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"instrument of this class is that invented by James "Watt in 1771."

In his leisure hours, Watt invented an ingenious machine for drawing in perspective, using the double parallel ruler, then very little known and not at all used as far as Watt knew. Watt reports having made from fifty to eighty of these machines, which went to various parts of the world.

In 1810 Watt informs Berthollet that for several years he had felt unable, owing to the state of his health, to make chemical experiments. But idle he could not be; he must be at work upon something. As he often said, "without a hobby-horse, what is life?” So the saying is reported, but we may conclude that the "horse" is here an interpolation, for the difference between "a horse" and "a hobby" is radical—a man can get off a horse.

Watt's next "hobby" fortunately became an engrossing occupation and kept him alert. This was a machine for copying sculpture. A machine he had seen in Paris for tracing and multiplying the dies of medals, suggested the other. and many experiments he did of success, and made a large yellow wood, and a small head of his friend Adam Smith.

After much labor get some measure head of Locke in

Long did Watt toil at the new hobby in the garret where it had been created, but the garret proved too

hot in summer and too cold in winter. March 14, 1810, he writes Berthollet and Levèque:

I still do a little in mechanics: a part of which, if I live to complete it, I shall have the honor of communicating to my friends in France.

He went steadily forward and succeeded in making some fine copies in 1814. For one of Sappho he gives dates and the hours required for various parts, making a total of thirty-nine. Some censorious Sabbatarians discovered that the day he was employed one hour

doing her breast with th drill" was Sabbath, which in one who belonged to a strict Scottish Covenanter family, betokened a sad fall from grace. When we consider that his health was then precarious, that he was debarred from chemical experiments, and depended solely upon mechanical subjects; that in all probability it was a stormy day (Sunday, February 3, 1811), knowing also that "Satan finds mischief still for idle hands to do," we hope our readers will pardon him for yielding to the irresistible temptation, even if on the holy Sabbath day for once he could not "get off" his captivating hobby.

The historical last workshop of the great worker with all its contents remains open to the public to-day just as it was when he passed away. Pilgrims from many lands visit it, as Shakespeare's birthplace, Burns' cottage, and Scott's Abbottsford attract their many thousands yearly. We recommend our readers to add to these this garret of Watt in their pilgrimages.

The Record of the Steam Engine

CHAPTER VIII

THE RECORD OF THE STEAM ENGINE

HE Soho works, up to January, 1824, had com

THE

pleted 1164 steam engines, of a nominal horsepower of 25,945; from January, 1824, to 1854, 441 engines, nominal horse-power, 25,278, making the total number 1605, of nominal horse-power, 51,223, and real horse-power, 167,319. Mulhall gives the total steampower of the world as 50,150,000 horse-power in 1888. In 1880 it was only 34,150,000. Thus in eight years it increased, say, fifty per cent. Assuming the same rate of increase from 1888 to 1905, a similar period, it is to-day 75,000,000 nominal, which Engel says may be taken as one-half the effective power (vide Mulhall, Steam," p. 546), the real horse-power in 1905 being 150,000,000. One horse-power raises ten tons a height of twelve inches per minute. Working eight hours, this is about 5,000 tons daily, or twelve times a man's work, and as the engine never tires, and can be run constantly, it follows that each horse-power it can exert equals thirty-six men's work; but, allowing for stoppages, let us say thirty men. The engines of a large ocean greyhound of 35,000 horse-power, running constantly from port to port, equal to three relays of

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