Stories of Invention, Told by Inventors and their Friends Part 18

One of my attached cronies was Tom Smith. Our friendship began at the High School in 1818. A similarity of disposition bound us together.

Smith was the son of an enterprising general merchant at Leith. His father had a special genius for practical chemistry. He had established an extensive color-manufactory at Portobello, near Edinburgh, where he produced white lead, red lead, and a great variety of colors,--in the preparation of which he required a thorough knowledge of chemistry. Tom Smith inherited his father's tastes, and admitted me to share in his experiments, which were carried on in a chemical laboratory situated behind his father's house at the bottom of Leith Walk.

We had a special means of communication. When anything particular was going on at the laboratory, Tom hoisted a white flag on the top of a high pole in his father's garden. Though I was more than a mile away, I kept a lookout in the direction of the laboratory with a spy-gla.s.s. My father's house was at the top of Leith Walk, and Smith's house was at the bottom of it. When the flag was hoisted I could clearly see the invitation to me to come down. I was only too glad to run down the Walk and join my chum, to take part in some interesting chemical process. Mr.

Smith, the father, made me heartily welcome. He was pleased to see his son so much attached to me, and he perhaps believed that I was worthy of his friendship. We took zealous part in all the chemical proceedings, and in that way Tom was fitting himself for the business of his life.

Mr. Smith was a most genial-tempered man. He was shrewd and quick-witted, like a native of York, as he was. I received the greatest kindness from him as well as from his family. His house was like a museum. It was full of cabinets, in which were placed choice and interesting objects in natural history, geology, mineralogy, and metallurgy. All were represented. Many of these specimens had been brought to him from abroad by his ship-captains, who transported his color manufactures and other commodities to foreign parts.

My friend Tom Smith and I made it a rule--and in this we were encouraged by his father--that, so far as was possible, we ourselves should actually _make_ the acids and other substances used in our experiments.

We were not to buy them ready-made, as this would have taken the zest out of our enjoyment. We should have lost the pleasure and instruction of producing them by means of our own wits and energies. To encounter and overcome a difficulty is the most interesting of all things. Hence, though often baffled, we eventually produced perfect specimens of nitrous, nitric, and muriatic acids. We distilled alcohol from duly fermented sugar and water, and rectified the resultant spirit from fusel-oil by pa.s.sing the alcoholic vapor through animal charcoal before it entered the worm of the still. We converted part of the alcohol into sulphuric ether. We produced phosphorus from old bones, and elaborated many of the mysteries of chemistry.

The amount of practical information which we obtained by this system of making our own chemical agents, was such as to reward us, in many respects, for the labor we underwent. To outsiders it might appear a very troublesome and roundabout way of getting at the finally desired result; but I feel certain that there is no better method of rooting chemical or any other instruction deeply in our minds. Indeed, I regret that the same system is not pursued by the youth of the present day.

They are seldom if ever called upon to exert their own wits and industry to obtain the requisites for their instruction. A great deal is now said about technical education; but how little there is of technical handiness or head work! Everything is _bought ready-made_ to their hands; and hence there is no call for individual ingenuity.

I left the High School at the end of 1820. I carried with me a small amount of Latin and no Greek. I do not think I was much the better for my small acquaintance with the dead languages.

By the time I was seventeen years old I had acquired a considerable amount of practical knowledge as to the use and handling of mechanical tools, and I desired to turn it to some account. I was able to construct working models of steam-engines and other apparatus required for the ill.u.s.tration of mechanical subjects. I began with making a small working steam-engine, for the purpose of grinding the oil-colors used by my father in his artistic work. The result was quite satisfactory. Many persons came to see my active little steam-engine at work; and they were so pleased with it that I received several orders for small workshop engines, and also for some models of steam-engines to ill.u.s.trate the subjects taught at Mechanics' Inst.i.tutions.

