of his original drawings*
[footnote...
The original drawings of these bow-and-string bridges, of various
spans, are now deposited at the Gallery of the Museum of Naval
Architecture at South Kensington, and are signed "Alexander Nasmyth
1796."
...]
for the purpose of showing our great railway engineers the originator
of the graceful and economical method of spanning wide spaces, now
practised in every part of the civilised world.

Another of his inventions was the method of riveting by compression
instead of by blows of the hammer. It originated in a slight
circumstance. One wet, wintry Sunday morning he went into his
workroom. There were some slight mechanical repairs to be performed
upon a beautiful little stove of his own construction. To repair it,
iron rivets were necessary to make it serviceable. But as the
hammering of the hot rivets would annoy his neighbours by the unwelcome
sound of the hammer, he solved the difficulty by using the jaws of his
bench vice to squeeze in the hot rivets when put into their places.
The stove was thus quickly repaired in the most perfect silence.

This was, perhaps, the first occasion on which a squeeze or compressive
action was substituted for the percussive action of the hammer,
in closing red-hot rivets, for combining together pieces of stout sheet
or plate iron. This system of riveting was long afterwards patented by
Smith of Deanston in combination with William Fairbairn of Manchester;
and it was employed in riveting the plates used in the construction of
the bridges over the River Conway and the Menai Straits.