the Thames. It was the second time that this difficult undertaking
had been tried, Ralph Dodd having been the first of the unsuccessful
borers. When a large sum of money had been raised by subscriptions
Trevithick commenced boring at Rotherhithe, and in order to save both
labour and expense, kept very near to the bottom of the river; but
notwithstanding the increased difficulties which he had to encounter
on this account, he actually carried the tunnel through a distance of
1011 feet, and within 100 feet of the proposed terminus. At this point
an unfortunate dispute arose between him and the surveyor appointed to
verify his work, the surveyor asserting that the tunnel had been run a
foot or two on one side. This reflection on his skill as an engineer
excited Trevithick's Cornish blood, and he is said to have adopted the
absurd expedient of making a hole in the roof of the tunnel at low
water, and thrusting through a series of jointed rods, which were to be
received by a man in a boat, and then observed from the shore. In the
execution of this scheme, delays ensued in fitting the rods together,
and at length so much water made its way through the gulley formed by
the opening in the roof, that retreat became necessary; Trevithick,
with an inborn courage, refused to go first, but sent the men before
him, and his life nearly fell a sacrifice to his devotion: as he made
his escape on the other side, the water rose with him to his neck,
owing to the tunnel following the curve of the bed of the river, which
necessarily caused the water to congregate towards one part. The work
was thus ended almost at the point of its successful completion, being
at once a melancholy monument of his folly and his skill.
After this unfortunate failure, Trevithick commenced many schemes;
among others, his attention was directed towards the introduction
of iron tanks and buoys into the Royal Navy. On first representing
the importance of this to the Admiralty, the objection was raised,
that perhaps, in the case of the tanks, iron would be prejudicial to
the water, and consequently to the health of the crews; Trevithick
was therefore requested to consult Abernethy upon the subject,
which he accordingly did, and received for his answer the following
characteristic reply: "That the Admiralty ought to have known better
than to have sent you to me with such a question." He likewise, about
this period, contributed largely to the improvement and better working
of the Cornish engines, and to him the merit is due of introducing into
these engines the system of high-pressure steam, and of inventing in
the year 1804 the cylindrical wrought iron boiler, (now known as the
Cornish boiler,) in which he placed the fire inside instead of outside,
as had been the practice before his time.
Trevithick also appears to have been among, if not the very first
to employ the expansive principle of steam. In the year 1811-12 he
erected a single-acting engine of 25 inches cylinder at Hull-Prosper
in Gwithian, with a cylindrical boiler, in which the steam was more
than 40 lbs. on the square inch above atmospheric pressure; and the
engine was so loaded that it worked full seven-eighths of the stroke
expansively. In this he seems to have preceded Woolf by several
years. It is also stated by Mr. Gordon in his 'Treatise on Elementary
Locomotion,' that Trevithick was the first to turn the eduction-pipe
into the chimney of the locomotive to increase the draught.[45]
We now come to the most romantic and stirring period of Trevithick's
career. In 1811 M. Uvillé, a Swiss gentleman at that time living
in Lima, came to England to see if he could procure machinery for
clearing the silver mines, in the Peruvian mountains, of water.
