274 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Chambers Street.
Britannica? In 1763 he was Treasurer of the
Navy, and died at Marseilles in 1777.
For some years after that period Minto House
was the residence of Sir William Nairne of Dun-
? sinnan, a Judge of the Court of SesGon, who removed
there from one he had long occupied, before
his promotion to the bench, at the head of the
Back Stairs, and in which he had lived as Mr.
Nairne, at that terrible period of his family history,
when his niece, the beautiful Mrs. Ogilvie, was
tried and convicted for murder in 1766.
He was the last of his line ; and when he died, in
1811, at an advanced age, his baronetcy became
extinct, and a nephew, his sister?s son, assumed
the name and arms of Nairne of Dunsinnan.
The principal entrance to Minto House in those
days was from the Horse Wynd, when it was
noted chiefly as a remnant of the dull and antiquated
grandeur of a former age. It was next
divided into a series of small apartments, and let
to people in the humblest rank of life. But it was
not fated to be devoted long to such uses, for the
famous surgeon, Mr. (afterwards Professor) Syme,
had it fitted up in 1829 as a surgical hospital for
street accidents and other cases, Mr. Syme retained
the old name of Minto House, and the surgery
and practice acquired a world-wide celebrity,
Long the scent of demonstrations and prelections
of eminent extramural lecturers, it was swept away
in the city improvements, and its?successor is now
included in Chambers Street, and has become the
6? New Medical Scliool of Minto House,? so that
the later traditions of tbe site ~ l l be perpetuated.
Among other edifices demolished in Argyle
Square, together with the Gaelic? Church, was the
Meeting House of the Scottish Baptists, seated foi
240-one of two sections of that congregation
established in I 766.
Proceeding westward, from the broad site 01
what was once Adam Square, and the other two
squares of which we have just given the history,
Chambers Street opens before us, a thousand feet in
length, With an average of seventy in breadth, extending
from the South Bridge to that of George IV.
It was begun in 1871 under the City Improve
ment Act, and was worthily named in honour 01
the Lord Provost Chambers, the chief promoter 01
the new city improvement scheme. With the
then old squares it includes the sites of North
College Street, and parts of sites of the Horse and
College Wynds, and is edificed into four largc
blocks, three or four storeys high, in ornate example:
of the Italian style, with some specimens of the
French.
Chambers Street was paved with wooden blocks
in 1876, at a cost of nearly A6,000, and on that
occasion 322,000 blocks were used.
On the south side three hundred and sixty feet OF
Chambers Street are occupied by the north front.
of the University. Over West College Street-of
old, the link between the Horse Wynd and.
Potterrow-is thrown a glass-covered bridge, connecting
the University with the Museum of Science.
and Art, which, when completed, will occupy the
remaining 400 feet of the north side to where ?? The
Society ?-besides one of Heriot?s schools-exists.
now in name.
This great and noble museum is in the Venetian
Renaissance style, from a design by Captain
Fowkes of the Royal Engineers. The laying ofthe
foundation-stone of this structure, on the
23rd of October, 1861, was the last public act of
His Royal Highness the Prince Consort. It is
founded on plans similar to those of the Interna--
tional Exhibition buildings in London, and, by theyear
1870, contained-a great hall, 105 feet long,
seventy wide, and seventy-seven in height ; a hail
of natural history, 130 feet long, fifty-seven feet.
wide, and seventy-seven in height ; a south hall,
seventy feet long, fifty feet wide, and seventy-seven,
in height ; and two other great apartments. When
completed it will be one of the noblest buildings
in Scotland.
In 1871-4 the edifice underwent extension, the.
great hall being increased to the length of 270 feet,.
and other apartments being added, which, when
finished, will have a measurement of 400 feet in.
length, 200 feet in width, with an average of ninety
in height Already it contains vast collections in,
natural history, in industrial art, in manufacture,
and in matters connected with physical science.
The great aim of the architect has been to have
every part well-lighted, and for this purpose a glass
roof with open timberwork has been adopted, and
the details of the whole structure made as light as
possible. Externally the front is constructed of
red and white sandstone, and internally a more
elaborate kind of decoration has been carried out.
Altogether the effect of the building is light, rich,.
and elegant. .In the evenings, when open, it is
lighted up by means of: horizontal iron rods in the
roof studded with gas burners, the number of jets.
exceeding 5,000.
The great hall or saloon is a singularly noble
apartment, with two galleries The collection of
industrial art here comprises illustrations of nearly
all the chief manufactures of the British Isles and
foreign countries, and the lafgest collection in the
world of the raw products of commerce. It
possesses sections for mining and quarrying, for
?
