Note 74 — Chapter VII · Watt’s Experiments on Steam—Invents the Separate Condenser.

At a meeting held in Glasgow in 1839 to erect a monument to Watt, Dr. Ure observed:—“As to the latent heat of steam,” said Mr. Watt to me, “it was a piece of knowledge essential to my inquiries, and I worked it out myself in the best way that I could. I used apothecaries’ phials for my apparatus, and by means of them I got approximations sufficient for my purpose at the time.” The passage affords a striking illustration of the large results that may be arrived at by means of the humblest instruments. In like manner Cavendish, when asked by a foreigner to be shown over his laboratories, pointed to an old tea-tray on the table, containing a few watch-glasses, test papers, a balance, and a blowpipe, and observed, “There is all the laboratory I possess.”