against this, declaring that the inventor was entitled to remuneration. Every point was construed against the unfortunate benefactor, as if he were a public enemy attempting to rob his fellows. To-day the inventor is hailed as the foremost of benefactors.

Notable indeed is it that on the very day Watt obtained his first patent, January 5th, 1769, Arkwright got his spinning-frame patent. Only the year before Hargreaves obtained his patent for the spinningjenny. These are the two inventors, with Whitney, the American inventor of the cotton-gin, from whose brains came the development of the textile industry in which Britain still stands foremost. Fifty-six millions of spindles turn to-day in the little island-more than all the rest of the civilised world can boast. Much later came Stephenson with his locomotive. Here is a record for a quartette of manual laborers in the truest sense, actual wage-earners as mechanics-Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, and Hargreaves! Where is that quartette to be equalled?

Workingmen of our day should ponder over this, and take to heart the truth that manual mechanical labor is the likeliest career to develop mechanical inventors and lead them to such distinction as these benefactors of man achieved. If disposed to mourn the lack of opportunity, they should think of these working-men, whose advantages were small compared to those of our day.

The greatest invention of all, the condenser, is fully covered by the first patent of 1769. The best engine up to this time was the Newcomen, exclusively used for pumping water. As we have seen, it was an atmospheric engine, in no sense a steam engine. Steam was only used to force the heavy piston upward, no other work being done by it. All the pumping was done on the downward stroke. The condensation of the spent steam below the piston created a vacuum, which only facilitated the fall of the piston. This caused the cylinder to be cooled between each stroke and led to the wastage of about four-fifths of all the steam used. It was to save this that the condenser was invented, in obedience to Watt's law, as stated in his patent, that "the cylinder should be kept always as hot

as the steam that entered it"; but it must be kept clearly in mind that Watt's "modified machines," under his first patent, only used steam to do work upon the upward stroke, where Newcomen used it only to force up the piston. The double-acting engine-doing work up and down-came later, and was protected in the second patent of 1780.

Watt knew better than any that although his model had been successful and was far beyond the Newcomen engine, it was obvious that it could be improved in many respects-not the least of his reasons for confidence in its final and more complete triumph.

To these possible improvements, he devoted himself

for years. The records once again remind us that it was not one invention, but many, that his task involved. Smiles gives the following epitome of some of those pressing at this stage:

Various trials of pipe-condensers, plate-condensers and drumcondensers, steam-jackets to prevent waste of heat, many trials of new methods to tighten the piston band, condenser pumps, oil pumps, gauge pumps, exhausting cylinders, loading-valves, double cylinders, beams and cranks-all these contrivances and others had to be thought out and tested elaborately amidst many failures and disappointments.

There were many others.

All unaided, this supreme toiler thus slowly and painfully evolved the steam engine after long years of constant labor and anxiety, bringing to the task a union of qualities and of powers of head and hand which no other man of his time-may we not venture to say of all time-was ever known to possess or ever exhibited.

When a noble lord confessed to him admiration for his noble achievements, Watt replied, "The public only "look at my success and not at the intermediate failures "and uncouth constructions which have served me as so many steps to climb to the top of the ladder."

"

Quite true, but also quite right. The public have no time to linger over a man's mistakes. What concerns is his triumphs. We "rise upon our dead selves "(failures) to higher things," and mistakes, recog

nised as such in after days, make for victory. The man who never makes mistakes never makes anything. The only point the wise man guards is not to make the same mistake twice; the first time never counts with the successful man. He both forgives and forgets that. One difference between the wise man and the foolish one!

It has been truly said that Watt seemed to have divined all the possibilities of steam. We have a notable instance of this in a letter of this period (March, 1769) to his friend, Professor Small, in which he anticipated Trevithick's use of high-pressure steam in the locomotive. Watt said:

I intend in many cases to employ the expansive force of steam to press on the piston, or whatever is used instead of one, in the same manner as the weight of the atmosphere is now employed in common fire engines. In some cases I intend to use both the condenser and this force of steam, so that the powers of these engines will as much exceed those pressed only by the air, as the expansive power of the steam is greater than the weight of the atmosphere. In other cases, when plenty of cold water cannot be had, I intend to work the engines by the force of steam only, and to discharge it into the air by proper outlets after it has done its office.

In these days patents could be very easily blocked, as Watt experienced with his improved crank motion. He proceeded therefore in great secrecy to erect the first large engine under his patent, after he had successfully made a very small one for trial. An outhouse near one of Dr. Roebuck's pits was selected as away

from prying eyes. The parts for the new engine were partly supplied from Watt's own works in Glasgow and partly from the Carron works. Here the old trouble, lack of competent mechanics, was again met with. On his return from necessary absences, the men were usually found in face of the unexpected and wondering what to do next. As the engine neared completion, Watt's anxiety "for his approaching doom," he writes, kept him from sleep, his fears being equal to his hopes. He was especially sensitive and discouraged by unforeseen expenditure, while his sanguine partner, Roebuck, on the contrary, continued hopeful and energetic, and often rallied his pessimistic partner on his propensity to look upon the dark side. He was one of those who adhered to the axiom, "Never bid the devil good"morning till you meet him." Smiles believes that it is probable that without Roebuck's support Watt could never have gone on, but that may well be doubted. His anxieties probably found a needed vent in their expression, and left the indomitable do-or-die spirit in Watt's brain, working at high pressure, needed a safety valve. Mrs. Roebuck, wife-like, very properly entertained the usual opinion of devoted wives, that her husband was really the essential man upon whom the work devolved, and, that without him nothing could have been accomplished. Smiles probably founded his remark upon her words to Robison; "Jamie (Watt) is a queer lad, and, without the Doctor

all its power.