Chapter I (13)

This engine, which was probably the best which at that time had ever been erected, attracted the particular attention of Mr. Watt, who, on visiting Cornwall, went to see it, and had many experiments tried with it. It was under the care of Mr. Murdock, the agent of Messrs. Boulton and Watt in Cornwall. When Mr. Watt inspected it he pronounced it perfect, and that further improvement could not be expected. How singular an instance this of the impossibility, even of the most sagacious, to foresee the results of mechanical improvement! In twenty years afterwards the average duty of the best engine was nearly 40,000,000, and in forty years it was above 84,000,000.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] If 22 square inches of piston surface be allowed to
represent a horse-power, the power of an engine may always be
computed by dividing the square of the diameter of the piston
expressed in inches by 28. And, on the other hand, to find the
diameter of piston which would correspond to any given power,
multiply the number of horses' power by 28, and take the
square root of the product. These rules, however, cannot be
applied if the piston be supposed to move with any other
velocity; since, in that case, the same amount of piston
surface would cease to represent a horse-power, unless the
effective pressure on the piston were at the same time
changed.

[Pg301]

CHAP. X.

NOTICE OF THE LIFE OF MR. WATT. — HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES
AT BIRMINGHAM. — INVENTION OF THE COPYING PRESS. — HEATING BY
STEAM. — DRYING LINEN BY STEAM. — THEORY OF THE COMPOSITION OF
WATER. — FIRST MARRIAGE OF WATT. — DEATH OF HIS FIRST WIFE. —
HIS SECOND MARRIAGE. — DEATH OF HIS YOUNGER SON. — EXTRACTS
FROM HIS LETTERS. — CHARACTER OF WATT BY LORD BROUGHAM. — BY
SIR WALTER SCOTT. — BY LORD JEFFREY. — OCCUPATION OF HIS OLD
AGE. — INVENTION OF MACHINE FOR COPYING SCULPTURE. — HIS LAST
DAYS. — MONUMENTS.

(179.) Having brought this historical analysis of the invention and application of the steam engine to the date of the decease of the illustrious man, to the powers of whose mind the world stands indebted for the benefits conferred upon [Pg302] mankind by that machine, it will perhaps not be deemed an improper digression in this work, to devote some pages to a notice of the principal labours of the same mind in other departments of art and science, and to circumstances connected with his personal history and the close of his life, which cannot fail to possess general interest.

At the period when Watt, having connected himself in partnership with Boulton, went to reside at Soho, near Birmingham, a number of persons, some of whom have since attained great celebrity by their discoveries and their works, and all of whom were devoted to inquiries connected with the arts and sciences, resided in that neighbourhood. Among these may be mentioned PRIESTLEY, whose discoveries in physical science have rendered his name immortal; DARWIN, the philosopher and poet; WITHERING, a distinguished physician and botanist; KEIR, a chemist, who published a translation of Macquer, with annotations; GALTON, the ornithologist; and EDGEWORTH, whose investigations respecting wheeled carriages and other subjects, have rendered him well known. A society was formed by these and other individuals, of which Boulton and Watt were leading members, the meetings of which were held monthly on the evening of full moon, and which was thence called the _Lunar Society_. At the meetings of this society, subjects connected with the arts and sciences were discussed, and out of those discussions occasionally arose suggestions not unattended with important and advantageous consequences. At one of these meetings, Darwin stated that he had discovered a pen formed with two quills, by means of which, at a single operation, an original and a copy of a letter might be produced. Watt almost instantly observed that he thought he could find a better expedient, and that he would turn it in his mind that night. By the next morning the COPYING PRESS was invented, for which he afterwards obtained a patent.

This machine, which is now so generally used in counting-houses, consists of a rolling-press, by which a leaf of thin paper, previously damped, is pressed upon the letter to be copied. The writing, of which the ink is not yet quite dry, leaves its impression upon the thin paper thus pressed upon [Pg303] it, and the copy taken in this manner is read through the semi-transparent paper. If a letter be written with ink suitable for this purpose, a copy may be taken at any time within several hours after the letter is written.

The method of heating apartments and buildings by steam, which has since been improved and brought into extensive use, was likewise brought forward by Watt. Although this contrivance had been previously pointed out by Sir Hugh Platt about the middle of the seventeenth century, and by Colonel Cooke in 1745, yet these suggestions remained barren. Mr. Watt gave detailed methods of heating buildings by steam[25]; and also invented a machine for drying linen by steam, a description of which he communicated to Dr. Brewster, which was read in December, 1824, before the Society for promoting Useful Arts in Scotland.[26]

But the circumstance, exclusive of those connected with the invention of the steam engine, which is by far the most memorable in the career of Watt, is the share which he had in the discovery of the composition of water. As this circumstance has recently excited much interest, and led to some controversy, we shall here state, as distinctly as possible, the leading facts connected with it.

Water, which was so long held to be a simple element, has, in modern times, been proved to be a substance consisting of two aeriform bodies or gases chemically combined. These two gases are those called in chemistry _oxygen_ and _hydrogen_. If eight grains weight of oxygen be mixed with one grain weight of hydrogen, and the mixture be submitted to such effects as would cause the chemical combination of these two airs, it would be converted into nine grains weight of pure water.

