INLAND NAVIGATION.

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wished to have produced, and would permit him to perform thebusiness in his own way, he would engage to finish the mill to their sa-tisfaction. This assurance, joined with the knowledge they had of hisability and integrity, induced them to trust the completion of the millsolely to his care ; and he accomplished that very curious and complexpiece of machinery, in a manner far superior to the expectation of hisemployers, by constructions of many new and useful improvements ;particularly one for winding the silk upon the bobbins equally, and notin wreaths ; and another for stopping, in an instant, not only the wholeof this extensive system, throughout its various and numerous apart-ments, but any part of it individually. He invented likewise machinesfor making all the tooth and pinion wheels of the different engines.These wheels had hitherto been cut by hand with great labour. But bymeans of Mr. Brindley’s machines, as much work could be performedin one day as had heretofore required fourteen. The potteries in Staf-fordshire were also much indebted to him for additions in their mills,for grinding flint stones with more facility. In the year 1756 Mr.Brindley undertook to erect a steam engine, near Newcastle-under-Line, upon a new plan : the boiler of it was made with brick andstone instead of iron, and the water was heated by sire-flues of a pecu-liar construction, by which contrivances the consumption of fuel, ne-cessary for working a steam engine, was reduced- to one half. He in-troduced likewise into this engine cylinders of wood made in the man-ner of coopers’ ware, instead of iron ones ; the former being not only-cheaper, but more easily managed in the shafts: and he substitutedwood too for iron in the chains, which worked at the end of the beam.His inventive genius displayed itself in various other useful contri-vances.

Mr. Brindley’s attention to this part of mechanics was soon called offto an object of the highest national importance ; namely, the projectingand executing of Inland Navigations, from whence the greatest advan-tages arise to trade and commerce. In this period of our great me-

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