Watt's condensing engines were, however, of too ponderous a nature
to be transported over the Cordilleras on the backs of the feeble
llamas, and Uvillé was about to give the matter up in despair, when,
on the eve of his departure from this country, he chanced to see a
small working model of Trevithick's engine in a shop window near
Fitzroy Square. This model he carried out with him to Lima, and had
the satisfaction of seeing it work successfully on the high ridge of
the Sierra de Pasco. Uvillé now returned to England to procure more
engines of the same kind, but he was a second time almost forced to
give the matter up; for Boulton and Watt, the most distinguished
engineers of their time, assured him that it was impossible to make
engines of sufficient power and yet small enough to be carried over
the Andes. Fortunately, however, Uvillé at this point met with
Trevithick himself, and was enabled to make such arrangements with
him as resulted in the embarkation, during September 1814, of three
engineers and nine of Trevithick's engines. On landing at Peru, Uvillé
and his charge were received with a royal salute, and in due time the
engines, which had been simplified to the greatest extent, and so
divided as to form adequate loads for the weakly llama, were safely
carried over precipices where a stone may be thrown for a league. An
engine was soon erected at Lauricocha, in the province of Tarma, which
successfully drained the shaft of the Santa Rosa mine, and enabled
working operations to be recommenced. During the year 1816 Trevithick,
hearing of this success, gave up family and fortune and embarked for
South America. On landing he was received with the highest honours;
all Lima was in a state of excitement, which rose to a still greater
pitch, when it was found that his engines, by clearing the mines of
water, had doubled their produce and increased the coining machinery
sixfold. Trevithick was created a marquis and grandee of old Spain, and
the lord warden of the mines proposed to raise a silver statue in his
honour. All went well until the revolution broke out, when the Cornish
engineer found himself placed in a very disagreeable position between
the two parties. The patriots kept him in the mountains in a kind of
honourable captivity, while the royalists ruined his property and
mutilated his engines. Trevithick, never very patient, soon determined
to end this, and, after incurring many hardships and dangers, succeeded
in making his escape from the oppressive love and veneration of the
mountain patriots. On their way back Trevithick and his companions
encountered many perils; they had to shoot monkeys for subsistence,
their clothes were almost always wet through owing to it being the
rainy season of the year; they had also to ford rivers, and in many
cases make their own roads by cutting down the underwood and other
obstacles which impeded their progress. On one occasion Trevithick
nearly lost his life; in attempting to swim across a river he became
involved in a kind of whirlpool caused by some sunken rocks, and
notwithstanding all his efforts he was utterly unable to swim beyond
its influence, which kept carrying him round and round; fortunately
just as his strength was giving way a companion, who had cut down a
tall sappling, succeeded in stretching it out to his assistance, and
thus drew him to land. Ultimately, after a long interval, Trevithick
arrived at Cartagena, on the gulf of Darien, almost in a state of
utter destitution. Here he was met by the late Robert Stephenson, who,
having just received a remittance from home, lent half to his brother
engineer to help him on his way to England, where he arrived on the 9th
of October, 1827, bringing back a pair of spurs and a few old coins,
the sole remnants of the colossal fortune made, 'but not realized,'
in the Peruvian mines. Before this occurred, however, Trevithick had
visited various parts of the West coast of South America; part of this
time he was in the company of Earl Dundonald (then Lord Cochrane), but
the last four years of this period were spent by him at Costa Rica,
in the countries now so well known as the route of the Nicaraguan
transit and the scene of General Walker's filibuster warfare, where
he projected mines and devised many magnificent schemes, but realized
no permanent good for himself. Among other things, having discovered
some valuable mineral deposits, he obtained from the government a
grant of the land which contained them, and on his return to England
succeeded, by his representations (which were confirmed by a Scotchman
of the name of Gerard, who had been his companion), in organizing
a company for sinking the necessary mines. Before, however, active
operations were commenced, Trevithick one day entered the new company's
offices to arrange finally about his own interest in the concern. A
cheque for 7000_l._ was at once offered him as purchase-money for his
land in Southern America. This however was not what he had wanted,
and without giving a thought to the largeness of the sum offered, he
indignantly threw back the cheque across the table and walked out of
the office.[46] After this the company broke up, and Trevithick never
realized a penny-piece from his really valuable possessions in that
country.
After his return from America but little is known of Trevithick;
late in life he commenced a petition to Parliament, in which he asks
for some grant or remuneration for his services to the country, by
reason of the superiority of his machinery, stating that from the
use of his engines the saving to the Cornish mines alone amounted to
100,000_l._ per annum; but before presenting this petition, he met
with a monied partner, who supplied him with the means of perfecting
his never-ceasing inventions. This was all Trevithick wanted, and the
petition was consequently laid aside. Thus assisted he obtained a
patent in 1831 for an improved steam engine; and another in the same
year for a method or apparatus for heating apartments; and a third on
the 22nd of September, 1832, for improvements on the steam engine, and
in the application of steam power to navigation and locomotion. This
was the last patent he took out; he died at Dartford in Kent during the
following year, at the age of sixty-two.
Trevithick, by his marriage with Miss Jane Harvey, had four sons and
two daughters, all of whom are still living. His manners were blunt
and unassuming, but yet possessed a certain kind of fascination which
generally secured for him, in whatever society he might be, an eager
and attentive auditory. In person he was tall and strongly made, being
six feet two inches in height, and broad in proportion, and to this
day stories of his extraordinary feats of strength are told among
the miners of Cornwall. His life remains a record of constant but
brilliant failures, and that from no inherent defect in his inventions,
but solely from the absence in his character of that perseverance
and worldly prudence necessary to bring every new undertaking to a
successful commercial issue.--_Contributions to the Biography of R.
