James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (english reading book TXT) π
It is at this stage the steam and kettle story takes its rise. Mrs. Campbell, Watt's cousin and constant companion, recounts, in her memoranda, written in 1798:
Sitting one evening with his aunt, Mrs. Muirhead, at the tea-table, she said: "James Watt, I never saw such an idle boy; take a book or employ yourself usefully; for the last hour you have not spoken one word, but taken off the lid of that kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and now a silver spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, and catching and connecting the drops of hot water it falls into. Are you not ashamed of spending your time in this way?"
To what extent the precocious boy ruminated upon the phenomenon must be left to conjecture. Enough that the story has a solid foundation upon which we can build. This more than justifies us in classing it with "Newton and the Apple," "Bruce and the Spider," "Tell a
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We ask and askβthou smilest and art still."
Man's "moving" is found more "express and admirable" than that of the most perfect machine or adaptation of natural forces yet devised. Lord Kelvin says the animal motor more closely resembles an electro-magnetic engine than a heat engine, but very probably the chemical forces in animals produce the external mechanical effects through electricity and do not act as a thermo-dynamic engine.
The wastage of heat energy under present methods is appalling. About 65 per cent. of the heat energy of coal can be put into the steam boiler, and from this only 15 per cent. of mechanical power is obtained. Thus about nine-tenths of the original heat in coal is wasted. Proceeding further and putting mechanical power into electricity, only from 2 to 5 per cent. is turned into light; or, in other words, from coal to light we get on an average only about one-half of 1 per cent. of the original energy, a wastage of ninety-nine and one-half of every hundred pounds of coal used. The very best possible with largest and best machinery is a little more than one pound from every hundred consumed.
When Watt gave to the steam-engine five times its efficiency by utilising the latent heat, he only touched the fringe of the mysterious realm which envelops man.
Burbank, of the spineless cactus and new fruits, who has been delving deep into the mysteries, tells us:
The facts of plant life demand a kinetic theory of evolution, a slight change from Huxley's statement that, "Matter is a magazine of force," to that of matter being force alone. The time will come when the theory of "ions" will be thrown aside, and no line left between force and matter.
Professor Matthews, he who, with Professor Loeb at Wood's Hole, is imparting life to sea-urchins through electrical reactions, declares "that certain chemical substances coming together under certain conditions are bound to produce life. All life comes through the operation of universal laws." We are but young in all this mysterious business. What lies behind and probably near at hand may not merely revolutionise material agencies but human preconceptions as well. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are ever dreamt of in your Philosophy."
Latent Heat was a find indeed, but there remained another discovery yet to make. Watt found that no less than four-fifths of all the steam used was lost in heating the cold cylinder, and only one-fifth performed service by acting on the piston. Prevent this, and the power of the giant is increased fourfold. Here was the prize to contend for. Win this and the campaign is won. First then, what caused the loss? This was soon determined. The cylinder was necessarily cooled at the top because it was open to the air, and also cooled below in condensing the charge of steam that had driven the piston up in order to create a vacuum, without which the piston would not descend from top to bottom, to begin another upward stroke. A jet of cold water was introduced to effect this. How to surmount this seemingly insuperable obstacle was the problem that kept Watt long in profound study.
Many plans were entertained, only to be finally rejected. At last the flash came into that teeming brain like a stroke of lightning. Eureka! he had found it. Not one scintilla of doubt ever intruded thereafter. The solution lay right there and he would invent the needed appliances. His mode of procedure, when on the trail of big game, is beautifully illustrated here. When he found the root of the defect which rendered the Newcomen engine impracticable for general purposes, he promptly formulated the one indispensable condition which alone met the problem, and which the successful steam-engine must possess. He abandoned all else for the time as superfluous, since this was the key of the position. This is the law he then laid down as an axiomβwhich is repeated in his specification for his first patent in 1769: "To make a perfect steam engine it was necessary that the cylinder should be always as hot as the steam which entered it, and that the steam should be cooled below 100Β° to exert its full powers."
Watt describes how at last the idea of the "separate condenser," the complete cure, flashed suddenly upon his mind:
I had gone to take a walk on a fine Sabbath afternoon, early in 1765. I had entered the green by the gate at the foot of Charlotte Street and had passed the old washing-house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time, and had gone as far as the herd's house, when the idea came into my mind that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder. I then saw that I must get rid of the condensed steam and injection-water if I used a jet as in Newcomen's engine. Two ways of doing this occurred to me. First, the water might be run off by a descending pipe, if an offlet could be got at the depth of thirty-five or thirty-six feet, and any air might be extracted by a small pump. The second was to make the pump large enough to extract both water and air ... I had not walked farther than the golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind.
