While time was being wasted in this manner, the subject of manufacturing the governors came up. Mr. Whitworth concluded that he would first try one on his own shop engine, so one was bought from Ormerod, Grierson & Co. I had a message from Mr. Widdowson to come to the shop and see my governor. It was acting in a manner that I had seen before, the counterpoise rising and dropping to its seat twice every time the belt lap came around. “Total failure, you see,” said Mr. Widdowson, “and I got a new belt for it, too.” I saw a chance to make an interesting observation, and asked him if he would get an old belt and try that. This he did, lapping the ends as before about 18 inches, according to the universal English custom, which I had long before found it necessary carefully to avoid. As I knew would be the case, the action was not improved at all. I then cut off the lap, butted the ends of the belt, and laced them in the American style, and lo! the trouble vanished. The governor stood motionless, only floating up and down slightly with the more important changes of load. Mr. Whitworth was greatly pleased, and at once set about their manufacture, in a full line of sizes. He made the change, to which I have referred already, from the urn shape to the semi-spherical form of the counterpoise. In this connection he laid the law down to me in this dogmatic fashion: “Let no man show me a mechanical form for which he cannot give me a mechanical reason.” But Jove sometimes nods. They were to exhibit in Paris a large slotting-machine. The form of the upright did not suit Mr. Whitworth exactly. He had the pattern set up in the erecting-shop, and a board tacked on the side, cut to an outline that he directed. He came to look at it every day for a week, and ordered some change or other. Finally it was gotten to his mind, the pattern was altered accordingly, and a new casting made. This was set up in the shop, and I happened to be present when he came to see it. “Looks like a horse that has been taught to hold his head up,” said he. “Mechanical reason,” thought I, fresh from my lesson. When finished the slotting-machine was tried in the shop, and found to yield in the back. The tool sprang away from its work and rounded the corner. Mr. Whitworth had whittled the pattern away and ruined it. Instead of being sent to Paris, it was broken up. My experiment with the governor proved the defect in the English system of lacing belts. Every machine in the land, of whatever kind, tool or loom or spinning or drawing frame, or whatever it was, driven by a belt, halted in its motion every time the lap in the belt passed over a pulley, sufficiently to drop my governor, when the same motion was given to it, and no one had ever observed this irregularity.