Which detail best supports the inference that James Watt could not have made the improvement to his steam engine without the assistance of Matthew Boulton? The Steam Engine James Watt, who secured the position as a maker of scientific instruments in the University of Glasgow, proposed an idea for improving the existing steam engine, which was used for pumping mines. For a long time, owing to a lack of money, he had difficulty in establishing the merits of his improvements. Finally, he formed a partnership with Matthew Boulton, a wealthy and energetic man who lived at Birmingham, England. They began the manufacture of steam engines at Birmingham, under the firm name of Boulton and Watt. This partnership was very successful. Watt supplied the inventions; Boulton furnished the money and attended to the business. Before the time of Watt, the steam engine was exclusively a steam pump—slow and wasteful of fuel. Watt made it a quick, powerful, and efficient engine, requiring only a fourth as much fuel as before. Under his first patent, the engine was still used only as a steam pump, but his later improvements adapted it for driving stationary machinery of all kinds. The commercial success of his engine was soon fully established.