ingenuity enabled him to surmount, Watt, notwithstanding the merit
of his inventions, had to contend for some time with others of a
different nature, in his attempts to reduce them to practice. He had
no pecuniary resources of his own, and was at first without any friend
willing to run the risk of the outlay necessary for an experiment
on a sufficiently large scale. At last he applied to Dr. Roebuck,
an ingenious and spirited speculator, who had just established the
Carron iron-works, not far from Glasgow, and held also at the same
time a lease of the extensive coal-works at Kinneal, the property of
the Duke of Hamilton. Dr. Roebuck agreed to advance the requisite
funds, on having two-thirds of the profits made over to him; and
upon this Mr. Watt took out his first patent in the beginning of the
year 1769. An engine with a cylinder of eighteen inches diameter was
soon after erected at Kinneal; and although, as a first experiment,
it was necessarily, in some respects, of defective construction, its
working completely demonstrated the value of Watt’s improvements. But
Dr. Roebuck, whose undertakings were very numerous and various, in
no long time after forming this connexion, found himself involved in
such pecuniary difficulties, as to put it out of his power to make any
further advances in prosecution of its object. On this Watt applied
himself for some years almost entirely to the ordinary work of his
profession as a civil engineer; but at last, about the year 1774,
when all hopes of any farther assistance from Dr. Roebuck were at an
end, he resolved to close with a proposal which had been made to him
through his friend, Dr. Small, of Birmingham, that he should remove
to that town, and enter into partnership with the eminent hardware
manufacturer, Mr. Boulton, whose extensive establishments at Soho
had already become famous over Europe, and procured for England an
unrivalled reputation for the arts there carried on. Accordingly an
arrangement having been made with Dr. Roebuck, by which his share of
the patent was transferred to Mr. Boulton, the firm of Boulton and Watt
commenced the business of making steam-engines, in the year 1775.
Mr. Watt now obtained from parliament an extension of his patent for
twenty-five years, in consideration of the acknowledged national
importance of his inventions. The first thing which he and his partner
did was to erect an engine at Soho, which they invited all persons
interested in such machines to inspect. They then proposed to erect
similar machines wherever required, on the very liberal principle of
receiving, as payment for each, only one-third of the saving in fuel
which it should effect, as compared with one of the old construction.
But the draining of mines was only one of the many applications of the
steam-power now at his command, which Watt contemplated, and in course
of time accomplished. During the whole twenty-five years, indeed, over
which his renewed patent extended, the perfecting of his invention was
his chief occupation, and notwithstanding a delicate state of health,
and the depressing affliction of severe headaches, to which he was
extremely subject, he continued throughout this period to persevere
with unwearied diligence in adding new improvements to the mechanism of
the engine, and devising the means of applying it to new purposes of
usefulness. He devoted, in particular, the exertions of many years, to
the contriving of the best methods of making the action of the piston
communicate a rotary motion in various circumstances, and between the
years 1781 and 1785, he took out four different patents for inventions
having this in his view.
It is gratifying to reflect, that even while he was yet alive, Watt
received from the most illustrious contemporaries, the honours due to
his genius. In 1785, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; the
degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by the University of
Glasgow, in 1806; and in 1808, he was elected a member of the French
Institute. He died on the 25th of August, 1819, in the 84th year of his
age.
The beneficial results arising from the ingenuity of Watt have been
surprising. The steam-engine has already gone far to revolutionise the
whole domain of human industry; and almost every year is adding to its
power and its conquests. In our manufactures, our arts, our commerce,
our social accommodations, it is constantly achieving what, little
more than half a century ago, would have been accounted miraculous and
impossible. “The trunk of an elephant,” it has been finely and truly
said, “that can pick up a pin, or rend an oak, is as nothing to it. It
can engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal like wax before
it--draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, and lift
a ship of war, like a bauble, in the air. It can embroider muslins,
and forge anchors; cut steel into ribbands, and impel loaded vessels
against the fury of the winds and waves.”
Another application of it is perhaps destined to be productive of still
greater changes on the condition of society, than have resulted from
many of its previous achievements,--we refer to railroads. The first
great experiment was the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which was
opened, we believe, in 1831, and practically demonstrated, with what
hitherto almost undreamt of rapidity travelling by land may be carried
on through the aid of steam. Carriages, under the impetus communicated
by this the most potent, and at the same time the most perfectly
controllable of all our mechanical agencies, can be drawn forward at
the flying speed of thirty and thirty-five miles an hour. When so much
has been already done, it would be rash to conclude that even this is
to be our ultimate limit of attainment. In navigation, the resistance
of the water, which increases rapidly as the force opposed to it
increases, very soon set bounds to the rate at which even the power of
steam can impel a vessel forward. But on land, the thin medium of the
air presents no such insurmountable obstacles to a force making its
way through it; and a rapidity of movement may perhaps be eventually
attained here, which is to us even as yet inconceivable. But even when
the rate of land travelling already shown to be quite practicable shall
have become universal, in what a new state of society shall we find
ourselves! A nation will then, indeed, become a community; and all the
benefits of the highest civilization will be diffused equally over the
land, like the light of heaven. This invention, in short, when fully
consummated, will confer upon man as much new power and enjoyment as if
he were actually endowed with wings.
