It is said of him, and without exaggeration, that he was ready to supply a design of any new machine, from a fire-bucket or a ship's pump to a turning-lathe or a steam-engine. His genius was equally at home with small things as with great. Whatever he designed was remarkable for the finish and neatness of its execution. "The water-pumping engine which he erected for Lord Irwin, at Temple-Newsham, near his own house at Austhorpe, to pump the water for the supply of the mansion, is an admirable piece of workmanship, and continues at this day in good working condition. His advice was especially sought on subjects connected with mill-work, water-pumping, and engineering of every description,--flour-mills and powder-mills, wind-mills and water-mills, fulling-mills and flint-mills, blade-mills and forge-hammer mills. From a list left by him in his own handwriting, it appears that he designed and erected forty-three water-mills of various kinds, besides numerous wind-mills. [Sidenote: Smeaton and the steam-engine.] Water-power was then used for nearly all purposes for which steam is now applied, such as grinding flour, sawing wood, boring and hammering iron, fulling cloth, rolling copper, and driving all kinds of machinery." Smeaton also bestowed much attention on the development of the wonderful powers of the steam-engine, then only in its infancy. In order to experimentalize upon it, he erected a model engine, on Newcomen's principle, near his house at Austhorpe; and his fertile genius soon devised a variety of improvements which added to its utility. His Chacewater engine of 150 horsepower was looked upon as the finest and most powerful of its kind which had until then been erected. In this field of invention, however, it must be owned that he was completely surpassed by James Watt, the superior merit of whose condensing engine--notwithstanding the time and labour Smeaton had bestowed on the development of Newcomen's--he frankly acknowledged. After inspecting Watt's engine, he said at once: "That the old engine, even when made to do its best, was now driven from every place where fuel could be considered of any value." [Sidenote: A lesson for the reader.] During many years the opinion of Smeaton was considered of so much authority, that no engineering works of any importance were undertaken throughout the kingdom except on his advice, or under his superintendence. He was constantly consulted in Parliament, and was regarded as an arbiter or ultimate referee on all difficult questions connected with his profession.