374 WAIT. 



into effect ; and the genius of Watt, fertile in resources, 

 immediately invented a small clock, called the counter, 

 to be moved by the engine, and which accurately re- 

 corded every stroke it made. Payment being in propor- 

 tion to the number of strokes, the clock was enclosed 

 in a box under a double lock, and thus the working 

 could be easily and securely ascertained.* 



The first consequence of this grand invention, and 

 the great saving of fuel it occasioned, was the renewed 

 working of mines which had become unprofitable 

 under the old plan. The next was the opening mines 

 which Newcomen's engine could not drain at all. 

 The steam-power, too, was no longer confined to 

 draining mines. Various contrivances, for which 

 Watt took out no less than four patents between 

 1781 and 1785, enabled him to communicate a rota- 

 tory motion from the piston, so that the engine could 

 now work any machinery whatever ; could spin cotton, 

 cut iron and brass, stamp cloth, grind corn, print 

 books, coin money, in short, could perform on any 

 scale any kind of work in which human labour was 

 either inefficient or expensive ; and while it was seen 

 in one place pouring out rivers from the bowels of the 

 earth with the arms of a giant, or cleaving rocks of 

 granite formation, or clipping huge bars of stubborn 

 iron into ribands, it was elsewhere to be found 



* Such an engine could not be made and used secretly, and thus 

 piracy was prevented. It is far otherwise with small pieces of 

 mechanism, and still more difficult would be the protection of 

 patent rights in mere methods, though to these the protection of the 

 law should be extended. 



