And soon I intend you may "go and play,"
While I manage this world myself.
But harness me down with your iron bands,
Be sure of your curb and rein;
For I scorn the power of your puny hands,
As the tempest scorns a chain!
The most powerful and important mass of matter on the earth is the steam engine. It is the throbbing heart of civilization, even as the printing press is its brain. It would be difficult for man to compute his debt to steam. Upon it he relies for food, clothing, and shelter, the three necessities for which the race has always striven; and without it he could have scarcely any of life's comforts and luxuries. Steam is the mistress of commerce, manufacturing, and mining, and the servant of agriculture. Steam gives employment to millions of men. It plants cities and towns in waste places. It enables man to leave the little valley or hillside where his fathers lived, and makes of him a citizen of the world. It lessens the power of time and space, and makes neighbors of ocean-divided continents.
It would not be easy for men living in the twentieth century to imagine a society uninfluenced by the use of steam; but nearly all of man's life on the earth has been passed without its help. Fire and water, the two productive factors of steam, have always existed; but it was not until a few score of years ago that man learned to put them together successfully, and to produce the greatest force known to civilization. In the few years since its discovery it has spread to every nook and corner of civilization. Suppose you could ascend to some great height whence you could see working at one time all the steam driven machinery in the world. What a sight it would be! What if the noise from all this machinery—the screech of the speeding locomotive, the hum and roar of factory and mill, the hoarse yell of ships, and the puffing of mine-engines—should reach your ear at once? What a sound it would be!
The idea of using steam for driving stationary machinery originated in the early centuries. This was the first use to which steam was put. For a long time no one seems to have thought of using it for transportation purposes. As far back as 130 B.C., we find mention of "heat engines," which employed steam as their motive power, and were used for organ blowing, the turning of spits, and like purposes. But from this early date till the seventeenth century practically no progress was made in the use of steam. Though men had experimented with steam up to this time with more or less success, the world is chiefly indebted for the developed type of the steam engine to James Watt and George Stephenson.
Watt was born in Greenock, Scotland, January 19, 1736. He was a poor boy and early in life he was thrown upon his own resources. During his youth he struggled against ill health; for days at a time he was prostrated with severe headaches. But he was bright, determined, and had a genial disposition that made him many friends. When he was twenty-one years old, he secured a position as maker of scientific instruments for the university in Glasgow. He began discussing with some scientific friends at the university the possibility of improving the steam engine, which at that time was used only for pumping water, chiefly in the drainage of mines. He entered upon a scientific study of the properties of steam and tried to devise means for making the steam engine more useful. One Sunday afternoon early in 1765, while walking in Glasgow, the idea he had studied so long to evolve suddenly flashed into his mind. Without delay Watt put his plan to the test and found that it worked.