He also bored cannon for the government on a large scale. Amongst his other merits, John Wilkinson is clearly entitled to that of having built the first iron vessel. It was made to bring peat-moss to his iron furnace at Wilson House, near Castle Head, in Cartmel, in order to smelt the hematite iron-ore of Furness. This was followed by other larger iron vessels, one of which was of 40 tons burden, and used to carry iron down the Severn. Before Wilkinson’s first iron boat was launched, people laughed at the idea of its _floating_,--as it was so well known that iron immediately sank in water! In a letter to Mr. Stockdale, of Carke, Cartmel, the original of which is before us, dated Broseley, 14th July, 1787, Mr. Wilkinson says, “Yesterday week my iron boat was launched,--answers all my expectations, and has convinced the unbelievers, who were 999 in 1000. It will be only a nine days’ wonder, and afterwards a Columbus’s egg.” In another letter, dated Bradley Iron Works, 24th Oct., 1788, he writes to the same,--“There have been two iron vessels launched in my service since 1st September. One is a canal-boat for this navigation, the other a barge of 40 tons, for the river Severn. The last was floated on Monday, and is, I expect, now at Stourport, a-lading with bar-iron. My clerk at Broseley advises me that she swims remarkably light, and exceeds even my own expectations.” For further notice of John Wilkinson, see ‘Lives of the Engineers,’ ii. 337, 356. [Illustration: WATT’S HOUSE, HARPER’S HILL, BIRMINGHAM.] CHAPTER XII. BOULTON AND WATT BEGIN THE MANUFACTURE OF STEAM-ENGINES. Watt now arranged to take up his residence in Birmingham until the issue of the steam-engine enterprise could be ascertained, and he went down to Glasgow to bring up his two children, whom he had left in charge of their relatives. Boulton had taken a house on Harper’s Hill, which was in readiness for the reception of the family on their arrival about the end of August, 1775. Regent’s-place, Harper’s Hill, was then the nearest house to Soho on that side of Birmingham. It was a double house, substantially built in brick, with stone facings, standing on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by fields and gardens. St. Paul’s, the nearest church, was not built until four years after Watt took up his abode there. But the house at Harper’s Hill is in the country no longer: it is now surrounded in all directions by dense masses of buildings, and is itself inhabited by working people.