Memorials of the lineage, early life, education and development of the genius of James Watt

JAMES WATT. 217
American Colonies not being found a sufficient compensation for their
want of durability, when put in comparison with the more costly ships
constructed by our own carpenters.
Even these, however, of the vastly increased size of from 300 to
500 tons burden, were, in the progress of events, destined to give way
before the irresistible exigencies of Steam Navigation. The adapta-
tion of this great power to the purposes of sea-communication, attended
as it has been by such results and achievements as have been witnessed
within the last few years, may be justly regarded as one of the most
wonderful triumphs of human ingenuity. If the mere suggestion of
the practicability of such an application of Steam were to be held as
entitling the individual to the grand merit of this discovery, there are,
undoubtedly, in this and other countries, many names in whose favour
the claim might, with justice, be decided. Even among the large
number who were eager and sanguine experimenters in this new field,
there were those who deserve the highest praise, — the failure of whose
efforts was, in a great measure perhaps, attributable rather to the then
state of the subaltern arts, and their consequent incapacity to execute
their plans, than to anything really visionary in the views of their
resolute projectors. We smile now at the thought of a Steamboat
Cylinder and Boilers attempted to be made in the shop of a Brazier ;
— or the curious and intricate piecings of a Steam Engine forged under
the rough blows of an Anchor-smith's hammer, or, still more, con-
structed under the delicate operations of a Mathematical Instrument-
maker's tools. And yet such was very much the character of the
dernier-ressort of non-professional experimenters, in their often laudable
efforts, in the earliest stages of the mighty and impending change.
Without occupying attention here with any of the numerous experi-
ments, from 1782 to 1786, — which, besides their being unattended by
any definite results, were, in general, of a description too vague to
allow of any very distinct conception being formed of their character,
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