The commerce of the kingdom has also greatly benefited by the
introduction of this valuable auxiliary, as will be seen from the
following extract from the “Working Man’s Companion:”--
“The establishment of steam-boats between England and Ireland has
greatly contributed to the prosperity of both countries. How have
steam boats done this? They have greatly increased the trade of both
countries. On the examination of Mr. Williams, before a Committee
of the House of Commons, he stated that ‘before steam-boats were
established, there was little trade in the smaller articles of farming
production, such as poultry and eggs. The first trading steam-boat
from Liverpool to Dublin, was set up in 1824; there are now (1832)
forty such boats between England and Ireland. The sailing vessels were
from one week to two or three weeks on the passage; the voyage from
Liverpool to Dublin is now performed in fourteen hours. Reckoning ten
mile, for an hour, Dublin and Liverpool are one hundred and forty miles
apart; with the old vessels taking twelve days as the average time of
the voyage, they were separated as completely as they would be by a
distance of two thousand eight hundred and eighty miles. What is the
consequence? Traders may now have, from any of the manufacturing towns
in England, within two or three days, even the smallest quantity of any
description of goods;’ and thus ‘one of the effects has been to give a
productive employment of the capital of persons in secondary lines of
business, that formerly could not have been brought into action.’” Mr.
Williams adds, ‘I am a daily witness to the intercourse by means of the
small traders themselves between England and Ireland. Those persons
find their way into the interior of England, and purchase manufactured
goods themselves. They are, of course, enabled to sell them upon much
better terms in Ireland; and I anticipate that this will shortly lead
to the creation of shops and other establishments in the interior of
Ireland for the sale of a great variety of articles which are not now
to be had there.’
“And how do the small dealers in English manufactured goods find
purchasers in the rude districts of Ireland for our cloths and our
hardware? Because the little farmers have sent us their butter and eggs
and poultry, and have either taken our manufactures in exchange, or
have taken back our money to purchase our manufactures, which is the
same thing. Many millions of eggs, collected amongst the very poorest
classes, by the industry of the women and children, are annually sent
from Dublin to Liverpool. Mr. Williams has known fifty tons, or eight
hundred and eighty thousand eggs, shipped in one day, as well as ten
tons of poultry; and he says this is quite a new creation of property.
It is a creation of property that has a direct tendency to act upon the
condition of the poorest classes in Ireland; for the produce is laid
out in providing clothes for the females and children of the families
who engage in rearing poultry and collecting eggs. Thus the English
manufacturer is bettered, for he has a new market for his manufactures,
which he exchanges for cheap provisions; and the dealer in eggs and
poultry has a new impulse to this branch of industry, because it
enables him to give clothes to his wife and children. This exchange
of benefits--this advancement in the condition of both parties--this
creation of produce and of profitable labour--this increase of the
number of labourers--could not have taken place without machinery.
That machinery is the carriage which conveys the produce to the river,
and the steam-boat which makes a port in another country much nearer
for practical purposes, than the market town of a thinly peopled
district. A new machinery is added; the steam-carriage running on
the railroad, as one of the witnesses truly says, ‘is like carrying
Liverpool forty miles into the interior, and thus extending the circle
to which the supply will be applicable.’ The last invention perfects
all the inventions which have preceded it. The village and the city are
brought close together in effort, and yet retain all the advantages of
their local situation; the port and the manufactory are divided only
by two hours distance in time, while their distance in space affords
room for all the various occupations which contribute to the perfection
of either. The whole territory of Great Britain and Ireland is more
compact, more closely united, more accessible than was a single county
two centuries ago.”
The communication between England and Ireland has greatly increased
since the above remarks were written, in 1832. There are now upwards
of four hundred steam-boats sailing between Ireland and Great Britain,
and of late years the largest export from that unfortunate country
consists of her starving population, who, true enough, find their way
into the interior of England, but not with the intention of purchasing
manufactured goods, but of being employed in the manufacturing of them.
