James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (the read aloud family TXT) 📖

The patent was secured—so much to the good—but Watt had already spent too much time upon profitless work, at least more time than he could afford. His duty to provide for the frugal wants of his family became imperative. "I had," he said, "a wife and children, and I saw myself growing gray without having any settled way of providing for them." He turned again to surveying and prospered, for few such men as Watt were to be found in those days, or in any day. With a record of Watt's work as surveyor, engineer, councillor, etc., our readers need not be troubled in detail. It should, however, be recorded that the chief canal schemes in Scotland in this, the day of canals for internal commerce, preceding the day of railroads that was to come, were entrusted to Watt, who continued to act as engineer for the Monkland Canal. While Watt was acting as engineer for this (1770-72), Dr. Small wrote him that he and Boulton had been talking of moving canal boats by the steam engine on the high-pressure principle. In his reply, September 30, 1770, Watt asks, "Have you ever considered a spiral oar for that purpose, or are you for two wheels?" To make his meaning quite plain, he gives a rough sketch of the screw propeller, with four turns as used to-day.

Thus the idea of the screw propeller to be worked by his own improved engine was propounded by Watt one hundred and thirty-five years ago.

This is a remarkable letter, and a still more remarkable sketch, and adds another to the many true forecasts of future development made by this teeming brain.

Watt also made a survey of the Clyde, and reported upon its proposed deepening. His suggestions remained unacted upon for several years, when the work was begun, and is not ended even in our day, of making a trout and salmon stream into one of the busiest, navigable highways of the world. This year further improvements have been decided upon, so that the monsters of our day, with 16,000-horse-power turbine engines, may be built near Glasgow. Watt also made surveys for a canal between Perth and Coupar Angus, for the well-known Crinan Canal and other projects in the Western Highlands, as also for the great Caledonian and the Forth and Clyde Canals.

The Perth Canal was forty miles long through a rough country, and took forty-three days, for which Watt's fee, including expenses, was $400. Labor, even of the highest kind, was cheap in those times. We note his getting thirty-seven dollars for plans of a bridge over the Clyde. Watt prepared plans for docks and piers at Port Glasgow and for a new harbor at Ayr. His last and most important engineering work in Scotland was the survey of the Caledonian Canal, made in the autumn of 1773, through a district then without roads. "An incessant rain kept me," he writes, "for three days as wet as water could make me. I could scarcely preserve my journal book."

Suffice it to note that he saved enough money to be able to write, "Supposing the engine to stand good for itself, I am able to pay all my debts and some little thing more, so that I hope in time to be on a par with the world."

We are now to make one of the saddest announcements saving dishonor that it falls to man to make. Watt's wife died in childbed in his absence. He was called home from surveying the Caledonian Canal. Upon arrival, he stands paralysed for a time at the door, unable to summon strength to enter the ruined home. At last the door opens and closes and we close our eyes upon the scene—no words here that would not be an offence. The rest is silence.

Watt tried to play the man, but he would have been less than man if the ruin of his home had not made him a changed man. The recovery of mental equipoise proved for a time quite beyond his power. He could do all that man could do, "who could do more is none." The light of his life had gone out.

Boulton Partnership

After Watt was restored to himself the first subject which we find attracting him was the misfortunes of Roebuck, whose affairs were now in the hands of his creditors. "My heart bleeds for him," says Watt, "but I can do nothing to help him. I have stuck by him, indeed, until I have hurt myself." Roebuck's affairs were far too vast to be affected by all that Watt had or could have borrowed. For the thousand pounds Watt had paid on Roebuck's account to secure the patent, he was still in debt to Black. This was subsequently paid, however, with interest, when Watt became prosperous.

We now bid farewell to Roebuck with genuine regret. He had proved himself a fine character throughout, just the kind of partner Watt needed. It was a great pity that he had to relinquish his interest in the patent, when, as we shall see, it would soon have saved him from bankruptcy and secured him a handsome competence. He must ever rank as one of the men almost indispensable to Watt in the development of his engine, and a dear, true friend.

The darkest hour comes before the dawn, and so it proved here. As Roebuck retired, there appeared a star of hope of the first magnitude, in no less a person than the celebrated Matthew Boulton of Birmingham, of whom we must say a few words by way of introduction to our readers, for in all the world there was not his equal as a partner for Watt, who was ever fortunate in his friends. Of course Watt was sure to have friends, for he was through and through the devoted friend himself, and won the hearts of those worth winning. "If you wish to make a friend, be one," is the sure recipe.

Boulton was not only obviously the right man but he came from the right place, for Birmingham was the headquarters of mechanical industry. At this time, 1776, there was at last a good road to London. As late as 1747 the coach was advertised to run there in two days only "if the roads permit."

If skilled mechanics, Watt's greatest need, were to be found anywhere, it was here in the centre of mechanical skill, and especially was it in the celebrated works of Boulton, which had been bequeathed from worthy sire to worthy son, to be largely extended and more than ever preëminent.

Boulton left school early to engage in his father's business. When only seventeen years old, he had made several improvements in the manufacture of buttons, watch chains, and various trinkets, and had invented the inlaid steel buckles, which became so fashionable. It is stated that in that early day it was found necessary to export them in large quantities to France to be returned and sold in Britain as the latest productions of French skill and taste. It is well to get a glimpse of human nature as seen here. Fashion decides for a time with supreme indifference to quality. It is a question of the name.

At his father's death, the son inherited the business. Great credit belongs to him for unceasingly laboring to improve the quality of his products and especially to raise the artistic standard, then so low as to have already caused "Brummagem" to