Perier’s Engines.

329

Chap. 8.]

the latter. This was the first Step towards using suctiom hose, and con-sequently towards making an engine supply itself. Perhaps it may bethougbt stränge that they did not adopt this plan at first instead of thedevice just described, but in point in fact they could not, for before suc-tion pipes could be used, a radical change was required in the construc-tion of the lower parts of the pumps, and one that could not without muchdifficulty and expense be made in the old engines. Hence the Van derHeides very properly preferred making new machines altogether; towhich they adapted suction pipes. These great improvements weremade about 1675. In 1677, one or both of the Van der Heides obtainedan exclusive privilege to construct such engines for twenty-five years. In1695 there were in Amsterdam upwards of sixty of their engines, andwhen a fire broke out, the six that were located nearest were taken toextinguish it. The use of leather and canvas hose became general in thenext Century. In 1720 the latter was woven without seams in Leipsicand other places in Germany .

Whether the engines of the Van der Heides had air vessels is not ascer-tained; Professor Beckman says their internal construction is no whererepresented. There is strong evidence that they had none ; for so lateas the first quarter of the 18th Century, the Dutch engines were not gener-ally furnished with them, and this would certainly not have been the casehad they ever been “ common in all the towns of the Netherlands, ” as Vander Heide’s engines were. Mr. Chambers, in his Cyclopedia, A. T). 1728,observes, article Hydrocanisterium, “ The Dutch and others use a longflexible tube of leather, sail-cloth, or the like, which they carry or conductin the hand, from one room to another, as occasion requires ; so that theengine may be applied where the fire is only withinside, and does notburst out to expose it to its external action. To improve on this originalfire-engine, they have since contrived to make it yield a continual stream.”At the time Belidor wrote, air vessels were not common in Holland , andin 1744, Desaguliers speaking of their advantages, remarks, “In the useof engines to put out fires which have no air vessels, like the Dutch en-gines, or old parisji engines, a great deal of water is lost at the beginningand end of the jet or spouting of the water.” Philos. ii, 164. Beckmansays, it is certain that air vessels were not common in Germany tili afterthey were used by Leopold.

Perier in France, Leopold in Germany , and Newsham in England,contemporaneous engine makers in the early part of the 18th Century,were greatly celebrated in their respective countries. They were some-times considered inventors of the fire engine, though very erroneously,for so far as the principle of its construction, application of the air ves-sel, goose-neck, flexible pipes of leather and canvas, the Connection ofthese by screws, &c. were concerned, the engine was perfected beforetheir time ; indeed not one of them contributed any thing essential to it.Their merit consistedin improving these machines in various minor details;m the arrangement of the different parts, construction of the carriages,mode of communicating motion to the pistons, and in rendering the wholemore durable and efficient by superior workmanship and materials. Inthese respects the English engineer, we believe surpassed his competitors,but then he was the last of the three that entered the field, for Perier startedbefore Leopold, and both were some years in advance of Newsham.

No account of Perier’s engines is to be found in modern books; everiBelidor has taken no notice of them. To supply this deficiency, we in-tended to insert a figure of one, taken from the 2d ed. of Poliniere’s “Ex-periences de Physique,” Paris , 1718, (the only work with which we areacquainted that contains a representation of them,) but on account of the

42