If, on the other hand, nine grains weight of pure water be submitted to any conditions which would separate its constituent parts, the result would be eight grains weight of oxygen gas, and one grain weight of hydrogen gas. There are a variety of methods in physics by which these effects would be [Pg304] produced. It will be sufficient here to state one method of producing each of the above changes.

If eight grains weight of oxygen be inclosed in a strong vessel with one grain weight of hydrogen, all other substances being excluded, and the mixture be inflamed, an explosion will take place, the gases will disappear, and a small quantity of water will be the only substance remaining in the vessel. If this water be weighed, it will be found to weigh exactly nine grains.

It is known that the metals have a strong attraction for oxygen gas, and this attraction is promoted by elevating their temperature. If a glass tube be filled with iron wire heated to redness, and to one end of this tube a small vessel of boiling water be attached, the steam evolved from the water will force its way through the spaces between the red-hot wires in the tube, and would be expected to issue from the remote end; but if the substance issuing from the remote end of the tube be examined, it will be found to be not steam, but hydrogen gas. If the quantity of this gas be ascertained by weight, and also the quantity of weight lost by the vessel of water at the other end of the tube, it will be found that the loss of weight of the water by evaporation will be nine times the weight of the hydrogen which has issued from the remote end of the tube. If the weight of the tube with the wire contained in it be next ascertained, it will be found to be increased by eight times the weight of the hydrogen which has issued from its remote end. From this it follows that the weight of the hydrogen which has escaped from the tube, added to the increase of weight which has been given to the wire in the tube, makes up the whole weight of the water evaporated. If the wire in the tube be next examined, it will be found that it has suffered oxydation, or, in other words, that a new substance has been formed in it called the oxyde of iron,—such substance being a chemical compound formed of oxygen gas and iron.

It follows, therefore, that in this process the vapour of the water, in passing through the tube, has been decomposed, and that, having given up to the iron its oxygen, the hydrogen [Pg305] alone escaped from the other end; and for every nine grains weight of steam which passed through the tube, eight grains of oxygen have been combined with the iron, and one grain of hydrogen has escaped from the end of the tube.

Such are the class of effects on which the modern discovery of the composition of water has been based. The merit of that discovery has been shared between the celebrated English chemist, CAVENDISH, and the not less celebrated French chemist, LAVOISIER, the chief merit, however, being ascribed to the former.

We shall now briefly state the facts which led to this discovery, with their dates, which will necessarily show the share which Watt had in it.

When pure hydrogen gas is burned in an atmosphere of common air, the process which takes place is now known to be nothing more than the chemical combination of the hydrogen with eight times its own weight of oxygen taken from the atmosphere, and the product of the combustion is a quantity of water nine times the weight of the hydrogen consumed. In the year 1776, Macquer, a well-known chemist of that day, having held a saucer of white porcelain over a flame of hydrogen which was burning at the mouth of a bottle, observed that no smoke was produced and no soot deposited on the saucer. On the other hand, he found that after the lapse of some time drops of a clear pellucid liquid were perceptible on the saucer: this liquid he submitted to analysis, and found it to be pure water. Macquer mentioned this fact without comment or inference. It did not occur to him that the water thus produced upon the saucer was a substance which contained the hydrogen, which disappeared upon combustion from the bottle.

On the 18th of April, 1781, Mr. Warltire addressed a letter to Dr. Priestley, dated Birmingham, which letter is published in Dr. Priestley's _Experiments on Air_, printed at Birmingham in 1781, in which Warltire informs Priestley that he had fired a mixture of hydrogen and common air in close glass vessels, and that, although previously to firing the mixture the vessels were clean and dry, a dewy deposit was [Pg306] observed afterwards on their sides. In fact, water was present which was not present before.

The mixture was in this case fired by passing an electric spark through the vessel; and it is now known that the effect produced was the combination of the hydrogen, which formed part of the mixture of airs in the vessel with the oxygen, which also formed part of the same mixture.

It appears, from expressions in Warltire's letter, that the same experiment had been previously made by Priestley, and the same result observed by him.

The inference deduced from this by Warltire, and apparently acquiesced in by Priestley, was, that whenever hydrogen was fired in atmospheric air, the moisture, which is always more or less sustained in the latter, was deposited; but neither of these chemists perceived the real cause of the production of the water.

In the beginning of 1783, and not later than the 21st of April, this experiment of Warltire and Priestley was repeated by Cavendish, with this difference, that, instead of exploding the mixture of hydrogen and common air, Cavendish exploded a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. He observed that water was present after the explosion, but _inferred nothing_.

In a published paper dated April, 1783, Priestley announced a further and most important result of his experiments. This was, that in examining the weight of water produced by the explosion of a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen, _that weight was found to be precisely equal to the sum of the weights of the two gases_, which disappeared in the process.

Immediately on observing this, Priestley, being then, as has been already stated, Watt's near neighbour, communicated to the latter what he had observed; upon which Watt immediately, viz. by a letter dated the 26th of the same month, declared that the inevitable consequence which followed from Priestley's observations was, that water was a substance compounded of oxygen and hydrogen deprived of [Pg307] a quantity of heat which was previously latent in them.[27] The letter containing this inference was communicated immediately by Priestley to Sir Joseph Banks, then President of the Royal Society, to be laid before that body; and it is accordingly printed with its proper date in the 74th volume of the _Philosophical Transactions_.

