little model of a steam-engine by Newcomen that had never worked well.
The professor of physics, Anderson, desired Watt to repair it. In the
hands of this powerful workman the defects of its construction
disappeared; from that time the apparatus was made to work annually
under the inspection of the astonished students. A man of common mind
would have rested satisfied with this success. Watt, on the contrary, as
usual with him, saw cause in it for deep study. His researches were
successively directed to all the points that appeared likely to clear up
the theory of the machine. He ascertained the proportion in which water
dilates in passing from a state of fluidity into that of vapor; the
quantity of water that a certain weight of coal can convert into vapor;
the quantity and weight of steam expended at each oscillation by one of
Newcomen's engines of known dimensions; the quantity of cold water that
must be injected into the cylinder to give a certain force to the
piston's descending oscillation; and finally the elasticity of steam at
various temperatures.
Here was enough to occupy the life of a laborious physicist, yet Watt
found means to conduct all these numerous and difficult researches to a
good termination, without the work of the shop suffering thereby. Dr.
Cleland wished, not long since, to take me to the house, near the port
of Glasgow, whither our associate[57] retired, on quitting his tools, to
become an experimenter. It was razed to the ground! Our anger was keen
but of short duration. Within the area still visible of the foundations
ten or twelve vigorous workmen appeared to be occupied in sanctifying
the cradle of modern steam-engines; they were hammering with redoubled
blows various portions of boilers, the united dimensions of which
certainly equalled those of the humble dwelling that had disappeared
there. On such a spot, and under such circumstances, the most elegant
mansion, the most sumptuous monument, the finest statue, would have
awakened less reflection than those colossal boilers.
If the properties of steam are present to your mind, you will perceive
at a glance that the economic working of Newcomen's engine seems to
require two irreconcilable conditions. When the piston descends, the
cylinder is required to be cold, otherwise it meets some steam there,
still very elastic, which retards the operation very much, and
diminishes the effect of the external atmosphere. Then, when steam at
the temperature of 100° flows into the same cylinder and finds it cold,
the steam restores its heat by becoming partially fluid, and until the
cylinder has regained the temperature of 100° its elasticity will be
found considerably attenuated; thence will ensue slowness of motion, for
the counterpoise will not raise the piston until there is sufficient
spring contained in the cylinder to counterbalance the action of the
atmosphere; thence there will also arise an increase of expense.
No doubt will remain on the immense importance of this economical
observation, when I shall have stated that the Glasgow model at each
oscillation expended a volume of steam several times larger than that of
the cylinder. The expense of steam, or, what comes to the same thing,
the expense of fuel, or, if we like it better, the pecuniary cost of
keeping on the working of the machine, would be several times less if
the successive heatings and coolings, the inconveniences of which have
just been described, could be avoided.
This apparently insolvable problem was solved by Watt in the most simple
manner. It sufficed for him to add to the former arrangement of the
engine a vessel totally distinct from the cylinder, and communicating
with it only by a small tube furnished with a tap. This vessel, now
known as "the condenser," is Watt's principal invention.
Still another invention by Watt deserves a word, the advantages of
which will become evident to everybody. When the piston descends in
Newcomen's engine, it is by the weight of the atmosphere. The atmosphere
is cold; hence it must cool the sides of the metal cylinder, which is
open at the top, in proportion as it expands itself over the entire
surface. This cooling is not compensated during the whole ascension of
the piston, without the expense of a certain quantity of steam. But
there is no loss of this sort in the engines modified by Watt. The
atmospheric action is totally eliminated by the following means:
The top of the cylinder is closed by a metal cover, only pierced in the
centre by a hole furnished with greased tow stuffed in hard, but through
which the rod of the piston has free motion, though without allowing
free passage either to air or steam. The piston thus divides the
capacity of the cylinder into two distinct and well-closed areas. When
it has to descend, the steam from the caldron reaches freely the upper
area through a tube conveniently placed, and pushes it from top to
bottom as the atmosphere did in Newcomen's engine. There is no obstacle
to this motion, because, while it is going on, only the base of the
cylinder is in communication with the condenser, wherein all the steam
from that lower area resumes its fluid state. As soon as the piston has
quite reached the bottom, the mere turning of a tap suffices to bring
the two areas of the cylinder, situated above and below the piston, into
communication with each other, so that both shall be filled with steam
at the same degree of elasticity; and the piston being thus equally
acted upon, upward and downward, ascends again to the top of the
cylinder, as in Newcomen's atmospheric engine, merely by the action of a
slight counterpoise.
