54 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 



acquired, his entire devotion to his profession, and the 

 wonderful talent for mechanical invention of which almost 

 every piece of machinery he constructed gave evidence, he 

 could not fail to succeed. But for some time, of course, he 

 was known only in the neighbourhood of the place where 

 he lived. His connections, however, gradually became more 

 and more extensive, and at length he began to undertake 

 engineering in all its branches. He distinguished himself 

 greatly in 1752 by the erection of a water-engine for draining 

 a coal mine at Clifton in Lancashire. The great difficulty 

 in this case was to obtain a supply of water for working 

 the engine ; this he brought through a tunnel of six hundred 

 yards in length, cut in the solid rock. It would appear, 

 however, that his genius was not yet quite appreciated as it 

 deserved to be, even by those who employed him. He was 

 in some sort an intruder into his present profession, foi 

 which he had not been regularly educated ; and it was 

 natural enough that, before his great powers had had an 

 opportunity of showing themselves, and commanding the 

 ■universal admiration of those best qualified to judge of 

 them, he should have been conceived by many to be rather 

 a merely clever workman in a few particular departments, 

 than one who could be safely entrusted with the entire 

 management and superintendence of a complicated design. 

 In 1755 it was determined to erect a new silk-mill at Congle- 

 ton, in Cheshire ; and, another person having been appointed 

 to preside over the execution of the work, and to arrange 

 the more intricate combinations, Brindley was engaged to 

 fabricate the larger wheels and other coarser parts of the 

 apparatus. It soon became manifest, however, in this in- 

 stance, that the superintendent was unfit for his office, and 



