ovided with a source of independent
income; and at the age of sixty-four the great inventor had
personally realized some of the benefits he contemplated.

Henceforth Watt's ingenuity became excursive, discretionary, almost
capricious; but in every phase and form it continued to be
beneficent. In 1808 he founded a prize in Glasgow College, as an
acknowledgment of "the many favors that learned body had conferred
upon him." In 1816 he made a donation to the town of Greenock, "to
form the beginning of a scientific library" for the instruction of
its young men. Nor, amid such donations, were others wanting on his
part, such as true religion prescribes, to console the poor and
relieve the suffering.

In 1816, on a visit to Greenock, Watt made a voyage in a steamboat
to Rothsay and back again. In the course of this experimental trip
he pointed out to the engineer of the boat the method of "backing"
the engine. With a foot-rule he demonstrated to him what he meant.
Not succeeding, however, he at last, under the impulse of the ruling
passion (and we must remember he was then eighty), threw off his
overcoat, and putting his hand to the engine himself, showed the
practical application of his lecture. Previously to this, the
"backstroke" of the steamboat engine was either unknown or not
generally known. The practice was to stop the engine entirely a
considerable time before the vessel reached the point of mooring, in
order to allow for the gradual and natural diminution of her speed.

With regard to the application of steam power to _locomotion on
land_, it is remarkable enough that, when Watt's attention was first
directed, by his friend Robison, to the steam-engine, "he (Robison)
at that time drew out an idea of applying the power to the moving of
wheel-carriages." "But the scheme," adds Watt, "was not matured, and
was soon abandoned on his going abroad."

In 1769, however, when he heard that a linen-draper, one Moore, had
taken out a patent for moving wheel-carriages by steam, he replied:
"If linen-draper Moore does not use my engine to drive his chaises,
he can't drive them by steam." In the specification of his patent of
1784, he even described the principles and construction of
"steam-engines which are applied to give motion to wheel-carriages
for removing persons or goods, or other matters, from place to
place," and in 1786, Watt himself had a steam-carriage "of some size
under hand;" but his most developed plan was to