A company at Glasgow had erected on the right bank of the Clyde extensive buildings and powerful engines for supplying water to the town. After this expense it was found that a source of water, of very superior quality, existed on the left bank of the river. To change the site of the establishment, after the expense which had been incurred in its erection could not be contemplated, and they therefore proposed to carry across the bottom of the river a flexible suction pipe, the mouth of which should terminate in the source from which the pure water was to be derived. This pipe was to be supported by a flooring constructed upon the bed of the river; but it was soon apparent that the construction of such a flooring on a shifting and muddy bottom, full of inequalities, and under several feet depth of water would require a greater expenditure of capital than could with propriety be afforded. In this difficulty the aged mechanician, for whom Glasgow itself had been the earliest stage of professional labour, was applied to, and instantly solved the problem. His attention is said to have been attracted by a lobster which had been served at table: he set himself about to contrive how, by mechanism, he could make an apparatus of iron with joints which should have all the flexibility of the tail of the lobster. He therefore proposed that an articulated suction-pipe, capable of accommodating itself to all the inequalities and to the possible changes of the bed of the river, should be carried across it; that this flexible pipe should be two feet in diameter, and one thousand feet in length. This project the company accordingly caused to be executed after the plans and drawings of Watt with the most complete success.[29] [Pg310] Among the less prominent, though not less useful services rendered by Watt to his country, may be mentioned the introduction of the use of chlorine in bleaching. That invention of Berthollet was introduced into England by Watt after his visit to Paris at the close of the year 1786. He constructed all the necessary apparatus for it, directed its erection, and superintended its first performances. He then left it to his wife's father, Mr. Macgregor, to carry on the processes. When the properties of the gases began to occupy the attention of chemists, attempts were made to apply them as a means of curing diseases of the lungs. Dr. Beddoes pursued this inquiry with great activity, and established, through the means of private subscription, at Clifton, an institution in which this method of cure was carefully investigated. The Pneumatic Institution (for so it was called) has been rendered celebrated for having at its head Humphry Davy, just then commencing his scientific career. Among its founders was also numbered James Watt. Not content, however, with affording the institution the sanction of his name, he designed and caused to be constructed, at Soho, the apparatus used for making the gases and administering them to the patients.