About two months after the date of Mr. Watt's letter just quoted, Lavoisier made experiments on the combustion of oxygen and hydrogen, and read a memoir before the Academy of Sciences in Paris, in which his views of the formation of water by the combination of these gases were developed. This paper, by Lavoisier, was afterwards printed in the Memoirs of the Academy in the year 1784. The experiments are there stated to have been made in the month of June, 1783; and it is stated that Sir Charles Blagden, who was present at the experiments, told Lavoisier that Mr. Cavendish had already burned the same gases in close vessels, and obtained a very sensible quantity of water.

On the 15th of January, 1784, the celebrated paper by Cavendish, entitled "Experiments on Air," was read before the Royal Society, and in this paper the composition of water by the union of oxygen and hydrogen is explained.

In a controversy which afterwards ensued on the respective [Pg308] claims of Cavendish and Lavoisier to credit for the discovery of the composition of water, Sir Charles Blagden stated that he had told Lavoisier, in June, 1783, more than Lavoisier acknowledged, that he had not only told him that water was produced by the combustion of the gases, but that his information embraced the whole theory of the composition of water. This declaration of Blagden was subsequent in date to January, 1784, and there is no evidence of any explanation of this theory, verbal or otherwise, having been given by Cavendish, or any other person, antecedent to April, 1783.

From this brief statement of the facts and dates it will appear that the merit of the discovery of the FACT, that the weight of water resulting from the combustion of oxygen and hydrogen, is equal to the sum of the weights of the oxygen and hydrogen which disappear in the combustion, is due to Priestley; and that the merit of the INFERENCE from that fact, that water is a compound body, whose constituents are oxygen and hydrogen, is due to Watt.[28] Whether those who subsequently deduced the same inference, and promulgated the same theory, were or were not informed of Mr. Watt's solution of the phenomenon, or what credit may be due to any person, however eminent, who at any time posterior to Mr. Watt's letter to Priestley, asserted that they had, at a time antecedently to that, made the same inference without having published it, or communicated it in such a manner as to establish their claim upon rational and credible evidence, are questions which we shall not here discuss, being contented with establishing the right of Mr. Watt to the merit of the discovery of the THEORY which explained the FACT discovered by Priestley.

Even in his declining years, after he had withdrawn from the active pursuits of his business, the least excitement was sufficient to call into play the slumbering powers of his inventive genius. No object could present itself to his notice [Pg309] without receiving from that genius adaptation in form and construction to useful purposes. As an example of this restless activity of mind the following anecdote may be mentioned:—

A company at Glasgow had erected on the right bank of the Clyde extensive buildings and powerful engines for supplying water to the town. After this expense it was found that a source of water, of very superior quality, existed on the left bank of the river. To change the site of the establishment, after the expense which had been incurred in its erection could not be contemplated, and they therefore proposed to carry across the bottom of the river a flexible suction pipe, the mouth of which should terminate in the source from which the pure water was to be derived. This pipe was to be supported by a flooring constructed upon the bed of the river; but it was soon apparent that the construction of such a flooring on a shifting and muddy bottom, full of inequalities, and under several feet depth of water would require a greater expenditure of capital than could with propriety be afforded. In this difficulty the aged mechanician, for whom Glasgow itself had been the earliest stage of professional labour, was applied to, and instantly solved the problem. His attention is said to have been attracted by a lobster which had been served at table: he set himself about to contrive how, by mechanism, he could make an apparatus of iron with joints which should have all the flexibility of the tail of the lobster. He therefore proposed that an articulated suction-pipe, capable of accommodating itself to all the inequalities and to the possible changes of the bed of the river, should be carried across it; that this flexible pipe should be two feet in diameter, and one thousand feet in length. This project the company accordingly caused to be executed after the plans and drawings of Watt with the most complete success.[29]

[Pg310] Among the less prominent, though not less useful services rendered by Watt to his country, may be mentioned the introduction of the use of chlorine in bleaching. That invention of Berthollet was introduced into England by Watt after his visit to Paris at the close of the year 1786. He constructed all the necessary apparatus for it, directed its erection, and superintended its first performances. He then left it to his wife's father, Mr. Macgregor, to carry on the processes.

When the properties of the gases began to occupy the attention of chemists, attempts were made to apply them as a means of curing diseases of the lungs. Dr. Beddoes pursued this inquiry with great activity, and established, through the means of private subscription, at Clifton, an institution in which this method of cure was carefully investigated. The Pneumatic Institution (for so it was called) has been rendered celebrated for having at its head Humphry Davy, just then commencing his scientific career. Among its founders was also numbered James Watt. Not content, however, with affording the institution the sanction of his name, he designed and caused to be constructed, at Soho, the apparatus used for making the gases and administering them to the patients.

As the exalted powers of the mind of Watt, unfolded in his numerous mechanical and philosophical inventions and discoveries, have commanded the admiration and respect of his species, the affection and love of his fellow men would not have been less conciliated, had the qualities of his heart, as developed in his private and personal relations, been as well known as the products of his genius.

