e, alas, "snifted at many
openings." Little can our mechanics of to-day estimate what "perfect
joints" meant in those days. The entire correctness of the great idea
was, however, demonstrated by the trials made. The right principle had
been discovered; no doubt of that. Watt's decision was that "it must be
followed to an issue." There was no peace for him otherwise. He wrote
(April, 1765) to a friend, "My whole thoughts are bent on this machine.
I can think of nothing else." Of course not; he was hot in the chase of
the biggest game hunter ever had laid eyes on. He had seen it, and he
knew he had the weapons to bring it down. A larger model, free as
possible from defects which he felt he could avoid in the next, was
promptly determined upon. A larger and better shop was obtained, and
here Watt shut himself up with an assistant and erected the second
model. Two months sufficed, instead of six required for the first. This
one also at first trial leaked in many directions, and the condenser
needed alterations. Nevertheless, the engine accomplished much, for it
worked readily with ten and one-half pounds pressure per square inch, a
decided increase over previous results. It was still the cylinder and
its piston that gave Watt the chief trouble. No wonder the cylinder
leaked. It had to be hammered into something like true lines, for at
that day so backward was the art that not even the whole collective
mechanical skill of cylinder-making could furnish a bored cylinder of
the simplest kind. This is not to be construed as unduly hard upon
Glasgow, for it is said that all the skill of the world could not do so
in 1765, only one hundred and forty years ago. We travel so fast that it
is not surprising that there are wiseacres among us quite convinced that
we are standing still.

We may be pardoned for again emphasising the fact that it is not only
for his discoveries and inventions that Watt is to be credited, but also
for the manual ability displayed in giving to these "airy nothings of
the brain, a local habitation and a name," for his greatest idea might
have remained an "airy nothing," had he not been also the mechanician
able to produce it in the concrete. It is not, therefore, only Watt the
inventor, Watt the discoverer, but also Watt, the manual worker, that
stands forth. As we shall see later on, he created a new type of workmen
capable of executing his plans, working with, and educating them often
with his own hands. Onl