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Grouped around it we find Savary, the military engineer; Newcomen, the Dartmouth blacksmith; Cawley, the glazier; Potter, the engine-boy; Smeaton, the civil engineer; and, towering above all, the laborious, patient, never-tiring James Watt, the mathematical-instrument maker.
The first business in hand was the reconstruction of the engine brought from Kinneil, which upon trial performed much better than before, wholly on account of the better workmanship attainable at Soho; but there still recurs the unceasing complaint that runs throughout the long eight years of trial lack of accurate tools and skilled workmen, the difference in accuracy between the blacksmith standard and that of the mathematical-instrument maker.
It was James Watt, mathematical-instrument maker, earning fourteen shillings a week, who brooded over his little model until the conception of the condenser burst upon him, as he was taking his Sunday afternoon stroll on Glasgow Green. Goodyear had a similar experience.
But it is astonishing how much can be accomplished if we are prompt to seize and improve the opportunities for action and effort which are constantly presenting themselves. Watt taught himself chemistry and mechanics while working at his trade of a mathematical-instrument maker, at the same time that he was learning German from a Swiss dyer.
It was in 1763, when he was twenty-eight and had the appointment of mathematical-instrument maker to the University of Glasgow, that a model of Newcomen's steam pumping engine was brought into his shop for repairs.
While carrying on the business of a mathematical-instrument maker, he received an order to build an organ; and, though without an ear for music, he undertook the study of harmonics, and successfully constructed the instrument.
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