attraction of clear blue skies and the resulting cleanliness of all things in and about the city compared with others. When, by the progress of invention or new methods of distributing heat, smoke is banished, as it probably will be some day, many rich citizens will remain in their respective western cities instead of flocking to the clear blue-skied metropolis, as they are now so generally doing. Such were some of Watt's by-products. His recreation, if found at all, was found in change of occupation. We read of no idle days, no pleasure trips, no vacations, only change of work. Rumors of new inventions of engines far excelling his continued to disturb Watt, and much of his time was given to investigation. He thought of a caloric air engine as possibly one of the new ideas; then of the practicability of producing mechanical power by the absorption and condensation of gas on the one hand and by its disengagement and expansion on the other. His mind seemed to range over the entire field of possibilities. The Hornblower engine had been heralded as sure to displace the Watt. When it was described, it proved to be as Watt said, "no less than our double-cylinder "engine, worked upon our principle of expansion. It is "fourteen years since I mentioned it to Mr. Smeaton." Watt had explained to Dr. Small his method of working steam expansively as early as May, 1769, and had adopted it in the Soho engine and also in the Shadwell engine erected in that year. We have seen before that Watt had to retrace his steps and abandon for a time in later engines what he had before ventured upon. The application of steam for propelling boats upon the water was, at this time (1788), attracting much attention. Boulton and Watt were urged to undertake experiments. This they declined to entertain, having their facilities fully employed in their own field, but finally Fulton, on August 6, 1803, ordered an engine from them from his own drawings, intended for this purpose, repeating the order in person in 1804. It was shipped to America early in 1805, and in 1807 placed upon the Clermont, which ran upon the Hudson River as a passenger boat, attaining a speed of about five miles an hour. This was the first steamboat that was ever used for passengers, and altho Fulton neither invented the boat nor the engine, nor the combination of the two, still he is entitled to great credit for overcoming innumerable difficulties sufficient to discourage most men. Fulton, who was the son of a Scotsman from Dumfrieshire, visited Syminton's steamboat, the Charlotte Dundas, in Scotland, in 1801, and had seen it successfully towing canal boats upon the Forth and Clyde Canal. This was the first boat ever propelled by steam successfully for commercial purposes. It was subsequently discarded, not because it did not tow the canal boats, but because the revolving paddle-wheels caused waves that threatened to wash away the canal banks. Several engines were sent to New York. The men in charge of one found on shipboard a pattern-maker going to America named John Hewitt. He settled in America January 12th, 1796, and became the father of the late famous and deeply lamented Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, long a member of Congress and afterward mayor of New York, foremost in many improvements in the city, the last being the Subway, just opened, which owes its inception to him. For this service, the Chamber of Commerce presented him with a memorial medal. Mr. Hewitt married a daughter of Peter Cooper, founder of the Cooper Institute, which owes its wonderful development chiefly to him. His children devote themselves and their fortunes to its management. At the time of his death in 1902, he was pronounced "the first private citizen of the Republic." Small engine-shops (of which the ruins still remain), called "Soho" after their prototype, were erected by his father near New York city, on the Greenwood division of the Erie Railroad. The railroad station was called "Soho" by Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, who was then president of the railroad company. Upon Mr. Hewitt's eightieth birthday congratulations poured in from all quarters. One cable from abroad attracted attention as appropriate and deserved: "Ten octaves every note "truly struck and grandly sung." No man in private life passed away in our day with such general lamentation. The Republic got even more valuable material than engines from the old home in the ship that arrived on January 12, 1796. We must not permit ourselves to forget that it was not until the Watt engine was applied to steam navigation that the success of the latter became possible. It was only by this that it could be made practicable, so that the steamship is the product of the steam-engine, and it is to Watt we owe the modern twenty-threethousand-ton monster (and larger monsters soon to come), which keeps its course against wind and tide, almost "unshaked of motion," for this can now properly be said. Passengers crossing the Atlantic from port to port now scarcely know anything of irregular motion, and never more than the gentlest of slight heaves, even during the gale that "Catches the ruffian billows by their tops, The ocean, traversed in these ships, is a smooth highway-nothing but a ferry-and a week spent upon it has become perhaps the most enjoyable and the most healthful of holiday excursions, provided the prudent excursionist has left behind positive instructions that wireless telegrams shall not follow. |