James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (english reading book TXT) 📕

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 sometimes heartaches." Sleepless nights now came upon him. All this time, however, he was absorbed in his one engrossing task. Leupold's "Theatrim Machinarum," 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 against this, declaring that the inventor was entitled to remuneration. Every point was construed against the unfortunate benefactor, as if he were a public enemy attempting to rob his fellows. To-day the inventor is hailed as the foremost of benefactors.

Notable indeed is it that on the very day Watt obtained his first patent, January 5th, 1769, Arkwright got his spinning-frame patent. Only the year before Hargreaves obtained his patent for the spinning-jenny. These are the two inventors, with Whitney, the American inventor of the cotton-gin, from whose brains came the development of the textile industry in which Britain still stands foremost. Fifty-six millions of spindles turn to-day in the little island—more than all the rest of the civilised world can boast. Much later came Stephenson with his locomotive. Here is a record for a quartette of manual laborers in the truest sense, actual wage-earners as mechanics—Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, and Hargreaves! Where is that quartette to be equalled?

Workingmen of our day should ponder over this, and take to heart the truth that manual mechanical labor is the likeliest career to develop mechanical inventors and lead them to such distinction as these benefactors of man achieved. If disposed to mourn the lack of opportunity, they should think of these working-men, whose advantages were small compared to those of our day.

The greatest invention of all, the condenser, is fully covered by the first patent of 1769. The best engine up to this time was the Newcomen, exclusively used for pumping water. As we have seen, it was an atmospheric engine, in no sense a steam engine. Steam was only used to force the heavy piston upward, no other work being done by it. All the pumping was done on the downward stroke. The condensation of the spent steam below the piston created a vacuum, which only facilitated the fall of the piston. This caused the cylinder to be cooled between each stroke and led to the wastage of about four-fifths of all the steam used. It was to save this that the condenser was invented, in obedience to Watt's law, as stated in his patent, that "the cylinder should be kept always as hot as the steam that entered it"; but it must be kept clearly in mind that Watt's "modified machines," under his first patent, only used steam to do work upon the upward stroke, where Newcomen used it only to force up the piston. The double-acting engine—doing work up and down—came later, and was protected in the second patent of 1780.

Watt knew better than any that although his model had been successful and was far beyond the Newcomen engine, it was obvious that it could be improved in many respects—not the least of his reasons for confidence in its final and more complete triumph.

To these possible improvements, he devoted himself for years. The records once again remind us that it was not one invention, but many, that his task involved. Smiles gives the following epitome of some of those pressing at this stage:

Various trials of pipe-condensers, plate-condensers and drum-condensers, steam-jackets to prevent waste of heat, many trials of new methods to tighten the piston band, condenser pumps, oil pumps, gauge pumps, exhausting cylinders, loading-valves, double cylinders, beams and cranks—all these contrivances and others had to be thought out and tested elaborately amidst many failures and disappointments.

There were many others.

All unaided, this supreme toiler thus slowly and painfully evolved the steam engine after long years of constant labor and anxiety, bringing to the task a union of qualities and of powers of head and hand which no other man of his time—may we not venture to say of all time—was ever known to possess or ever exhibited.

When a noble lord confessed to him admiration for his noble achievements, Watt replied, "The public only look at my success and not at the intermediate failures and uncouth constructions which have served me as so many steps to climb to the top of the ladder."

Quite true, but also quite right. The public have no time to linger over a man's mistakes. What concerns is his triumphs. We "rise upon our dead selves (failures) to higher things," and mistakes, recognised as such in after days, make for victory. The man who never makes mistakes never makes anything. The only point the wise man guards is not to make the same mistake twice; the first time never counts with the successful man. He both forgives and forgets that. One difference between the wise man and the foolish one!

It has been truly said that Watt seemed to have divined all the possibilities of steam. We have a notable instance of this in a letter of this period (March, 1769) to his friend, Professor Small, in which he anticipated Trevithick's use of high-pressure steam in the locomotive. Watt said:

I intend in many cases to employ the expansive force of steam to press on the piston, or whatever is used instead of one, in the same manner as the weight of the atmosphere is now employed in common fire engines. In some cases I intend to use both the condenser and this force of steam, so that the powers of these engines will as much exceed those pressed only by the air, as the expansive power of the steam is greater than the weight of the atmosphere. In other cases, when plenty of cold water cannot be had, I intend to work the engines by the force of steam only, and to discharge it into the air by proper outlets after it has done its office.

In these days patents could be very easily blocked, as Watt experienced with his improved crank motion. He proceeded therefore in great secrecy to erect the first large engine under his patent, after he had successfully made a very small one for trial. An outhouse near one of Dr. Roebuck's pits was selected as away from prying eyes. The parts for the new engine were partly supplied from Watt's own works in Glasgow and partly from the Carron works. Here the old trouble, lack of competent mechanics, was again met with. On his return from necessary absences, the men were usually found in face of the unexpected and wondering what to do next. As the engine neared completion, Watt's anxiety "for his approaching doom," he writes, kept him from sleep, his fears being equal to his hopes. He was especially sensitive and discouraged by unforeseen expenditure, while his sanguine partner, Roebuck, on the contrary, continued hopeful and energetic, and often rallied his pessimistic partner on his propensity to look upon the dark side. He was one of those who adhered to the axiom, "Never bid the devil good-morning till you meet him." Smiles believes that it is probable that without Roebuck's support Watt could never have gone on, but that may well be doubted. His anxieties probably found a needed vent in their expression, and left the indomitable do-or-die spirit in all its power. Watt's brain, working at high pressure, needed a safety valve. Mrs. Roebuck, wife-like, very properly entertained the usual opinion of devoted wives, that her husband was really the essential man upon whom the work devolved, and, that without him nothing could have been accomplished. Smiles probably founded his remark upon her words to Robison: "Jamie (Watt) is a queer lad, and, without the Doctor (her husband), his invention would have been lost. He won't let it perish." The writer knows of a business organisation in which fond wives of the partners were all full of dear Mrs. Roebuck's opinion. At one time, according to them, the sole responsibility rested upon three of four of these marvellous husbands, and never did any of the confiding consorts ever have reason to feel that their friend did not share to the fullest extent the highly praiseworthy opinion formed of his partners by their loving wives. The rising smile was charitably suppressed. In extreme cases a suggested excursion to Europe at the company's expense, to relieve Chester from the cruel strain, and enable him to receive the benefit of a wife's care and ever needful advice, was remarkably effective, the wife's fears that Chester's absence would prove ruinous to the business being overcome at last, though with difficulty.

Due allowance must be made for Mrs. Roebuck's view of the situation. There can be no doubt