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It is interesting to note that in England alone over 2,000 horse power of Newcomen engines were at work before Watt commenced his series of magnificent inventions; he commenced experimenting on a Newcomen engine model in 1759 at Glasgow University, and in 1774 came to Birmingham, entered into partnership with Boulton, and 1781 we find his beautiful double acting beam condensing engine in successful work.
In this one change lay all the difference between the Newcomen engine, limited to atmospheric pressure, and the steam engine, capable of development into the modern engine through the increasing use of the tremendous force of steam under higher pressures, and improved conditions from time to time.
From Brindley, the constructor of the earliest great canal, to Joseph Gillott, the inventor of the very steel pen with which this book is written; from Arkwright the barber who fashioned the first spinning-machine, to Crompton the weaver, whose mule gave rise to the mighty Manchester cotton trade; from Newcomen, who made the first rough attempt at a steam-engine, to Stephenson, who sent the iron horse from end to end of the land, the chief mechanical improvements in the country have almost all been due to the energy, intelligence, and skill of our labouring population.
Such an opportunity was not long in presenting itself. An atmospheric or Newcomen engine, made by Smeaton, was fixed there for the purpose of pumping out the water from the shaft; but somehow it failed to clear the pit.
He answered me that in 1860 he did not care to entitle his patent gas or combustion engine simply because engineers at that time would have thought him mad. Notwithstanding this widespread incredulity among engineers, and the apparent novelty of the gas engine idea, fire or combustion engines have been proposed long, long ago. The first Newcomen steam engine ever set to work was used by a Mr.
His labors at Soho soon began to tell. The works increased their celebrity beyond all others then known, for materials, workmanship and invention. The mines of Cornwall promised to become unworkable; indeed, many already had became so. The Newcomen engines could no longer drain the deepened mines.
In the collection belonging to the University of Glasgow there was a little model of a steam-engine by Newcomen that had never worked well. The professor of physics, Anderson, desired Watt to repair it. In the hands of this powerful workman the defects of its construction disappeared; from that time the apparatus was made to work annually under the inspection of the astonished students.
But at the time of his death, another mechanical enthusiast, Thomas Newcomen, was working on the problem of a new steam-pump. Fifty years later his engine was improved upon by James Watt, a Glasgow instrument maker. In the year 1777, he gave the world the first steam engine that proved of real practical value.
No bounds can be set to its forthcoming possible, even probable, wonders, but as such a revolution as steam has brought must come from a superior force capable of displacing steam, this would necessarily be a much longer task than steam had in occupying an entirely new field without a rival. The contrast between Newcomen and Watt is interesting.
The old ones will go out of use fast enough, except where an old and simple machine remains still best adapted to a particular purpose or condition as, for instance, the old Newcomen engine for pumping out coal-pits. If there's a Divinity that shapes these ends, the whole is intelligible and reasonable; otherwise, not.