Note 48 — Chapter I

There seems little doubt (see Lardner, p. 186, and Muirhead’s “Life of Watt,” p. 273), that Watt was the real inventor of the crank for which Mr. Wasborough obtained the credit. Mr. Watt says distinctly, that, having noticed, in 1778 or 1779, certain defects in the “ratchet wheels” invented by Wasborough, he proceeded to remedy them, but having neglected to take out a patent for these improvements, a workman employed to make Mr. Watt’s model told “some of the people about Mr. Wasborough,” on which he took a patent for the application of the crank to steam-engines.