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HALL, (SIR) JAMES, Bart.,
was born at Dunglass in East Lothian, on the 17th January, 1761. He was
the eldest son of Sir John Hall, who had married his cousin, Magdalen,
daughter to Sir Robert Pringle of Stitchell in Berwickshire. The subject
of our memoir received a private education until his twelfth year, when
he was sent by his father to a public school in the neighbourhood of
London, where he had the good fortune to be under the care and
superintendence of his uncle, Sir John Pringle, the king’s physician. He
succeeded to the baronetcy by the death of his father, in July 1776, and
much about the same period entered himself in Christ’s college,
Cambridge, where he remained for some years. He then proceeded with his
tutor, the reverend Mr Brand, on a tour on the continent, whence he
returned to Edinburgh, when twenty years old, and lived there with his
tutor until he became of age, attending, at the same time, some of the
classes of the Edinburgh university. In 1782, Sir James Hall made a
second tour on the continent of Europe, where he remained for more than
three years, gradually acquiring that accurate information in geology,
chemistry, and Gothic architecture, which he afterwards made so useful
to the world. During this period he visited the courts of Europe, and
made himself acquainted with their scientific men. In his rambles he had
occasion to meet with the adventurer Ledyard; the interview between
them, its cause, and consequence, are, with a sense of gratitude and
justice not often witnessed on similar occasions, detailed in the
journals and correspondence of that singular man; and the scene is so
honourable to the feelings of Sir James Hall, that we cannot avoid
quoting it in Ledyard’s own words:
"Permit me to relate to
you an incident. About a fortnight ago, Sir James Hall, an English
gentleman, on his way from Paris to Cherbourg, stopped his coach at our
door, and came up to my chamber. I was in bed, at six o’clock in the
morning, but having flung on my robe de chambre, I met him at the
door of the anti-chamber—I was glad to see him, but surprised. He
observed, that he had endeavoured to make up his opinion of me with as
much exactness as possible, and concluded that no kind of visit whatever
would surprise me. I could do no otherwise than remark that his
opinion surprised me at least, and the conversation took another
turn. In walking across the chamber, he laughingly put his hand on a six
livre piece, and a louis d’or that lay on my table, and with a half
stifled blush, asked me how I was in the money way. Blushes commonly
beget blushes, and I blushed partly because he did, and partly on other
accounts. ‘If fifteen guineas,’ said he, interrupting the answer he had
demanded, ‘will be of any service to you, there they are,’ and he put
them on the table. ‘I am a traveller myself, and though I have some
fortune to support my travels, yet I have been so situated as to
want money, which you ought not to do - you have my address in London.’
He then wished me a good morning and left me. This gentleman was a total
stranger to the situation of my finances, and one that I had, by mere
accident, met at an ordinary in Paris." [Life and Travels of John
Ledyard, from his Journals and Correspondence, 1828, pp. 223-224.]
The sum was extremely
acceptable to Ledyard, for the consumption of the six livre piece and
the louis d’or would have left him utterly destitute; but he had no more
expectation or right to assistance from Sir James Hall, than (to use his
own simile) from the khan of Tartary. On his return to Scotland, Sir
James Hall married, in 1786, the lady Helen Douglas, second daughter of
Dunbar, earl of Selkirk. Living a life of retirement, Sir James
commenced his connexion with the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of which he
was for some time president, and enriched its transactions by
accounts of experiment, on a bold and extensive scale. The results were
in many instances so important, that they deserve to be cursorily
mentioned in this memoir, which, treating of a scientific man, would be
totally void of interest without some reference to them. He was a
supporter of the theory of Dr Hutton, who maintained the earth to be the
production of heat, and all its geological formations the natural
consequences of fusion; and his experiments may be said to be special
evidence collected for the support of this cause. Among the minute
investigations made by the supporters of both sides of the controversy,
it had been discovered by the Neptunians, that in some granites, where
quartz and feldspar were united, the respective crystals were found
mutually to impress each other—therefore, that they must have been in a
state of solution together, and must have congealed simultaneously; but
as feldspar fuses with less heat than is required for quartz, the
latter, if both were melted by fire, must have returned to its solidity
previously to the former, and so the feldspar would have yielded
entirely to the impression of the crystals of the quartz. Sir James Hall
discovered, that when the two substances were pulverized, and mixed in
the proportions in which they usually occur in granite, a heat very
little superior to that required to melt the feldspar alone, fused both,
the feldspar acting in some respects as a solvent, or flux to the
quartz. Making allowance for the defects of art, the result of the
experiment, while it could not be used as a positive proof to the theory
of the Huttonians, served to defend them from what might have proved a
conclusive argument of their opponents. But the other experiments were
founded on wider views, and served to illustrate truths more important.