Trevithick, by R. Edmunds, Jun., Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_,
October, 1859.--_The Land's End District, &c., with Brief Memoir of
Ric. Trevithick, by R. Edmunds._ London and Penzance, 1862.--_All the
Year Round_, August 4, 1860.--And other particulars taken from original
and authentic sources.
EDWARD TROUGHTON, F.R.A.S.
Born October, 1753. Died June 12, 1835.
Edward Troughton, the first astronomical instrument maker of our
day, was born in the parish of Corney, on the south-west coast of
Cumberland, and was the third son of a small farmer. An uncle of
the same name, and his eldest brother John were settled in London
as mathematical instrument makers; and as his second brother was
apprenticed to the same business, Edward was designed to be a farmer,
continuing to be his father's assistant till the age of seventeen.
The death of his younger brother, however, altered Edward's
destination, and caused him to be placed with his brother John, at that
time a chamber master, employed chiefly in dividing and engraving for
the trade, and the higher branches of the art. Under the instruction of
John, who was an excellent workman, Troughton made very rapid progress,
and at the end of his time was taken into partnership.
About the year 1782 the Troughtons established themselves in Fleet
Street, where they commenced an independent business and soon rose into
eminence. After the death of his brother John, Edward alone continued
the business until the year 1826, when increasing age and dislike
to routine employment, induced him to take Mr. William Simms as his
partner and successor.
The instruments which facilitate navigation were peculiarly objects
of interest to Mr. Troughton, and long after his infirmities were an
effectual bar to the applications of his most esteemed friends, he
exerted himself to supply the seamen with well adjusted and accurate
sextants. "Your fancies," he would say, "may wait; their necessities
cannot."
In 1778 he took out a patent for the double framed sextant, a
construction which, combining firmness and lightness, yet admitted of
a considerable radius in this invaluable instrument. After trying and
rejecting the repeating reflecting circle of Borda, Mr. Troughton,
in 1796, hit upon one of his happiest constructions, the British
reflecting circle, as he delighted to call it, an instrument which in
right hands is capable of wonderful accuracy. It is a characteristic
trait of Mr. Troughton, that in order to bring his favourite circle
into general use, he reduced its price far below the usual profits
of trade; and if he had succeeded in his attempt, he might have been
ruined by his success, for his sextants were by far the most gainful
article of his business.
With the same earnestness to promote the interests of navigation, he
invented the dip sector (afterwards re-invented by Dr. Wollaston), and
expended time, money, and ingenuity to no inconsiderable amount, in
attempting to perfect the marine top for producing a true horizontal
reflecting surface at sea. The marine barometer, the snuff-box sextant,
and the portable universal dial, owe to him all their elegance, and
much of their accuracy. Where others invented or sketched he perfected.
In the ordinary physical apparatus Troughton made considerable
improvement in the construction of the balance, and of the mountain
barometer. In the same class may be mentioned the form given to the
compensated mercurial pendulum; his pyrometer, by which some very
valuable expansions have been determined; the apparatus by which Sir
George Shuckburgh attempted to ascertain the standard of weight and
measure; and that apparatus which, in the hands of Francis Baily,
has given an invariable simple seconds pendulum. In the ordinary
geodesical instruments Mr. Troughton greatly improved the surveying
level and staff, and reduced them both in weight and price, with
increased convenience and accuracy. It is, however, in the construction
of astronomical instruments that this great mechanician particularly
excelled; here he reigned without a rival. His portable astronomical
quadrants are models of strength and lightness, while the repeating
circle of Borda, an instrument which he disliked, first received its
beauty and accuracy from his hands.
The ordinary reading micrometer, and the position micrometer, commonly
employed in the measurement of double stars, were greatly improved by
him in simplicity and brought to perfection; and he first applied the
former to dividing, though in circles and scales it had already been
used in reading off.
