THE CONQUEST OF NATURE 



means have been found of freeing them from water. 

 Watt's inventions, as we shall see, accomplished this end, 

 as well as various others that were not anticipated. 



It was through consideration of the wasteful manner of 

 action of the steam engine that Watt was led to give 

 attention to the subject. The great inventor was a 

 young man at the University of Glasgow. He had pre- 

 viously served an apprenticeship of one year with a 

 maker of philosophical instruments in London, but ill 

 health had prevented him from finishing his appren- 

 ticeship, and he had therefore been prohibited from 

 practising his would-be profession in Glasgow. Finally, 

 howeve^ he had been permitted to work under the 

 auspices of the University; and in due course, as a part 

 of his official duties, he was engaged in repairing a 

 model of the Newcomen engine. This incident is 

 usually mentioned as having determined the line of 

 Watt's future activity. 



It should be recalled, however, that Watt had become 

 a personal friend of the celebrated Professor Black, the 

 discoverer of latent heat, and the foremost authority 

 in the world, in this period, on the study of pneumatics. 

 Just what share Black had in developing Watt's idea, 

 or in directing his studies toward the expansive proper- 

 ties of steam, it would perhaps be difficult to say. It is 

 known, however, that the subject was often under dis- 

 cussion; and the interest evinced in it by Black is shown 

 by the fact that he subsequently wrote a history of Watt's 

 inventions. 



It is never possible, perhaps, for even the inventor 

 himself to re-live the history of the growth of an idea in 



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