MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE.

Born at Greenock on the Clyde, 1736. Died August 25, 1819.

To James Watt, philosopher, mechanician, and civil engineer, whose genius perfected the control of one of the greatest revealed powers yet given to man, may well be applied the saying of Wellington, "That which makes a great general makes a great artist, the power and the determination to overcome difficulties." Born with a sickly temperament, and prevented thereby from attending school, or indulging in the usual healthy play of children, Watt, unassisted by others, devoted his time to study, and in retirement and reflection laid the foundation of knowledge destined to bear such ample fruit. In addition to mere book knowledge, he early exhibited a partiality for mechanical contrivances and operations, and this determined him to commence his career as a mathematical instrument maker. For this purpose he set out for Glasgow in 1754, but owing to the limited resources of the town at that period, he finally decided on going to London, where, after great difficulty, he was apprenticed for a twelvemonth to an instrument maker in Finch Lane. At the end of his apprenticeship Watt, having become enfeebled from over attention to work, repaired to Greenock to recruit his health, and ultimately returned to Glasgow, where he was established by the authorities, within the precincts of the college as mathematical instrument maker to the University. In process of time Watt's shop became a favourite resort for professors as well as students, and he counted among his visitors Professor Simson, Drs. Black, Dick, and Moor;[47] but his most intimate friend, and the one most closely connected with his after life, was John Robison, a student at Glasgow, afterwards Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University, to whom the honour is due of having first directed Watt's attention to the steam-engine. The event which actually led to the commencement of his invaluable discoveries on this subject, was the entrusting to him the repair of a small model of Newcomen's engine, which the college possessed. In his endeavours to put this engine into working order, Watt was led to investigate thoroughly the properties of steam upon which its action depended; and ultimately in the spring of 1765, after many trials and untiring perseverance, he arrived at the great and simple idea of a separate condenser, into which the steam expanded; thereby preventing that wasteful expenditure of heat, which was the necessary result of the old plan of condensing the steam in the working cylinder, by admitting a jet of cold water directly under the piston. In addition to this Watt surrounded the cylinder with a second casing to be filled with the surplus steam, for the purpose of preventing radiation of heat, and closed in the top (which in Newcomen's engine had been left open for the sake of the pressure of the atmosphere upon the piston) by putting a cover on, with a hole and stuffing box for the piston rod to slide through; a plan which enabled steam pressure to be used in place of atmospheric. Newcomen's engine, at this time used only for pumping out water in mines, thus became a true steam-engine of immense power, capable of being worked with economy, and of being turned to the various uses to which science has since applied it. For these great improvements a patent, dated January 5, 1769, was taken out by Watt and Dr. Roebuck, the founder of the Carron iron works, with whom Watt had become acquainted. Little, however, was done for some years in manufacturing engines on a large scale; Roebuck fell into difficulties, while Watt, harassed, depressed in spirits, and in want of money, was forced to obtain employment as a civil engineer and land-surveyor. Among the many works that he was engaged on in this capacity may be mentioned: the Crinan Canal, afterwards completed by Rennie; the deepening of the river Clyde; improvements in the harbours of Ayr, Port Glasgow, and Greenock; the building of bridges at Hamilton and Rutherglen; and lastly, surveying and estimating a line of canal between Fort William and Inverness, which was subsequently executed by Telford on a larger scale than was then proposed, under the name of the Caledonian Canal. In the latter half of the year 1773 Roebuck's affairs came to a crisis; and Watt, through the agency of Dr. Small, having been brought into relation with Mr. Boulton, a man possessing an intimate knowledge of business, with extended views and a liberal spirit of enterprise, an arrangement was entered into between them, and the firm of Boulton and Watt established at Soho. This was the turning point in Watt's fortunes; under the vigorous management of Boulton, his great invention at length began to be appreciated, and the saving of fuel was found to be nearly three-fourths of the quantity consumed by Newcomen's engine. In 1775 an extension of the original patent until the year 1800 was obtained. This gave a fresh stimulus to Watt's fertile brain, and resulted in patents being taken out, between the years 1781-1785, for the rotatory motion of the sun and planet wheels (the crank having been pirated by Wasbrough), the expansive principle of working steam; the double engine; the parallel motion; the smokeless furnace; the float to regulate the supply of water into the boiler; and the governor. At a later period Watt also invented the indicator, by means of which the actual horse power of an engine could be ascertained. This beautiful series of inventions in a measure may be said to have perfected the machine, and at the present time the condensing steam engine differs in no material respect from the engine as Watt left it.

