6C7 



WATT, JAMES. 



WATT, GREGORY. 



CGS 



then prevalent in what was termed the cause of liberty, he sympa- 

 thised with the Girondists and Jacobins, and even took some open and 

 avowed part in their earlier tumultuous agitations, in company with 

 Cooper, and subsequently with Wordsworth the poet also. Southey 

 has recorded, from tho information of James Watt himself, that so 

 highly was he at first regarded by the French leaders, that he was the 

 means of preventing a duel between Danton and Robespierre. A 

 more public exhibition of zeal in the cause ho had espoused, in which 

 Cooper also took part, was afterwards denounced by Burke in the 

 House of Commons. The licence and excesses of the revolutionary 

 parties however opened the eyes of the young enthusiast to the real 

 nature of the principles he was supporting, and he then endeavoured 

 to mitigate as far as possible the violence which he foresaw he must 

 in future deplore. This became eventually the cause of his quitting 

 Paris and abandoning his French associates and their objects ; for 

 Robespierre, at the club of the Jacobins, insinuating that Cooper and 

 his compatriot were emissaries of Pitt, the British prime minister, 

 James Watt indignantly silenced his formidable antagonist from the 

 tribune in a brief but impassioned harangue, delivered in excellent 

 French, carrying with him the feelings of the rest of the audience. 

 On returning home he learned that his life was no longer safe for a 

 day, instantly left Paris, succeeded with difficulty in making his way 

 to the south, aud did not rest until he arrived in Italy. 



Not long afterwards he returned to England, and in 1794, as already 

 intimated, began to be actively engaged as a partner in the manage- 

 ment and direction of the steam-engine manufactory at Soho, which 

 necessarily withdrew him from political and also from scientific pur- 

 suits, strictly so called, and what he effected in the latter has almost 

 escaped notice. 



Mr. James Watt took a part in the progress of steam-navigation, 

 especially as regarded the requisite adaptations in the construction of 

 the engines, not unworthy of his name and of the reputation of the 

 firm of which he became the leading partner. Mr. Henry Bell of 

 Glasgow, who had in 1811 taken the enterprising step of himself 

 trying, in Scotland, at hia own risk and under his sole direction, an 

 experiment similar to that which, in the hands of Fulton (whom he 

 had aided), had succeeded so well in America, built several steam- 

 vessels propelled by engines of his own construction. Among these 

 was the Caledonia, of 102 tons and 32 horse-power, which was 

 launched hi 1815, but from defects in her engines bad been little used. 

 In April 1817 she was purchased by Mr. James Watt, who had her 

 machinery taken out and replaced by two new engines of Soho manu- 

 facture, of 14 horse-power each. In October he went over in her to 

 Holland, and ascended the llhine as far as Coblenz ; having thus been 

 the first to leave the British shores and cross the channel by so novel 

 and, as it was then esteemed, so hazardous a mode of transit. On her 

 homeward voyage she entered the Scheldt and visited Antwerp, and 

 was then laid up for part of the winter in the harbour of Rotterdam 

 for repairs aud alterations. " After her return to the Thames in the 

 spring of 1818," it is stated by Mr. Muirhead, to whose Memoir we are 

 indebted for these particulars of the history of steam-navigation in 

 this country, " Mr. James Watt made no fewer than thirty-one series 

 of experiments with her on the river (the whole number of those 

 experiments amounting to 250), which resulted in the adoption of 

 many most material improvements in the construction and adaptation 

 of marine engines, and in an immense though gradual extension of 

 that branch of the manufacture at Soho." The marine engines manu- 

 factured there down to the year 1854, "were in number 319, of 

 17,438 nominal or 52,314 real horse-power." 



Some further particulars of Mr. James Watt may be gleaned from 

 the two later publications of Mr. Muirhead. He wrote, in 1823, the 

 memoir of his father in Macvey Napier's Supplement to the ' Ency- 

 clopaedia Britannica ' (subsequently transferred, in substance, to the 

 seventh edition of that work); and in 1846 he addressed a letter to 

 Mr. Muirhead on his father's claims as to the composition of water, 

 which is prefixed to the 'Correspondence' of the latter on that subject. 

 The publication of his father's specifications of patents and documents 

 relating to them was originally designed and to a considerable extent 

 prepared by him ; but, from tho infirmities of age, confided prior 

 to his decease to Mr. Muirhead, by whom it has been accomplished in 

 the work already cited and described. 