We believe that our mechanical readers, at least, will agree with
us, when we say that the benefit has not been reciprocal. England,
for her share, has been burthened with a pauper population, and her
sons deprived of their employment, by the immense immigration that
has of late years taken place. Poor rates are multiplied to an extent
hitherto unheard of, and our streets swarming with beggars--and those
of the most importunate class. So much was this the case, that in
1847 and 1848, Liverpool was inundated with paupers from the sister
country to such a degree, that her authorities were compelled to
petition government to put an end to the nuisance, and to grant
them assistance to prevent the death of so many thousands of their
fellow-men from dying for want; the poor-rates were so increased that
the ratepayers with justice complained. And we question much if ever
the English manufactures have been so much benefited by the commerce
as the foregoing quotation would lead us to believe. That we have been
supplied with enormous quantities of provisions we cannot deny; but
that the payment of these was taken back in our cloths and our hardware
is very questionable. That the money was taken back there can be little
doubt, not for the purpose, however, of buying clothes for the wives
and children of those families whose industry had supplied us with eggs
and poultry, but for supplying the insatiate wants of their profligate
landlords, who were squandering the subsistence of the needy peasantry
in another land. If any class of men have obtained benefit by means of
this increased and speedy communication between the two countries, it
assuredly is the absentee Irish landlord.
MILLS.
Corn Mills are of very ancient origin, and it may not be uninteresting
to our readers to learn something of the customs of our forefathers
with regard to them; to which we will subjoin such modern improvements
as the more advanced state of the arts have enabled the moderns to
achieve, and to excel the imperfect information of the ancients in
mechanical sciences.
In support of the antiquity of grinding corn, we may go as for back
as the days of the patriarch Abraham, who, we are informed in Genesis
xviii. 6, “hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready
quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the
hearth.” To this we may add, that it appears in a subsequent text,
Numbers xi. 8, that manna was ground like corn. The earliest instrument
for this purpose seems to have been the mortar, which was retained long
after the introduction of mills, properly so called: because they were
most probably at first very imperfect. In process of time the mortar
was made ridged, and the pestle notched at the bottom, by which means
the grain was rather grated than pounded.
A passage in Pliny, which has not as yet had a satisfactory
interpretation, renders this conjecture probable. In time a handle was
added to the top of the pestle, that it might be more easily driven
round in a circle, whence this machine at first was called _mortarium_,
by this means assuming the name of a hand-mill. Such a mill was so
called from rubbing backwards and forwards; and varied but little from
those used by our colour-grinders, apothecaries, potters, and other
artisans. From expressions in the sacred volume, we may rationally
infer that it was customary to have a mill of this sort in every
family. Moses having forbidden to take such instruments for a pledge;
for that, says he, “No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone
to pledge: for he taketh a man’s life.” It is observed by Michaelis, on
this passage, that a man could not then grind, consequently could not
bake the necessary daily bread for the family.
Grinding was then the employment of the women, particularly of female
slaves, as at present in those countries which are uncivilised: the
portion of strength required for the operation, therefore, could not
have been great; but afterwards the mills were driven by bondsmen,
whose necks were placed in a circular machine of wood, so that they
could not put their hands to their mouths or eat of the meal. This must
have been an interesting link between the hand and the horse-mill.
In course of time shafts were added to the mill, that it might be
driven by cattle, which were then blindfolded. The first cattle mills
were called _molae jumentaria_, which had, probably, only a heavy
pestle like the hand-mill; but it is conjectured, that it must have
been soon remarked, that the labour would be more easily accomplished,
if, instead of the pestle a large heavy cylinder was employed. A
competent judge has, however, believed that the first cattle mills
had not a spout or trough as ours have; at least those hand-mills
Tournefort saw at Nicaria, consisted only of two stones; but the meal
issued through an opening in the upper one, and fell upon a board or
table, on which the lower one rested.
The upper millstone they called _meta_, or _turbo_; and the lower one
_catillus_: the name of the first also signified a cone with a blunt
apex, whence it has been thought by some, that corn was first rubbed
into meal, by rolling one stone upon another, as painters now grind
colours with a muller. This is not improbable, as present practice
among barbarous people fully proves. It is also apparent that the upper
millstone was substituted for the pestle, which action may have lent it
a name, when they called it _meta_.
