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JAMES WATT.

How much more marvellous is truth than fiction! The story of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp is as extravagant a tale as the fancy of man has contrived; but it is a tame and probable narrative compared with some of the facts of science and invention.

Early in the spring of 1765, one hundred and three years ago, on a certain Sunday afternoon, a poor, sickly mechanic was taking a walk in one of the public grounds of Glasgow. He was a mathematical instrument-maker, who kept a very small shop within the grounds of the Glasgow University, and derived & great part of his little income from repairing the philosophical apparatus of that famous institution. His brother mechanics were not very friendly toward him, because he had set up in business without having served a regular apprenticeship. In fact, but for the special favor of the professors of the University, who let to him his little shop in its grounds, he could not have carried on his trade in Glasgow at all. Being thus a kind of interloper, his business was so limited that he could only draw from it, for his own maintenance, fourteen shillings a week, which is, in our currency, about three dollars and a half.

He was in a brown study as he walked in Glasgow Green that Sunday afternoon. Ingenious mechanics will understand his case when we tell them that he had on hand at his shop a puzzling job, and he was thinking how to overcome the difficulties which it presented. All at once, at a point in the road which the people of Glasgow still point out to travellers, the solution of the puzzle occurred to his mind. It flashed on him like lightning, and he walked home relieved and happy.

All this seems very simple and ordinary. The job was of no great consequence in a pecuniary point of view. It was merely the repairing of a working model of the steam-engine belonging to the University; for doing which our mechanic received five pounds eleven shillings sterling. But in the very simplicity of the thing lies the marvel; as in the case of Aladdin, who only had to rub his lamp a little, and lo! a palace rose from the earth like an exhalation. The idea that occurred to that poor Scotch mechanic on Glasgow Green one hundred years ago is to-day, in Great Britain and Ireland alone, doing the work of four hundred millions of men! That is to say, it enables the fifteen millions of adults residing in England, Ireland, and Scotland to do more work, to produce more commodities, than the entire adult population of the globe could do without it. Is there anything in the Arabian Nights more marvellous than that? The name of this modern Aladdin was James Watt. The lamp he rubbed was his own canny Scotch noddle. Ten thousand palaces have sprung from the ground in consequence, and more will spring, until every honest man on earth will inhabit one! That magic thought has clothed the feet of Scotch lassies with stockings, which before were bare, and enabled the poor of many lands to go comfortably dressed who before were clad in rags.

It is said to require three generations to make a gentleman. We sometimes find that it has taken three generations to produce a genius. The grandfather of James Watt was a teacher of navigation, well skilled in mathematics, and a very ingenious, worthy man. The father of the great inventor was a shipwright, noted for his skill and enterprise. His illustrious son, James, was a feeble, sickly child, and, therefore, much indulged, and not pressed to learn. But, from boyhood, he showed an aptitude for mechanics and natural philosophy which we always observe in the early life of inventors. His father's shops and ship-yards afforded the best school for such a youth, who soon had his own little chest of tools, his own work-bench and his own store of materials. It is recorded of him that, while still a child, he was fond of observing the action of steam from his mother's tea-kettle, wondering at the invisible force that lifted

its lid. As he approached manhood, his father fell into misfortune, which obliged the youth to think of earning his own livelihood. He made his way to London, where he worked a year in the shop of a mathematical-instrument-maker, and then, returning to Scotland, he established himself in business under the protection of the Glasgow University. The learned professors of that institution expected to find in him a competent workman only. They discovered, to their great surprise, that he was an accomplished and profound natural philosopher; willing, indeed, to learn from them, but able, also, to teach them. Such was his ardor in the pursuit of knowledge, that he learned the German language in order to be able to read one book upon mechanics; and, a few years after, he learned the Italian for a similar object. He could turn his hand to anything. Without previously knowing anything about music or musical instruments, he made a very good church organ, and several guitars, violins and violoncellos, some of which are still preserved in Scotland as curiosities.

The model of a steam-engine which was brought to his shop to repair, was a copy of the engines then used in pumping water out of mines, which had been invented about a century before. Steam-engines were then employed for no other purpose. They were cumbrous, clumsy machines, and were run at such an enormous expense for fuel, that they could not be applied to the ordinary purposes of manufacturing. A century before the Christian era the mighty power of steam had been observed, and some attempts had been made to turn it to account. But a great invention, as we have before remarked, is the growth of ages. Many ingenious men had labored to perfect this one, the greatest of all, and they had brought it on so far, that a single improvement alone was wanting to make it available. It was just so with Sir Isaac Newton's sublime discovery of the attraction of gravitation. Previous philosophers had made discoveries that only needed combining to produce the final truth, which, in a happy hour, flashed upon the mind of Newton.

Day after day James Watt sat in his shop pondering his engine. He could not make it work to his satisfaction. It would make a few revolutions and then stop. If he blew the fire to a

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—was 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

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