The water on the sand-bars of the three principal passes varied from eight to thirteen feet in depth. Many vessels require twice the depth. Two piers, twelve hundred feet apart, were built from land's end, a mile into the sea. They were made from willows, timber, gravel, concrete, and stone. Mattresses, a hundred feet long, from twenty-five to fifty feet wide, and two feet thick, were constructed from small willows placed at right angles, and bound securely together. These were floated into position, and sunk with gravel, one mattress upon another, which the river soon filled with sand that firmly held them in their place. The top was finished with heavy concrete blocks, to resist the waves. These piers are called "jetties," and the swift collected waters have already carried over five million cubic yards of sand into the deep gulf, and made a ship-way over thirty feet deep. The five million dollars paid by the United States was little enough for so priceless a service. * * * * * In June, 1884, Captain Eads received the Albert medal of the British Society of Arts, the first American upon whom this honor has been conferred. Before his great enterprise of the Tehuantepec ship railroad had been completed, he died at Nassau, New Providence, Bahama Islands, March 8, 1887, after a brief illness, of pneumonia, at the age of sixty-seven. [Illustration: JAMES WATT.] JAMES WATT. The history of inventors is generally the same old struggle with poverty. Sir Richard Arkwright, the youngest of thirteen children, with no education, a barber, shaving in a cellar for a penny to each customer, dies worth two and one-half million dollars, after being knighted by the King for his inventions in spinning. Elias Howe, Jr., in want and sorrow, lives on beans in a London attic, and dies at forty-five, having received over two million dollars from his sewing-machines in thirteen years. Success comes only through hard work and determined perseverance. The steps to honor, or wealth, or fame, are not easy to climb. The history of James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine, is no exception to the rule of struggling to win. He was born in the little town of Greenock, Scotland, 1736. Too delicate to attend school, he was taught reading by his mother, and a little writing and arithmetic by his father. When six years of age, he would draw mechanical lines and circles on the hearth, with a colored piece of chalk. His favorite play was to take to pieces his little carpenter tools, and make them into different ones. He was an obedient boy, especially devoted to his mother, a cheerful and very intelligent woman, who always encouraged him. She would say in any childish quarrels, "Let James speak; from him I always hear the truth." Old George Herbert said, "One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters"; and such a one was Mrs. Watt.