In the year 1764, Watt being then in the twenty-ninth year of his age, married his cousin, Miss Miller. At this time he had fallen into a state of despondency from his disappointments, which produced a serious attack of nervous illness. The accomplishments and superior understanding, the mildness of temper and goodness of disposition of his wife, soon restored him to health. Of this marriage four children, two sons and two daughters, were the issue. Two of these children died in infancy; another, a daughter, was married to Mr. Miller of Glasgow; and the fourth is the [Pg311] present Mr. James Watt. In September, 1773, while her husband was engaged in the design of the Caledonian canal in the North of Scotland, Mrs. Watt died in child-bed of a fifth child, who was still-born: "Would that I might here transcribe," says M. Arago, "in all their simple beauty, some lines of the journal in which he daily recorded his inmost thoughts, his fears, his hopes! Would that you could see him, after this heavy affliction, pausing on the threshold of that home, where 'HIS KIND WELCOMER' awaited him no more; unable to summon courage to enter those rooms where he was never more to meet 'THE COMFORT OF HIS LIFE!' Possibly, so faithful a picture of a very deep sorrow might at last put to silence those obstinate theorists, who, without being struck by the thousands of instances to the contrary, do yet refuse qualities of the heart to every man whose intellect has been fostered by the fertile, sublime, and imperishable truths of the exact sciences!"

After the lapse of some years Watt married Miss Macgregor, a person who is represented to have possessed qualities of mind which rendered her a companion every way suitable to her husband. This lady survived Watt, and died in 1832 at an advanced age. Two children were the issue of this second marriage.

In the year 1800 the extended patent right, which had been granted to Boulton and Watt for their improved engine, expired, and at this time Mr. Watt retired altogether from business. He was succeeded by his two sons, the present Mr. James Watt, and Gregory, one of the children of his second marriage. The works at Soho continued to be conducted by the present Mr. Boulton, the son of the partner of Mr. Watt, and the two Messrs. Watt. In 1804 Gregory Watt died at the age of twenty-seven, of a disease of the chest. This afflicting event was deeply felt by Mr. Watt; but he did not sink under it into that state of despondency in which he has been represented to have fallen by M. Arago. On the contrary, he continued to show the same activity of mind which had characterised his whole [Pg312] life; nor did he lose that interest which he always took in the pursuit of literature and in society. The state of his feelings under this affliction is shown by the following extracts from letters written by him at that time, which have been published by Mr. Muirhead.

"Heathfield, January 26th, 1805.

* * "I, perhaps, have said too much to you and Mrs. Campbell
on the state of my mind. I, therefore, think it necessary to
say that _I am not low spirited_; and were you here, you would
find me as cheerful in the company of my friends as usual; my
feelings for the loss of poor Gregory are not passion, but a
deep regret that such was his and my lot.

"I know that all men must die, and I submit to the decrees
of nature, I hope with due reverence to the Disposer of
Events. Yet one stimulus to exertion is taken away, and,
somehow or other, I have lost my relish for my usual avocations.
Perhaps time may remedy that in some measure; meanwhile,
I do not neglect the means of amusement which are in my power."

"Heathfield, April 8th, 1805.

* * "It is rather mortifying to see how easily the want of
even the best of us is dispensed with in the world; but it is
very well it should be so. We here, however, cannot help
feeling a terrible blank in our family. When I look at my
son's books, his writings and drawings, I always say to
myself, where are the mind that conceived these things, and
the hands that executed them? In the course of nature, he
should have said so of mine; but it was otherwise ordered, and
our sorrow is unavailing. As Catullus says:—

—— 'Nunc it, per iter tenebricosum,
Illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.
At vobis male sit, malæ tenebræ
Orci, quæ omnia bella devoratis!'

"But Catullus was a heathen; let us hope that he (G.) is now
rejoicing in another and a better world, free from our cares,
griefs, and infirmities. Some one has said, I shall not wholly
die; and Gregory's name, his merits and virtues, will live at
least as long as those do who knew him. You are not, from
this, to conceive that we give way to grief; on the contrary,
you will find us as cheerful as we ought to be, and as much
disposed to enjoy the friends we have left as ever; but we
should approach to brutes if we had no regrets."

Mr. Watt, at the date of these letters, had entered on his seventieth year, a period after which great mental exertions are rarely made. [Pg313]

In the summer of 1819, symptoms of indisposition manifested themselves which soon rendered Watt aware of his approaching dissolution. "I am very sensible," said he to his afflicted friends, "of the attachment you show me, and I hasten to thank you for it, as I am now come to my last illness." He died on the 25th of August, 1819. His remains were deposited in the church of Handsworth, near his estate of Heathfield. His son has raised over his grave a Gothic chapel, in the centre of which is placed a statue by Chantrey.

The personal character of Watt could not fail to excite the admiration and the love of those distinguished persons, whose pride and happiness it was to be admitted to a share in the friendship of the great engineer. Among these were reckoned some of the men who will leave upon the present age the deepest and most lasting impressions of their genius, and such persons have bequeathed to posterity the sentiments with which he inspired them. We cannot here do more justice to the personal character of the subject of this notice than by repeating the portraiture of it which has been given by three of the most distinguished of his friends, and of the most illustrious men of the present age.

