THE GROWTH OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 



>33 



28. The success of the Newcomen engine naturally attracted the 

 attention of mechanics, and of scientific men as well, to the possibility 

 of making other applications of steam-power. 



The greatest men of the time gave much attention to the subject ; 

 but, until James Watt began the work that has made him famous, 

 nothing more was done than to improve the proportions and to 

 slightly alter the details of the Newcomen and Cawley engine, even 

 by such skillful engineers as Brindley and Smeaton. 



Of the personal history of the earlier inventors and improvers of 

 the steam-engine very little is known ; but that of Watt has been 

 fully traced. 



29. This great man was born at Greenock, then a little Scotch 

 fishing-village, but now a considerable and a busy town, which annu- 



James Watt. 



ally launches upon the waters of the Clyde a fleet of steamships 

 whose engines are probably, in the aggregate, far more powerful than 

 were all the engines in the world at the date of Watt's birth January 

 19, 1736. 



He was a bright boy, but exceedingly delicate in health, and quite 

 unable to attend school regularly, or to apply himself closely to either 

 study or play. 



His early education was given by his parents, who were respecta- 

 ble and intelligent people, and the tools borrowed from his father's 

 carpenter's-bench served at once to amuse him and to give him a dex- 

 terity and familiarity with their use that must undoubtedly have been 

 of inestimable value to him in after-life. 



M. Arago, the eminent French philosopher, who wrote one of 



