evidently one great cause,-perhaps the principal one,-of his comparative disregard of the further prosecution of this great practical experiment, as well as of the not less arduous one of steam-navigation, was the constant and advantageous employment of the Soho works in the construction of stationary land engines. Of those the effect was not doubtful, and they required, in order to the perfection of their manufacture, and the consequent completeness of their operation, the best and most undivided attention that their makers were capable of bestowing. It was for no want of discernment of the interesting nature of the problem as he proposed it to himself, nor, as our readers may well suppose, from any deficiency in inventive ingenuity, that he deferred its further solution; for, although he seems to have been rather inclined to prefer “a "short working-beam" to direct action from the piston-rod, and to consider the proper place for the engine to be behind the carriage to be propelled, and forming a part of it, still the "violent steam," "let out by successive puffs,”—the copper boiler, "cylindrical, with a number of tubes passing "through, like the organ-pipe condenser,"—the use of "coke " instead of coal," to prevent "the disagreeable circumstances "of soot and smoke," without, however, being able altogether to avoid "the sulphureous air" when going before the wind,— and the shaking of the carriage, "superseding the necessity "of poking the fire, but being apt to waste the cokes, by "making them fall through the grate before they are con"sumed," form a series of particulars which bring before the mind an image not very dissimilar in its principal features from the well-known locomotive engine of the present day. It appears also, from one of his letters which we have just quoted, that in September, 1786, Mr. Watt had a steam-carriage" of some size under hand," and was "resolved to try "if God would work a miracle in favour of these carriages." His experiments of that sort appear to have been interrupted by his journey to Paris in the winter of 1786-7, as well as by his finding that "William [Murdock] applied himself to his *To Mr. Boulton, 12th September, 1786. "business," without further urging the carriage scheme :and they do not appear to have been afterwards resumed. But his friend Mr. Edgeworth, (whether in consequence of any previous communications with Mr. Watt, or solely from his own ingenuity, which was very considerable, we know not), seems to have made a wonderfully near approximation to the real secret which alone was wanting to bring the whole system into activity, when he wrote, in 1813, "I have always thought that steam would become the universal lord, and that "we should in time scorn post-horses. An iron railroad would "be a cheaper thing than a road on the common construction.”* 66 66 A Mr. Edgeworth's reflections may, not improbably, have arisen on his perusal of Sir Richard Phillips' Morning 'Walk to Kew,' published in the same year, 1813; in which the following remarkable passage occurs:-"I found "delight in witnessing at Wandsworth the economy of horse "labour on the iron railway. Yet a heavy sigh escaped me, "as I thought of the inconceivable millions of money which "had been spent about Malta, four or five of which might have been the means of extending double lines of iron rail"way from London to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Holyhead, Mil"ford, Falmouth, Yarmouth, Dover, and Portsmouth. "reward of a single thousand would have supplied coaches, "and other vehicles, of various degrees of speed, with the "best tackle for readily turning out; and we might, ere this, "have witnessed our mail coaches running at the rate of ten 'miles an hour, drawn by a single horse, or impelled fifteen "miles an hour by Blenkinsop's steam-engine. Such would "have been a legitimate motive for overstepping the income "of a nation; and the completion of so great and useful a "work would have afforded rational ground for public triumph "in general jubilee.”† As a pendant to these annals of some of the earliest attempts, in this country, to effect locomotion on land by steam, we may here record the curious coincidence that, in *To Mr. Watt, 7th August, 1813. + See Smiles' 'Life of Stephenson,' p. 156, where many other interesting particulars are given of the rise and progress of railway locomotion. 1841, the subject prescribed for the Latin Epigram for Sir William Browne's gold medal at Cambridge having been "Vehicula vi vaporis impulsa," the prize was gained by Matthew Piers Watt Boulton, of Trinity College, the grandson of Matthew Boulton of Soho. The following is the prize composition, with some slight variations since made by its author: “O invidenda cæteris præ gentibus, "Dilecta Dîs Britannia, "Quantis beavit incolas donis tuos "Ne jam Sabæa terra veloces equos, "Ecce ut vaporis currus impulsus flabris "Tenet, per arva, trans fluenta, viscera "Per perforata montium ; "Quàm gaudet intus rapta fulmine ocyor "Tum dira clades; civibus cives simul, The sense of which may be rendered,—though its elegance is not equalled,--by this English translation : : "Above all nations, great and free "Let Greece not boast her Dædalus, "Machines of swifter courses. "Its iron way athwart the plain "But ah! an axle breaks, and then "Some, broken legs,-some, fractur'd skulls, "Of such mere trifles, who complains? CHAPTER XXVI. ARITHMETICAL MA NEW LAMPS GRAVIMETER -CAOUTCHOUC TUBES CESSES OF A SIMILAR KIND. By another of what may be called his mechanical recreations, practised soon after the date of the last of his steam-engine patents, Mr. Watt seems to have realised the idea, made classical by the story of Aladdin, of "New lamps for old." For the following letter to Mr. Argand,* famed for his manufactures of that sort, contains various ingenious suggestions on the subject of better reading-lamps than had before existed; and for a long time lamps were made at Soho on Mr. Watt's principles, which gave a light surpassing both in steadiness and brilliance anything of the kind that had appeared in those comparatively dark ages; and which, indeed, we have seldom, if ever, seen equalled by the elaborate contrivances so much vaunted in our own days of more general illumination. 66 "I have just seen some of Keir's lamps, but have not seen "them tried; in my opinion, they will be found troublesome, " and subject to be out of order; for the quality of the saline liquor must be adjusted to a drachm, otherwise they will "not answer: besides, I should suspect that said liquor will "have bad effects upon the oil, or upon the vessels containing "it. I am sure they are clumsy, logger-headed things, topheavy, and liable to be overset. 66 "I have four plans for making lamps with the reservoir "below, and the stem as tall as you please. The first is, by *August 8th, 1787. |