431
Chap. 6.]
a dress of thin skin or oiled silk fitted close to his body, and covering everypart except his head and hands, is represented walking on the bottom ofa river. In his left hand he holds a leathern flask, through the contractedneck of which he is drawing a portion of the Contents with his mouth.Wilkins devoted a chapter of his Math. Magic to diving. He noticesDrebble’s machine, and many other curious devices ; so that on this sub-ject Worcester had an abundance of materials and hints to work upon.
No. 50 of the Century relates to portable ladders. A variety of theseare figured in the old translation of Vegetius just referred to. There areseveral other things named in the Century which might be traced to oldersources, but it is not necessary; for Worcester has not, that we are awareof, ever claimed all the devices he has named. He mentions two whoseauthors he recollected, but as the account was drawn up from memory, hecould hardly recall to mind the sources whence all were derived. Hesays they were such as he could call to mind to have tried and perfected:he does not say invented. While many originated with himself, otherswere such as he improved only. That he had sources of informationwhich have not been discovered, there can be little doubt. Of the thou-sands of old treatises on the “ Mysteries of Nature and Art,” a staple sub-ject, and title too, from Roger Bacon to Moxon, how few are extant!But some will perhaps yet be met with on the shelves of antiquaries andthe lovers of old books in Europe.
These numbers of the Century which relate to steam are 68, 98, 99 and100; but it is in 68 only that steam is clearly indicated. The device isnamed “ a fire water work,” and is described in the following manner :“An admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire, not bydrawing or sucking it upwards, for that must be, as the philosopher callethit, Infra spharam activitatis, which is but at such a distance. But thisway hath no bounder, if the vessels be strong enough; for I have taken apiece of a whole cannon, whereof the end was burst, and filled it threequarters full of water, stopping and screwing up the broken end, as alsothe touch-hole; and making a constant fire under it, within twenty-fourhours it burst, and made a great crack :—So that having a way to makemy vessels, so that they are strengthened by the force within them, andthe one to fill after the other, I have seen the water run like a constantfountain stream forty feet high. One vessel of water rarefied by firedriveth up forty of cold water; and a man that tends the work is but toturn two cocks, that, one vessel of water being consumed, another beginsto force and refill with cold water, and so successively, the fire beingtended and kept constant, which the seif same person may likewise abun-dantly perform in the interim, between the necessity of turning the saidcocks.”
We here see clearly what was meant by Ramseye and others whenthey spoke of raising water by fire, viz. that it was by steam, which thefire was employed to produce. It will be perceived that Worcester doesnot here Claim to be the first to raise water in large quantities in this man-ner, thus tacitly admitting that he was aware of previous applications ofsteam for the purpose. Had he indeed made such a claim, little reliancecould have been placed on his Statements; but, notwithstanding all thathas been said to the contrary, we have seen nothing in the whole tenor ofhis conduct with regard to his inventions to shake our confidence in hissincerity. In one respect No. 68 differs from the rest, viz. in the detailwith which the device is described ; but this was most likely designedlvdone, in Order to show its superiority over other “ fire water-works,” andto point out where it differed from them. Had it been an original idea,