Directly after this triumph I received an order from Mr. John Penn for a governor to regulate the engine driving his marine-engine works at Greenwich. This was the first and only engine I ever saw of the grasshopper class, quite common, I learned, in earlier days. The superintendent of his works afterwards told me, laughingly, that he had a large account against me for loss of time; that he had become so fascinated with the governor action that he had stood watching it sometimes for twenty minutes. He knew by the position of the governor every large tool that was running and what it was doing, if light or heavy work, and especially every time a planer was reversed. One day a gentleman asked me if I thought the governor could regulate his engine. He was a manufacturer of the metal thread used in making gold lace. A bar of silver, 2 inches in diameter and 2 or 3 feet long, was covered with three or four thicknesses of dentists’ gold leaf, and then drawn down to exceedingly fine threads, and the gold surface was never broken. I have often wondered how thick that gold covering finally was. The heavy drawing of the cold bars required a great deal of power, and when they shot out the engine would run away and the fine threads would be broken. No governor nor heavy fly-wheel would help the matter, and they had to do their heavy drawing in the night. My governor maintained the motion absolutely. Not only were the finest threads not broken by the sudden changes in the heavy drawing, but the occasional breakages that they had been accustomed to nearly ceased.