64
Sef-Acting Buchets.
[Book I.
SELF-ACTING, OR GAINING AND LOSING BUCKETS.
In the latter part of the 16th, orbeginning of the 17th Century, a ma-chine for raising water, was in use in Italy , which is entitled to particularnotice, on account of its being alleged to be the first one of the kindwhich was self-acting; and in that respect, was the forerunner of themotive ‘ Fire Engine ’ itself. It appears to have been first described bySchottus in his Technia Curiosa. According to Moxon, his descriptionwas taken from one in actual Operation “at a nobleman’s house at Basil .”(Mech. Pow. 107.) But Belidor , says the first one who put such a thing inexecution, w'as Gironimo Finugio, at Rome in 1616 ; although Schottus hadlongbefore contrived an engine for this purpose. Moxon has given a figureand description of one, but without naming the source from whence he ob-tained it: he says it was “made at Rome , in the convent of St. Maria deVictoria : the lesser bücket did contain more than a whole urn of water,(at Rome they say un barile,) but before, while they used lesser buckets,the engine wanted success.” It would seem that it was to one of these‘Roman Engines,’ that the Marquis of Worces-ter referred, in the 21st proposition ofhis Cen-tury of Inventions: “ How to raise water con-stantly with two buckets only, day and night,without any other force than its own motion, usingnot so much as any force, wbeel or sucker, normore pulleys than one, on which the cord or chainrolleth, with a bücket fastened at each end.This I confess I have seen and learned of thegreat mathematician Claudius, his studies atRome , he having made a present thereof unto aCardinal, and I desire not to own any other men’sinventions, but if I set down any, to nominate like-wise the inventor.”
The machine described by Moxon, is encum-bered with too many appendages for populärIllustration—its essential parts will be under-stood by the accompanying diagram, from Ha-chette’s Traite Elementaire des Machines, Paris ,1819. Over a pulley S, are suspended twovessels A and B, of unequal dimensions. Thesmaller one B, is made heavier than A when bothare empty, but lighter when they are filled. Itis required to raise by them, part of the waterfrom the spring or reservoir E, into the cisternZ. As the smaller bücket B, by its superiorgravity, descends into E, (a flap or valve in itsbottom admitting the water,) it consequendyraises A into the position represented in thefigure. A pipe F, then conveys water from thereservoir into A, the orifice or bore of whichpipe, is so proportioned, that both vessels arefilled simultaneously. The larger bücket then pre-ponderates, descending to O, and B at the sametime rising to the upper edge of Z, when theprojecting pins O O, catch against others on thelower sides of the buckets, and overturn them atthe same moment. The bails or handles are at-tached by swivels to the sides, a little above the
No. 16. Gaining and LosingBuckets.