re aa? ae en py . 
358 ; JAMES WATT. 
developed his taste for the beauties of nature and for 
botany. Excursions to various mountains in Scotland 
made him feel that the inert crust of the globe is not 
less worthy of attention, and he became a mineralogist. 
James availed himself also of his frequent intercourse 
with the poor inhabitants of those picturesque districts, 
to learn their local traditions, their popular ballads, and 
their ignorant prejudices. When ill health confined him 
to his paternal roof, chemistry became the principal 
object of his experiments. Gravesande’s Elements of 
Natural History initiated him into the thousands of won- 
ders in general physics; finally, like all invalids, he 
devoured all the works on medicine and surgery that he 
could obtain. ‘These latter sciences had awakened such 
a passion in the student, that he was detected one day 
carrying into his room the head of a child who had died 
of an unknown malady, for the purpose of dissecting it. 
Still, Watt did not decide either in favour of botany, 
of mineralogy, of literature, of poetry, of chemistry, of 
physics, or of surgery, although he was so well prepared 
for each of those studies. In 1755 he went to London 
to place himself under Mr. John Morgan, a maker of 
mathematical and nautical instruments, in Finch Lane, 
Cornhill. The man, who was to cover England with 
motive powers by the side of which, as to their effects at 
least, the old colossal machine of Marly would seem a 
mere pygmy,—entered on thé manual art of constructing 
with his own hands subtile, delicate, fragile instruments, 
those small but admirable reflecting sextants, to which 
nautical art owes its progress. 
Watt did not remain above a year at Mr. Morgan’s, 
and returned to Glasgow, where some heavy difficulties 
awaited him. Attached to their old privileges, the cor- 