Professor Black says, "This capital improvement flashed upon his mind at once and filled him with rapture." We may imagine
When a new planet sweeps into his ken."
A new world had sprung forth in Watt's brain, for nothing less has the steam engine given to man. One reads with a smile the dear modest man's deprecatory remarks about the condenser in after years, when he was overcome by the glowing tributes paid him upon one occasion and hailed as having conquered hitherto uncontrollable steam. He stammered out words to the effect that it came in his way and he happened to find it; others had missed it; that was all; somebody had to stumble upon it. That is all very well, and we love thee, Jamie Watt (he was always Jamie to his friends), for such self-abnegation, but the truth of history must be vindicated for all that. It proclaims, Thou art the man; go up higher and take your seat there among the immortals, the inventor of the greatest of all inventions, a great discoverer and one of the noblest of men!
In this one change lay all the difference between the Newcomen engine, limited to atmospheric pressure, and the steam engine, capable of development into the modern engine through the increasing use of the tremendous force of steam under higher pressures, and improved conditions from time to time.
Watt leads the steam out of the cylinder and condenses it in a separate vessel, leaving the cylinder hot. He closes the cylinder top and sends a circular piston (hitherto all had been square) through it, and closely stuffs it around to prevent escape of steam. The rapidity of the "strokes" gained keeps the temperature of the cylinder high; besides, he encases it and leaves a space between cylinder and covering filled with steam. Thus he fulfils his law: "The cylinder is kept as hot as the steam that enters." "How simple!" you exclaim. "Is that all? How obviously this is the way to do it!" Very true, surprised reader, but true, also, that no condenser and closed cylinder, no modern steam engine.
On Monday morning following the Sabbath flash, we find Watt was up betimes at work upon the new idea. How many hours' sleep he had enjoyed is not recorded, but it may be imagined that he had several visions of the condenser during the night. One was to be made at once; he borrowed from a college friend a brass syringe, the body of which served as a cylinder. The first condenser vessel was an improvised syringe and a tin can. From such an acorn the mighty oak was to grow. The experiment was successful and the invention complete, but Watt saw clearly that years of unceasing labor might yet pass before the details could all be worked out and the steam engine appear ready to revolutionise the labor of the world. During these years, Professor Black was his chief adviser and encouraged him in hours of disappointment. The true and able friend not only did this, but furnished him with money needed to enable him to concentrate all his time and strength upon the task.
Most opportunely, at this juncture, came Watt's marriage, to his cousin Miss Miller, a lady to whom he had long been deeply attached. Watt's friends are agreed in stating that the marriage was of vast importance, for he had not passed untouched through the days of toil and trial. Always of a meditative turn, somewhat prone to melancholy when without companionship, and withal a sufferer from nervous headaches, there was probably no gift of the gods equal to that of such a wife as he had been so fortunate as to secure. Gentle yet strong in her gentleness, it was her courage, her faith, and her smile that kept Watt steadfast. No doubt he, like many other men blessed with an angel in the household, could truly aver that his worrying cares vanished at the doorstep.
Watt had at last, what he never had before, a home. More than one intimate friend has given expression to the doubt whether he could have triumphed without Mrs. Watt's bright and cheerful temperament to keep him from despondency during the trying years which he had now to encounter. Says Miss Campbell:
I have not entered into any of the interesting details my mother gave me of Mr. Watt's early and constant attachment to his cousin Miss Miller; but she ever considered it as having added to his enjoyment of life, and as having had the most beneficial influence on his character. Even his powerful mind sank occasionally into misanthropic gloom, from the pressure of long-continued nervous headaches, and repeated disappointments in his hopes of success in life. Mrs. Watt, from her sweetness of temper, and lively, cheerful disposition, had power to win him from every wayward fancy; to rouse and animate him to active exertion. She drew out all his gentle virtues, his native benevolence and warm affections.
From all that has been recorded of her, we are justified in classing Watt with Bassanio.
He live an upright life,
For having such a blessing in his lady,
He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;
And if on earth he do not merit it,
In reason he should never come to heaven."
Watt knew and felt this and let us hope that, as was his duty, he let Mrs. Watt know
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