Mr. Troughton's larger works, such as his equatorial instruments,
circles, transits, &c., are as well known in the astronomical world as
those of Wren in the architectural; they are too numerous to mention
here, and are distributed in various parts of the world. The gigantic
zenith tube at Greenwich was about the last work on which he was
engaged, and he had just time to finish it before his strength failed.
The only astronomical instrument which is not greatly indebted to
Mr. Troughton is the telescope, and he was deterred from making any
attempt in this branch of his art by the curious physical defect of
colour blindness, which existed in many members of his family. Like
Dalton he could not distinguish colours, and had little idea of them,
except generally as they conveyed the impression of greater or less
light. The ripe cherry and its leaf were to him of one hue, only to be
distinguished by their form. With this defect in his vision he never
attempted any experiments in which colour was concerned; and it is
difficult to see how he could have done so with success.
The most remarkable of Troughton's writings are, 'An account of a
method of dividing astronomical and other instruments by ocular
inspection,' &c.--Phil. Trans., 1809, which was awarded with the
Copley medal; 'A comparison of the repeating circle of Borda, with
the altitude and Azimuth Circle'--Memoirs R. Ast. Soc.; and several
articles in Brewster's 'Edinburgh Cyclopædia,' such as 'Circle,'
'Graduations,' &c.
In the year 1825 Mr. Troughton paid a visit to Paris, and in 1830 he
received an honorary gold medal from the King of Denmark. During the
latter portion of his life he became almost entirely deaf, only hearing
by the aid of a powerful trumpet. He died at his house in Fleet Street,
June 12, 1835, in the eighty-second year of his age, and was buried at
the Cemetery, Kensal Green.--_Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society_, vol. 3, February, 1836.
RICHARD WATSON, BISHOP OF LLANDAFF, D.D., F.R.S., &c.
Born August, 1737. Died June 4, 1816.
Richard Watson, celebrated both as an able theologian, and as a
professor of chemistry, was born at Haversham, near Kendal in
Westmoreland. His ancestors had been farmers of their own estates for
several generations, and his father, a younger son, was for forty
years the head master of the Grammar-school at Haversham, but had
resigned his duties about the period of the birth of his son Richard.
Young Watson received his education at this school, and about a year
after his father's death, in 1753, was sent on an exhibition of 50_l._
belonging to the school, to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was
admitted as a sizar on the 3rd of November, 1754. All he had, besides
his exhibition, to carry him through college, was a sum of 300_l._
which his father had left him, but he set bravely to work, to make his
way to independence by hard study and hard living; his dress is said at
first to have been a coarse mottled Westmoreland coat, and blue yarn
stockings.
In May, 1757, he obtained a scholarship, and in the September
following, while still only a junior soph, he began to take pupils,
continuing to be employed, first as private, then as a college tutor,
until in October, 1767, he became one of the head tutors of Trinity
College. Meanwhile Watson had taken his degree of B.A. in January,
1759, being classed as second wrangler, which he seems to have
considered, and not without reason, as the place of honour for the
year; the senior wrangler, who was a member of St. John's, having, as
it was generally believed, been unfairly preferred to him.
In October, 1760, he was elected a fellow of his college, and in
November, 1764, on the death of Dr. Hadley, he was unanimously elected
by the senate to the professorship of chemistry, although at that time
he knew nothing of the science. Watson did not, however, disappoint
the confidence that was placed by others in his abilities. With the
assistance of an operator, whom he immediately sent for from Paris,
and by shutting himself up in his laboratory, he acquired such an
acquaintance with his new subject, as to enable him in about fourteen
months to read his first course of lectures, which were honoured with
a numerous attendance, and proved highly successful. Other courses
followed which were equally well received; and, in 1768, he printed
a synopsis of the principles of the science, under the title of
'Institutiones Metallurgicæ.'
Watson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1769, and for some
years afterwards contributed many chemical papers to the 'Philosophical
Transactions.' In 1771 he published 'An Essay on the Subjects of
Chemistry, and their General Divisions.' In 1781 he published two
volumes 12mo. of 'Chemical Essays;' a third appeared in 1782; and a
fourth in 1786 completed the work, which has often been reprinted, and
was long very popular. In connection with his chemical professorship,
Watson obtained from Government, by proper representations, a salary of
100_l._ for himself, and for all future professors. He also paid some
attention to theoretical and practical anatomy, as having a certain
relation to the science of chemistry.
