visit him with the Professor at his country home, and urged him to press forward his invention "whether he pursued it as a philosopher or as a man of business." In the month of November Watt sent Roebuck drawings of a covered cylinder and piston to be cast at his works, but it was so poorly done as to be useless. "My principal difficulty in making engines," he wrote Roebuck, "is always the smith-work."

By this time, Watt was seriously embarrassed for money. Experiments cost much and brought in nothing. His duty to his family required that he should abandon these for a time and labor for means to support it. He determined to begin as a surveyor, as he had mastered the art when making surveying instruments, as was his custom to study and master wherever he touched. He could never rest until he knew all there was to know about anything. Of course he succeeded. Everybody knew he would, and therefore business came to him. Even a public body, the magistrates of Glasgow, had not the slightest hesitation in obtaining his services to survey a canal which was to open a new coal field. He was also commissioned to survey the proposed Forth and Clyde canal. Had he been content to earn money and become leading surveyor or engineer of Britain, the world might have waited long for the forthcoming giant destined to do the world's work; but there was little danger of this. The world had not a temptation

that could draw Watt from his appointed work. His thoughts were ever with his engine, every spare moment being devoted to it. Roebuck's speculative and enterprising nature led him also into the entrancing field of steam. It haunted him until finally, in 1767, he decided to pay off Watt's debts to the amount of a thousand pounds, provide means for further experiments, and secure a patent for the engine. In return, he became owner of two thirds of the invention.

Next year Watt made trial of a new and larger model, with unsatisfactory results upon the first trial. He wrote Roebuck that "by an unforeseen "misfortune, the mercury found its way into the "cylinder and played the devil with the solder." Only after a month's hard labor was the second trial made, with very different and indeed astonishing results-"success to my heart's content," exclaimed Watt. Now he would pay his long-promised debt to his partner Roebuck, to whom he wrote, "I sincerely "wish you joy of this successful result, and hope it will "make some return for the obligations I owe you." The visit of congratulation paid to his partner Roebuck, was delightful. Now were all their griefs "in the deep "bosom of the ocean buried" by this recent success. Already they saw fortunes in their hands, so brightly shone the sun these few but happy days. But the old song has its lesson:

"I've seen the morning the gay hills adorning,
"I've seen it storming before the close of day."

Instead of instant success, trying days and years were still before them. A patent was decided upon, a matter of course and almost of formality in our day, but far from this at that time, when it was considered monopolistic and was highly unpopular on that account. Watt went to Berwick-on-Tweed to make the required declaration before a Master in Chancery. In August, 1768, we find him in London about the patent, where he became so utterly wearied with the delays, and so provoked with the enormous fees required to protect the invention, that he wrote his wife in a most despairing mood. She administered the right medicine in reply, "I beg 'you will not make yourself uneasy though things do "not succeed as you wish. If the engine will not do, "something else will; never despair." Happy man whose wife is his best doctor. From the very summit of elation, to which he had been raised by the success of the model, Watt was suddenly cast down into the valley of despair to find that only half of his heavy task was done, and the hill of difficulty still loomed before. Reaction took place, and the fine brain, so long strained to utmost tension, refused at intervals to work at high pressure. He became subject to recurring fits of despondency, aggravated, if not primarily caused by anxiety for his family, who could not be

maintained unless he engaged in work yielding prompt

returns.

We may here mention one of his lifelong traits, which revealed itself at times. Watt was no man of affairs. Business was distasteful to him. As he once wrote his partner, Boulton, he "would rather face a "loaded cannon than settle a disputed account or "make a bargain." Monetary matters were his special aversion. For any other form of annoyance, danger or responsibility, he had the lion heart. Pecuniary responsibility was his bogey of the dark closet. He writes that, "Solomon said that in the increase of knowledge there is increase of sorrow: if he had substituted business for knowledge it would have "been perfectly true."

Roebuck shines out brilliantly in this emergency. He was always sanguine, and encouraged Watt to go forward. October, 1768, he writes:

You are now letting the most active part of your life insensibly glide away. A day, a moment, ought not to be lost. And you should not suffer your thoughts to be diverted by any other object, or even improvement of this [model], but only the speediest and most effectual manner of executing an engine of a proper size, according to your present ideas.

Watt wrote Dr. Small in January, 1769, "I have "much contrived and little executed. How much would "good health and spirits be worth to me!" and a month later, "I am still plagued with headaches and some

"times heartaches." Sleepless nights now came upon him. All this time, however, he was absorbed in his one engrossing task. Leupold's "Theatrim Mach“inarum,” which fell into his hands, gave an account of the machinery, furnaces and methods of mine-working in the upper Hartz. Alas! the book was in German, and he could not understand it. He promptly resolved to master the language, sought out a Swiss-German dyer then settled in Glasgow whom he engaged to give him lessons. So German and the German book were both mastered. Not bad work this from one in the depths of despair. It has been before noted that for the same end he had successfully mastered French and Italian. So in sickness as in health his demon steam pursued him, giving him no rest.

Watt had a hard piece of work in preparing his first patent-specification, which was all-important in those early days of patent "monopolies" as these were considered. Their validity often turned upon a word or two too much or too little. It was as dangerous to omit as to admit. Professionals agree in opinion that Watt here displayed extraordinary ability.

In nothing has public opinion more completely changed than in its attitude toward patents. In Watt's day, the inventor who applied for a patent was a would-be monopolist. The courts shared the popular belief. Lord Brougham vehemently remonstrated