I contrived a sectional model of a complete condensing steam-engine of the beam and parallel-motion construction. The model, as seen from one side, exhibited every external detail in full and due action when the fly-wheel was moved round by hand; while on the other, or sectional side, every detail of the interior was seen, with the steam-valves and air-pump, as well as the motion of the piston in the cylinder, with the construction of the piston and the stuffing-box, together with the slide-valve and steam-pa.s.sages, all in due position and relative movement.

I was a regular attendant at the Edinburgh School of Arts from 1821 to 1826, meanwhile inventing original contrivances of various sorts.

About the year 1827, when I was nineteen years old, the subject of steam-carriages to run upon common roads occupied considerable attention. Several engineers and mechanical schemers had tried their hands, but as yet no substantial results had come of their attempts to solve the problem. Like others, I tried my hand. Having made a small working model of a steam-carriage, I exhibited it before the members of the Scottish Society of Arts. The performance of this active little machine was so gratifying to the Society, that they requested me to construct one of such power as to enable four or six persons to be conveyed along the ordinary roads. The members of the Society, in their individual capacity, subscribed 60, which they placed in my hands, as the means of carrying out their project.

I accordingly set to work at once. I had the heavy parts of the engine and carriage done at Anderson's foundry at Leith. There was in Anderson's employment a most able general mechanic, named Robert Maclaughlan, who had served his time at Carmichael's, of Dundee.

Anderson possessed some excellent tools, which enabled me to proceed rapidly with the work. Besides, he was most friendly, and took much delight in being concerned in my enterprise. This "big job" was executed in about four months. The steam-carriage was completed and exhibited before the members of the Society of Arts. Many successful trials were made with it on the Queensferry Road, near Edinburgh. The runs were generally of four or five miles, with a load of eight pa.s.sengers, sitting on benches about three feet from the ground.

The experiments were continued for nearly three months, to the great satisfaction of the members.

The chief object of my ambition was now to be taken on at Henry Maudsley's works in London. I had heard so much of his engineering work, of his a.s.sortment of machine-making tools, and of the admirable organization of his manufactory, that I longed to obtain employment there. But I was aware that my father had not the means of paying the large premium required for placing me there, and I was also informed that Maudsley had ceased to take pupils, they caused him so much annoyance. My father and I went to London; and Mr. Maudsley received us in the most kind and frank manner, and courteously invited us to go round the works. When this was concluded I ventured to say to Mr.

Maudsley that "I had brought up with me from Edinburgh some working models of steam-engines and mechanical drawings, and I should feel truly obliged if he would allow me to show them to him." "By all means," said he; "bring them to me to-morrow at twelve o'clock." I need not say how much pleased I was at this permission to exhibit my handiwork, and how anxious I felt as to the result of Mr. Maudsley's inspection of it.

I carefully unpacked my working model of the steam-engine at the carpenter's shop, and had it conveyed, together with my drawings, on a handcart to Mr. Maudsley's, next morning, at the appointed hour. I was allowed to place my work for his inspection in a room next his office and counting-house. I then called at his residence, close by, where he kindly received me in his library. He asked me to wait until he and his partner, Joshua Field, had inspected my handiwork.

I waited anxiously. Twenty long minutes pa.s.sed. At last he entered the room, and from a lively expression in his countenance I observed in a moment that the great object of my long-cherished ambition had been attained. He expressed, in good round terms, his satisfaction at my practical ability as a workman, engineer, and mechanical draughtsman.

Then, opening the door which led from his library into his beautiful private workshop, he said, "This is where I wish you to work, beside me, as my a.s.sistant workman. From what I have seen there is no need of an apprenticeship in your case."

One of his favorite maxims was, "First _get a clear notion_ of what you desire to accomplish, and then in all probability you will succeed in doing it." Another was, "Keep a sharp lookout upon your materials; get rid of every pound of material you can _do without_; put to yourself the question, 'What business has it to be there?' avoid complexities, and make everything as simple as possible." Mr. Maudsley was full of quaint maxims and remarks,--the result of much shrewdness, keen observation, and great experience. They were well worthy of being stored up in the mind, like a set of proverbs, full of the life and experience of men.

