The Discoverers

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21908, 8 October 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

The Discoverers

If you were to play a quick game of names and facts, calling a wellknown name and asking the players to say immediately the thing most closely connected with the name, you would hear, “Napoleon—France,” “Disraeli—the Suez Canal,” "Chaucer—The Canterbury Tales,” “Florence Nightingale— Crimean War,” and so on. If you called “James Watt” you should immediately be answered “Steam.” Of all the men who were experimenting with, steam 150 years ago, James Watt discovered facts that have been of most use to us since. We travel by rail or sea and are being drawn by power made on his principles; we sit by a coal fire and benefit from his experiments—for he discovered how to make a steam pumping engine work so cheaply that it could be used to pump the water out of the depths of coal mines. And in the cities we hear engines working all day long on electric power or steam power; until recent years they have rumbled and throbbed on the steam power found by James Watt.

For generations the Watts had been engineers, navigators, surveyors or instrument makers. From 1642 till 1734 lived Thomas Watt, a clever man of Greenock, Scotland. He was an engineer. After him, his son James Watt (1898-1782) made instruments, was a carpenter and a builder, a ship owner and a merchant. In 1736, on January 19, this much respected citizen of Greenock (he was later chief magistrate of the district) had a son. Before this'there had been two sons and a daughter but they had all died as infants. Mrs Watt was a devoted wife and mother. She gave all her care and attention to the new Child. He lived and was named James. A few years later he had a brother John, a much healthier and stronger baby who grew to be a vigorous and adventurous boy. He went to sea and did not become famous. James was small and delicate. His childhood Was not particularly happy, for he was often ill. At school in Greenock a teacher named McAdam. taught him well but could not make life happy for him; the boys at the school all leered and laughed at him for his feebleness in rough games. James had one delight in life at this time; this was geometry. At home his mother would lose him for: a few hours at a time. Imagine her. calling him in the house and in the yard and along the pathway; no answer. At last she would discover him under the kitchen table, his tongue out, his clothes becoming no cleaner, busily drawing I

lII—JAMES WATT

diagrams in chalk on the flagstones. At first young James was scolded for this favourite trick of his; we cannot help hoping that his mother and father were gentle with him. If poor James was bullied at school for being sickly and then lambasted at home for playing with chalk and the square on the long side of a right angled triangle, well, life must have seemed a little too hard to him.

When he was 13, James went to the Grammar School at Greenock. Here he learnt Latin and Greek and went on with his geometry; at last he was encouraged. By the time he was 18 he had done very well and was sent to London to learn the craft of making mathematical instruments. He could learn but he could not live in London; soon his health broke down and within a year he was back in Greenock. When he was 21 he began to have better luck; the Glasgow university authorities let him open a shop and work as mathematical instrument maker to the university.

The old story tells us that James Watt discovered the power of steam when he was a boy; that he was sitting before the fire over which the kettle was hanging and that as the water boiled furiously the lid of the kettle-jumped up and down. Something about a spoon came into the story, too. All this is probably just story. The fact seems to be that James was 28 before his steam ideas took shape. It was then that he was given the task of repairing a steam engine which worked very slowly and very extravagantly. If you know about these things you will understand what it was James Watt discovered about the consumption of steam when a cylinder was cooled td condense it and the smaller consumption that followed the use of an extra condenser allowing the cylinder to remain hot These are deep matters; it is enough to say here that James Watt did see how steam could be' saved in forcing each stroke of the pump and so how fuel could be saved for producing the steam.

There is another idea, quite wrong, that some people hold. They think that James Watt fixed the steam and George Stephenson the engine of England’s first railway. This is not so. The moving steam engine was Stephenson’s own idea; Watt dealt only with stationary engines. It was suggested to him that a steam engine might be made to move along a road—no one suggested iron rails—end James replied that he would have nothing to do with it Indeed, he let his house and

expressively stated that no steam carriage must be permitted to approach it. This seems strange to us; perhaps even James was not quite sure what steam would do if it once had its head on an open, road. James Watt is most famous for his inventions for steam power engines, particularly pumps. Probably not many people know of another very interesting and clever invention in quite another department. It arose from his work with mathematical instruments and came near the end of his life. With some amusement he announced that certain busts and statues were the work of “ a young artist just entering in his eightythird year.” Now, these busts were copied. Did he laboriously imitate the work of a sculptor? No. He invented a machine with a pointer to trace the original sculpture and a cutter attached to it by a revolving device; as the pointer traced the forms of the statue, the cutter traced similar forms on a block of stone placed near. The amazing thing about the machine is that it will reproduce the original in various sizes. A similar arrangement is used for enlarging maps.

After a life spent most usefully for the advance of science, James Watt died on August 19, 1819. The last years of his life were spent in good health and in comparative happiness. Always he was disappointed about one thing; he claimed that he had discovered the composition of water; at the same time it was claimed that another scientist, Henry Cavendish (17311810) had discovered this. The argument went on fiercely and is not now settled with any certainty. Probably no one miijds much whether Cavendish or Watt discovered the parts of water; everyone is grateful to the hard working James Watt for his very valuable discoveries about steam engines.

A COMPETITION

For Girls of 13 Years and Under

Prizes for Crosswords

NOTE: This week the puzzle has been made particularly easy; it is ooen to girls of 13 years and under and no others. Please state your age. Next week there will be a competition open to boys only. The first prize next week will be a set of embroidery threads and for the neatest a prize of a set of paint brushes. There will be two prizes each week for correct answers to the crossword puzzle on page 3. One prize will be for the first correct answer opened next Tuesday morning (this gives distant readers time to enter), and the other prize will be for the neatest correct answer received. All envelopes should be marked “crossword” so that they will be kept till Tuesday, when they will be put in a box, from which they will be drawn. Every correct entry has a chance of winning the prize. This seems a fair way Qf arranging the competition for readers who live close at hand and those who live far away. Write your solutions in columns on separate paper; do not send the puzzle itself. And write your choice of a prize with your name and address on the answer paper. The winners this week are Clare Molony, Westport, and F. England, Christchurch (neatest).

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