engineering work. Many of the stones still bear his private mark,
hewn with the tool into their solid surface, with honest
workmanship which helps to explain his later success. But the
young mason was beginning to discover that Eskdale was hardly a
wide enough field for his budding ambition. He could carve the
most careful headstones; he could cut the most ornamental copings
for doors or windows; he could even build a bridge across the
roaring flooded Esk; but he wanted to see a little of the great
world, and learn how men and masons went about their work in the
busy centres of the world's activity. So, like a patriotic
Scotchman that he was, he betook himself straight to Edinburgh,
tramping it on foot, of course, for railways did not yet exist, and
coaches were not for the use of such as young Thomas Telford.

He arrived in the grey old capital of Scotland in the very nick
of time. The Old Town, a tangle of narrow alleys and close
courtyards, surrounded by tall houses with endless tiers of floors,
was just being deserted by the rich and fashionable world for the
New Town, which lies beyond a broad valley on the opposite
hillside, and contains numerous streets of solid and handsome stone
houses, such as are hardly to be found in any other town in
Britain, except perhaps Bath and Aberdeen. Edinburgh is always,
indeed, an interesting place for an enthusiastic lover of building,
be he architect or stonemason; for instead of being built of brick
like London and so many other English centres, it is built partly
of a fine hard local sandstone and partly of basaltic greenstone;
and besides its old churches and palaces, many of the public
buildings are particularly striking and beautiful architectural
works. But just at the moment when young Telford walked wearily
into Edinburgh at the end of his long tramp, there was plenty for a