was perceived.  A complete change of type of machine was obviously requisite; it was this which constituted the greatest invention in the whole history of the steam engine, from Hero’s time to our own; and to Newcomen we owe more than to any other man who ever lived, the value of the invention itself being considered, and the importance of the services of its introducer being left out of consideration.  No such complete and vital improvement and modification of the machine has ever been effected by any other man, Watt and Corliss not excepted.  Newcomen and his comrade Calley—­we do not know how the honors should be divided—­produced the modern steam engine.  Its predecessor, the Savery engine, had been a mere steam “squirt.”  Newcomen constructed an engine.  Savery built a simple combination of cylindrical or ellipsoidal vessels which wastefully and at once performed all the several offices of engine, pump, condenser, and boiler; Newcomen divided the several elements among as many parts, each especially adapted to the performance of its task in the most effective manner—­the condenser excepted; for that was Watt’s principal invention—­and thus produced the first steam engine in the modern sense of that term.

It was Newcomen, not Watt, who gave us the train of mechanism that we now call the steam engine.  It is to Newcomen, rather than Watt, that we owe the highest honors as an inventor in this series of the most important of all the products of the inventive genius of mankind.  Newcomen brought into existence a new, the modern, type of engine, and effected the greatest revolution that has been recorded in the history of the arts.  Without Newcomen, there might have been no Watt; without Watt, there very possibly may not even yet have been brought into existence that giant of our time, whose mighty powers are employed more effectively than ever those of Aladdin’s genii, in building palaces, in transporting men and material, in doing the work of the whole world; promoting the welfare of the race, in a single century, more than had all the forces of matter and mind together in the whole previous history of the world.  Newcomen laid down a foundation beneath our whole economic system, out of sight, almost, but the essential base, nevertheless, on which Watt and his successors have carried up the great superstructure which seems to us to-day so imposing; which is so tremendous in magnitude, importance, and result.  If to any one man could be assigned the credit, it is Newcomen who is to be considered the inventor of the steam engine.

James Watt, indisputably the great inventor that he was, found the steam engine ready to his hand, applied himself to its improvement, and made it substantially what it is to-day.  His most important work, the most unique service performed by him, was, however, that of its adaptation and introduction to do the work of the world.  James Watt was the inaugurator of the era of refinement of the machine already invented,