[11] Life of Sir Samuel Bentham, 97-8.
[12] Remarks on the Introduction of the Slide Principle in Tools and Machines employed in the Production of Machinery, in Buchanan's Practical Essays on Mill Work and other Machinery. 3rd ed. p. 397.
[13] So far as words and drawings can serve to describe the block-making machinery, it will be found very ably described by Mr. Farey in his article under this head in Rees's Cyclopaedia, and by Dr. Brewster in the Edinburgh Cyclopaedia. A very good account will also be found in Tomlinson's Cyclopaedia of the Useful Arts, Art. "Block."
[14] The remuneration paid to Mr. Brunel for his share in the invention was only one year's savings, which, however, were estimated by Sir Samuel Bentham at 17,663L.; besides which a grant of 5000L. was afterwards made to Brunel when labouring under pecuniary difficulties. But the ANNUAL saving to the nation by the adoption of the block-making machinery was probably more than the entire sum paid to the engineer. Brunel afterwards invented other wood-working machinery, but none to compare in merit and excellence with the above, For further particulars of his career, see BEAMISH'S Memoirs of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, C.E. London. 1862.
[15] Among the last works executed by the firm during Mr. Maudslay's lifetime was the famous Shield employed by his friend Brunel in carrying forward the excavation of the Thames Tunnel. He also supplied the pumping-engines for the same great work, the completion of which he did not live to see.
[16] His principal patent's were—two, taken out in 1805 and 1808, while in Margaret Street, for printing calicoes (Nos. 2872 and 3117); one taken out in 1806, in conjunction with Mr. Donkin, for lifting heavy weights (2948); one taken out in 1807, while still in Margaret Street, for improvements in the steam-engine, reducing its parts and rendering it more compact and portable (3050); another, taken out in conjunction with Robert Dickinson in 1812, for sweetening water and other liquids (3538); and, lastly, a patent taken out in conjunction with Joshua Field in 1824 for preventing concentration of brine in boilers (5021).
CHAPTER XIII.
JOSEPH CLEMENT.
"It is almost impossible to over-estimate the importance of these inventions. The Greeks would have elevated their authors among the gods; nor will the enlightened judgment of modern times deny them the place among their fellow-men which is so undeniably their due."—Edinburgh Review.
That Skill in mechanical contrivance is a matter of education and training as well as of inborn faculty, is clear from the fact of so many of our distinguished mechanics undergoing the same kind of practical discipline, and perhaps still more so from the circumstance of so many of them passing through the same workshops. Thus Maudslay and Clement were trained in the workshops of Bramah; and Roberts, Whitworth, Nasmyth, and others, were trained in those of Maudslay.