THE INCORPORATORS l8l 



while waiting for some new opening, he occupied himself by 

 constructing a printing press and publishing a small newspaper. 

 At the age of eighteen he resolved to leave his native village and 

 seek his fortune in the world. Accompanied by two friends, he 

 made his way down the Juniata River to Harrisburg in a boat 

 which he had constructed as a model of a man-of-war, and hence 

 proceeded to Philadelphia. Here he obtained employment for a 

 short period as a watchmaker and afterwards as an engraver. 

 Later he became associated with Isaiah Lukens, a noted 

 machinist, and at this time constructed an astronomical clock 

 with a compensating pendulum and an escapement of his own 

 devising, and also constructed the town clock of Philadelphia. 



His inventive ingenuity led to his election to membership in 

 the Franklin Institute, where he came into contact with many 

 prominent men of science. Having resolved to visit London, he 

 accumulated savings sufficient for the purpose and about the 

 year 1831 proceeded on his journey. The banking house in 

 which he had deposited his money stopped payment soon after his 

 arrival in London, and he was compelled to seek employment. 

 He found an opening in the recently-established institution of 

 practical science known as the Adelaide Gallery, where new 

 scientific instruments and apparatus were exhibited by inventors 

 and manufacturers. Here Saxton quickly rose to notice by a 

 series of inventions, some of them of practical importance and 

 others interesting as ingeniously devised scientific toys. Among 

 these was a large magnet, a diving bell, an ingenious toy known 

 as " the paradoxical head," and a series of miniature vessels 

 moved by concealed clock work. Having made the acquaintance 

 of a number of prominent English engineers and mechanicians, 

 he was introduced into the Royal Institution and entered into 

 friendly relationships with Michael Faraday. Faraday had 

 already discovered induction currents, but it remained for Sax- 

 ton to invent an instrument to make their effects manifest. This 

 he did in an ingenious manner, and by means of the instrument 

 which he constructed he decomposed water, exhibited a power- 

 ful spark, and an electrical light between carbons. The instru- 



