JAMES WATT. 45 



Watt's inexhaustible ingenuity displayed itself in various other 

 contrivances beside those which make part of his steam-engine. 

 An apparatus for copying letters and other writings, now in 

 extensive use ; a method of heating houses by steam ; a new 

 composition, for the purposes of sculpture, having the trans- 

 parency and nearly the hardness of marble ; a machine for 

 multiplying copies of busts and other performances in carving 

 or statuary, — are enumerated among his minor inventions. 

 But it is his steam-engine that forms the great monument of his 

 genius, and that has conferred upon his name its imperishable 

 renown. This invention has already gone far to revolutionise 

 the whole domain of human industry ; and almost every year 

 is adding to its power and its conquests. In our manufactures, 

 our arts, our commerce, our social accommodations, it is con- 

 stantly achieving what, little more than half-a-century ago, 

 would have been counted miracles and impossibilities. " The 

 trunk of an elephant, it has been finely and truly said, that can 

 pick up a pin, or rend an oak, is as nothing to it. It can 

 engrave a seal, and crash masses of obdurate metal like wax 

 before it, — draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as 

 gossamer, — and lift a ship of war like a bauble in the air. It 

 can embroider muslin and forge anchors ; cut steel into 

 ribbands, and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the 

 winds and waves." And another application of it, which was 

 made but a short time afterwards, was destined to be pro- 

 ductive of still greater changes on the condition of society 

 than have resulted from any of its previous achievements. 

 It had been employed, several years previously, at some of 

 our collieries, in the propelling of heavily-loaded carriages over 

 railways ; but the great experiment of the Liverpool and Man- 

 chester Railway (opened in 1830) had, tor the lirst time, practi- 



