PREFACE.

Circumstances having led me, in early life, to take an interest inpractical hydraulics, I became anxious to obtain an account of all the con-trivances employed by different people to raise water—whether for domes-tic, agricultural, mining, manufacturing, or other purposes ; and great wasthe disappointment I feit on learning tbat no book containing the informa-tion I sought had ever been published. This was the case between thirtyand forty years ago ; and, notwithstanding the numerous journals and otherworks devoted to the useful arts, it is in a great measure the case still. Noone publication, so far as my knowledge extends, has ever been devotedto the great variety of devices which the human intellect has developedfor raising liquids. That such a work is wanted by a large dass ofmechanics, if not by others, can hardly be questioned ; and it is somewhatsurprising that it was never undertaken.

It appears from La Hire’s Preface to Mariotte’s Treatise on the Motionof Fluids, that the latter philosopher offen expressed a determination to. write “ on the different pumps and other engines which are in use, or whichhave been proposed,” but unfortunately he did not live to carry his designinto effect. The celebrated work of Belidor , from its extent, and the varietyof subjects embraced and illustrated, Stands at the head of modern workson hydraulic devices ; but of the four large volumes, a small part only isdevoted to machines for raising water, and many such are not noticed atall : besides, the cost of the work and the language in which it is writtenwill always prevent it from becoming a populär one with American orEnglish machinists.

Having in the course of several years collected memoranda and procuredmost of the works quoted in the following pages, I have attempted to pre-pare a populär volume on the subject—something like the one I formerlylonged for—feeling persuaded that it will be as acceptable to mechanicsunder circumstances similar to those to which I have alluded as it wouldthen have been to myself. Every individual device for raising water has,of course, not been described, for that would have been impossible ; butevery dass or species will be found noticed, with such examples of eachas will enable the general reader to comprehend the principle and actionof all. In addition to which, inventors of hydraulic machines can heresee what has been accomplished, and thus avoid wasting their energieson things previously known.