the invention
was only one year's savings, which, however, were estimated by Sir
Samuel Bentham at 17,663L.; besides which a grant of 5000L. was
afterwards made to Brunel when labouring under pecuniary difficulties.
But the ANNUAL saving to the nation by the adoption of the block-making
machinery was probably more than the entire sum paid to the engineer.
Brunel afterwards invented other wood-working machinery, but none to
compare in merit and excellence with the above, For further particulars
of his career, see BEAMISH'S Memoirs of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, C.E.
London. 1862.

[15] Among the last works executed by the firm during Mr. Maudslay's
lifetime was the famous Shield employed by his friend Brunel in
carrying forward the excavation of the Thames Tunnel. He also supplied
the pumping-engines for the same great work, the completion of which he
did not live to see.

[16] His principal patent's were--two, taken out in 1805 and 1808,
while in Margaret Street, for printing calicoes (Nos. 2872 and 3117);
one taken out in 1806, in conjunction with Mr. Donkin, for lifting
heavy weights (2948); one taken out in 1807, while still in Margaret
Street, for improvements in the steam-engine, reducing its parts and
rendering it more compact and portable (3050); another, taken out in
conjunction with Robert Dickinson in 1812, for sweetening water and
other liquids (3538); and, lastly, a patent taken out in conjunction
with Joshua Field in 1824 for preventing concentration of brine in
boilers (5021).

CHAPTER XIII.

JOSEPH CLEMENT.

"It is almost impossible to over-estimate the importance of these
inventions. The Greeks would have elevated their authors among the
gods; nor will the enlightened judgment of modern times deny them the
place among their fellow-men which is so undeniably their
due."--Edinburgh Review.

That Skill in mechanical contrivance is a matter of education and
training as well as of inborn faculty, is clear from the fact of so
many of our distinguished mechanics undergoing the same kind of
practical discipline, and perhaps still more so from the circumstance
of so many of them passing through the same workshops. Thus Maudslay
and Clement were trained in the workshops of Bramah; and Roberts,
Whitworth, Nasmyth, and others, were trained in those of Maudslay.

Joseph Clement was born at Great Ashby in Westmoreland, in the year
1779. His father was a hand-loom weaver, and a man of remarkable