A history of the growth of the steam-engine . e a fitting monument abovehis grave, and the nation erected a statue of the great manin Westminster Abbey. This sketch of the greatest of all the inventors of thesteam-engine has been given no greater length than its sub-ject justifies. Whether we consider Watt as the inventorof the standard steam-engine of the nineteenth century, asthe scientific investigator of the physical principles uponwhich the invention is based, or as the builder and intro-ducer of the most powerful known instrument by which thegreat sources of power in Nature are converted
A history of the growth of the steam-engine . e a fitting monument abovehis grave, and the nation erected a statue of the great manin Westminster Abbey. This sketch of the greatest of all the inventors of thesteam-engine has been given no greater length than its sub-ject justifies. Whether we consider Watt as the inventorof the standard steam-engine of the nineteenth century, asthe scientific investigator of the physical principles uponwhich the invention is based, or as the builder and intro-ducer of the most powerful known instrument by which thegreat sources of power in Nature are converted, adapted,and applied for the use and convenience of man, he is fullyentitled to preeminence. His character as a man was noless admirable than as an engineer. Smiles, Watts most conscientious and indefatigablebiographer, writes: Some months since, we visited the. little garret at > LifoofWatt,p. 512. JAMES WATT AND HIS INVENTIONS. 129 Heathfield in which Watt pursued the investigationsof his later years. The room had been carefully locked. up since his death, and had only once been swept lay very much as he left it. The piece of 130 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN STEAM-ENGINE. iron which he was last employed in turning, lay on thelathe. The ashes of the last fire were in the grate ; the lastbit of coal was in the scuttle. The Dutch oven was in itsplace over the stove, and the frying-pan in which he cookedhis meals was hanging on its accustomed nail. Many ob-jects lay about or in the drawers, indicating the pursuitswhich had been interrupted by death—busts, medallions,and figures, waiting to be copied by the copying-machine—many medallion-moulds, a store of plaster-of-Paris, and abox of plaster casts from London, the contents of which donot seem to have been disturbed. Here are Watts ladlesfor melting lead, his foot-rule, his glue-pot, his mirrors, an extemporized camera with the lensesmounted on pasteboard, and many camera-glasses laid abo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidc, booksubjectsteamengines
