18 HERBERT SPENCER

who had been one of Mr George Spencer's pupils,-
a man of mechanical genius, who was at that time
resident engineer of the London division of the
" London and Birmingham " railway, and afterwards
became well known as the designer and constructor
of the Exhibition-Building of 1851. Spencer had
surveying and measuring, drawing ant! calculating to
do, and he threw off the slackness which marked his
school-days. During the first six months in London
he never went to any place of amusement and never
read a novel, but gave his leisure to mathematical
questions and to suggesting little invention* or im-
proved methods.

A transference for the summer months to Wembly,
near Harrow, gave him even more time for study,
and we read of an appliance by which he proponed to
facilitate some kinds of sewing* He ueema to have
pleased his employer well, for in September iHjH he
was advanced to a post of draughtsman in awnectton
with the " Gloucester and Birmingham *' railway, at
a salary of ^120 yearly. Thus the next two years
were spent at Worcester, where he had hit* first
experience of working alongside of other young men,
to whom he appeared rather an M oddity,** though not
one to be "quizzed." His "mental excunrivcneii*"
grew stronger and stronger, and had occasionally
useful results, leading, for instance, to an article in
The Gml Engineer and Architect** Journal (May 1839)
on a new plan of projecting the spiral courses In ikcw
bridges, to a re-invention of Nicholson** Cyclogrtph,
and to an improvement in the apparatus for giving
and receiving the mail-bags carried by trtioa.

Many fcv^mr.~-In 1840, Spencer