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distant water-wheel. The rods or levers which communieated the motionwere probably concealed under the floor, and terminated at the feet of thefigures, while Vulcan could easily throw them in and out of geer unper-ceived. It can readily be iraagined what the effect of two well executedworking images of this kind must have been in early times.
Eolipiles for Fusing Metals, p. 397. The surprising effects produced inmodern days by steam and those more important ones which it is destinedhereafter to accomplish, will always render examples of its early employ-ment in the arts interesting. The use of eolipiles as bellows, like that ofatmospheric Sprinklers for watering pots, has long been discontinued, andboth have almost passed into oblivion. ¥e shall therefore offer no apologyfor inserting the following additional illustrations of the use of the former inbygone times. No. 285 is a steam blow-pipe from the 2d edit. of John Bate ’s work. His description forms an admirable comment on Wilkins’sobservation, (p. 396,) that eolipiles were used in melting glass and metals.This remark of the bishop has been quoted by several writers, but notone has, to our knowledge, endeavored to show how steam was thusapplied, although every mechanic on perusing Wilkins’s book would, likeourselves, feel anxious for Information on the subject.
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No. 285. Eolipile for glass blowing. No. 286. Eolipile for fusing metals.
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The first figure consists of a lamp and a copper ball or eolipile, placedon and heated by a furnace or brazier. The apparatus is named “ a deviceto bend glasse canes, [tubes,] or to make any small work in glasse.” “ Letthere be a vessel of copper about the bignesse of a common foot-ball : letit have a long pipe at the top, which must be made so that you may uponoccasion screw on lesser or bigger vents made for the purpose. Fill thisone third part with water, and set it over a furnace of coals, as B; andwhen the water beginneth to heat, there will come a strong breath out ofthe nose of the vessel that will force the Harne of a lamp placed at a con-venient distance, as A ; if you hold your glasse in the extension of theHarne, it will Hielt suddenly ; so you may work what you will thereof.”Bäte observes, that some persons instead of this apparatus used a pipe{the common mouth pipe) fastened on a bench between a crotched stick,as figured at C. He himself occasionally employed this, but considered■it not so convenient as the eolipile.—(Mysteries of Nature and Art, Lond.1635.)
In 1650, Dr. John French published “ The Art of Distillation, or aTreatise on the Choisest Spagyrical Preparations .... with descriptionsof the chiefest furnaces and vessels used by ancient and modern chemists.”
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