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Chap. 4.J Raising Water by the condensation of Steam.

There are several mdications that mechanicians in different parts ofEurope , were aiive to the power developed by steam at the time Garaywas making his experiments ; and we have little doubt that interestingInformation respeoting it will yet be obtained from the obsolete tomes ofthe XV and XVI centuries. Those old authors, whose works are gener-ally quoted on the subject, obviously derived their information principallyfrom those of their predecessors as well as from the laboratories of thealchymists.

Jerome Cardan, an Italian, born in 1501 and died in 1575, one of themost eccentric geniuses that ever lived, in whom was United “ the mosttranscendent attainments with the most consummate quackery, profoundsagacity with the weakest, Superstition ; who on one page is seen draw-ing the horoscope of Christ, and in another imploring his forgivenessfor the sin of having eaten a partridge on Friday ; unfolding the mostbeautiful relations in algebraic analysis, and foretelling from the ap -pearance of specks on his nails his approach to some discovery ; aboveall, eloquently enforcing the obligations of a pure religion and expressingthe finest Sentiments in morals, while his long life was one continued ex-ertion, grossly outraging both. Here, this philosopher, juggler andmadman, is entitled to brief mention from displaying in his writings aknowledge of what has been called the capabilities of steam, and moreparticularly with the fact of a vacuum being speedily procured by itscondensation.”

That the alchymists were familiär withthe formation of a vacuum by the con-densation of steam, and with raising waterinto it by atmospheric pressure is certain.Their ordinary manipulations necessarilymade them acquainted with both. InFludd’s Integrum Morborum Mysterium,page 462, he illustrates his notions re-specting fever and dropsy, by what hecalls a common experiment, and with theapparatus figured in the cut. An emptyretort or one containing a little water wassuspendedover a fire with the neck turneddown into a vessel of water: when theretort was heated the air or vapor became expanded and part of it drivenout through the liquid. Upon removing the fire, the water was forced bythe atmosphere through the neck to supply the place of the air or vaporexpelled by the heat. This although nothing more than the old processof filling eolipiles, most of which could be charged in no other way,shows that the principle was well understood and adopted in variousoperations. We add another and earlier example from Porta’s NaturalMagic, a work first published in 1560, where he distinctly shows theformation of a vacuum by the condensation of steam, and raising of waterinto it by the atmosphere. “ Make a vessel with a very long neck ; thelonger it is, the greater wonder it will seem to be. Let it be of transpa-rent glass that you may see the water running up : fill this with boilingwater, and when it is very hot, or setting the bottom of it to the fire thatit may not presentlie wax cold ; the mouth being turned downwards thatit may touch the water, it will suck it all in.” Discharging the hot wateris not mentioned, but that is of course implied, and before the vessel wasplaced on the fire—while full of hot water, it could not suck up any ofthe cold. (Book 19, cap. 3.)

No. 186. Fludd.