Professor Beckmann has followed Gori in his description of an antique
gem, engraved on red jasper, upon which appears “the naked figure of
a man, who in his left hand holds a sheaf of corn, and in the right
a machine that in all probability is a hand-mill. Gori considers the
figure as a representation of the god Eunostus, who was the god of
mills. The machine which Eunostus seems to exhibit, or to be surveying
himself, is, as far as one can distinguish, (for the stone is scarcely
half an inch in size), shaped like a chest, narrow at the top, and
wide at the bottom. It stands upon a table, and in the bottom there
is a perpendicular pipe, from which the meal, also represented by
the artist, appears to be issuing. Above, the chest or body of the
mill has either a top with an aperture, or perhaps a basket sunk into
it, from which the corn falls into the mill. On one side, nearly
about the middle of it, there projects a broken shank, which, without
overstraining the imagination, may be considered as a handle, or that
part of the mill which some call _mobile_. Though this figure is small,
and though it gives very little idea of the internal construction,
one may, however, conclude from it that the roller, whether it was of
wood or of iron, smooth or notched, did not stand perpendicularly,
like those of our coffee mills, but lay horizontally, which gives
us reason to conjecture a construction more ingenious than that of
the first invention. The axis of the handle had, perhaps, within the
body of the mill, a crown wheel, that turned a spindle, to the lower
end of the perpendicular axis of which the roller was fixed. Should
this be admitted, it must be allowed also, that the hand-mills of the
ancients had not so much a resemblance to the before-mentioned colour
mills as to the philosophical mills of our chemists; and Langelott,
consequently, will not be the real inventor of the latter. On the
other side, opposite to where the handle is, there arise from the mill
of Eunostus two shafts, which Gori considers as those of a besom and
shovel, two instruments used in grinding; but as the interior part
cannot be seen, it appears to me doubtful whether these may not be
parts of the mill itself.”
In the commencement of the last century, the remains of a pair of Roman
millstones were found at Adel, in Yorkshire. One of these stones,
twenty inches in breadth, is thicker in the middle than at the edge,
consequently one side is convex; the other was of the same size, but
as thick at the sides as the other was in the centre; the traces of
notching were discoverable.
Enough, may, perhaps, have been said concerning this original
invention; therefore this article will not be encumbered with
quotations of all those passages relative to mills, which are found
in ancient authors, as they would afford but little additional
information. Neither will mythological records be disturbed to inquire
to which deity or hero the invention was originally attributed; or to
ascertain the descent of Milantes, whom Stephanus distinguishes by that
honour, or how those millstones were constructed which are alleged to
have been built by Myletes, son of Lelex, King of Laconia; but we shall
proceed to the invention of Water-Mills.
These appear to have been introduced about the period of Mithridates,
contemporary with Cæsar and Cicero. Strabo, relating that there was a
water-mill near the residence of the Pontian king, that honour has been
ascribed to him; but so far is this remote from certainty, that nothing
can be inferred from thence, other than that water-mills at that period
were known in Asia. Pomponius Sabinus informs us, that the first
water-mill seen at Rome was erected on the banks of the Tiber, a little
before the time of Augustus; but of this there is no other proof than
his simple assertion: he having taken the greater part of his remarks
from the illustrations of Servius, he must have had a more perfect copy
of that author than any now remaining, and from these his information
might have come.
The most certain proof we have that Rome had water-mills in the time
of Augustus, is, that Vitruvius has told us so; but those mills were
not corn-mills, they were hydraulic engines, which he describes in
his works. From whence we learn that the ancients had wheels for
raising water, which were driven by being trod upon by men; the usual
employment for criminals, as may be learnt from Artemidorus. Also from
a pretty epigram of Antipater; “Cease your work, ye maids, ye who
laboured in the mill; sleep now, and let the birds sing to the ruddy
morning; for Ceres has commanded the water nymphs to perform your
task; these, obedient to her call, throw themselves on the wheel, force
round the axle-tree, and by these means the heavy mill.” Antipater
lived at the period of Cicero. Palladius, also, with equal clearness,
speaks of water-mills, which he advises to be built on estates where is
running water, in order to grind corn without men or cattle.
It likewise appears that the water-wheels to which Heliogabalus
directed some of his friends and parasites to be tied, cannot be
considered to be mills for the purpose of grinding corn; for these, as
well as the _haustra_ of Lucretius were probably like those machines
for raising water, which are spoken of by Vitruvius as _hydraulic_.
It is, however, on the authority of Pompinius Sabinus, before-cited,
that both wind and water mills were known to have been in Italy, and
even the latter in Rome, in the days of Augustus. However, about
twenty-three years after the death of Augustus, when Caligula seized
every horse from the mills, to convey effects he had in contemplation
to take from Rome, the public were much distressed for bread; whence
we must infer that water-mills must have been very rare. Even three
hundred years after Augustus, cattle mills were so common in that city,
that their number amounted to three hundred; mention of them, and of
the hand-mills, often occurs for a long time after. It is not their use
we inquire after, it is enough for us to know that they existed.