G.— ENGINEERING. 127 



like, and even when properly used trouble is sure to arise somewhere and 

 it is usually difficult to say whether the fault arises from legitimate use 

 or not. This is a most critical financial stage because the invention, if 

 put on the market too soon or without full experience of every detail, may 

 be killed by financial failure due to faults introduced often by an ill- 

 considered change of design at the last minute which may be very expensive 

 to rectify. Everyone who has taken a close interest in motoring during 

 the last twenty years will remember many mistakes of this kind which 

 have retarded progress and have increased the cost of motoring, because 

 in the long run the user pays for the mistakes of the industry. 



The type of man required to deal with the problems which arise during 

 this nursing period is not necessarily the same as in the period of develop- 

 ment. In the latter nature is the only enemy, but in the nursing period 

 every user is a potential enemy and has to be treated accordingly. The 

 nurse must therefore possess tact and a knowledge of human nature. 

 He must, in fact, be a diplomatist, but he must also be able to deal with 

 the technical side and accept responsibility where it is called for. 



Every firm, even after it has been turning out its products for years, 

 will occasionally turn out one with a serious defect. The prompt recogni- 

 tion of that defect, its admission as a defect and its quick replacement 

 free of cost to the customer makes a friend of that customer for life. On 

 the other hand, failure to recognise the defect, any attempt to throw the 

 blame on to the customer and any parsimonious treatment of the remedy 

 will make an enemy of that customer, and his friends, which is much 

 worse than never having had his custom. 



The financial success of James Watt's engine was as much due to the 

 nursing of Murdoch during this critical period as to Watt's own efforts 

 in inventing and developing it. In fact the history of James Watt's 

 engine is typical of most successful inventions. We have Watt, the 

 typical inventor, interested only in his science and living for it, in a happy 

 combination with Boulton, its promoter and supporter, and Murdoch, 

 the born nurse and improver. Three different types of men all con- 

 tributing in different ways to one great advance in civilisation, possibly 

 the greatest single advance in the history of the world. 



Boulton must have been a very patient man to continue for twelve 

 years financing the experiments of Watt before the engine began to be 

 taken up by colliery owners, and when Murdoch, then a youth of 23, 

 joined them in 1777, the work he proceeded to do was of a type for which 

 neither Watt nor Boulton would have been suited. Smiles has written 

 of Watt ' He was not the man to fight the selfishness of the Cornish ad- 

 venturers. " A little more of this hurrying and vexation," he said, " will 

 knock me up altogether." ' Murdoch, then only 25, went into Cornwall 

 and gave himself no rest until he had conquered the defects of the engines 

 and put them into thorough working order. He became friendly with 

 the Cornish workmen and engineers. Indeed he literally fought his way 

 into their affections, for one day some half-dozen of the mining captains 

 came into his engine-room at Cliace Water and tried to bully him. Mur- 

 doch stripped, selected the biggest and set to with his fists. In a few 

 minutes Murdoch, victorious, was shaking hands with the lot of them 

 and they parted the best of friends. I quote this little incident merely 