Pursuing his researches on the means of economizing steam, Watt also
reduced the result of the refrigeration of the external surface of the
cylinder containing the piston, almost to nothing. With this view he
enclosed the metal cylinder in a wooden case of larger diameter, filling
the intermediate annular space with steam.
Now the engine was complete. The improvements effected by Watt are
evident; there can be no doubt of their immense utility. As a means of
drainage, then, you would expect to see them substituted for Newcomen's
comparatively ruinous engines. Undeceive yourselves: the author of a
discovery has always to contend against those whose interest may be
injured, the obstinate partisans of everything old, and finally the
envious. And these three classes united, I regret to acknowledge it,
form the great majority of the public. In my calculation I even deduct
those who are doubly influenced to avoid a paradoxical result. This
compact mass of opponents can only be disunited and dissipated by time;
yet time is insufficient; it must be attacked with spirit and
unceasingly; our means of attack must be varied, imitating the chemist
in this respect--he learning from experience that the entire solution of
certain amalgams requires the successive application of several acids.
Force of character and perseverance of will, which in the long run
disintegrate the best woven intrigues, are not always found conjoined
with creative genius. In case of need, Watt would be a convincing proof
of this. His capital invention--his happy idea on the possibility of
condensing steam in a vessel separate from the cylinder in which the
mechanical action goes on--was in 1765.
Two years elapsed without his scarcely making an effort to apply it on a
large scale. His friends at last put him in communication with Dr.
Roebuck, founder of the large works at Carron, still celebrated at the
present day. The engineer and the man of projects enter into
partnership; Watt cedes two-thirds of his patent to him. An engine is
constructed on the new principles; it confirms all the expectations of
theory; its success is complete. But in the _interim_ Dr. Roebuck's
affairs receive various checks. Watt's invention would undoubtedly have
restored them; it would have sufficed to borrow money; but our associate
felt more inclined to give up his discovery and change his business. In
1767, while Smeaton was carrying on some triangulations and levellings
between the two rivers of the Forth and the Clyde, forerunners of the
gigantic works of which that part of Scotland was to be the theatre, we
find Watt occupied with similar operations along a rival line crossing
the Lomond passage. Later he draws the plan of a canal that was to bring
coals from Monkland to Glasgow, and superintends the execution of it.
Several projects of a similar nature, and, among others, that of a
navigable canal across the isthmus of Crinan, which Rennie afterward
finished; some deep studies on certain improvements in the ports of Ayr,
Glasgow, and Greenock; the construction of the Hamilton and Rutherglen
bridges; surveys of the ground through which the celebrated Caledonian
Canal was to pass, occupied our associate up to the end of 1773. Without
wishing at all to diminish the merit of these enterprises, I may be
permitted to say that their interest and importance were chiefly local,
and to assert that neither their conception, direction, nor execution
required a man called James Watt.
In the early part of 1774, after contending with Watt's indifference,
his friends put him into communication with Mr. Boulton, of Soho, near
Birmingham, an enterprising, active man, gifted with various talents.
The two friends applied to Parliament for a prolongation of privilege,
since Watt's patent, dated 1769, had only a few more years to run. The
bill gave rise to the most animated discussion. The celebrated mechanic
wrote as follows to his aged father: "This business could not be carried
on without great expense and anxiety. Without the aid of some
warm-hearted friends we should not have succeeded, for several of the
most powerful in the House of Commons were opposed to us." It seemed to
me interesting to search out to what class of society these
Parliamentary persons belonged to whom Watt alluded, and who refused to
the man of genius a small portion of the riches that he was about to
create. Judge of my surprise when I found the celebrated Burke at their
head. Is it possible, then, that men may devote themselves to deep
studies, possess knowledge and probity, exercise to an eminent degree
oratorical powers that move the feelings, and influence political
assemblies, yet sometimes be deficient in plain common-sense? Now,
however, owing to the wise and important modifications introduced by
Lord Brougham in the laws relative to patents, inventors will no longer
have to undergo the annoyances with which Watt was teased.
As soon as Parliament had granted a prolongation of twenty-five years to
Watt's patent, he and Boulton together began the establishments at Soho,
which have become the most useful school in practical mechanics for all
England. The construction of draining-pumps of very large dimensions was
soon undertaken there, and repeated experiments showed that, with equal
effect, they saved three-quarters of the fuel that was consumed by
Newcomen's previous engines. From that moment the new pumps were spread
through all the mining counties, especially in Cornwall. Boulton and
Watt received as a duty the value of one-third of the coal saved by each
of their engines. We may form an opinion of the commercial importance of
the invention from an authentic fact: in the Chace-water mine alone,
where three pumps were at work, the proprietors found it to their
advantage to buy up the inventor's rights for the annual sum of sixty
thousand francs (two thousand four hundred pounds). Thus in one
establishment alone, the substitution of the condenser for internal
injection had occasioned an annual saving in fuel of upward of one
hundred eighty thousand francs (seven thousand pounds).
