1 8 Mac Leod, The Place of Science in History. 



would open up to him a knowledge of the great force to 

 which we have already made allusion, the progressive 

 march of which may perhaps be checked, but never 

 stopped. 



In a history course we should include one wonderful 

 lesson, which should consist of a series of models, repro- 

 ducing the inventions of Hero, della Porta, de Caus, 

 Somerset, Savery, Papin, Newcomen, Watt, and set in 

 motion one after another before the students, like so many 

 tableaux vivants representing the successive phases of the 

 splendid epic, whilst the words of the master should 

 explain the guiding idea. 



James Watt was a great conqueror. One day in a 

 Flemish village, I found myself in a factory at about four 

 o'clock in the afternoon, the hour at which the machinery 

 is stopped in order to give an interval of rest to the workers. 

 I entered the engine room and found there the mechanic 

 smoking his pipe. Seeing that I was admiring the silent 

 machine, he pointed to it with his finger and said, "the 

 English invented that." I asked him if he knew the name 

 of the inventor. He replied with a syllable : " Watt ! " 



James Watt had conquered the mind of that man and 

 of many thousands of others over the whole surface of the 

 earth. 



There remain to be considered in a few words two 

 inventions, both applications of the steam engine : the 

 railway and the steamboat. 



The first railways were worked by horse traction, and 

 had come into use in connexion with collieries and 

 quarries. 



In 1804, a steam locomotive, devised by Richard 

 Trevethick, was tried on a plate way near Merthyr 

 Tydvil. 



