WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:06.000 The name of James Watt is invariably associated with the invention of the steam engine and with little else. 00:06.000 --> 00:13.000 It is not generally known that he was also responsible for numerous other less important but still useful contrivances. 00:13.000 --> 00:22.000 Nor do many realize that one of his major discoveries belongs, because of its curious origin, in the chronicles of the strange and the incredible. 00:22.000 --> 00:30.000 Within a few years after it was first conceived, James Watt's steam engine was a commercial success. 00:30.000 --> 00:38.000 And in the year 1783, its inventor was enjoying both the income and the prestige to which his great scientific contribution entitled him. 00:38.000 --> 00:47.000 It came, therefore, as something of a surprise to Dr. McCregor, the pastor of the local church, when Watt appeared at his door early one summer morning, quiet in the workman's overall. 00:47.000 --> 00:49.000 I'd like to claim the church steeple. 00:49.000 --> 00:51.000 The church steeple? What for, Mr. Watt? 00:51.000 --> 00:56.000 It's an experiment I want to try. A crazy idea I got in my brain and I cannot get it out. 00:56.000 --> 00:58.000 And I came by it in a crazy way. 00:58.000 --> 01:00.000 What way was that? 01:00.000 --> 01:02.000 I cannot tell you no for fear you'd laugh. 01:02.000 --> 01:09.000 But if you let me claim, doctor, and if the experiment works, why then I'll tell you the queerest story you ever heard. 01:09.000 --> 01:13.000 A few moments later, the inventor appeared carrying a large kettle in his hand. 01:13.000 --> 01:19.000 Perched precariously at the very top of the steeple, he raised the kettle and, with a sudden gesture, overturned it. 01:19.000 --> 01:25.000 Unable to restrain himself longer, Dr. McCregor ran down the porch steps and raced toward the church. 01:25.000 --> 01:29.000 But even before he arrived there, James Watt had descended from the steeple. 01:29.000 --> 01:33.000 The pastor found the famous man knee-deep in the waters of the moat, shouting excitedly. 01:33.000 --> 01:36.000 It worked! Dr. McCregor, it worked! 01:36.000 --> 01:39.000 I stumbled on a new scheme for making ammunition. 01:39.000 --> 01:43.000 You drop molten lead and it turns into gunshots. 01:43.000 --> 01:48.000 Yes, Dr. McCregor's church steeple proved to be the first shop tower ever used. 01:48.000 --> 01:54.000 More than a century thereafter, Leighton Shop was the chief ammunition employed in the wars of Europe. 01:54.000 --> 01:58.000 And even today, similar shop towers are still in operation. 01:58.000 --> 02:04.000 But it is doubtful whether even their owners know the story that James Watt told Dr. McCregor that same morning. 02:04.000 --> 02:07.000 The strange story of what had led him to his experiment. 02:07.000 --> 02:12.000 But I do not see, Mr. Watt, how you knew the lead would disintegrate when you dropped it. 02:12.000 --> 02:15.000 I came by the idea in a queer sort of way. 02:15.000 --> 02:16.000 It was in a dream. 02:16.000 --> 02:17.000 A dream? 02:17.000 --> 02:21.000 A dream that kept coming back to me next after next after next. 02:21.000 --> 02:29.000 I'd be standing in an open field, and all of a sudden the clouds would burst and the rain would start beating down around me. 02:29.000 --> 02:35.000 Then I'd hold out my hand to feel the drops and to be hard on my hand like little balls of metal. 02:35.000 --> 02:42.000 And I'd say to myself, why man, it is raining, living raindrops, and that's a queer thing indeed. 02:42.000 --> 02:48.000 And then I'd wake, and the remembering of those drops wouldn't let me sleep again. 02:48.000 --> 02:56.000 And so at last I said to myself, could it be that fallen lead disintegrates, as you call it, and forms the shape of gunshots? 02:56.000 --> 03:01.000 And so I decided to find out, and I did, and that's all there is to it. 03:01.000 --> 03:05.000 It is a strange thing I know. How would you explain it? 03:05.000 --> 03:12.000 But neither the man of God nor any other man since has been able to explain James Watt's strange dream. 03:12.000 --> 03:20.000 Had he unconsciously grasped the principle of his remarkable discovery and then projected it in the form of the rain symbol? 03:20.000 --> 03:23.000 Or was the dream what he himself intimated it was? 03:23.000 --> 03:35.000 A miracle, a miracle incredible but true.