Page images
PDF
EPUB

Captured by Steam

CHAPTER III

CAPTURED BY STEAM

HE supreme hour of Watt's life was now about

[ocr errors]

to strike. He had become deeply interested in the subject of steam, to which Professor Robison had called his attention, Robison being then in his twentieth year, Watt three years older.

Robison's idea was that steam might be applied to wheel carriages. Watt admitted his ignorance of steam then. Nevertheless, he made a model of a wheel carriage with two cylinders of tin plate, but being slightly and inaccurately made, it failed to work satisfactorily. Nothing more was heard of it. Robison soon thereafter left Glasgow. The demon Steam continued to haunt Watt. He, who up to this time had never seen even a model of a steam engine, strangely discovered in his researches that the university actually owned a model of the latest type, the Newcomen engine, which had been purchased for the use of the natural philosophy class. One wonders how many of the universities in Britain had been so progressive. That of Glasgow seems to have recognised at an early day the importance of science, in which department she continues famous. The coveted and now histor

ical model had been sent to London for repairs. Watt urged its prompt return and a sum of money was voted for this purpose. Watt was at last completely absorbed in the subject of steam. He read all that had been written on the subject. Most of the valuable matter those days was in French and Italian, of which there were no translations. Watt promptly began to acquire these languages, that he might know all that was to be known. He could not await the coming of the model, which did not arrive until 1763, and began his own experiments in 1761. How did he obtain the necessary appliances and apparatus, one asks. The answer is easy. He made them. Apothecaries' vials were his steam boilers, and hollowed-out canes his steam-pipes. Numerous experiments followed and much was learnt. Watt's account of these is appended to the article on "Steam and the Steam Engine" in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," ninth edition.

Detailed accounts of Watt's numerous experiments, failures, difficulties, disappointments, and successes, as one after the other obstacles were surmounted, is not within the scope of this volume, these being all easily accessible to the student, but the general reader may be interested in the most important of all the triumphs of the indefatigable worker-the keystone of the arch. The Newcomen model arrived at last and was promptly repaired, but was not successful when put in operation. Steam enough could not be obtained, although the

"

boiler seemed of ample capacity. The fire was urged by blowing and more steam generated, and still it would not work; a few strokes of the piston and the engine stopped. Smiles says that exactly at the point when ordinary experimentalists would have abandoned the task, Watt became thoroughly aroused. "Every ob"stacle," says Professor Robison," was to him the begin"ning of a new and serious study, and I knew he would "not quit it until he had either discovered its worthless'ness or had made something of it." The difficulty here was serious. Books were searched in vain. No one had touched it. A course of independent experiments was essential, and upon this he entered as usual, determined to find truth at the bottom of the well and to get there in his own way. Here he came upon the fact which led him to the stupendous result. That fact was the existence of latent heat, the original discoverer of which was Watt's intimate friend, Professor Black. Watt found that water converted into steam heated five times its own weight of water to steam heat. He says:

Being struck with this remarkable fact (effect of latent heat), and not understanding the reason of it, I mentioned it to my friend, Dr. Black, who then explained to me his doctrine of latent heat, which he had taught some time before this period (1764); but having myself been occupied with the pursuits of business, if I had heard of it I had not attended to it, when I thus stumbled upon one of the material facts by which that beautiful theory is supported.

« PreviousContinue »