His thoughts became compressed into pithy expressions exhibiting his force of character and intellect. His quaint remarks on my first visit to his workshop and on subsequent occasions proved to me invaluable guides to "right thinking" in regard to all matters connected with mechanical structure.

On the morning of Monday, May 30, 1829, I began my regular attendance at Mr. Maudsley's workshop, and remained with him until he died, Feb. 14, 1831. It was a very sad thing for me to lose my dear old master, who always treated me like a friend and companion. At his death I pa.s.sed over into the service of his worthy partner, Joshua Field, until my twenty-third year, when I intended to begin business for myself.

I first settled myself at Manchester, but afterwards established a large business outside of Manchester on the Bridgewater Ca.n.a.l. In August, 1836, the Bridgewater Foundry was in complete and efficient action. The engine ordered at Londonderry was at once put in hand, and the concern was fairly started in its long career of prosperity. The wooden workshops had been erected upon the gra.s.s, but the greensward soon disappeared. The hum of the driving-belts, the whirl of the machinery, the sound of the hammer upon the anvil, gave the place an air of busy activity. As work increased, workmen multiplied. The workshops were enlarged. Wood gave place to brick. Cottages for the accommodation of the work-people sprung up in the neighborhood, and what had once been a quiet gra.s.sy field became the centre of a busy population.

It was a source of vast enjoyment to me, while engaged in the anxious business connected with the establishment of the foundry, to be surrounded with so many objects of rural beauty. The site of the works being on the west side of Manchester, we had the benefit of breathing pure air during the greater part of the year. The scenery round about was very attractive. Exercise was a source of health to the mind as well as the body. As it was necessary that I should reside as near as possible to the works, I had plenty of opportunities for enjoying the rural scenery of the neighborhood. I had the good fortune to become the tenant of a small cottage in the ancient village of Barton, in Cheshire, at the very moderate rental of fifteen pounds a year. The cottage was situated on the banks of the river Irwell, and was only about six minutes' walk from the works at Patricroft. It suited my moderate domestic arrangements admirably.

On June 16, 1840, a day of happy memory, I was married to Miss Anne Hartop.

I was present at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, on Sept. 15, 1830. Every one knows the success of the undertaking. Railways became the rage. They were projected in every possible direction; and when made, locomotives were required to work them. When George Stephenson was engaged in building his first locomotive, at Killingworth, he was greatly hampered, not only by the want of handy mechanics, but by the want of efficient tools. But he did the best that he could. His genius overcame difficulties. It was immensely to his credit that he should have so successfully completed his engines for the Stockton and Darlington, and afterward for the Liverpool and Manchester, Railway.

Only a few years had pa.s.sed, and self-acting tools were now enabled to complete, with precision and uniformity, machines that before had been deemed almost impracticable. In proportion to the rapid extension of railways the demand for locomotives became very great. As our machine tools were peculiarly adapted for turning out a large amount of first-cla.s.s work, we directed our attention to this cla.s.s of business.

In the course of about ten years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, we executed considerable orders for locomotives for the London and Southampton, the Manchester and Leeds, and the Gloucester Railway Companies.

The Great Western Railway Company invited us to tender for twenty of their very ponderous engines. They proposed a very tempting condition of the contract. It was that if, after a month's trial of the locomotives, their working proved satisfactory, a premium of 100 was to be added to the price of each engine and tender. The locomotives were made and delivered; they ran the stipulated number of test miles between London and Bristol in a perfectly satisfactory manner; and we not only received the premium, but, what was much more encouraging, we received a special letter from the board of directors, stating their entire satisfaction with the performance of our engines, and desiring us to refer other contractors to them with respect to the excellence of our workmanship.

This testimonial was altogether spontaneous, and proved extremely valuable in other quarters.

