詹姆士·瓦特和水壶（2）（2/2）
《泰西故事30篇》作者：李汉昭 2017-04-10 17:32
more puzzling than profitable, she thought. She went about her work silently, and J***e sat still in his place and studied the teakettle.
How to understand the power that is in steam, and how to make it do other things than rattle the lids of teakettles—that was the problem which James Watt, the inquisitive Scotch boy, set himself to solve. Day after day he thought about it, and evening after evening he sat by his grandmother’s fireside and watched the thin, white vapor come out of the teakettle and lose itself in the yawning black throat of the chimney. The idea grew with him as he grew into manhood, and by long study he began to reason upon it to some purpose.
“There is a wonderful power in steam,” he said to himself. “There was never a giant who had so much strength. If we only knew how to harness that power, there is no end to the things it might do for us. It would not only lift weights, but it would turn all kinds of machinery. It would draw our wagons, it would push our ships, it would plow and sow, it would spin and weave. For thousands of years men have been working alongside of this power, never dre***ng that it might be made their servant. But how can this be done? That is the question.”
He tried one experiment after another. He failed again and again, but from each failure he learned something new. Men la-ughed at him. “How ridiculous,” they said, “to think that steam can be made to run machinery!”
But James Watt persevered, and in the end was able to give to the world the first successful form of the steam engine. Thus, from the study of so simple a thing as a common teakettle, the most useful of all modern inve-ntions was finally produced.
How to understand the power that is in steam, and how to make it do other things than rattle the lids of teakettles—that was the problem which James Watt, the inquisitive Scotch boy, set himself to solve. Day after day he thought about it, and evening after evening he sat by his grandmother’s fireside and watched the thin, white vapor come out of the teakettle and lose itself in the yawning black throat of the chimney. The idea grew with him as he grew into manhood, and by long study he began to reason upon it to some purpose.
“There is a wonderful power in steam,” he said to himself. “There was never a giant who had so much strength. If we only knew how to harness that power, there is no end to the things it might do for us. It would not only lift weights, but it would turn all kinds of machinery. It would draw our wagons, it would push our ships, it would plow and sow, it would spin and weave. For thousands of years men have been working alongside of this power, never dre***ng that it might be made their servant. But how can this be done? That is the question.”
He tried one experiment after another. He failed again and again, but from each failure he learned something new. Men la-ughed at him. “How ridiculous,” they said, “to think that steam can be made to run machinery!”
But James Watt persevered, and in the end was able to give to the world the first successful form of the steam engine. Thus, from the study of so simple a thing as a common teakettle, the most useful of all modern inve-ntions was finally produced.