weakly constitution, although energy and perseverance forbade him to yield to its influence. At six years of age he was seen lying on the hearth apparently playing with a bit of chalk he had in his hand. A friend who came to visit his father was annoyed at seeing the boy so idle, and told his father that he ought to send him to school, and not suffer him to trifle away his early years in such a manner. The father whispered a request that he would observe what his son was doing with the chalk; and the gentleman, bending over the hearth, found the boy had drawn mathematical figures there, and was trying to solve a problem. He had been taught to read, but he seldom learnt lessons. He made good use of the knowledge he gained, and even while a child acquired a vast deal of that general information which in after life made his company and conversation so entertaining and useful. He early showed a taste for mechanics; and his father wisely consulted it in making him a present of a set of tools, with which he contrived to make a number of toys, and even an electrifying machine. Thus in his boyhood was the genius manifested which his riper years so largely displayed.

It has been within the present half-century that the wonderful power of steam has been very extensively employed to supersede human labour in most departments of trade and manufacture. Within the same period it has been still more astonishingly applied to locomotive purposes, the use of which has already produced a prodigious effect on society by facilitating the intercourse of nations, as well as individuals.

But though the practical use of this great power is so modern, the knowledge of the power itself is not so. It was included in the wisdom and learning of the Egyptians, in which Moses was said to be skilled, and of the extent of which recent discoveries have enabled us to form an idea. Scientific authors have supposed that even the paddle-wheel, so lately brought into use among modern nations, was known to that singular people, as well as to the Romans; and some assert that from very ancient times attempts were made to propel vessels by steam.

A specimen, or model, of a toy steam-engine was described by a Greek of Alexandria more than a century before the Christian era; and this possibly afforded hints to many later inventors. The subject, dropped, or unheard of from time to time, appears to have been again and again taken up by scientific minds, which, unfortunately for their possessors, were in advance of their age, and were not understood, if not actually persecuted, by their more ignorant contemporaries. About the era of the Reformation a Spaniard exhibited a model steam-vessel to the Emperor Charles V.; but the age for steam experiment had not yet arrived.

It is to their countryman, Salomon De Caus, that the French ascribe the honour of inventing the steam-engine, while they yield to our James Watt the merit of bringing it nearly to perfection, and rendering steampower, as a moving force, applicable, so extensively, to practical purposes. The history of De Caus is a melancholy one. He, too, lived before the age to which his genius was suited. It is only since the power of steam, as a moving force, has excited the attention of scientific Europe, and its utility been tested, that the discoveries of De Caus, about two hundred and fifty years ago, have become generally noticed.

In the reign of King James II. Salomon De Caus was brought over from Normandy to Richmond near London, and employed in forming water-works, fountains, grottoes, &c., in the garden of a palace for the Prince, afterwards Charles I. The Elector of Bavaria afterwards engaged

his services; and in Germany he published a work descriptive of his invention of a method of raising water by partially heating it, so that a portion of the fluid should be converted into steam, and by its expansive force drive the remainder through a tube prepared to conduct it to a reservoir.

The steam machine, however, which he described, is considered as little more than a toy, which might suggest ideas to other inventors. Unhappily for himself, this man of genius, of whom France is now justly proud, returned thither to give his country the benefit of his supposed inventions. He had then distinguished himself as an engineer, a painter, and an architect; but whether his inventions and scientific studies had really turned his brain, or that persons incapable of comprehending them believed him to he mad, for no other reason than that they could not understand him, cannot be certainly known. His claims as an inventor, or a discoverer of steampower, met with no attention; but his zeal in soliciting the patronage of the great and formidable Cardinal Richelieu, the powerful minister of Louis XIII., was the means of consigning him to the most dreadful doom. that could have been inflicted on a living creature.

The Bicêtre was a place of confinement in France for real or supposed lunatics; and one, the cruelties of which were so great, that the darkest threat which could be uttered was that of sending a person to the Bicêtre.

A letter written in the year 1641, by a celebrated lady of Paris, gives a fearful account of the unhappy De Caus, and affords us a very gloomy prospect of the nature of the times to which it relates. Before quoting it we may observe, that the Marquis of Worcester was himself a lover of the pursuits to which the unfortunate Frenchman fell a victim. The follow-ing is an extract from the letter referred to:—

"I have been doing the honours of Paris to your English lord, the Marquis of Worcester. He leads me from curiosity to curiosity; selecting always the most sad and serious, speaking little, listening attentively, and fixing on those he questions two great blue eyes, which seem to penetrate to the bottom of their thoughts. Besides, he is never content with the explanations that are given to him; he does not take things on the side they are shown to him. For instance, in a visit we have just made to the Bicêtre, in a madman he thinks he has discovered a man of genius. If the madman had not been furious, I believe your Marquis would have demanded his liberation, taken him to London, and listened to his ravings from morning to night.

