous gate, on the street
line, is the house for the governor. Semicircular
in form, the main edifice has five floors, the highest
being for stores and the hospital. All round on
each floor, at the middle of the breadth, is a
comdor, with cells on each side, lighted respectively
from the interior and exterior of the
curvature. Those on the inner are chiefly used
as workshops, and can all be surveyed from a dark
apartment in the house of the governor without
the observer being visible. On the low floor is
a treadmill, originally constructed for the manufacture
of corks, but now mounted and moved
only in cure of idleness or the punishnient of
delinquency.
The area within the circle is a small court,
glazed overhead, The house is under good
