THE 
EDINBURGH 
PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 
y , - ■■ ■ , ... I . III., i.i...... . ... — ^ 
Aet. 1,-^History the Origin of Mr Watt's Improvements on 
the Steam-Engine. Contained in a letter from the late J ames 
Watt, Esq. LL. D. F. R. S. Lond. and Edin. Member of the 
National Institute of France, and of the Batavian Society of 
Rotterdam, to David Brewster, LL. D. F. R. S. &c. * 
Dear Sir, 
At your request, I have carefully perused my lat6 excellent 
friend Dr Robison’s articles Steam” and Steam-Engines,” 
in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and have made remarks upon 
them in such places where, either from the want of proper infor- 
mation, or from too great a reliance on the powers of his extra- 
ordinary memory, at a period when it probably had been weak- 
ened by a long state of acute pain, and by the remedies to which 
he was obliged to have recourse, he had been led into mistakes 
in regard to facts, and also in some places where his deductions 
have appeared to me to be erroneous. 
There had been but very little interchange of letters between 
us for some years previous to his writing those articles, and our 
opportunities of meeting had been rare, and of short duration, 
and not occupied by philosojphical discussions. Had I been ap- 
* This letter, which has not yet been published, was written under circum* 
stances which will be stated in a subsequent memoir of the life of Mr Watt, and ife 
cannot fail to be regarded as an interesting document in the history of his brilliant 
inventions. It was composed as an introduction to the account of the Steam En- 
gine, which forms part of Dr Robison’s System of Mechanical Philosophy, now in 
the press ; and as it will be necessary to refer to it from our Account of Mr Watt’s 
Life, we have gratified our readers with the entire letter, by the permission of his 
son, the present James Watt, Esq. of Heathfield, and of Dr Brewster, to whom it 
was addressed. — E d. 
VOL. IT, NO. 3. JANUARY 18S0. A 
