Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/401

 Inventors as iMartyrs to Scioicc.

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��nights. What a liard position ! He grasped thoroughly the production of power by steam, and seems with pro- phetic power to have realized all that it was capable of accomplishing. His was the true insight of genins, yet he was hampered foi' years in every undertaking by lack of means, by clumsy, ignorant assistants, and a ]iainfnl lack of confidence in himself. '' The total depravity of inanimate things " also seemed destined to de- stroy his hopes.

After working for six months on a new engine, expending a vast amount or labor, anxiety, and ingenuity, he himself declared it was " a clumsy job." The new arrangement of the pipe condenser did not work well, and the cylinder, having been badly cast, was almost useless. One of his greatest difficulties consisted in keep- ing the piston tight. He wrapped it round with cork, oiled rags, tow, old hats, paper, horse dung, and a va- riety of other things ; still there were open spaces left, sufficient to let the air in and the steam out. Grievously dej)ressed by his want of success, he now had serious thoughts of giving up the thing altogether. Before abandon- ing it, however, the engine was once more thoroughly overhauled, many improvements introduced, and a new trial made of its powers. But this did not prove successful. "You cannot conceive," he wrote to a friend, " how mortified I am with this disap- pointment. It is a damned thing for a man to have his all hang-ino; by a single string. If I had the where- withal to pay the loss I do n't think I should so much fear a failure, but I cannot bear the thought of other peo- ple becoming losers by my schemes.

��1 have the happy disposition of al- ways painting the worst."

After his apparently fruitless labor he expressed his belief that of all things in life there is nothing more foolish than inventino;. On the 31st of January, 1770, he writes, — "To- day I enter the thirty-fifth year of my life, and I think I have hardly 3'et done thirty-five pence worth of good in the world ; but I cannot help it."

Although he felt that inventing leads only to vexation, failure, and increase of his terrible headaches, he could not stop his mental machinery. That was in complete working order, and he was contriving a dozen minor inventions, or " gira-cracks " as he called them, in as many various di- rections. He was equally ready to contrive a cure for smok}' chimneys, a canal sluice for economizing water, a new method of readily measuring distances by means of a telescope, decomposing sea salt by lime and so obtaining alkali for purposes of commerce, making improvements in barometers, inventing a muffling fur- nace for melting metals, etc., etc. What a sad shame that a man of such ability should have been obliged to struggle so long for success and recognition. There was very little pecuniary return for all this, and his friend. Dr. Hutton of Edinburgh, ad- dressed to him a New Year's letter, with the object of dissuading him from proceeding further with his un- profitable brain-distressing work. "A happy new year to you ! " said Hut- ton. " May it be fertile to you in lucky events, hut no new inventions." He went on to say that invention was only for those who live by the public,

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