At a meeting convened in 1824, for erecting a monument to Watt, Lord Brougham pronounced a speech, from which we extract the following observations:—

"I had the happiness of knowing Mr. Watt, for many years, in the
intercourse of private life; and I will take upon me to bear a
testimony in which all who had that gratification I am sure will
join, that they who only knew his public merit, prodigious as
that was, knew but half his worth. Those who were admitted to
his society will readily allow that anything more pure, more
candid, more simple, more scrupulously loving of justice, than
the whole habits of his life and conversation, proved him to be,
was never known in society. One of the most astonishing
circumstances in this truly great man, was the versatility of
his talents. His accomplishments were so various, the powers of
his mind were so vast, and yet of such universal application,
that it was hard to say whether we should most admire the
extraordinary grasp of his understanding, or the accuracy of
nice research with which he could bring it to bear upon the most
minute objects of investigation. I forget of whom it was said,
that his mind resembled the trunk of an elephant, which can pick
up [Pg314] straws, and tear up trees by the roots. Mr. Watt, in
some sort, resembled the greatest and most celebrated of his own
inventions, of which we are at a loss whether most to wonder at
the power of grappling with the mightiest objects, or of
handling the most minute; so that, while nothing seems too large
for its grasp, nothing seems too small for the delicacy of its
touch, which can cleave rocks, and pour forth rivers from the
bowels of the earth, and, with perfect exactness, though not
with greater ease, fashion the head of a pin, or strike the
impress of some curious die. Now, those who knew Mr. Watt, had
to contemplate a man whose genius could create such an engine,
and indulge in the most abstruse speculations of philosophy, and
could at once pass from the most sublime researches of geology
and physical astronomy, the formation of our globe, and the
structure of the universe, to the manufacture of a needle or a
nail; who could discuss, in the same conversation, and with
equal accuracy, if not with the same consummate skill, the most
forbidding details of art and the elegances of classical
literature, the most abstruse branches of science and the
niceties of verbal criticism.

"There was one quality in Mr. Watt which most honourably
distinguished him from too many inventors, and was worthy of
all imitation—he was not only entirely free from jealousy,
but he exercised a careful and scrupulous self-denial, and was
anxious not to appear, even by accident, as appropriating to
himself that which he thought belonged to others. I have heard
him refuse the honour universally ascribed to him, of being
the inventor of the steam engine, and call himself simply its
improver; though, in my mind, to doubt his right to that
honour, would be as inaccurate as to question Sir Isaac
Newton's claim to his greatest discoveries, because Descartes
in mathematics, and Galileo in astronomy and mechanics, had
preceded him; or to deny the merits of his illustrious
successor, because galvanism was not his discovery, though,
before his time, it had remained as useless to science as the
instrument called a steam engine was to the arts before Mr.
Watt. The only jealousy I have known him to betray, was with
respect to others, in the nice adjustment he was fond of
giving to the claims of inventors. Justly prizing scientific
discovery above all other possessions, he deemed the title to
it so sacred, that you might hear him arguing by the hour to
settle disputed rights; and if you ever perceived his temper
ruffled, it was when one man's invention was claimed by, or
given to another; or when a clumsy adulation pressed upon
himself that which he knew to be not his own."

In the preface to the _Monastery_ Sir Walter Scott speaks of Watt in the following terms:—

"There were assembled about half a score of our northern
lights. * * Amidst this company stood Mr. Watt, the man whose
genius discovered the means of multiplying our national
resources to a degree, perhaps, even beyond his own stupendous
powers of calculation and combination; bringing the treasures
of the abyss to the summit of the earth—giving the feeble arm
of man the momentum of an Afrite—commanding manufactures to
arise as the rod of the prophet produced water in the
desert—affording the means of dispensing with that time and
tide which wait for no man—and of sailing without that wind
which defied the command and threats of Xerxes himself. This
potent commander of the elements—this abridger of time and
space—this magician, whose cloudy [Pg315] machinery has
produced a change on the world, the effects of which,
extraordinary as they are, are, perhaps, only now beginning to
be felt—was not only the most profound man of science—the
most successful combiner of powers, and calculator of numbers,
as adapted to practical purposes—was not only one of the most
generally well informed, but one of the best and kindest of
human beings.

"There he stood, surrounded by the little band I have
mentioned of northern literati, men not less tenacious,
generally speaking, of their own fame and their own opinions,
than the national regiments are supposed to be jealous of the
high character which they have won upon service. Methinks I
yet see and hear what I shall never see or hear again. In his
eighty-second year, the alert, kind, benevolent old man, had
his attention alive to every one's question, his information
at every one's command.

"His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentleman
was a deep philologist—he talked with him on the origin of the
alphabet, as if he had been coeval with Cadmus; another a
celebrated critic—you would have said the old man had studied
political economy and belles lettres all his life. Of science it is
unnecessary to speak—it was his own distinguished walk. And yet,
Captain Clutterbuck, when he spoke with your countryman, Jedediah
Cleishbotham, you would have sworn he had been coeval with Claverse
and Burley, with the persecutors and persecuted, and could number
every shot the dragoons had fired at the fugitive Covenanters. In
fact, we discovered that no novel of the least celebrity escaped
his perusal, and that the gifted man of science was as much
addicted to the productions of your native country, in other words,
as shameless and obstinate a peruser of novels, as if he had been a
very milliner's apprentice of eighteen."

