CHAP. V. AS A CIVIL ENGINEER. 73 



own house at Austhorpe, to pump the water for the 

 supply of the mansion, is an admirable piece of work- 

 manship, and continues at this day in good working 

 condition. His advice was especially sought on subjects 

 connected with mill-work, water-pumping, and engineer- 

 ing of every description flour-mills and powder-mills, 

 wind-mills and water-mills, fulling-mills and flint-mills, 

 blade-mills and forge hammer-mills. From a list left 

 by him in his own handwriting, it appears that he 

 designed and erected forty-three water-mills of various 

 kinds, besides numerous wind-mills. Water-power was 

 then used for nearly all purposes for which steam is now 

 applied : such as grinding flour, sawing wood, boring 

 and hammering iron, fulling cloth, rolling copper, and 

 driving all kinds of machinery. Smeaton also bestowed 

 much patient study 011 the development of the infant 

 powers of the steam-engine. In order to investigate 

 the subject by experiment, he expressly erected a model 

 engine, after Newcomen's principle, near his house at 

 Austhorpe ; and by improving it in all its arrangements 

 he succeeded in rendering it as complete as it was 

 possible to make it ; his Chace water engine of 150-horse 

 power being regarded as the finest and most powerful 

 of its kind which had until then been erected. In this 

 field of invention, however, he found himself distanced 

 by Watt, the superior merit of whose condensing-engine 

 notwithstanding the time and labour Smeaton had 

 bestowed on the improvement of Newcomen's he gene- 

 rously acknowledged, frankly admitting, after he had 

 inspected Watt's invention-, that " the old engine, even 

 when made to do its best, was now driven from every 

 place where fuel could be considered of any value." The 

 fame of Smeaton, therefore, does not rest upon his im- 

 provements in this machine, though what he accom- 

 plished in bringing out the full powers of Newcomen's 

 engine cannot fail to elicit the admiration of the prac- 

 tical mechanic. 



