Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 307 



inventions of Lord Dudley for smelting iron by pit-coal in 1619, or as 

 those of Hargrave, Arkwright and Crumpton, for spinning machinery, 

 about the same date as Mr. Watt. Dudley and Hargrave were not 

 encouraged, but were persecuted, and their works destroyed by mobs : 

 after Dudley's death his process lay dormant during a century, 

 probably for want of support to him. These great inventions have 

 had a close connection, and each one has promoted the progress of 

 the other very greatly. 



(P. 191.) Mr. Watt's is the most striking case amongst that very 

 few where the inventor has been protected in his patent rights, for an 

 adequate length of time, to enable him to perfectly establish his in- 

 vention, and consequently recompense himself from the use of it. 

 The great perfection which Mr. Watt attained, and the very general 

 use into which he brought his steam-engines, for a great variety of 

 applications, was entirely owing to that protection ; and it is certain 

 that the public would not have been benefited anything like so much, 

 if his patent had not been prolonged by Parliament. Messrs. Boulton 

 and Watt realized large fortunes by the patent. In addition to their 

 profits as engine-makers, they took one-third of the annual savings in 

 fuel made by their engines, compared with Newcomen's atmospheric 

 engines performing the same work ; that produced them a great 

 revenue from Cornwall, where coals are dear, and the engines for 

 draining mines very large and numerous. 



The steam-engine is an invention from which the nation has de- 

 rived immense wealth during the last century, and increasing means 

 of wealth for the future. After the enunciation of the principle of 

 action had been made by De Caus in 1615 and by Papin in 1690, 

 the real inventors of the engine have been, Savery in 1698, Newco- 

 men in 1712, Watt in 1769, Trevethick in 1802, Woolf in 1804, 

 and Fulton, in America, in 1807. Of these Mr. Watt is the only one 

 amongst us who has derived any adequate advantage or recompense 

 for his labours. Mr. Woolf 's failure of a recompense was entirely 

 owing to the want of protection by an extension of his term ; for his 

 engines came into very general use in Cornwall soon after the expira- 

 tion of his patent, in place of Mr. Watt's engines ; and with such great 

 advantage in economizing fuel, that Mr .Woolf would hav been amply 

 recompensed if his term had been made as long as Mr. Watt's was. 



Additional Facts relative to Mr. Woolf s Invention. 



The specification to Mr. Woolf's patent of 1804 * claims the im- 

 provement of working steam-engines by high-pressure steam, acting 

 expansively, either in one or in two cylinders, and describes the 

 structure and mode of operation of engines of both kinds. It was at 



* Printed in the Philosophical Magazine, vol. xxiii. p. 335. The system of 

 working expansively with steam of the ordinary atmospheric elasticity was in- 

 vented by Mr. Watt, who had a patent for it in 1782 ; he proposed to do it 

 in one cylinder, and executed it with success. Mr. Hornblower proposed 

 to do the same in two cylinders, and had a patent in 1 784 ; but that plan did 

 not in practice prove so advantageous as Mr. Watt's with one cylinder, and 

 never came into use. 



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