Air- Pump in Emjland. 339 



Boyle published the account of the experiments he made 

 with his second pneumatical engine, in 1669, and laid pneu- 

 matics again almost entirely aside for seven or eight years. 

 In 1676, however, he began to think of resuming the subject, 

 and he was fixed in his resolution by a visit paid him by a very 

 ingenious and inventive Frenchman, 7)^y*y« Papin, whose name 

 is still connected with one of his many devicf s, the Bone-di- 

 gester, a peculiar high-pressure steam-boiler, with which he 

 effected strange triumphs in cookery. He has a place, and a 

 high one, long overlooked, among the inventors of the steam- 

 engine, and it will presently appear that he has a claim, lat- 

 terly quite forgotten, to a high place among the inventors of 

 the air-pump. 



Papin came to England in search of some situation which 

 might afford scope for his mechanical genius. Boyle, who had 

 since 1662 been deprived of the services of Hooke, w^hilsthis 

 indifferent health prevented him from experimenting much 

 himself, availed himself of Papin 's services, and the latter 

 became his assistant, or rather coadjutor. A new series of 

 pneumatic researches was undertaken ; and this was the more 

 readily accomplished, that Papin had brought with him " a 

 pneumatic pump of his own, made by himself,'' and much su- 

 perior in efficiency to either of Boyle''s pneumatical engines. 



An engraving and minute description of Papin's air-pump 

 are given in Boyle's tract entitled, " A Continuation of New 

 Experiments Physico- Mechanical, touching the Spring and 

 Weight of the Air, and their Effects. Second Part." It 

 is important to notice that the substance of this tract was 

 first noted down in French by Papin, who performed most of 

 the experiments. It was then translated by Boyle, or under 

 his superintendence, into Latin, in which the treatise was 

 first published. Afterwards this was translated, under the 

 supervision of Boyle, into English, in which it is reprinted in 

 Birch's Boyle, vol. iv., p. 505. It must be regarded as a 

 joint production of Papin and Boyle's ; for several of the ex- 

 periments recorded in it, on " the preservation of fruits, and 

 of flesh, in liquors," and "also about the coction of meat," 

 " were propounded," Boyle tells us, '* by Monsieur Papin, for 



