Memoir of James Watt, Esq. F.R.S. 441 



the invention of the first steam-en-iine is not well ascertained, 

 although certainly not two centuries ago. 



Men at first were obliged to supply all their wants bv their 

 own lai)our. The next advance towards our present state was 

 the empjovinent of horses and oxen. Minerva was worshipped 

 under the name of Boorviia, for having first taught the yoking 

 of oxen to a plough, and horses to tarn mills for grinding of corn. 

 — Diodor. book iii. chap. 64. 



The elements were next called in to aid men in their labours, 

 and the powers of air and water were employed for those purposes 

 that had in earlier times employed the most delicate and feeble 

 portion of the human race*. — But falls of water are oidv to be 

 found in certain situations, and the " wind bloweth as it listeth." 

 — It was reserved for the inventor of the steam-engine to create 

 a power that could be at the command of man, without regard 

 to time or place, such as we see it in our day. 



Thouah the inventor of the steam-engine is not known, about 

 the middle of the seventeenth century, the Marquis of Worcester 

 mentions and describes a machine in his book, intituled " The 

 Manpiis of Worcester's Century of Inventions," which was pub- 

 Jished in 1663. The noble marquis does not claim the invention, 

 and there were numbers of inventions, of which he gives an ac- 

 count, that were not his own. Though the marquis does not 

 claim the discovery of the principle, yet he distinctly says that he 

 had invented methods of applying them to the raising of water. 

 His description of the mode he employed, is not sufficiently di- 

 stinct, to be well understood. He employed two vessels, that 

 filled with water, and acted alternately, the water being ejected 

 with a force that made it spout to the height of forty feet. 



It does not appear that the marquis, the greatest inventor of 

 his age, did actually employ steam as a power, for any useful pur- 

 pose ; but in the beginning of the following century, Captain 

 Savary constructed a machine, of which steam was the acting 

 power, for the purpose of raising water. The captain obtained a 

 patent for his invention, and employed his machines for draining 

 the water that accumulated in the mines of tin and copper in 

 Cornwall. 



The success of Savarv was not complete; but the attention of 

 ingenious men was called forth, and with the aid of Mr. New- 

 comen and Mr. Crawley, the former an ironmonger, and tbe lat- 

 ter a glazier, at Dartmouth, in Devonshire, an engine was con- 



• Antipatcr, of Tliessalonica, addresses the female sex thus — '• Women! 

 you who liavc hithirto been employed to grind the corn, for the future let 

 your arms rest. I . is no loiij^er for you tliat the birds announce hy their songs 

 the dawn of the morning;. Ceres has ordered the river nyn)phs to move 

 the heavy millstones, and to iierform your labour." 



structed, 



