more intense heat, the obstinate little thing would stop altogether. He talked it over to professors and students; but no one suggested any solution of the difficulty. At length he thought he had detected the real nature of the defect of the steam-engine as then made. It was this: five-eighths of the whole amount of steam was wasted, — at least five-eighths. He afterwards found that the waste was nearer seven-eighths than five. This was a great step; but he was still very far from being able to apply a remedy.

In the old steam-engine the steam rushed into the cylinder, did its work in driving the piston, and then had to condense in the cylinder, and run off in the form of water. The cylinder, being exposed to the air, was always cooling; so that the new steam began to condense before it had done its work; and hence the waste. On this principle there could be no rapidity. The steam-engine was as slow as it was strong, and too expensive for profitable use.

"How can I keep that cylinder always hot, -as hot as steam itself?" was the question which James Watt was revolving in his long Scotch head that Sunday afternoon. "If I do keep it hot, how can the steam condense at all? And if the steam does not condense, how can the piston get back again?"

EUREKA! He had it! The thought occurred to him that the steam, after doing its duty, might rush into another vessel, kept cool by jets of water, and thus be instantly condensed; while the cylinder, surrounded by some non-conducting substance, could be kept at a uniform heat, equal to that of steam.

The

condenser" was invented! The steam-engine, as we now see it, is covered all over with the minor improvements of James Watt; but his great invention-that which makes the steamengine universally available that of condensing the steam in a vessel apart from the cylinder.

He was certain of the practicability of his idea from the moment of its birth. A few days after, one of his young friends, entering his room suddenly, found him sitting before the fire absorbed in thought, with a small tin vessel in his hand. His friend at once began to converse upon the great topic of the steam-engine, which, for some time, had been their only subject.

"You need not," said the inventor, "fash yourself any more about that, man; I have now made an engine that shall not waste a particle of steam. It shall be all boiling hot; ay, and

hot water injected if I please."

He was in the highest spirits for many days. He found, indeed, by repeated experiments, that he had put the finishing touch to the steam-engine.

But what could a poor mechanic do with so magnificent a conception? The entire capital of James Watt, in 1765, was not sufficient to build one steam-engine of ten horse-power, still less to make the experiments necessary to complete his invention. Watt, moreover, was curiously unfitted for the strife of business. Bold as he was in wrestling with the laws of nature, he was timid in dealing with men, self-distrustful, liable to fits of depression, easily abashed and discouraged. Nevertheless, he continued his experiments until he had run in debt a thousand pounds, and could go no further. Then he formed a partnership with Dr. John Roebuck, a large manufacturer near Glasgow, who paid the debt of a thousand pounds, and advanced more money. But this enterprising man had the misfortune to lose his property. For ten years the steam-engine made little progress; for James Watt, who had ventured to marry, was obliged to devote himself to surveying, canal-making, and general engineering, in order to maintain his family.

But, in 1775, he found a partner worthy of him. This was that great man, Matthew Boulton, who, from being a journeyman button-maker at Birmingham, had become one of the lords of industry, the master of a vast manufactory of metal-ware, which employed hundreds of the most skilful workmen in England. Matthew Boulton, besides having a genius for business, was a man of great knowledge and great generosity of mind. He was a gentleman, a philosopher, a natural king of men. He paid the debts of James Watt, bought the rights of Dr. Roebuck, supplied all the capital requisite for the manufacture of steam-engines, on condition of receiving two-thirds of the profits of the enterprise, if ever there should be any profits.

Even with the aid of Boulton's great capital, and greater talent, it was long before the business yielded much profit. Ex

pensive law-suits to test the originality of Watt's improvements, troubled and retarded it. Ten or twelve years rolled away before the business was well established and reasonably profitable. But, after that, the progress of the enterprise was wonderful. When Boswell visited the establishment, a few years later, he found seven hundred men at work. "I sell here," remarked Mr. Boulton, "what all the world desires to have- POWER." Boswell says: "I contemplated him as an iron chieftain; and he seems to be the father of his tribe."

