FINAL IMPROVEMENTS AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
In the year 1782 Watt took out patents which contained specifications for the two additional improvements that constituted his final contribution to the production of the steam engine. The first of these provided for the connection of the cylinder chamber on each side of the piston with the condenser, so that the engine became double acting. The second introduced the very important principle,—from the standpoint of economy in the use of steam—of shutting off the supply of steam from the cylinder while the piston has only partially traversed its thrust, and allowing the remainder of the thrust to be accomplished through the expansion of the steam. The application of the first of these principles obviously adds greatly to the efficiency of the engine, and in practise it was found that the application of the second principle produces a very great saving in steam, and thus adds materially to the economical working of the engine.
All of Watt's engines continued to make use of the walking beam attached to the piston for the transmission of power; and engineers were very slow indeed to recognize the fact that in many—in fact in most—cases this contrivance may advantageously be done away with. The recognition of this fact constitutes one of the three really important advances that have been made in the steam engine since the time of Watt. The other two advances consist of the utilization of steam under high pressure, and of the introduction of the principle of the compound engine.
Neither of these ideas was unknown to Watt, since the utilization of steam under high pressure was advocated by his contemporary, Trevithick, while the compound engine was invented by another contemporary named Hornblower. Perhaps the very fact that these rival inventors put forward the ideas in question may have influenced Watt to antagonize them; in particular since his firm came into legal conflict with each of the other inventors. At any rate, Watt continued to the end of his life to be an ardent advocate of low pressure for the steam engine, and his firm even attempted to have laws passed making it illegal—on the ground of danger to human life—to utilize high-pressure steam, such as employed by Trevithick.
Possibly the conservatism of increasing age may also have had its share in rendering Watt antagonistic to the new ideas; for he was similarly antagonistic to the idea of applying steam to the purposes of locomotion. Trevithick, among others, had, as we shall see in due course, made such application with astonishing success, producing a steam automobile which traversed the highway successfully. In his earlier years Watt had conceived the same idea, and had openly expressed his opinion that the steam engine might be used for this purpose. But late in life he was so antipathetic to the idea that he is said to have put a clause in the lease of his house, providing that no steam carriage should under any pretext be allowed to approach it.
These incidents have importance as showing—as we shall see illustrated again and again in other fields—the disastrous influence in retarding progress that may be exercised by even the greatest of scientific discoverers, when authority well earned in earlier years is exercised in an unfortunate direction later in life. But such incidents as these are inconsequential in determining the position among the world's workers of the man who was almost solely responsible for the transformation of the steam engine from an expensive and relatively ineffective pumping apparatus, to the great central power that has ever since moved the major part of the world's machinery.