A DESCRIPTIVE

AN»

HISTORICAL ACCOUNT

OF

HYDRAULIC AND OTHER MACHINES

FOR RAISING WATER.

BOOK I.

PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT DEVICES FOR RAISING WATER.

CHÄPTER I.

Tüe subject of raising water, interesting fco Philosophers and Mechanics—Led to the invention of theSteam Engine —Connected with the present advanced state of the Arts—Origin of the useful arts lost—Their history neglected by the Ancients—First Inventors the greatest benefactors—Memorials of thempcrished, while accounts of warriors and their acts pervade and poilute the pages of history—A recordof the origin and early progress of the arts raore useful and interesting than all the works of historiausextant—-The history of a single tool, (as that of a hamraer,) invaluable—In the general wreck of thearts of the ancients, most of their devices for raising water preserved—Cause of this—-Hydraulic ma-chines of very remote origin—Few invented by the Greeks and Romans—Arrangement and division ofthe subject.

älthough the subject of this work may present nothing very alluringto the general reader, it is not destitute of interest to the philosopher andintelligent mechanic. The art of raising water has ever been closelyconnected with the progress of man in civilization, so much so, indeed,that the state of this art, among a people, may be taken as an index oftheir position on the scale of refinement. It is also an art, which, fromits importance called forth the ingenüity of man in the infancy of soci-ety; nor is it improbable, that it originated some of the simple machines,or mechanic powers themselves.

It was a favorite subject of research with eminent mathematicians andengineers of old ; and the labors of their successors in modern days, havebeen rewarded with the most valuable machine which the arts ever pre-sented to man—the STEAM ENGINE—for it was “raising of water”that exercised the ingenüity of Decaus and Worcester , Moreland andP apin, Savary and Newcomen ; and those illustrious men, whose suc-