All About Engines

CHAPTER II The Pioneers before Watt FOR a hundred and fifty years the steam engine has been the most powerful agent in altering the habits of mankind and in moulding the customs of the civilised world. A century and a half ago there were hardly any factories, no railways or telegraphs, and only slow-sailing ships which depended upon wind and weather for the power which speeded them upon their way. Few metals were known, and even iron and steel were produced in quantities less than a thousandth of those turned out from the world’s furnaces to-day. Kings, and princes, and parlia- ments we should still have had, but without the steam engine none of those other great things would have come about. Even the British Empire could not have developed as we know it, and the whole world would, relatively speaking, have stood still. And since great effects often come from little causes these causes are not unimportant; so that now we know how a steam engine works we will go back to the beginning of things and see how the early pioneers faced their difficulties and came near to achieving their ends. The real story of the steam engine begins with the invention by J ames Watt in 1765 ; but, like most 23