In the Edinburgh newspaper, called the _Scotsman_, of the 4th September, 1819, immediately after the decease of Watt, the following sketch was published from the pen of Lord Jeffrey:—

"This name fortunately needs no commemoration of ours; for he
that bore it survived to see it crowned with undisputed and
unenvied honours; and many generations will probably pass away
before it shall have gathered 'all its fame.' We have said
that Mr. Watt was the great _improver_ of the steam engine;
but, in truth, as to all that is admirable in its structure,
or vast in its utility, he should rather be described as its
_inventor_. It was by his inventions, that its action was so
regulated as to make it capable of being applied to the finest
and most delicate manufactures, and its power so increased, as
to set weight and solidity at defiance. By his admirable
contrivance, it has become a thing stupendous alike for its
force and its flexibility—for the prodigious power which it
can exert, and the ease, and precision, and ductility with
which it can be varied, distributed, and applied. The trunk of
an elephant, that can pick up a pin or rend an oak, is as
nothing to it. It can engrave a seal, and crush masses of
obdurate metal before it—draw out, without breaking, a thread
as fine as gossamer, and lift a ship of war like a bauble in
the air. It can embroider muslin, and forge anchors—cut steel
into ribands, and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the
winds and waves. [Pg316]

"It would be difficult to estimate the value of the benefits
which these inventions have conferred upon this country. There
is no branch of industry that has not been indebted to them;
and, in all the most material, they have not only widened most
magnificently the field of its exertions, but multiplied a
thousand fold the amount of its productions. It is our
improved steam engine that has fought the battles of Europe,
and exalted and sustained, through the late tremendous
contest, the political greatness of our land. It is the same
great power which now enables us to pay the interest of our
debt, and to maintain the arduous struggle in which we are
still engaged (1819), with the skill and capital of countries
less oppressed with taxation. But these are poor and narrow
views of its importance. It has increased indefinitely the
mass of human comforts and enjoyments, and rendered cheap and
accessible all over the world the materials of wealth and
prosperity. It has armed the feeble hand of man, in short,
with a power to which no limits can be assigned; completed the
dominion of mind over the most refractory qualities of matter;
and laid a sure foundation for all those future miracles of
mechanic power which are to aid and reward the labours of
after generations. It is to the genius of one man, too, that
all this is mainly owing; and certainly no man ever bestowed
such a gift on his kind. The blessing is not only universal,
but unbounded; and the fabled inventors of the plough and the
loom, who were deified by the erring gratitude of their rude
contemporaries, conferred less important benefits on mankind
than the inventor of our present steam engine.

"This will be the fame of Watt with future generations; and it is
sufficient for his race and his country. But to those to whom he
more immediately belonged, who lived in his society and enjoyed his
conversation, it is not, perhaps, the character in which he will be
most frequently recalled—most deeply lamented—or even most highly
admired. Independently of his great attainments in mechanics, Mr.
Watt was an extraordinary, and in many respects a wonderful man.
Perhaps no individual in his age possessed so much and such varied
and exact information—had read so much, or remembered what he had
read so accurately and well. He had infinite quickness of
apprehension, a prodigious memory, and a certain rectifying and
methodising power of understanding, which extracted something
precious out of all that was presented to it. His stores of
miscellaneous knowledge were immense; and yet less astonishing than
the command he had at all times over them. It seemed as if every
subject that was casually started in conversation with him, had
been that which he had been last occupied in studying and
exhausting;—such was the copiousness, the precision, and the
admirable clearness of the information which he poured out upon it
without effort or hesitation. Nor was this promptitude and compass
of knowledge confined in any degree to the studies connected with
his ordinary pursuits. That he should have been minutely and
extensively skilled in chemistry and the arts, and in most of the
branches of physical science, might perhaps have been conjectured;
but it could not have been inferred from his usual occupations, and
probably is not generally known, that he was curiously learned in
many branches of antiquity, metaphysics, medicine, and etymology;
and perfectly at home in all the details of architecture, music,
and law. He was well acquainted, too, with most of the modern
languages, and familiar with their most recent literature. Nor was
it at all extraordinary to hear the great mechanician and engineer
detailing and expounding, for hours together, [Pg317] the
metaphysical theories of the German logicians, or criticising the
measures or the matter of the German poetry.

"His astonishing memory was aided, no doubt, in a great measure,
by a still higher and rarer faculty—by his power of digesting,
and arranging in its proper place, all the information he
received; and of casting aside and rejecting, as it were
instinctively, whatever was worthless or immaterial. Every
conception that was suggested to his mind seemed instantly to
take its place among its other rich furniture, and to be
condensed into the smallest and most convenient form. He never
appeared, therefore, to be at all incumbered or perplexed with
the _verbiage_ of the dull books he perused, or to the idle talk
to which he listened; but to have at once extracted, by a kind
of intellectual alchemy, all that was worthy of attention, and
to have reduced it, for his own use, to its true value and to
its simplest form. And thus it often happened, that a great deal
more was learned from his brief and vigorous account of the
theories and arguments of tedious writers, than an ordinary
student could ever have derived from the most painful study of
the originals; and that errors and absurdities became manifest
from the mere clearness and plainness of his statement of them,
which might have deluded and perplexed most of his hearers
without that invaluable assistance.

