436 hast ihree Propositimis in the Century of Invcntions. [Book IV.

left for a future age to adopt. It does not appear equally clear that hewas the first thus to use steam. Prom the description of the engine ofmotion mentioned at page 423, and the third and fifth devices in Ramseye’spatent, it would seem that a working cylinder had been in previous use;nor do we see how the experimenters of the 17th and previous centuries,when seeking for modes of employing steam as a motive agent, could miss itany more than their successors. It is one of those devices that would bedetected by such men in every age, just as it has been by the makers ofpumps and piston bellows. Fludd, Hoell, Belidor and Westgarth, allemployed a piston and cylinder in pressure engines; and some of themwere not aware of their having been employed before in such naachines.Guerricke, Papin and Newcomen at once adopted them in atmospheric en-gines, Hautefeuille in explosive engines, and Watt and others in those movedby steam ; and why not Garay, Ramseye and Worcester 1 And even thetroublesome neighbor of Zeno also 1 It required no great sagacity inWorcester to apply steam to move the loaded piston in Fludd’s pressureengine, (page 354) and so simple an idea could hardly escape him afterhe had turned his attention to impart motion by steam. Indeed, he usesan expression which implies that it was a loaded piston to which he gavemotion. But even if this idea escaped both Ramseye and Worcester , theapparatus of Guerricke so clearly exhibited the mode of applying steamto move a piston, that the latter could not possibly have remained anylonger ignorant of it.

When the three foilowing propositions in the Century are duly consider-ed, every candid mind will, we think, admit that he was really in possessionof an engine similar to Leopold’s, or to Newcomen’s, or to the single-acting one of Watt:—

“ 98. An engine, so contrived, that working the primum mobile forwardor backward, upward or downward, circularly or cornerwise, to and fro,streight, upright, or downright, yet the pretended Operation continueth,and advanceth, none of the motions above-mentioned hindering, much lessstopping, the other; but unanimously and with harmony agreeing, theyall augment and contribute strength unto the intended work and Opera-tion ; and, therefore, I call this a semi-omnipotent engine, and do intendthat a model thereof be buried with me.

“ 99. How to make one pound weight to raise an hundred as high asone pound falleth, and yet the hundred pound descending doth what no-thing less than one hundred pound can effect.

“ 100. Upon so potent a help as these two last-mentioned inventions, awater-work is, by many years experience and labor, so advantageouslyby me contrived, that a child’s force bringeth up, an hundred foot high,an incredible quantity of water, even two foot diameter, so naturally, thatthe work will not be heard, even into the next roorn ; and with so greatease and geometrical symmetry, that thougb it work day and night, fromone end of the year to the other, it will not require forty Shillings repara-tion to the whole engine, nor hinder one day’s work; and I may boldlycall it the most stupendous work in the whole World : not only, with littlecharge, to drain all sorts of mines, and furnish cities with water, thoughnever so high seated, as well as to keep them sweet, running throughseveral streets, and so performing the work of scavengers, as well as fur-nishing the inhabitants with sufficient water for their private occasions;but likewise supplying rivers with sufficient to maintain and make themportable from town to town, and for the bettering of lands all the way itruns; with many more advantageous and yet greater effects of profit ad-tnirable and consequence. So that deservedly I deern this Invention to