CHAPTER V.
WILLIAM MURDOCK: HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS.
"Justice exacts, that those by whom we are most benefited Should be most admired."-- Dr.Johnson.
"The beginning of civilization is the discovery of some useful arts, by which men acquire property, comforts, or luxuries.

The necessity or desire of preserving them leads to laws and social institutions...

In reality, the origin as well as the progress and improvement of civil society is founded on mechanical and chemical inventions."-- Sir Humphry Davy.
At the middle of last century, Scotland was a very poor country.

It consisted mostly of mountain and moorland; and the little arable land it contained was badly cultivated.

Agriculture was almost a lost art.
"Except in a few instances," says a writer in the 'Farmers' Magazine' of 1803, "Scotland was little better than a barren waste." Cattle could with difficulty be kept alive; and the people in some parts of the country were often on the brink of starvation.