of steam. Mr. Watt's improvements were not produced
by accidental circumstances or by a single ingenious thought;
they were founded on delicate and refined experiments, connected
with the discoveries of Dr. Black. He had to investigate the
cause of the cold produced by evaporation, of the heat
occasioned by the condensation of steam--to determine the source
of the air appearing when water was acted upon by an exhausting
power; the ratio of the volume of steam to its generating water,
and the law by which the elasticity of steam increased with the
temperature; labor, time, numerous and difficult experiments,
were required for the ultimate result; and when his principle
was obtained, the application of it to produce the movement of
machinery demanded a new species of intellectual and
experimental labor.

The Archimedes of the ancient world by his mechanical inventions
arrested the course of the Romans, and stayed for a time the
downfall of his country. How much more has our modern Archimedes
done? He has permanently elevated the strength and wealth of his
great empire: and, during the last long war, his inventions; and
their application were amongst the great means which enabled
Britain to display power and resources so infinitely above what
might have been expected from the numerical strength of her
population. Archimedes valued principally abstract science;
James Watt, on the contrary, brought every principle to some
practical use; and, as it were, made science descend from heaven
to earth. The great inventions of the Syracusan died with
him--those of our philosopher live, and their utility and
importance are daily more felt; they are among the grand results
which place civilised above savage man--which secure the triumph
of intellect, and exalt genius and moral force over mere brutal
strength, courage and numbers.

Sir James Mackintosh says:

It may be presumptuous in me to add anything in my own words to
such just and exalted praise. Let me rather borrow the language
in which the great father of modern philosophy, Lord Bacon
himself, has spoken of inventors in the arts of life. In a
beautiful, though not very generally read fragment of his,
called the New Atlantis, a voyage to an imaginary island, he has
imagined a university, or rather royal society, under the name