"As we were traversing the madmen's court, and whilst I, more dead than alive, so frightened was I, clung to my companion, a hideous face showed itself behind the bars, and began to cry in a hollow voice-' I am not mad!--I have made a discovery which would enrich my country.'

"And what is his discovery? said the marquis to the keeper who showed us the house.

"Ah!' said the man, shrugging his shoulders, something simple enough! You could never guess it,-it is the use of the steam of boiling water!'

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"I began to laugh. This man's name is Salamon De Caus,' said the keeper. He came from Normandy four years ago to present to the king a treatise on the marvellous effects which might be obtained from his invention. According to him, with steam you might turn mills, make carriages go, and perform a thousand miracles. The cardinal dismissed the fool without listening to him. Without being discouraged he set about following the cardinal everywhere, who, weary of finding him for ever at

his heels, and of being importuned by his follies, ordered him to be confined in the Bicêtre, where he has been shut up for three years and a half; he calls to every visitor that he is not mad, and that he has made a wonderful discovery. He even composed a book on the subject, which I have.' "My Lord of Worcester, who had become quite thoughtful, asked for the book. After reading some pages, he said, 'This man is not mad; and in my country, instead of shutting him up, we should have loaded him with riches. Lead me to him: I wish to question him.'

"He was conducted to the cell; but returned sad and thoughtful.

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"Now indeed,' said he, he is mad: misfortune and suffering have driven away his reason for ever. But when you cast Salomon De Caus into this dungeon, you cast there the greatest genius of your age. Thereupon we departed, and from that time he talks of nothing but Salomon De Caus." At that age a love of science often proved a dangerous gift. Its votaries, by superior knowledge, or curious experiments, ran no small risk of incurring suspicion of sorcery or magic, which subjected them to severe persecution, if not to a cruel death.

The Marquis of Worcester succeeded De Caus in the path of invention and steam discovery. He published his account of these in the year 1663. Lord Brougham remarks that "he undoubtedly made one step in advance of De Caus towards the use of steam-power."

Lord Worcester described one of his inventions as an admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire;" spoke of his "stupendous water-commanding engine," and declared his intention of having his model buried with him. It is presumed that his engine was constructed on a large scale, as the funnel was represented by a cannon.

No practical benefit, however, was derived from the inventions he described, or the scientific experiments he made. The time to favour such operations had not then arrived.

About thirty years afterwards a Frenchman, named Papin, settled in London, and made a digester, which is still called by his name. His experiments and researches into the power and use of steam produced several important additions to the knowledge thus slowly accumulating. The invention of the safety-valve, applied to steam-engines, is ascribed to Papin, although it is supposed that he never made any steam-engine himself.

The French, in general, claim the honour of being inventors, and yield to the English the merit of being improvers, or imitators. Eight years after the publication of Papin's work on steam-power, Captain Savary made some improvements on the apparatus he described; and in the year 1711, two men of humble station, Newcomen, an ironmonger, and Cawley, a glazier, of Dartmouth, constructed a steam-engine on the principles described by Papin, and with some improvements suggested by Savary. This engine could be used in raising water from mines; and thus the first practical use of steam-power was achieved by them, although it is said that atmospheric pressure, and not steam, was its moving force. Brighton and Smeaton made further improvements in the steam-engine. Thus were the scientific efforts and genius of different ages and countries combining together, until the grand improver of the steam-engine appeared, and nearly completed the object for which they had all united.

Lord Brougham says, that "previous to the time of Watt, not only had no means ever been found of using steam-power for any purpose but that of drawing up water, but even in that operation it was defective, and very expensive... The great consumption of fuel it required was its chief

...

