358 JAMES WATT. 



developed his taste for the beauties of nature and for 

 botany. Excursions to various mountains in Scotland 

 made him feel that the inert crust of the globe is not 

 less worthy of attention, and he became a mineralogist. 

 James availed himself also of his frequent intercourse 

 with the poor inhabitants of those picturesque districts, 

 to learn their local traditions, their popular ballads, and 

 their ignorant prejudices. When ill health confined him 

 to his paternal roof, chemistry became the principal 

 object of his experiments. Gravesande s Elements of 

 Natural History initiated him into the thousands of won 

 ders in general physics ; finally, like all invalids, he 

 devoured all the works on medicine and surgery that he 

 could obtain. These latter sciences had awakened such 

 a passion in the student, that he was detected one day 

 carrying into his room the head of a child who had died 

 of an unknown malady, for the purpose of dissecting it. 



Still, Watt did not decide either in favour of botany, 

 of mineralogy, of literature, of poetry, of chemistry, of 

 physics, or of surgery, although he was so well prepared 

 for each of those studies. In 1755 he went to London 

 to place himself under Mr. John Morgan, a maker of 

 mathematical and nautical instruments, in Finch Lane, 

 Cornhill. The man, who was to cover England with 

 motive powers by the side of which, as to their effects at 

 least, the old colossal machine of Marly would seem a 

 mere pygmy, entered on the manual art of constructing 

 with his own hands subtle, delicate, fragile instruments, 

 those small but admirable reflecting sextants, to which 

 nautical art owes its progress. 



Watt did not remain above a year at Mr. Morgan s, 

 and returned to Glasgow, where some heavy difficulties 

 awaited him. Attached to their old privileges, the cor- 