Men are easily reconciled to paying the rent of a house or the price of
a farm. But this good-will disappears when an _idea_ is the subject
treated of, whatever advantage, whatever profit, it may be the means of
procuring. Ideas! are they not conceived without trouble or labor? Who
can prove that with time the same might not have occurred to everybody?
In this way days, months, and years of priority would give no force to
the patent!
Such opinions, which I need not here criticise, had obtained a footing
from mere routine as decided. Men of genius, the "manufacturers of
ideas," it seemed, were to remain strangers to material enjoyments; it
was natural that their history should continue to resemble a legend of
martyrs!
Whatever may be thought of these reflections, it is certain that the
Cornwall miners paid the dues that were granted to the Soho engineers
with increased repugnance from year to year. They availed themselves of
the very earliest difficulties raised by plagiarists, to claim release
from all obligation. The discussion was serious; it might compromise the
social position of our associate: he therefore bestowed his entire
attention to it and became a lawyer. The long and expensive lawsuits
that resulted therefrom, but which they finally gained, would not
deserve to be now exhumed; but having recently quoted Burke as one of
the adversaries to our great mechanic, it appears only a just
compensation here to mention that the Roys, Mylnes, Herschels, Delucs,
Ramsdens, Robisons, Murdocks, Rennies, Cummings, Mores, Southerns,
eagerly presented themselves before the magistrates to maintain the
rights of persecuted genius. It may be also advisable to add, as a
curious trait in the history of the human mind, that the lawyers--I
shall here prudently remark that we treat only of the lawyers of a
neighboring country--to whom malignity imputes a superabundant luxury in
words, reproached Watt, against whom they had leagued in great numbers,
for having invented nothing but ideas. This, I may remark in passing,
brought upon them before the tribunal the following apostrophe from Mr.
Rous: "Go, gentlemen, go and rub yourselves against those untangible
combinations, as you are pleased to call Watt's engines; against those
pretended abstract ideas; they will crush you like gnats, they will hurl
you up in the air out of sight!"
The persecutions which a warm-hearted man meets with, in the quarters
where strict justice would lead him to expect unanimous testimonies of
gratitude, seldom fail to discourage, and to sour his disposition. Nor
did Watt's good-humor remain proof against such trials. Seven long years
of lawsuits had excited in him such a sentiment of indignation, that it
occasionally showed itself in severe expressions; thus he wrote to one
of his friends: "What I most detest in this world are plagiarists! The
plagiarists. They have already cruelly assailed me; and if I had not an
excellent memory, their impudent assertions would have ended by
persuading me that I have made no improvement in steam-engines. The bad
passions of those men to whom I have been most useful (would you believe
it?) have gone so far as to lead them to maintain that those
improvements, instead of deserving this denomination, have been highly
prejudicial to public wealth."
Watt, though greatly irritated, was not discouraged. His engines were
not, in the first place, like Newcomen's, mere pumps, mere
draining-pumps. In a few years he transformed them into universal motive
powers, and of indefinite force. His first step in this line was the
invention of a double-acting engine (_à double effet_).
In the engine known under this name, as well as in the one denominated
the "modified" engine, the steam from the boiler, when the mechanic
wishes it, goes freely above the piston and presses it down without
meeting any obstacle; because at that same moment, the lower area of the
cylinder is in communication with the condenser. This movement once
achieved, and a certain cock having been opened, the steam from the
caldron can enter only below the piston and elevates it. The steam above
it, which had produced the descending movement, then goes to regain its
fluid state in the condenser, with which it has become, in its turn, in
free communication. The contrary arrangement of the cocks replaces all
things in their primitive state, as soon as the piston has regained its
maximum height. Thus similar effects are reproduced indefinitely.
Power is not the only element of success in industrial works. Regularity
of action is not less important; but what regularity could be expected
from a motive power engendered by fire fed by shovelfuls, and the coal
itself of various qualities; and this under the direction of a workman,
sometimes not very intelligent, almost always inattentive? The motive
steam will be more abundant, it will flow more rapidly into the
cylinder, it will make the piston work faster in proportion as the fire
is more intense. Great inequalities of movement then appear to be
inevitable. Watt's genius had to provide against this serious defect.
