242

Bellcnos Forcing Pumps.

[Book III

come into general use, even in modern times, a particular account of themprevious to the art of printing, is not to be expeoted. A writer in theGrande Description of Fgyj>t, describing the smith’s bellows of that coun-try, observes :—“ Ces sortes de soufflets etoient employes verticalementdans le seizieme siede tant pour animer le feu des forges qu e pour eleverV eau, soit en rarefiant l’air soit en .le comprimant; ils sont decrits dansl’ouvrage de Ramelli, imprime en 1558.”

No. 106 represents a double lantern bellows-pump, as used in the 16thCentury. The mode of its Operation is too obvious to require detaileddescription. As one bellows is distended by working the lever, the at-mosphere drives water up the suction-pipe into its cavity; and the otherat the same time being compressed, expels its Contents through theascending or forcing pipe : the valves at the lower part of the latter, andthose over the orifices of the two branches of the suction-pipe opening andclosing, as shown in the figure. There is a pump similar to this, butgeared in a different manner, in Hachette’s Traite elementaire des machi-nes. Papin, in a way to raise water, which he proposed enigmaticallyin the Philosophical Transactions in 1685, used the lantern bellows as aforcing-pump. In a solution by another writer, it is said:—“ A vesselmade like the body of a pair of bellows, or those puffs heretofore used bybarbers being filled with water, a piece of clockwork put under it, mayproduce the jets.” Phil. Trans. Abridg., vol. i. 539. A similar appli-cation of the bellows was described in Besson’s Theatre, in 1579, themoveable board being impelled by' a spring.

No. 107 is another example of bellows forcing-pumps. It consistsof the frictionless piston of Gosset and Deville, (No. 83,) but without avalve; a forcing or ascending pipe, having its lower orifice covered by avalve, is attached to the cylinder below the piston. Pumps of this kindhave also been made double acting, by passing the piston rod through astuffing box on the top of the cylinder, and by a double set of valvesarranged as in the pump of La Hire.

Of late years machines like those figured in the two last cuts, have beenreintroduced into Europe and this country.

Although we have not heard of any one having run out of his wits forjoy at their discovery, like the blacksmith mentioned by Cardan, we haveheard of some who were nearly in that predicament from disappointmentin having found themselves anticipated. A few years ago they were an-nounced in this city as a new and very important discovery; and severalgentlemen allowed their names to go abroad as vouchers of their origina-lity and superiority over the common pump.

The proofs of the antiquity of many of our ordinary Utensils are derivedfrom representations of them on vases, candelabra, and other Works ofart that have come down. Of this, the domestic bellows is an example;the only evidence of its having been known to the Greeks or Romans,is furnished by a lamp ; but for the preservation of which, it might havebeen deemed a modern invention. Of no other article of ancient house-hold furniture are more specimens extant than of'lamps, and not alittle ofthepublic and private economy of the ancients has been illustrated by them.Among those in private collections and public museums, are some thatwere once suspended in temples, others that illuminated theatres andbaths—that decorated the banqueting-rooms of wealthy patricians, as wellas such as glimmered in the dwellings of plebeians; the former are ofbronze, elaborately wrought and enriched, the latter mostly of earthen-ware. The fertility of conception displayed in these Utensils is wonderful.All nature seems to have been ransacked for devices, and in modifymg