With the slight alteration of substituting one pipe in the centre, for a pipe placed at each extremity in Mr. Millington's arrangement, our Eighth Figure represents an apparatus which that ingenious mechanic has designed from the account in the Century of Inventions. The failure of a person of so much judgment and experience in the combination of Steam machinery, to produce an engine fulfilling the conditions of the enigma, and no more, gives us a pretty clear notion of the value of the claim to discovery, by showing the impossibility of the problem.

The two spherical vessels a, o, in the Eighth Figure, have two pipes, d, f, proceeding from them, and inserted into a boiler, g. These pipes have two stopcocks, z, w, which shut off the communication between the boiler and the vessels. From another part of the vessels proceed two other pipes, having valves at s, x, opening outwards, and terminating in a single pipe, e. The spherical vessels have each another valve opening inwards, and a very short pipe, n, v; the pipe n, e, rises forty feet, and terminates in the reservoir u. b, is a section of the fire-grate, under the boiler e; t, the door of the fire-place; 7, the brickwork; g, the ash-pit; and h, is a reservoir of water in which the vessels o, a, are placed, and which is to be elevated into the cistern u.

If we now suppose a sufficient quantity of steam to be generated in the boiler c, from the water g,

so far beyond the reach of human power, that many have doubted whether they were invented or not."

Epitome of Nat. Phil. vol. I, 1823

and the stop-cock z, opened so as to allow a free communication between the boiler and the vessels in the reservoir, the steam will descend in the pipe d, (the pipes and vessels being made or cased with some material to prevent the condensation of the steam by the water in the reservoir,) into the vessel a, and will expel all the water or air which it may contain through the valve s, into the pipe e, which will deliver it into the reservoir u. The cock ≈ is now to be shut, and the valve v, being freed from the pressure of the elastic vapour, will be forced inwards by the gravity of the water in the reservoir, which will speedily fill the vessel a. But when the cock 2, is shut, the opposite one, w, is opened, and the steam from the boiler raises the water which may be contained in o, up the pipe e, closing in this operation the valve s. When the vessel o, is filled with steam, the cock w, is shut, and the water in the reservoir rushes into o, as it did into a, and fills it. The cock 2, is now opened, and the steam again expels the water from the vessel a; and so on successively, so long as steam is produced in the boiler, and the cocks ≈, w, are opened and shut alternately.

Mr. Millington remarks, that this engine agrees so far with the Marquis of Worcester's description, where he says, that "a man has but to turn two cocks, and that one vessel of water being consumed, another begins to force and refill." He also observes, that the condensation of the steam opens and shuts the valves, and fills the vessels, but that this use of the vacuum is part of an invention to which the Mar

quis has no claim, his Lordship expressly stating, that "the water is not raised by drawing or sucking it upwards." The "force and refill" in the original account would almost lead to a supposition that these operations were going on at the same moment, in the same vessel. The arrangement of pipes and cocks and valves is also gratuitous.

The "admirable method of drawing up water by fire" appears to have been the favourite project of the noble inventor; for he afterwards devoted a separate book to an enumeration of its extraordinary uses and powers, under the title of an "Exact and True Definition of the most stupendous Water commanding Engine, invented by the Right Honourable (and deservedly to be praised and admired) Edward Somerset, Lord Marquis of Worcester; and by his Lordship himself presented to his most excellent Majesty Charles the Second, our most gracious Sovereign." This "Exact and True Definition" is a quarto pamphlet, of twenty-two pages; but instead of a definition, it contains only an enumeration of the marvellous uses of his invention, as vaguely and obscurely written as those in the " Century of Inventions." The rest of the pamphlet is filled up with an Act of Parliament, allowing him the monopoly of such an engine, and reserving the tenth part of the profits to the King, with four wretched verses of his own, in commendation of his invention; with the

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Exigi monumentum" of Horace, and the " Barbara Pyramidam sileat," of Martial. Some Latin and English verses, panegyrizing the noble inventor,