Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891
Various
Science -- Periodicals
The invention of the double-acting engine, in which the impulsion of
the steam is felt both in driving the piston forward and in forcing it
backward, both upward and downward, the application of its force
through crank and fly wheel, the creation of an automatic system of
governing its speed, and the discovery of the economy due to its
complete expansion, were all improvements of the first magnitude, and
of the greatest practical importance; and all these were in rapid
succession brought into existence by the creative mind that had
apparently been brought into the world for the express purpose of
giving to the hand of man this mighty agent, to perfect the mightiest
power that mind of man has yet conceived.
But to do the rest required more than inventive genius and mechanical
skill. It demanded capital and the stored energy of labor and genius
in other fields, directed by the mind of a great "captain of
industry." This came to Watt through Matthew Boulton, a manufacturer
of Birmingham, whose father and ancestors had gradually and
toilsomely, as always, accumulated the property needed for the
prosecution of a great business. The combination of genius and capital
is always an essential to success in such cases; and good fortune, a
Providence, we may well say, brought together the genius and the
capitalist to do their work, hand in hand, of providing the world with
the steam engine. Hand in hand they worked, and all the world to-day,
and the race throughout its future life, must testify gratitude for
the inexpressible obligations under which these two men have placed
them, doing the work of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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