Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SIR MARK ISAMBARD BBUNEL. BKTJNEL the younger, and Stephenson, also the younger, are both gone. The broad gauge and the narrow gauge have led but to the grave ; and these eminent engineers, who have covered the earth with their wonderful works, can now only occupy the space of a schoolboy's leap. The great conductors of steam railways and electricity over the bounds of the universe tave been borne to their last abode of solitude and silence. But the memory of these great masters of magical mechanics is yet too green for me to include in my sketches—meant to be distinct from biographical dictionaries, and, by a few characteristic traits, to afford to others somewhat of a personal acquaintance with those worthy of note, whom I have known within the passing nineteenth century. To its commencement, and even antedating that a little, I now go back. Mark Isambard Brunel, the elder, was born not far from Rouen, the great centre of the industry of Normandy; where Corneille and Fontenelle were also born; where the statue of the Maid of Orleans stands, a monument, cere perennius, to superstition, fanaticism, and barbarity; and where, above all, cottons and silks are evolved from busy looms, hardware is hammered, chemicals are manipulated, and confectionery, the nicest in France, is deliciously compounded for the encouragement of such clever little fellows as Mark. For he was, clever, lively, intelligent, inquisitive, and French. He was, besides, of respectable family, andeducated, so far, with a view to the priesthood; but, impelled by his strong bias, he devoted himself to mechanics, and to those scientific studies which are necessary for the attainment of pre-eminent skill in mechanical art. The career of a man who has contributed so large a share to the improvement of the age, c...