The throttle-valves by which the steam issues from the boiler to enter
the cylinder are constantly open. When the working of the engine
accelerates, these valves partly close; a certain volume of steam must
therefore occupy a longer time in passing through them, and the
acceleration ceases. The aperture of the valves, on the contrary,
dilates when the motion slackens. The pieces requisite for the
performance of these various changes connect the valves with the axes
which the engine sets to work, by the introduction of an apparatus, the
principle of which Watt discovered in the regulator of the sails of some
flour-mills: this he named the "governor," which is now called the
"centrifugal regulator." Its efficacy is such, that a few years ago, in
the cotton-spinning manufactory of a renowned mechanic, Mr. Lee, there
was a clock set in motion by the engine of the establishment, and it
showed no great inferiority to a common spring clock.
Watt's regulator, and an intelligent use of the revolving
principle--that is the secret, the true secret, of the astonishing
perfection of the industrial products of our epoch; this is what now
gives to the steam-engine a rate entirely free from jerks. That is the
reason why it can, with equal success, embroider muslins and forge
anchors, weave the most delicate webs and communicate a rapid movement
to the heavy stones of a flour-mill. This also explains how Watt had
said, fearless of being reproached for exaggeration, that to prevent the
comings and goings of servants, he would be served, he would have gruel
brought to him, in case of illness, by tables connected with his
steam-engine. I am aware it is supposed by the generality of people that
this suavity of motion is obtained only by a loss of power; but it is an
error, a gross error: the saying, "much noise and little work," is true,
not only in the moral world, but is also an axiom in mechanics.
A few words more and we shall reach the end of our technical details.
Within these few years great advantage has been found in not allowing a
free access of steam from the boiler into the cylinder, during the whole
time of each oscillation of the engine. This communication is
interrupted, for example, when the piston has reached one-third of its
course. The two remaining thirds of the cylinder's length are then
traversed by virtue of the acquired velocity, and especially by the
detention of the steam. Watt had already indicated such an arrangement.
Some very good judges esteem the economical importance of the
steam-detent as equal to that of the condenser. It seems certain that
since its adoption the Cornwall engines give unhoped-for results; that
with one bushel of coal they equal the labor of twenty men during ten
hours. Let us keep in mind that in the coal districts a bushel of coal
only costs ninepence, and it will be demonstrated that over the greater
part of England Watt reduced the price of a man's day's work, a day of
ten hours' labor, to less than a sou (one halfpenny).
Numerical valuations make us appreciate so well the importance of his
inventions that I cannot resist the desire to present two more
improvements. I borrow them from one of the most celebrated
correspondents of the Academy--from Sir John Herschel.
The ascent of Mont Blanc, starting from the valley of Chamounix, is
justly considered as the hardest work that a man can accomplish in two
days. Thus the maximum mechanical work of which we are capable in twice
twenty-four hours is measured by transporting the weight of our body to
the elevation of Mont Blanc. This work or its equivalent would be
accomplished by a steam-engine in the course of burning one kilogram
(two pounds) of coal. Watt has, therefore, ascertained that the daily
power of a man does not exceed what is contained in half a kilogram (one
pound) of coal.
Herodotus records that the construction of the great Pyramid of Egypt
employed 100,000 men during 20 years. The pyramid consists of calcareous
stone; its volume and its weight can be easily calculated; its weight
has been found to be about 5,900,000 kilograms (nearly 5,000 tons). To
elevate this weight to 38 metres, which is the pyramid's centre of
gravity, it would require to burn 8244 hectolitres of coal. Our English
neighbors have some foundries where they consume this quantity every
week.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] Watt was one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy
of Sciences, which body Arago was addressing.--ED.
FIRST PARTITION OF POLAND
A.D. 1772
JAMES FLETCHER
Of the three partitions which Poland underwent in the last quarter of
the eighteenth century, the first was due to the jealousies of European
powers. It was an event of great significance for the Polish kingdom,
ominous of future spoliations, which indeed followed, to the destruction
of its political life. It had been long since Poland passed her golden
age--two centuries and more. In the mean time she had undergone many
vicissitudes, yet had preserved her identity as a state.
When Russia had won successes in the war of 1768-1774 with Turkey, she
seized the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Austria, seeing in
this acquisition a menace to her eastern frontier, opposed it. Russia,
in order to appease Austria, looked about for territory that might be
obtained for her in compensation. The state of affairs in Poland
presented a tempting opportunity for interference which might lead to a
division of the kingdom. Stanislaus II, King of Poland, had been elected
in 1764, mainly through the influence of Russia--he was one of Catharine
II's lovers. His people had risen against him when Russia adopted her
policy of spoliation. Prussia, as well as Austria, advanced territorial
claims, and the partition of 1772, really planned by Frederick the
Great, was consummated on the basis of a secret treaty of those powers
with Catharine's government.