"It is needless to say that, with those vast resources, his
conversation was at all times rich and instructive in no ordinary
degree: but it was, if possible, still more pleasing than wise; and
had all the charms of familiarity with all the substantial
treasures of knowledge. No man could be more social in his spirit,
less assuming or fastidious in his manners, or more kind and
indulgent toward all who approached him. He rather liked to
talk,—at least in his latter years; but though he took a
considerable share of the conversation, he rarely suggested the
topics on which it was to turn, but readily and quietly took up
whatever was presented by those around him, and astonished the idle
and barren propounders of an ordinary theme by the treasures which
he drew from the mine they had unconsciously opened. He generally
seemed, indeed, to have no choice or predilection for one subject
of discourse rather than another; but allowed his mind, like a
great cyclopædia, to be opened at any letter his associates might
choose to turn up, and only endeavoured to select from his
inexhaustible stores, what might be best adapted to the taste of
his present hearers. As to their capacity he gave himself no
trouble; and indeed such was his singular talent for making all
things plain, clear, and intelligible, that scarcely any one could
be aware of such a deficiency in his presence. His talk, too,
though overflowing with information, had no resemblance to
lecturing or solemn discoursing, but, on the contrary, was full of
colloquial spirit and pleasantry. He had a certain quiet and grave
humour which ran through most of his conversation; and a vein of
temperate jocularity, which gave infinite zest and effect to the
condensed and inexhaustible information which formed its main
staple and characteristic. There was a little air of affected
testiness, and a tone of pretended rebuke and contradiction, with
which he used to address his younger friends, that was always felt
by them as an endearing mark of his kindness and familiarity; and
prized, accordingly, far beyond all the solemn compliments that
ever proceeded from the lips of authority. His voice was deep and
powerful, though he commonly spoke in a low and somewhat monotonous
tone, which harmonised admirably with the weight and brevity of his
observations, and set off to the greatest advantage the pleasant
[Pg318] anecdotes, which he delivered with the same grave brow, and
the same calm smile playing soberly on his lips. There was nothing
of effort, indeed, or impatience, any more than of pride or levity,
in his demeanour; and there was a finer expression of reposing
strength, and mild self-possession in his manner, than we ever
recollect to have met with in any other person. He had in his
character the utmost abhorrence for all sorts of forwardness,
parade, and pretensions; and, indeed, never failed to put all such
impostures out of countenance, by the manly plainness and honest
intrepidity of his language and deportment.

"In his temper and dispositions, he was not only kind and
affectionate, but generous, and considerate of the feelings of
all around him; and gave the most liberal assistance and
encouragement to all young persons who showed any indications of
talent, or applied to him for patronage or advice. His health,
which was delicate from his youth upwards, seemed to become
firmer as he advanced in years; and he preserved, up almost to
the last moment of his existence, not only the full command of
his extraordinary intellect, but all the alacrity of spirit and
the social gaiety which had illumined his happiest days. His
friends in this part of the country never saw him more full of
intellectual vigour and colloquial animation—never more
delightful or more instructive—than in his last visit to
Scotland in autumn 1817. Indeed, it was after that time that he
applied himself, with all the ardour of early life, to the
invention of a machine for mechanically copying all sorts of
sculpture and statuary; and distributed among his friends some
of its earliest performances, as the productions of a young
artist just entering on his eighty-third year.

"This happy and useful life came, at last, to a gentle close.
He had suffered some inconvenience through the summer; but was
not seriously indisposed till within a few weeks of his death.
He then became perfectly aware of the event which was
approaching; and with his usual tranquillity and benevolence
of nature, seemed only anxious to point out to the friends
around him, the many sources of consolation which were
afforded by the circumstances under which it was about to take
place. He expressed his sincere gratitude to Providence for
the length of days with which he had been blessed, and his
exemption from most of the infirmities of age; as well as for
the calm and cheerful evening of life that he had been
permitted to enjoy, after the honourable labours of the day
had been concluded. And thus, full of years and honours, in
all calmness and tranquillity, he yielded up his soul without
pang or struggle; and passed from the bosom of his family to
that of his God."

The English nation has ever shown itself insensible to the claims of genius and high intellectual endowments, except where the results have been brought directly to bear in statesmanship or war. Of this inability to appreciate the highest order of intellectual excellence Watt affords a striking example. When it was suggested to the British government by those better capable than that government was of appreciating the genius of this great man, that the nation would do itself honour by erecting a splendid monument at his own [Pg319] cost to him to whom it was so deeply indebted for the extension of its resources and the augmentation of its power, the reply was that such a measure could not be adopted as it might be drawn into a precedent in like cases thereafter! A precedent in like cases!! When will the time arrive when the world will produce a like case? The monument which has been erected in Westminster Abbey was in fact raised by private subscription, the nation having thus stigmatised itself through the act of its government with the everlasting disgrace of refusing the honour proposed to it. The other statues and monuments which have been erected to this great man, have been for the most part raised by the filial piety and the never-dying affection and veneration of the present Mr. James Watt. A statue has been presented by him to the University of Glasgow, and placed in one of the halls of that college. The inhabitants of Greenock have also erected a marble statue of Watt, for which, and for a library, a building has been erected at the expense of about 3,500_l._ which has been defrayed by Mr. James Watt. A colossal bronze statue has been erected on a handsome granite pedestal, standing at one of the corners of George Square, Glasgow. The monument in Westminster Abbey, erected by the subscription raised at the public meeting already alluded to, is a colossal statue of Carrara marble, by Chantrey.

Watt was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1784; of the Royal Society of London in 1785; a member of the Batavian Society in 1787; and a corresponding member of the Institut of France in 1808. The degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by the University of Glasgow, in 1806; and in 1814, the highest scientific honour which can be attained by a philosopher, was conferred on him by the Academy of Sciences of the Institut of France, who nominated him one of its eight foreign associates.