James Watt lived to the age of eighty-three, dying in 1829. His last years were his happiest. Relieved of the anxieties of business, possessing an ample fortune, surrounded with affectionate children and friends, he passed his days in study and conversation, the delight of his circle. Sir Walter Scott held him in profound veneration. He used often to say that no achievements of the pen could ever equal in dignity and importance the labors of such men as Watt and Wellington. We cannot agree with the great novelist in this opinion. James Watt did not. He held the genius of poets, artists, and authors in the highest esteem, and declared that it was the teachings of the great Professor Black that made him what he was. There is no need of arguing the old question, "Which is the most worthy of honor, the man who writes things fit to be read, or the man who does things fit to be written?" for the great doer and the great writer are the two men in the world who honor

one another most.

We may add, in conclusion, that the little model of the old steam-engine, which Watt repaired in 1765, is still preserved in Glasgow, as well as the bill for five pounds eleven shillings, which he presented for payment.

10

POOR JOHN FITCH.

THE summer of 1787 was a very interesting one to the people of Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States. The great Convention was in session, endeavoring to form the constitution under which we now live. General Washington, who presided over its deliberations, was often seen going to the hall or returning from it, saluted as he passed by every good citizen; and old Dr. Franklin, with his white locks and his enfeebled frame, leaning perhaps upon that black walking-stick which may now be seen in the Patent Office at Washington, used, every morning, to walk round from his house in Market street to the place of meeting. The great men of the infant nation were there. The Convention sat with closed doors; no report of its proceedings appeared in the newspapers; but the hopes, the destiny of the republic hung upon the deliberations of the thirty-nine men of which it was composed.

On Wednesday afternoon, August 22, when the Convention broke up for the day, the members, instead of dispersing to their several homes, strolled in a body up Chestnut street to the Schuylkill river. A great number of citizens were going in the same direction. The banks of that picturesque and tranquil stream were lined with spectators.

The eyes of the multitude were directed to a strange-looking craft that lay at anchor near the shore. At the first glance, it looked like a long, stout row-boat, with a large tea-kettle boiling and steaming in the middle of it. The oars, instead of lying in their usual place, were arranged in an upright row on cach side of the boat, and were kept in that position by a framework of wood. The vessel had neither sails, masts, nor deck; being simply an open boat, forty-five feet long and twelve feet wide,

which poor John Fitch and his few poor friends had bought for the purpose of showing an unbelieving world that a vessel could be propelled by steam against wind and tide.

It was poor John Fitch, we repeat, who had devised and constructed this odd-looking craft. In all the records of invention, there is no story more sad and affecting than his. Poor he was in many senses; poor in purse, poor in appearance, poor in spirit. He was born poor, lived poor, and died poor. No one who knows his melancholy history can ever call him by any other name than poor John Fitch. He was rich only in genius, in faith, in love for his country, in desires to do her service,a kind of wealth that posterity honors, but which could not buy John Fitch a new coat, when his old one was so old that he blushed as the passing stranger glanced at him. If ever there was a true inventor, this man was one. He was one of those eager souls who would, literally, coin their own flesh to carry their point. He only uttered the obvious truth when he said, one day, in a crisis of his invention, that if he could get a hundred pounds by cutting off one of his legs, he would gladly give it to the knife.

He

From his infancy, misfortune marked him for her own. was born in Connecticut, in 1743. His father was a close, hard-working, hard-hearted farmer, who would not permit a child of his to pick an apple, or laugh, or speak loud on Sunday, but who begrudged them the means of instruction, and kept poor John so hard at work from his tenth year as to stunt his growth. An incident occurred when he was still a very small boy, which, he used to say, was of a piece with all his career. One of his sisters, in the absence of their father, set on fire some bundles of flax which were in the kitchen. In her alarm she ran to the barn, leaving her little brother to escape as best he could. He, young as he was, fought the fire like a hero, seizing the burning bundles and stamping out the fire with wonderful resolution; while his clothes and his hair were all ablaze. When he had quelled the flames, and while his apron and his hair were still smoking, and his hands tingling with the pain, an elder brother came in, and, supposing John to be the author of the mischief, fell upon him with great fury and beat him.