defect; the other imperfection was its loss of all direct benefit from the expansive force of the steam itself. That element could only be used in creating a vacuum; and an air-pump might have done as much, had it been worked by water or by horses. It was, in the strict sense of the word, an air and not a steam engine." At such a period of steam-history James Watt was a mathematical instrument-maker in the town of Glasgow. At that time there were a number of eminent men Professors at the University. The Glasgow Body of Arts and Trades had refused Watt permission to follow his calling in their city, as he was not a freeman of their guild. He was denied the use of a small workshop; but the members of the University gave him one within its walls, and appointed him their instrument-maker. Some of these works are still preserved as memorials of the workman whose name became so distinguished. One of the eminent men who were then students at that University, Professor Robison, who became his great friend, thus speaks of James Watt when he was a young man in his workshop:-"When I first was introduced to Mr. Watt, I saw a workman, and expected no more; but was surprised to find a philosopher, as young as myself, and always ready to instruct me. . . . Whenever any puzzle came in the way of us students, we always went to Mr. Watt." All this time Watt was devoted throughout the day to his business; it was only late in the evening, or at night, that he prosecuted his studies; and while he suspended his trade to give assistance or information to the young students who sought for either, he did not suffer his love of reading, or philosophical research, to interfere with the daily labours on which his living depended. There chanced to be among the apparatus by which the Professor of Natural Philosophy illustrated his lectures in the University, a model of the steam-engine made by Newcomen and Cawley, and known as Newcomen's engine. This little engine, from some defect in the workmanship, did not act properly, and it was sent to Mr. Watt to be set to rights. To this apparently trivial accident the civilized world is perhaps indebted for the discoveries and improvements made by James Watt with respect to the use of steam. The defects in the construction of the engine engaged his attention, and these observations led him to make a variety of experiments upon steam. In the University he had witnessed the experiments on heat made by Professor Black, and had learned from him the true cause of evaporation and condensation. When, therefore, he began to experiment upon the mechanical application of steam, he possessed the advantage of thoroughly knowing the principles on which its changes and action depended. His own experiments now put him in possession of the causes which determine the rapidity of evaporation, the proportion which it bears to the surface exposed to the fire, the effects of pressure on the boiling point, the quantity of fuel required to convert a given quantity of water into steam-circumstances which had hitherto been vaguely understood, and generally examined, but which he now reduced to mathematical precision. Continuing his experiments and labours with patient perseverance, he soon arrived at the conviction that one-fourth (or one quarter) of the fuel consumed by Newcomen's engine would be sufficient to work one with his improvements; and finally, before two years had quite expired from the time when the model engine was sent to him to be repaired, Watt had formed one on a nearly new plan, which he was satisfied was "of incalculable power, universal application, and inestimable value." "His investi

gations," says an eminent scientific Frenchman, "might have occupied the lifetime of a laborious philosopher, while Watt brought his numerous and

difficult researches to an end without ever suffering them to interfere with the daily labours of his workshop."

"One would expect," adds the same writer, Monsieur Arago, "that such an engine would at once supersede, as a draining machine, the very expensive one of Newcomen; but this was not the case.' The reason

was, that Watt had not money to bring out his invention himself in such a way as would recommend it to the public, or to secure his right in it by taking out a patent before he made it generally known. For a considerable time it consequently lay useless, while the inventor was employed as an engineer in the grand works then carrying on in Scotland.

After many disappointments, much patient waiting, and at the same time diligent labour in occupations which were not shut out from him by the obstacles that prevented the employment of his steam-engine, Mr. Watt finally formed, in the year 1774, a partnership with a rich proprietor of an iron foundry, Mr. Boulton of Soho Foundry, near Birmingham. From that time his career was open; he could command money, which was necessary to make his invention known; and these inventions, when known, made money in return. Newcomen's imperfect and expensive engine was quickly put out of use, and that of Watt was employed in all mining districts. The agreement made with those who employed these new engines was, that they should pay to the inventor a third part of the value of the fuel saved by their use in the place of those of Newcomen's. The value of the inventions of Watt, in point of saving alone, can be judged of by the astonishing fact, that the proprietors of one mine in Cornwall paid him 2,4007. for each engine, in one year, as a compensation for a third of the coal saved by their employment.

The facility thus afforded to mining operations, and the greater economy with which they could be carried on, naturally gave a considerable impulse to such works. The use of the steam-engine was at first confined to mines, and chiefly for the purpose of raising the water. Watt, however, did not rest satisfied with its achievements in this way; a mind like his could not be content to stop short while so much was yet to be done. His steamengine was at work, and remunerated his labours well; but there were many improvements to be made in it. He continued his investigations, his labours and inventions, until he had discovered the secrets necessary for increasing the power of steam-engines to the highest degree. "But power, Monsieur Arago wisely observes, "is not the only element of success in works of industry. Regularity of action is of no less importance." Watt produced this mechanical regularity of action in the steam-engine by the invention of the apparatus appropriately termed "the governor," which regulates the quantity of steam admitted from the boiler to the cylinder. By the means of this, and other curious inventions, that astonishing engine could now work any sort of machinery, even the most delicate; it could spin cotton, as well as cut bars of iron and brass; it could grind corn, and print books; it could be brought to form the wheels of a watch, give movement to a time-keeping clock, spin a thread almost too fine for sight, or make the earth appear to tremble to its sound, as it performed its giant works.

"It is this regulator of Watt's," says the distinguished author before quoted, "and a skilful employment of fly-wheels, which constitute the true secret of the astonishing perfection of the manufactures of our epoch. It is this which confers on the steam-engine a working movement which is totally free from irregularity, and by which it can weave the most delicate fabrics,