GREGORY WATT, son of JAMES WATT by his second wife, Anne, 

 daughter of Mr. Macgrigor of Glasgow, was born in 1777. The moral 

 and intellectual culture which a child of singular natural powers 

 would receive from such parents may readily be conceived, and an 

 early, though by no means a premature development of them was the 

 result ; the promise of boyhood became that of youth, to be realised 

 in manhood. In 1794, when only seventeen years of age, he became a 

 partner in the house of Boulton and Watt, at the same time with his 

 elder brother and Mr. Robinson Boulton. But this did not interfere 

 with the progress of his education, a portion of which he received at 

 Glasgow, quitting that University however in the year 1797, enriched 

 beyond his age with both science and literature, and still devoted to 

 the acquisition of knowledge, but in a decliuing state of health. He 

 was now recommended by hia physician to reside for some time in 

 the West of England, and he accordingly proceeded, in tho winter of 

 that year, to Penzance, where he became a lodger in the house of 

 Mrs. Davy, a widow, the mother of Humphry, afterwards Sir Hum- 



phry Davy. The history of the friendship which eventually united 

 these gifted men is remarkable. Davy, according to Dr. Paris, 

 sought to ingratiate himself with his mother's lodger, by addressing 

 him familiarly on subjects of metaphysics and poetry, but Watt 

 coldly repelled his advances. " It was by mere accident," says 

 Dr. Paris, " that an allusion was first made to chemistry, when Davy 

 flippantly observed, that he would undertake to demolish the French 

 theory in half an hour ; he had touched the chord, the interest of 

 Mr. Watt was excited, he conversed with Davy upon his chemical pur- 

 suits, he was at once astonished and delighted at his sagacity the 

 barrier of ice was removed," and an intimacy of the warmest and most 

 disinterested nature grew up between them, which continued to the 

 very moment of Mr. Watt's premature dissolution. The initiation of 

 this friendship with Gregory Watt was one of the circumstances 

 which favoured the rapid advance of Davy in chemical philosophy. In 

 familiar intercourse with the family of the latter, they met daily ; they 

 explored the objects worthy of notice in the adjacent country, visited 

 the most remarkable mines, and collected specimens of rocks and 

 minerals. Mr. Watt continued to reside at Penzauce through tho 

 spring season of 1798. It was through his new friend that Davy 

 transmitted to Dr. Beddoes an account of his experimental researches 

 on heat and light, the impression made by which on the mind of the 

 latter was one of the train of circumstances resulting in the appoint- 

 ment of Davy as chemical superintendent of the Pneumatic Institution 

 at Bristol, itself an important step to hia further advancement. This 

 circumstance perhaps led to the error in the article, BEDDOES, THOMAS 

 (vol. i. col. 610) of stating that Davy was recommended to Beddoes for 

 the superintendence of the Pneumatic Institution by Gregory Watt, 

 whereas the recommendation was really made by Davies Gilbert. 

 The early delicacy of Gregory Watt's health, and that of hia sister, who 

 predeceased him, and the nature of their disease, consumption, had 

 led their father to devote much attention to the medical properties of 

 the gases, and induced him to assist Dr. Beddoes in the foundation of 

 the Pneumatic Institution, by producing the requisite apparatus for 

 the evolution and respiration of the gases. 



In the year 1800, Mr. Watt finally retired from business, resigning 

 his shares in the manufactory at Soho to hia two sons, under whom 

 and their young partner it continued to prosper. But as Mr. Muir- 

 head has stated, Gregory, by the kindness of his elder brother James, 

 was relieved from the details of business, for which he had little 

 inclination, and " enabled to devote his attention to those higher 

 pursuits of science and literature in which he found delight," while 

 still retaining his share in the profits of the steam-engine manufactory. 

 Gregory Watt, from the summer of 1801 to the autumn of the follow- 

 ing year travelled or resided on the Continent, whence he returned 

 much delighted with his tour, but still in bad health. 



The literary recreations however, and especially the philosophical 

 researches, which he had commenced at a very early age, aud which, it 

 would appear, had never been altogether intermitted, were now re- 

 sumed with vigour ; and in April 1804, he addressed to the Right Hon. 

 Charles Greville, V.P.R.S., the celebrated experimental paper, at once 

 the foundation, the establishment, and unhappily the sole record of his 

 scientific greatness entitled ' Observations on Basalt, and on the Tran- 

 sition from the vitreous to the stony Texture, which occurs hi the gradual 

 Refrigeration of melted Basalt ; with some geological Remarks ; ' read 

 before the Royal Society on the 10th of May, exactly a month after 

 the day of its date, and published in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' 

 for 1804, part ii., of which it occupies twenty-six pages. The author 

 states, that having been induced to repeat the experiments of Sir 

 James Hall, on the regulated cooling of melted Basalt, it had after- 

 wards occurred to him that something might be learned, by exposing 

 to the action of heat, a much larger mass of basaltic matter than had 

 ever at one time been subjected to experiment. The researches and 

 inductions detailed in this paper, it has been remarked, constitute the 

 foundation of nearly all that has hitherto been made known on the 

 subjects to which it relates. The elucidation it affords of the geolo- 

 gical history and mode of formation of the spheroidal and columnar 

 rocks has not yet been superseded, or become the common property 

 of science. Of it and of its author, his early friend, Davy, in a lecture 

 on the phenomena and causes of volcauos, delivered at the Royal 

 Institution, in a course on Geology, in 1811, thus expresses himself: 

 "Mr. Gregory Watt fused some [seven] hundred- weight of basalt; and 

 suffering it to cool in a mass, examined the results by breaking it 

 into pieces. The largest crystals were found in the interior, where 

 the congelation must have been comparatively slow. His paper on 

 this subject .... abounds in acute observations and sagacious in- 

 ferences. It was the first and only production of a mind full of talent 

 and enthusiasm for scientific pursuits of a mind which promised 

 much for the philosophy of this subject; but death cut off the bloom 

 and promise of this hope for the scientific world, at the moment when 

 it was brightest. No person attached to truth can read this paper 

 without a feeling of regret; and I hope I may be excused for the 

 strong expression of this regret for whilst I admired him as a philo- 

 sopher, I loved him as a man. He was the earliest and one of the 

 dearest of my scientific friends." 



It is just to the memory of Mr. Gregory Watt, and may be important 

 to future inquirers into the process of formation of the igneous rocks, to 

 notice here a conclusion founded upon his results in the investigation, 



