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lost sheep, totally disregarding the fact, that the points of dispute are merely matters of probabilities, not dead certainties, and that 9/10 of the world think differently to them.
Aug. 8. I have just become convinced of the necessity of getting a good knowledge of the cost of engineering work, & accordingly go into the shops every day at dinner time & make observations on the length of time required in planning, boring, &c.
I get up at ½ past 6 every morning, take a little walk, & then come in & read Clark’s Railway machinery: I am learning a great deal from it.[11]
The Indian rebellion is the great topic of conversation just now. Delhi is under
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seige [sic] & Sir Colin Campbell is gone out overland.
Aug 23rd. I have just begun to keep a “Works[”] diary, & a Price book, the first with a view to getting a good practical knowledge of the time required to execute all kinds of work & the second, because every one deems today that a good knowledge of prices & the commercial part of a business is often the great secret of success.
I have just had a severe attack of English Cholera which began in the morning of the day before yesterday. In the evening of that day I went to call on Augusta Richardson, & was taken with purging and vomiting in her
[11] Daniel Kinnear Clark’s Railway machinery: a treatise on the mechanical engineering of railways was published in Glasgow by Blackie and Son in 1855.
