384 



JAMES WATT. 



House of Lords; an English engineer; finally, a French 

 doctor, of the Royal Society of London;* for, we must 

 acknowledge it, Papin, almost always exiled, was only a 

 correspondent of our Academy. Now, however, simple 

 artisans, mere workmen, will enter the list. All classes 

 of society will thus have concurred towards the crea 

 tion of a machine by which the whole world was to 

 benefit. 



In 1705, fifteen years after the publication of Papin s 

 first memoir in the Acts of Leipzig, Newcomen and 

 Cawley, one of them a hardware man, the other a gla 

 zier at Dartmouth, in Devonshire, constructed (be pleased 

 to observe that I did not say projected, for the difference 

 is great), constructed a machine intended to effect drain 

 age, and in which there was a separate caldron for gener 

 ating the steam. This machine, as well as Papin s small 

 model, has a vertical metal cylinder, closed at the bottom, 

 open at the top, with a well-adjusted piston, intended to 

 travel from end to end, both rising and falling. Both in 

 the one apparatus and in the other, when the steam can 

 freely reach the base of the cylinder, fill it, and thus 

 counterbalance the pressure of the external atmosphere, 

 the ascending movement of the piston is effected by a 



^po r&amp;gt; DeniS ?apin was i^imately connected with 



the Koyal Society and its illustrious president, Newton, since he held 

 the office of curator to that body, on a salary of forty pounds per 

 annum It is to be regretted that the funds of the Society, then, were 

 so low that some of Papin s offered experiments seem to have hung 

 fire, on account of the expenses amounting to fifteen pounds ! Newton 

 reported favourably on the proposal; and Papin said, &quot;I am fully per- 

 suaded that Esquire Savery is so well-minded for the public good that 

 he will desire, as much as anybody, that this may be done.&quot; It is a 

 singular incident in the history of the wonderful engine, that though 

 Papin invented the safety-valve, he did not apply it to his steam-ml 

 chine. Translator. 



