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Today's Featured Biography
James Watt
 James Watt was born at Greenock, January 19, 1736. He was the fourth child in a family which, for a hundred years, had more or less professed mathematics and navigation. His constitution was delicate, and his mental powers were precocious. He was distinguished from an early age by his candor and truthfulness; and his father, to ascertain the cause of any of his boyish quarrels, used to say, "Let James speak; from him I always hear the truth." James also showed his constructive tastes equally early, experimenting on his playthings with a set of small carpenter's tools, which his father had given him. At six he was still at home. "Mr. Watt," said a friend to the father, "you ought to send that boy to school, and not let him trifle away his time at home." "Look what he is doing before you condemn him," was the reply. The visitor then observed the child had drawn mathematical lines and figures on the hearth, and was engaged in a process of calculation. On putting questions to him, he was astonished at his quickness and simplicity. "Forgive me," said he, "this child's education has not been neglected; this is no common child."
Watt's cousin, Mrs. Marian Campbell, describes his inventive capacity as a story-teller, and details an incident of his occupying himself with the steam of a tea-kettle, and by means of a cup and a spoon making an early experiment in the condensation of steam. To this incident she probably attach...
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