While residing at Birmingham, Mr. Watt's house became the resort of many learned men. In the meetings of the Lunar Society, held at Soho House, originated his experiments on water, and between him and Cavendish is the honour divided of having first promulgated the theory of its composition. During the dispute which arose upon this subject, Watt's reply, on a friend regretting that another should have carried off this honour, is worth recording, as showing the modest dignity of his character: "It matters not," said he, "whether Cavendish discovered this or I, it is discovered."

In the year 1800 Mr. Watt, having acquired an ample competency, ceased to take an active part in the business of the firm, and the remainder of his life was spent in retirement; but his active mind, still unwearied, continued to follow its natural bent. On two occasions afterwards, in 1811 and 1812, he gave proofs of the undiminished powers of his inventive genius. In the one instance he was induced, by his grateful recollections of his residence in Glasgow, to assist the proprietors of the waterworks there with a plan for supplying the town with better water, by means of a suction pipe laid across the Clyde to reach to the other side, where water of a very superior quality might be procured. This pipe was formed of cast iron, with flexible joints, after the manner of a lobster's tail, so as to accommodate itself to the bed of the river, and fully answered the purpose for which it was designed. In the other instance he was prevailed upon, by the earnest solicitation of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to attend a deputation of the Navy Board, and to give, with his friend Captain Huddart and Mr. J. Jessop, an opinion upon the works then carrying on at Sheerness Dockyard, and the further ones projected by Messrs. Rennie and Whitby. On this occasion he no less gratified the gentlemen associated with him by the clearness of his general views, than by his knowledge of the details; and he received the thanks of the Admiralty for his services. In 1814 he yielded to the wishes of his friends, of Dr. Brewster especially, and undertook a revision of Professor Robison's articles on steam and steam-engines for an early edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, which he enriched with valuable notes, containing his own experiments on steam, and a short history of his principal improvements upon the engine itself. Among other mechanical contrivances of Mr. Watt's may be mentioned: a machine for copying letters; an instrument for measuring the specific gravity of fluids; a regulator lamp; a plan for heating buildings by steam; and a contrivance for drying linen. In his eighty-third year, Mr. Watt was still occupied in inventing a machine for copying statues, but this remained unfinished, death arrested his hand; he died in the year 1819, at Heathfield, in Staffordshire; and thus, full of years and honours, ended the life of a man who, though born in a secluded village town, and reared in comparative poverty, was yet enabled, by persevering industry and the happy gifts of nature, to contribute so greatly to the commercial prosperity of the world.

Mr. Watt was elected a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1784, of the Royal Society of London in 1785, and a corresponding member of the Batavian Society in 1787. In 1806 the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the spontaneous and unanimous vote of the Senate of the University of Glasgow; and in 1808 he was elected, first a corresponding, and afterwards a foreign member of the Institute of France. A few years before his death it was intimated to him, by a message from Sir Joseph Banks, that, to use the words of Mr. Muirhead, the highest honour usually conferred in England on men of literature and science—namely a baronetcy, was open to him, should he desire it; but, although Watt felt flattered by this intimation, he determined, after consulting with his son, to decline the honour.

Five statues have been erected to the memory of this illustrious man, of which number the one in Westminster Abbey, by Chantrey, bears on its pedestal the famous inscription by Lord Brougham:—

NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME
WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH
BUT TO SHEW
THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNT TO HONOUR THOSE
WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE
THE KING
HIS MINISTERS AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
AND COMMONERS OF THIS REALM
RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
JAMES WATT
WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
THE STEAM ENGINE
ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX.

—Muirhead's Translation of Arago's Historical Eloge of James Watt. London, 1839.—Memoir, by his son J. Watt, Encyclopædia Britannica.—Quarterly Review, October, 1858.