&rnbers Street.] INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM. 275
metalhrgy and constructive materials, for ceramic
.and vitreous manufactures, the decorative arts,
guise of various animals, seek to aid 0; hinder its ' ascent.
textile manufactures, food, education, chemistry,
materia medica, photography, &c.
The whole floor is covered with articles illustrative
of the arts of construction, such as products
.of the clay-fields, fire and brick clays, and terra-
-cottas. Cements and artificial stones stand next
in order, followed by illustrations of the mode of
quarrying real stone ; adjoining these are stones
dressed for building purposes, and others carved
for ornamental uses.
Oriental stone carving is illustrated by a set of
magnificent plaster casts from one of the- most
famous gates of Delhi, made by order of the
Indian Government. The sanitary appliances used
in building are likewise exhibited here ; also slate
.and its uses, with materials for surface decorations,
.and woods for house timber and furniture.
Among the more prominent objects are large
.models of Scottish lighthouses, presented by the
Commissioners of Northern Lights, of St. Peter's at
Rome, St Paul's at London, and the Bourse in
Berlin, together with a singularly elegant carton-
.pierre ceiling ornament, and finely designed mantelpiece,
that were originally prepared for Montagu
House.
In the centre of the hall are some beautiful
.specimens of large guns and breechloading fieldpieces,
with balls and shells, and a fine model of
-the bridge over the Beulah in Westmoreland.
A hall devoted to the exhibition of flint and clay
products, and illustrations of glass and pottery, is
in the angle behind the great and east saloons.
'The art Potteries of Lambeth are here represented
by beautiful vases and plaques, and other articles
in the style of old Flemish stoneware. There are
.also fine examples of the Frenchfuiencr, by Deck
-of Paris, including a splendid dish painted by
Anker, and very interesting samples of Persian
-pottery as old as t b fourteenth century.
There is a magnificent collection of Venetian
.glass, comprising nearly 400 pieces, made by the
Abbot Zanetti of Murano, in Lombardy; while
modern mosaic work is exemplified by a beautiful
,reredos by Salviati, representing the Last Supper.
The beauty of ancient tile work is here exhibited
in some exquisite fragments from Constantinople,
These formed, originally, part of the
.several decorations of the mosque of Broussa, in
Anatolia, which was destroyed by an earthquake.
In rich blue on a white ground they display a
variety of curious conceptions, one of which represents
the human soul shooting aloft as a tall
=cypress tree, while good and evil spirits, under the
Near these are placed, first, illustrations of colliery
work, then of metallurgical operations, and lastly,
the manufacture of metals. The first, or lower
gallery of this hall, contains specimens of the arts
in connection with clothing, and the textile fabrics
generally and their processes ; wood, silk, cotton,
hemp, linen, jute, felt, silk, and straw-hat making,
leather, fur, and also manufactures from bone, ivory,
horn, tortoise-shell, feathers, hair-gut, gutta-percha,
india-rubber, &c. ; and the upper gallery contains
the collection illustrative of chemistry, the chemical
arts, materia medica, and philosophical instruments.
The department of machinery contains a speci
men, presented by the inventor. of Lister's wool
combing machine, which, by providing the means
of combing long wools mechanically, effected an
enormous change in the worsted trade of Yorkshire.
*
In the front of the east wing is the lecture
room, having accommodation for 800 sitters
Above it is a large apartment, seventy feet in
length by fifty broad, containing a fine display of
miner'als and fossils. One of the most interesting
features in this department is the large and valuable
collection of fossils which belonged to Hugh
Miller.
The ethnological specimens are ranged in hahdsome
cases around the walls. The natural his.
tor). hall contains on its ground floor a general
collection of mammalia, including a complete
grouping of British animals. The first gallery
contains an ample collection of birds and shells,
&c; the upper gallery, reptiles and fishes. In
the hall is suspended the skeleton of a whale
seventy-nine feet in length.
On the north side of Chambers Street is the new
Watt Institution and School of Arts, erected in
lieu of that of which we have already given a history
in Adam Square. (VoL I., pp. 379, 380.) It was
erected in 1872-3 from designs by David Rhind,
and is two storeys in height, with a pavilion at
its west end, and above its entrance porch the
handsome statue of James Watt which stood in
the demolished square.
Beside this institution stands the Phrenological
Museum, on the north side, forming a conjoint
building With it, and containing a carefully assorted
collection of human skulls some of them being of
great antiquity. It was formerly in Surgeon Square,
High School Yard.
The new Free Tron Church stands here, nearly
Sec "Great Industries of Great Britain." VoL I., pp. 107-8;
II., b