The date of the first sketch of my steam-hammer was Nov. 24, 1839. It consisted of, first, a ma.s.sive anvil, on which to rest the work; second, a block of iron const.i.tuting the hammer, or blow-giving portion; and, third, an inverted steam cylinder, to whose piston-rod the hammer-block was attached. All that was then required to produce a most effective hammer, was simply to admit steam of sufficient pressure into the cylinder, so as to act on the under side of the piston, and thus to raise the hammer-block attached to the end of the piston-rod. By a very simple arrangement of a slide-valve under the control of an attendant, the steam was allowed to escape, and thus permit the ma.s.sive block of iron rapidly to descend by its own gravity upon the work then upon the anvil.

Thus, by the more or less rapid manner in which the attendant allowed the steam to enter or escape from the cylinder, any required number or any intensity of blows could be delivered. Their succession might be modified in an instant; the hammer might be arrested and suspended according to the requirements of the work. The workman might thus, as it were, _think in blows_. He might deal them out on to the ponderous glowing ma.s.s, and mould or knead it into the desired form as if it were a lump of clay, or pat it with gentle taps, according to his will or at the desire of the forgeman.

Rude and rapidly sketched out as it was, this my first delineation of the steam-hammer will be found to comprise all the essential elements of the invention. There was no want of orders when the valuable qualities of the steam-hammer came to be seen and experienced; soon after I had the opportunity of securing a patent for it in the United States, where it soon found its way into the princ.i.p.al iron-works of the country. As time pa.s.sed by, I had furnished steam-hammers to the princ.i.p.al foundries in England, and had sent them abroad even to Russia.

But the English Government is proverbially slow in recognizing such improvements. It was not till years had pa.s.sed by, that Mr. Nasmyth was asked to furnish hammers to government works. Then he was invited to apply them to pile-driving. He says:--

My first order for my pile-driver was a source of great pleasure to me.

It was for the construction of some great royal docks at Devonport. An immense portion of the sh.o.r.e of the Hamoaze had to be walled in so as to exclude the tide.

When I arrived on the spot with my steam pile-driver, there was a great deal of curiosity in the dockyard as to the action of the new machine.

The pile-driving machine-men gave me a good-natured challenge to vie with them in driving down a pile. They adopted the old method, while I adopted the new one. The resident managers sought out two great pile logs of equal size and length,-seventy feet long and eighteen inches square. At a given signal we started together. I let in the steam, and the hammer at once began to work. The four-ton block showered down blows at the rate of eighty a minute, and in the course of _four and a half minutes_ my pile was driven down to its required depth. The men working at the ordinary machine had only begun to drive. It took them upward of _twelve hours_ to complete the driving of their pile!

Such a saving of time in the performance of similar work--by steam _versus_ manual labor--had never before been witnessed. The energetic action of the steam-hammer, sitting on the shoulders of the pile high up aloft, and following it suddenly down, the rapidly hammered blows keeping time with the flashing out of the waste steam at the end of each stroke, was indeed a remarkable sight. When my pile was driven the hammer-block and guide-case were speedily re-hoisted by the small engine that did all the laboring and locomotive work of the machine, the steam-hammer portion of which was then lowered on to the shoulders of the next pile in succession. Again it set to work. At this the spectators, crowding about in boats, p.r.o.nounced their approval in the usual British style of "Three cheers!" My new pile-driver was thus acknowledged as another triumphant proof of the power of steam.

In the course of the year 1843 it was necessary for me to make a journey to St. Petersburg. My object was to endeavor to obtain an order for a portion of the locomotives required for working the line between that city and Moscow. The railway had been constructed under the engineership of Major Whistler, and it was shortly about to be opened.

The Major gave me a frank and cordial reception, and informed me of the position of affairs. The Emperor, he said, was desirous of training a cla.s.s of Russian mechanics to supply not only the locomotives, but to keep them constantly in repair. The locomotives must be made in Russia.

I received, however, a very large order for boilers and other detail parts of the Moscow machines.

I enjoyed greatly my visit to St. Petersburg, and my return home through Stockholm and Copenhagen.

