Abstract
WHEN your Secretary did me the honour to communicate the wish of the Committee that I should deliver this lecture, he was good enough to send me a list of the names of my predecessors in the position I was invited to occupy, together with a statement of the subjects on which they had addressed you. I confess I read his letter with very mingled feelings. To be asked to form one of such a distinguished company was in itself an honour which I deeply appreciated. On the other hand, it seemed well-nigh hopeless to find any theme associated with the life and work of the great man whose services to humanity we are this day called upon to commemorate, that had not been dealt with by one or other of those who preceded me. Naturally, and as befits the subject, the greater number of those who have spoken on these occasions have been distinguished engineers and mechanicians, and they have been able to speak with a fulness of knowledge, and a weight of authority, on the outcome of the great engineer's labours to which I, who know nothing of engineering or machinery, can have no pretensions.
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James Watt, and the Discovery of the Composition of Water1. Nature 57, 546–551 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/057546b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/057546b0