The work of Savery had shown the
practicability of the solution of the problem, both in mechanics and
finance. He succeeded, though under great disadvantages and
comparatively inefficiently. Once the task had been performed, though
ever so rudely, the rest came easily and promptly. The defects of the
Savery system were at once recognized; its great wastes of heat and of
steam were noted, and the fact that they were inherent in the system
itself was perceived. A complete change of type of machine was
obviously requisite; it was this which constituted the greatest
invention in the whole history of the steam engine, from Hero's time
to our own; and to Newcomen we owe more than to any other man who ever
lived, the value of the invention itself being considered, and the
importance of the services of its introducer being left out of
consideration. No such complete and vital improvement and modification
of the machine has ever been effected by any other man, Watt and
Corliss not excepted. Newcomen and his comrade Calley--we do not know
how the honors should be divided--produced the modern steam engine.
Its predecessor, the Savery engine, had been a mere steam "squirt."
Newcomen constructed an engine. Savery built a simple combination of
cylindrical or ellipsoidal vessels which wastefully and at once
performed all the several offices of engine, pump, condenser, and
boiler; Newcomen divided the several elements among as many parts,
each especially adapted to the performance of its task in the most
effective manner--the condenser excepted; for that was Watt's
principal invention--and thus produced the first steam engine in the
modern sense of that term.
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