260 



DISCOVERY 



en. 



of the lamp in its original form, and made it an 

 efficient protection against the dangers of fire-damp in 

 mines. 



The combination of mechanical ingenuity with 

 scientific genius is rare ; two men in whom it was notably 

 manifest were James Watt and Lord Kelvin. Watt 

 was of an inquiring turn of mind from his boyhood. 

 The story is told that, sitting one evening with his aunt, 

 Mrs. Muirhead, the latter said : " James Watt, I never 

 saw such an idle boy ; take a book or employ yourself 

 usefully ; for the last hour you have not spoken one 

 word, but taken the lid off that kettle and put it on again, 

 holding now a cup and now a silver spoon over the steam, 

 watching how it rises from the spout, and catching and 

 connecting the drops of hot water. Are you not 

 ashamed of spending your time in this way ?" Whilst 

 thus blamed for his idleness, his active mind was busy 

 in investigating the properties of steam, and he was 

 then only fifteen years old ! He also busied himself 

 with chemical experiments, repeating them till satisfied 

 of their accuracy from his own observations. As an 

 instance of his versatility in all kinds of instrumental 

 work, he was asked, amongst other things, to make an 

 organ for a Masonic Lodge in Glasgow. A lecturer at 

 Glasgow University wrote to a friend : 



We imagine that Mr. Watt could do anything ; and though 

 we all knew that he did not know one musical note from another, 

 he was asked if he could build this organ. He said, " Yes," but 

 he began by building a very small one for his friend, Dr. Black. 

 ... In doing this a thousand things occurred to him which no 

 organ builder ever dreamed of nice indicators of the strength 

 of the blast, regulators of it, etc. . . . 



Steam had been used to drive engines long before 

 the time when Watt devoted attention to the subject. 