On the pedestal of the monument in Westminster Abbey is engraved the following inscription from the pen of Lord Brougham:— [Pg320]

NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL
ARTS FLOURISH, BUT TO SHOW THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR
THOSE WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE, THE KING HIS MINISTERS,
AND MANY OF THE NOBLES AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM RAISED THIS
MONUMENT TO

JAMES WATT,

WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS, EARLY EXERCISED
IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE STEAM
ENGINE, ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY, INCREASED THE
POWER OF MAN, AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE AMONG THE MOST
ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF
THE WORLD. BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI. DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN
STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] See Buchanan on the Economy of Fuel and Management of
Heat, especially as it relates to heating and drying by means
of Steam.

[26] See Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopædia, article
STEAM-DRYING MACHINE.

[27] The following are the words in which Watt makes this
remarkable announcement to Priestley:—

"Let us now consider what obviously happens in the deflagration
of the inflammable (hydrogen) and dephlogisticated air (oxygen).
These two kinds of air unite with violence; they become red hot,
and upon cooling, totally disappear. When the vessel is cooled,
a quantity of water is found in it equal to the weight of the
air employed. This water is then the only remaining product of
the process; and water, light, and heat are all the products.

"Are we not then authorised to conclude, that water is composed
of dephlogisticated air (oxygen) and phlogiston (hydrogen),
deprived of part of their latent or elementary heat; that
dephlogisticated or pure air (oxygen) is composed of water
deprived of its phlogiston (hydrogen), and united to elementary
heat and light; and that the latter are contained in it in a
latent state, so as not to be sensible to the thermometer or to
the eye; and if light be only a modification of heat, or a
circumstance attending it, or a component part of the
inflammable air (hydrogen), then pure or dephlogisticated air
(oxygen) is composed of water deprived of its phlogiston
(hydrogen), and united to elementary heat."

[28] Those who desire to investigate this controversy more in
detail will find very full information on the subject in the
Translation of Arago's Eloge, with notes and appendix by J. P.
Muirhead, Esq. Murray, London, 1839.

[29] An account of this remarkable apparatus, accompanied by an
engraving made from a drawing supplied by Watt, was communicated
by Sir John Robison to the _Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_ in
1820. _See_ vol. iii, p. 60.

[Pg321]

CHAP. XI.

LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES ON RAILWAYS.

NON-CONDENSING ENGINES. — LEUPOLD'S ENGINE.-TREVETHICK AND
VIVIAN. — EFFECTS OF RAILWAY TRANSPORT. — HISTORY OF THE
LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. — BLENKINSOP. — MESSRS. CHAPMAN. — WALKING
ENGINE. — MR. STEPHENSON'S ENGINES AT KILLINGWORTH. —
LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY. — EXPERIMENTAL TRIAL. — THE
ROCKET. — THE SANSPAREIL. — THE NOVELTY. — SUBSEQUENT
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. — LARDNER'S EXPERIMENTS
IN 1832. — ADOPTION OF BRASS TUBES. — MR. BOOTH'S REPORT. —
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE MOST IMPROVED LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES.
— POWER OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES. — EVAPORATION OF BOILERS. —
LARDNER'S EXPERIMENTS IN 1838. — RESISTANCE TO RAILWAY TRAINS.
— RESTRICTIONS ON GRADIENTS. — COMPENSATING EFFECT OF
GRADIENTS. — EXPERIMENT WITH THE HECLA. — METHODS OF
SURMOUNTING STEEP INCLINATIONS.

(180.) In the various modifications of the steam engine which we have hitherto considered, the pressure introduced on one side of the piston derives its efficacy either wholly or partially from the vacuum produced by condensation on the other side. This always requires a condensing apparatus, and a constant and abundant supply of cold water. An engine of this kind must therefore necessarily have considerable dimensions and weight, and is inapplicable to uses in which a small and light machine only is admissible. If the condensing apparatus be dispensed with, the piston will always be resisted by a force equal to the atmospheric [Pg322] pressure, and the only part of the steam pressure which will be available as a moving power, is that part by which it exceeds the pressure of the atmosphere. Hence, in engines which do not work by condensation, steam of a much higher pressure than that of the atmosphere is indispensably necessary, and such engines are therefore called _high-pressure engines_.

We are not, however, to understand that every engine, in which steam is used of a pressure exceeding that of the atmosphere, is what is meant by an _high-pressure engine_; for in the ordinary engines in common use, constructed on Watt's principle, the safety-valve is loaded with from 3 to 5 lbs. on the square inch; and in Woolf's engines, the steam is produced under a pressure of 40 lbs. on the square inch. These would therefore be more properly called _condensing engines_ than _low-pressure engines_; a term quite inapplicable to those of Woolf. In fact, by _high-pressure engines_ is meant engines in which no vacuum is produced, and, therefore, in which the piston works against a pressure equal to that of the atmosphere.

In these engines the whole of the condensing apparatus, viz. the cold-water cistern, condenser, air-pump, cold-water pump, &c., are dispensed with, and nothing is retained except the boiler, cylinder, piston, and valves. Consequently, such an engine is small, light, and cheap. It is portable also, and may be moved, if necessary, along with its load, and is therefore well adapted to locomotive purposes.