WATT. 359 



plan he executed, but he certainly made no step himself. 

 If the direct force of steam, as well as atmospheric 

 pressure, had been both employed, with the jet of cold 

 water, the safety-valve, and the contrivance for regu- 

 lating the supply-valves, a far better engine than any 

 ever known before the time of Watt would have been 

 produced, and yet nothing whatever would have been 

 added to the former inventions ; they would only have 

 been combined together. The result of the whole is, 

 that one of the greatest theoretical steps was made by 

 Papin, who was, during a long period, little commemo- 

 rated; and that Savery and Newcomen, who have been by 

 many called the inventors, were the first of all the inge- 

 nious and useful persons whose successive improvements 

 we have now recorded, to apply the steam-engine to 

 practical purposes. France has thus produced the man 

 who, next to Watt, must be regarded as the author of 

 the steam-engine : of all Watt's predecessors, Papin 

 stands incontestably at the head ; but it is almost cer- 

 tain that he never actually constructed an engine. 

 Though the engine of Savery was of considerable use 

 in pumping to a small height, and indeed has not 

 entirely gone out of use even in our own times, and 

 though Newcomen's was still more extensively useful 

 from being applicable to mines, not only had no 

 means ever been found of using the steam power for 

 any other purpose than drawing up water, but even in 

 that operation it was exceedingly imperfect and very 

 expensive, insomuch that a water power was often 

 preferred to it, and even a horse power in many cases 

 afforded equal advantages. The great consumption of 

 fuel which it required was its cardinal defect; the 



