On the west coast of Scotland stands what is to-day the busy, thriving, seaport town of Greenock--the birthplace of James Watt. But in 1736, more than 150 years ago, it was little more than a picturesque fishing-village, looking out on a peaceful, smiling bay, where a few modest fishing-craft were to be seen, and beyond to the hills of Argyllshire, before smoke and funnels blotted the fairness of the landscape. In an unpretentious little house in a Greenock by-street James Watt first saw the light. His father was by trade a carpenter, an undertaker, a general "merchant," for there was little competition in those simple days, and men often "professed" more than one trade. In the course of a few years little James was left the sole surviving child of five, and perhaps on that account was specially precious to his parents. Neither as the years went on did he grow into a sturdy, lusty country boy, but rather struggled up slowly, anxiously overlooked by a mother's care, a prey to ill-health and headache, even in his baby years. So that most of his early education fell to his parents, his mother opening up to him the beginnings of reading, his father those of writing and arithmetic. School, to which he went by-and-by, proved a failure. Shy and shrinking, he cared little for the play of other children. He was slow at games, perhaps dull in class, and the boys and girls laughed at him. Ill-health, too, made it hard for him to get on. He liked best to be at home. For amusement he would draw in chalk on the kitchen floor, and for playthings he would choose his father's instruments. One day a neighbour remarked on the child's drawing. "He should be at school," she said, "and not trifling away his time." "Look first," said the father, pointing to the floor, "before you blame him. He is solving a problem in geometry." The child was then six years old! We are familiar with the story handed down to us through the centuries of how the dreamy-eyed boy was engaged in watching the steam hiss from the kettle-spout, the while holding a teaspoon below to count and catch the drops of water. Tradition likes to see in this the tiny seedlings of that mighty tree--the Condensing Steam Engine, but we fear that common sense in the shape of his robust-minded aunt was nearer the mark when she exclaimed-- "James Watt, I never saw such an idle boy as you are. For the last hour you have not spoken one word, but taken off the lid of that kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and now a silver spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, catching and counting the drops it falls into."