Anecdote of Gromwell.

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Chap. 7.]

The adoption of some mode of concentrating wines as above, wouldproduce an immense saving in their freight and carriage over the globe,and would consequently greatly reduce their cost. It would also defeatthe enormous frauds that are practiced in the manufacture of artificialwines—mixtures in which not a drop of the juice of the grape is said toenter. Grlauber says, “ the new wine is not to be inspissated in caul-drons,” on account of the taste which it would contract from the metal.

CHAPTER Y 11.

Hautefeuille, Huyghens aud Hooke—Moreland—His table of cylinders—His pumps worked by acylindrical high-pressure steam-engine—He made no claim to a steam-engine in England—Simple de-viceby which he probably wovked his phinger pumps—Jnventions of his at Vauxhall—Anecdote of himfrom Evelyn’s Diary—Early steam projectors courtiers—Ridiculous origin of some honors—Edict ofNantes—Papin—Digesters—Safety valve—Papin’s plan to transmit power through pipes by means ofa i r _Cause of its failure—Another plan by compressed air—Papin’s experiments to move a piston bygunpowder aud by steam—The latter abandoned by him—The safety valve improved, not invented byPapin—Mercurial safety valves—Water lute—Steam machine of Papin for raising water and impartingmotion to machinery.

Towards the latter pari of Worcester ’s life, a young Frenchman wasfast rising into notice. This was John Hautefeuille, the son of a baker atOrleans, and one of the most brilliant mechanicians of the age. He wasin his twentieth year when Worcester died. The device for regulatingthe Vibration of the balance in watches by a spring, whence arose thename of pendulum watches, was invented by him, and was subsequentlyimproved by Huyghens. Hautefeuille entered the church and becamean abbe. He wrote several tracts on subjects connected with mechanics.In 1678 he proposed steam as a source of power, and applied it to givemotion to a piston. Instead of aqueous vapor he also proposed the alter-nate evolution and condensation of the vapor of alcohol, in such a mannerthat none should be wasted; and both he and Huyghens gave motion topistons, by exploding small charges of gunpowder in cylinders. In1678, Dr. Hooke proposed a steam-engine on the atmospheric principle,but the only information respecting it is in a memorandum to that effectfound among the papers of Dr. Robison, the author of the treatise on Me-chanical Philosophy.

These examples of imparting motion to a fiston by aeriform fluids areinteresting, inasmuch as they show that the device was not very novel inthe middle of the 17th Century, and that mechanics in different countrieswere familiär with it.

We must now refer to another member of the English court, a Contem-porary of Worcester , and like him actively engaged in the politics of thetimes, but who on the other hand adhered to the Commonwealth until thelatter part of Cromwell’s administration. We are told that one evening,near midnight, an interview took place between Cromwell and Thurloe ,

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