Travelling one day in Sweden, the post-house where I was set down was an inn, although without a sign-board. The landlady was a bright, cheery, jolly woman. She could not speak a word of English, nor I a word of Dannemora Swedish. I was very thirsty and hungry, and wanted something to eat. How was I to communicate my wishes to the landlady? I resorted, as I often did, to the universal language of the pencil. I took out my sketch-book, and in a few minutes I made a drawing of a table with a dish of smoking meat upon it, a bottle and a gla.s.s, a knife and fork, a loaf, a salt-cellar, and a corkscrew. She looked at the drawing and gave a hearty laugh. She nodded pleasantly, showing that she clearly understood what I wanted. She asked me for the sketch, and went into the back garden to show it to her husband, who inspected it with great delight. I went out and looked about the place, which was very picturesque. After a short time the landlady came to the door and beckoned me in, and I found spread out on the table everything that I desired,--a broiled chicken, smoking hot from the gridiron, a bottle of capital home-brewed ale, and all the _et ceteras_ of an excellent repast. I made use of my pencil in many other ways. I always found that a sketch was as useful as a sentence. Besides, it generally created a sympathy between me and my entertainers.

As the Bridgewater Foundry had been so fortunate as to earn for itself a considerable reputation for mechanical contrivances, the workshops were always busy. They were crowded with machine tools in full action, and exhibited to all comers their effectiveness in the most satisfactory manner. Every facility was afforded to those who desired to see them at work; and every machine and machine tool that was turned out became in the hands of its employers the progenitor of a numerous family.

Indeed, on many occasions I had the gratification of seeing my mechanical notions adopted by rival or compet.i.tive machine constructors, often without acknowledgment; though, notwithstanding this point of honor, there was room enough for all. Though the parent features were easily recognizable, I esteemed such plagiarisms as a sort of left-handed compliment to their author. I also regarded them as a proof that I had hit the mark in so arranging my mechanical combinations as to cause their general adoption; and many of them remain unaltered to this day.

My favorite pursuit, after my daily excursions at the foundry, was astronomy. I constructed for myself a telescope of considerable power, and, mounting my ten-inch instrument, I began my survey of the heavens.

I began as a learner, and my learning grew with experience. There were the prominent stars, the planets, the Milky Way,--with thousands of far-off suns,--to be seen. My observations were at first merely general; by degrees they became particular. I was not satisfied with enjoying these sights myself. I made my friends and neighbors sharers in my pleasure, and some of them enjoyed the wonders of the heavens as much as I did.

In my early use of the telescope I had fitted the speculum into a light square tube of deal, to which the eyepiece was attached, so as to have all the essential parts of the telescope combined together in the most simple and portable form. I had often to move it from place to place in my small garden at the side of the Bridgewater Ca.n.a.l, in order to get it clear of the trees and branches which intercepted some object in the heavens which I wished to see. How eager and enthusiastic I was in those days! Sometimes I got out of bed in the clear small hours of the morning, and went down to the garden in my night-shirt. I would take the telescope in my arms and plant it in some suitable spot, where I might take a peep at some special planet or star then above the horizon.

It became bruited about that a ghost was seen at Patricroft! A barge was silently gliding along the ca.n.a.l near midnight, when the boatman suddenly saw a figure in white. "It moved among the trees, with a coffin in its arms!" The apparition was so sudden and strange that he immediately concluded that it was a ghost. The weird sight was reported all along the ca.n.a.l, and also at Wolverhampton, which was the boatman's headquarters. He told the people at Patricroft, on his return journey, what he had seen; and great was the excitement produced. The place was haunted; there was no doubt about it! After all, the rumor was founded on fact; for the ghost was merely myself in my night-shirt, and the coffin was my telescope, which I was quietly shifting from one place to another, in order to get a clearer sight of the heavens at midnight.

I had been for some time contemplating the possibility of retiring altogether from business. I had got enough of the world's goods, and was willing to make way for younger men.