SECT, i.] THE STEAM ENGINE. 45 



It may also be found that the vapour of some other substance may be used with 

 advantage, in certain cases, instead of that of water ; of this, however, there is not 

 much hope ; and my reasons for this opinion will be shown in treating of the 

 properties of vapour, (art. 115.) Probably some other source of power will be 

 discovered which will divert the attention of projectors, and the only one in nature 

 which appears unemployed by man seems to be that of the electric fluid ; how far 

 it may be rendered useful is a matter of curious inquiry, and dangerous in propor- 

 tion to its power and our ignorance of its nature. 



63. Some idea of the rapid progress of the application of steam power may be 

 formed from the circumstance, that, in the year 1789, the first steam engine was 

 erected in the town of Manchester : before that time the manufactories were 

 dispersed throughout the remotest districts, as they depended chiefly upon falls of 

 water for power, the more expensive one of animal force being the only remaining 

 expedient. The engines of Watt produced the most complete revolution in this 

 respect. The factories were transported from the most wild and inaccessible places 

 to towns and cities, and furnished with the means of uniting, under the same roof, 

 the various branches of manufacture ; so that the raw material is now, with 

 astonishing rapidity, converted into the most perfect cloth. 



In Glasgow, the first steam engine erected for spinning cotton was put up in 

 January, 1792, by Mr. Robert Muir, at Scott, Stevenson and Co.'s cotton mill, 

 near Springfield. This was seven years after Boulton and Watt put up their first 

 steam engine for spinning cotton in Messrs. Robinsons' mills, at Papplewick, in 

 Nottinghamshire. 



In the year 1812 (January 18) Mr. Henry Bell, of Helensburgh, completed his 

 vessel, the Comet, of thirty tons' burthen, with a steam engine of three horse power, 

 and launched her on the Clyde, at Glasgow. This was the first vessel successfully 

 propelled by steam in Europe. 



The number of steam engines in Glasgow and its neighbourhood in 1825, as 

 collected by Dr. Cleland, is 



Number of Engines. Horse power. 



In manufactories 176 2970 



In collieries 58 1411 



In stone quarries 7 39 



In steam boats - 68 1926 



In Clyde iron works - 1 60 



Total 310 6406 



The average horses' power of the engines is 20f . 