In October, 1771, on the death of Dr. Rutherforth, he unexpectedly
obtained the lucrative and important office of Regius Professor of
Divinity, and in that capacity, held the Rectory of Somersham in
Huntingdonshire. At this time he had neither taken his degree of
B.D. or D.D., and by his own account, seems to have known little
more of theological learning than he did of chemistry seven years
before. Yet such was his good fortune, or the reputation that he had
established, for carrying an object whenever he took it in hand, that
no other candidate appeared for the professorship, while his eloquence
and ingenuity supplied the want of deeper erudition, and attracted
as numerous audiences to the exercises in the schools at which he
presided, as had ever attended his chemical lectures.
Watson himself, in the anecdotes of his life, gives the following
account of this circumstance:--"I was not, when Dr. Rutherforth died,
either Bachelor or Doctor in Divinity, and without being one of them
I could not become a candidate for the Professorship. This puzzled me
for a moment, I had only seven days to transact the business in, but
by hard travelling, and some adroitness, I accomplished my purpose,
obtained the King's mandate for a Doctor's degree, and was created
Doctor on the day previous to that appointed for the examination of
the candidates. Thus did I, by hard and incessant labour for seventeen
years, attain at the age of thirty-four, the first office for honour in
the University; and, exclusive of the mastership of Trinity College, I
have made it the first for profit; I found the Professorship not worth
quite 330_l._, and it is now worth 1000_l._ at least."
Watson's clerical preferment after this was very rapid. In 1773,
through the influence of the Duke of Grafton, he obtained possession
of a sinecure rectory in North Wales, which he was enabled to exchange
during the course of the following year for a prebend in the Church of
Ely. In 1780 he succeeded Dr. Plumtree as archdeacon of that diocese;
the same year he was presented to the Rectory of Northwold in Norfolk,
and in the beginning of the year following, received another much more
valuable living, the Rectory of Knaptoft in Leicestershire, from the
hands of the Duke of Rutland, who had been his pupil at the University.
Lastly, in July, 1782, he was promoted to the bishopric of Llandaff,
by the Prime Minister of that period Lord Shelburne, who hoped thereby
both to gratify the Duke of Rutland, and also to secure an active
partisan.
Watson, however, proved a very unmanageable bishop, and during the
course of his political career was singularly free and independent
in his sentiments. One of his first acts was to publish in 1783, 'A
Letter to Archbishop Cornwallis on the Church Revenues, recommending an
equalization of the Bishoprics.' This he did in spite of all that could
be said to make him see that it would embarrass the Government, and at
the same time do nothing to forward his own object. And so he continued
to take his own way, and was very soon left to do so, without any party
or person seeking either to guide or stop him.
In 1783 Bishop Watson had married the eldest daughter of Edward Wilson
of Dalham Tower in Westmoreland. In the year 1789 he retired from
politics and betook himself to an estate which he had at Calgarth, on
the banks of Winandermere, occupying himself in educating his family,
and in agricultural improvements, especially planting, for which he
received a medal from the Society of Arts in 1789.
Previous to this, in 1786, his friend and former pupil, Mr. Luther,
of Ongar in Essex, had left him an estate which he sold for more
than 20,000_l._ Bishop Watson died on the 4th of June, 1816, in his
seventy-ninth year. His writings are very numerous and miscellaneous
in their character; some of the more well known are:--an 'Apology for
Christianity,' written in 1776 in answer to Gibbon; a 'Collection of
Theological Tracts, selected from various Authors, for the use of
the Younger Students in the University,' in six volumes 8vo., 1785;
'Apology for the Bible, in a series of Letters addressed to Thomas
Paine,' 1796; and, 'An Address to the People of Great Britain,' which
went through fourteen editions, 1798.
One of the best practical results of his chemical studies was the
suggestion which he made to the Duke of Richmond, at that time Master
of the Ordnance, respecting the preparation of charcoal for gunpowder,
by burning the wood in close vessels, a process very materially
improving the quality of the powder, and which is now generally
adopted.--_Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff,
written by himself._ London, 1817.--_Memoir by Dr. Thomas Young,
Encyclopædia Britannica._--_English Cyclopædia._
JAMES WATT, LL.D., F.R.S. L. and E., &c.
MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE.
Born at Greenock on the Clyde, 1736. Died August 25, 1819.