The characteristic of the theory of Dr Hutton, distinguishing it from
those of others who maintained the formation of the earth by means of
fire, was, that perceiving the practical effect of heat on most of the
bodies which formed the crust of the earth, to be calcination, or change
of state, and not fusion, or change of form, and knowing from the
experiments of Dr Black, that, in the case of limestones, the change
depended on the separation of the carbonic acid gas from the earth, the
theorist concluded, that by a heat beyond what human agency could
procure, calcareous earths might be fused, provided the gas were
prevented from escaping, by means of strong pressure. Sir James Hall,
conceiving it possible that a sufficient heat might be procured, to
exemplify the theory on some calcareous bodies, commenced a series of
experiments in 1798, which he prosecuted through success and
disappointment for seven years. The result of these experiments produced
an elaborate paper, read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and
published in the Transactions of that body in 1806; they were in number
one hundred and fifty-six, some successful, others productive of the
disappointment to which accident frequently exposes the zealous
chemist,—conducted with considerable danger, great expense, and
unvarying patience and labour, and on the whole singularly satisfactory
in their results. The plan followed by Sir James was, to procure a tube
which might afford a strong resistance to inward pressure, for which
purpose he alternately tried iron, and porcelain; one end being closed
up, pulverized chalk or other limestone was inserted, and the space
betwixt its surface and the mouth of the tube being closely packed with
some impervious substance, such as clay baked and pounded, fused metal,
&c., the open extremity was hermetically sealed, and the end which
contained the substance to be experimented upon, subjected to the action
of a furnace. The iron or the porcelain was frequently found
insufficient to sustain the pressure; the substance rammed into the tube
to prevent the longitudinal escape of the gas had not always the effect,
nor could Sir James, even in the most refined of his experiments,
prevent a partial though sometimes scarcely perceptible escape of gas;
yet the general results showed the truth of the theory on which he had
proceeded to act, with singular applicability;—the first successful
experiment procured him from a piece of common chalk, broken to powder,
a hard stony mass, which dissolved in muriatic acid with violent
effervescence - sometjmes the fruit of his labour was covered with
crystals visible to the naked eye—proving fusion, and re-formation as a
limestone mineral. The results of these experiments, as applicable to
the formation of the earth, were reduced to a table, in which, by a
presumption that the pressure of water had been the agent of nature, the
author considers that 1700 feet of sea, with the assistance of heat, is
sufficient for the formation of limestone - that by 3000 feet a complete
marble may be formed, &c.;—it may be remarked that a fragment of marble,
manufactured by Sir James Hall in the course of his experiments, so far
deceived the workman employed to give it a polish, that, acting under
the presumption that the fragment had been dug up in Scotland, he
remarked, that if it were but a little whiter, the mine where it was
found might be very valuable.
In 1808, Sir James Hall
represented the burgh of St Michael’s in Cornwall; but after the
dissolution of parliament in 1812, he did not again offer himself as a
candidate. In 1813, he published his well known "Origin, Principles, and
History of Gothic Architecture," in one volume quarto, accompanied with
plates and illustrations. It contained an enlargement and correction of
the contents of a paper on the same subject, delivered before the Royal
Society of Edinburgh in the year 1797. This elegant volume is the most
popular and esteemed work on the subject of which it treats, both in the
particular theory it espouses, and the interest of its details. The
origin and formation of Gothic architecture had given birth to many
theories, accounting for it on the imitative principles which guide the
formation of all architecture, some ingenious, but none satisfactory.
Warburton pointed out the similarity of Gothic aisles, to avenues of
growing trees. Milner adopted the theory propounded in Bentham’s History
of Ely Cathedral, that the pointed arch was formed by the interlacing of
two semicircular arches; and Murphy referred the whole formation of
Gothic architecture to an imitation of the form of the pyramid. Sir
James Hall perceived that no form could be appropriately assumed in
Gothic architecture which might not be constructed in wicker-ware; and
considered that the earliest stone buildings of this peculiar form were
imitations of the natural forms assumed in constructions of boughs and
twigs. "It happened," he says, in giving a lively account of the
circumstance which hinted such a theory, "that the peasants of the
country through which I was travelling were employed in collecting and
bringing home the long rods or poles, which they make use of to support
their vines, and these were to be seen in every village, standing in
bundles, or waving partly loose in carts. It occurred to me that a
rustic dwelling might be constructed of such rods, bearing a resemblance
to works of Gothic architecture, and from which the peculiar forms of
that style might have been derived. This conjecture was at first
employed to account for the main parts of the structure, and for its
general appearance only; but after a diligent investigation, carried on
at intervals, with the assistance of friends, both in the collection of
materials, and the solution of difficulties, I have been enabled to
reduce even the most intricate forms of this elaborate style to the same
simple origin; and to account for every feature belonging to it, from an
imitation of wicker work, modified according to the principles just laid
down, as applicable to architecture of every sort." Sir James, who was
never fond of trusting to the power of theory without practice, erected
with twigs and boughs a very beautiful Gothic edifice, from which he
drew conclusions strikingly illustrative of his theory. But it must be
allowed, that he has carried it in some respects a little beyond the
bounds of certainty, and that, however much our tasteful ancestors
continued to follow the course which chance had dictated of the
imitation of vegetable formations in stone, many forms were imitated,
which were never attempted in the wicker edifices of our far distant
progenitors. A specimen of this reasoning is to be found in the author’s
tracing the origin of those graceful spherical angles, which adorn the
interior parts of the bends of the mullions in the more ornate windows
of Gothic churches, to an imitation of the curled form assumed by the
bark when in a state of decay, and ready to drop from the bough. The
similitude is fanciful, and may be pronounced to be founded on incorrect
data, as the ornament in question cannot be of prior date to that of the
second period of Gothic architecture, and was unknown till many ages
after the twig edifices were forgotten. The theory forms a check on the
extravagancies of modern Gothic imitations, and it were well if those
who perpetrate such productions, would follow the advice of Sir James
Hall, and correct their work by a comparison with nature. This excellent
and useful man, after a lingering illness of three and a half years,
died at Edinburgh on the 23d day of June, 1832. Of a family at one time
very numerous, he left behind him five children, of whom the second was
the late distinguished captain Basil Hall. |
