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
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