240 M. Arago's Biographical Memoir of James Watt. 



action of steam ; and we shall have constructed, in every sense 

 of the word, a steam-engine which might serve the purpose of 

 drainage. 



And now you have been made acquainted with that inven- 

 tion for which France and England have contended, as for- 

 merly the seven cities of Greece respectively claimed the 

 honour of being the birthplace of Homer. On the other side 

 of the Channel they have unanimously ascribed the honour of 

 it to the Marquis of Worcester, of the illustrious house of So- 

 merset. On this side, again, we maintain that it belongs to 

 a humble engineer, almost forgotten by our biographers, 

 namely, Solomon de Cans, who was born at Dieppe, or in its 

 neighbourhood. Let us now cast an impartial glance upon the 

 several claims of these two competitors. 



Worcester, deeply implicated in the intrigues of the last 

 years of the reign of the Stuarts, was shut up in the Tower 

 of London. One day, according to the tradition, the lid of 

 the pot in which his dinner was preparing was suddenly ele- 

 vated. In prison what can one do but think ? Worcester 

 pondered upon the strange phenomenon which he had wit- 

 nessed. The idea then suggested itself, that the same force 

 which had raised the cover, might become, under certain cir- 

 cumstances, a useful and convenient motive power. On re- 

 covering his liberty, he published, in the year 1663, in a 

 work entitled The Century of Inventions, the means by which 

 he proposed to realize his expectations. These means, in all 

 essential particulars, so far at least as they can be compre- 

 hended, are, the bomb half filled with liquid, and the ascend- 

 ing vertical tube which w^e have just described. 



This bomb and this same tube are described in " La 

 raisou des forces mouvantes,'" the work of Solomon de Cans. 

 There the idea is brought out distinctly, simply, and without 

 any pretensions. There was nothing romantic in its origin, 

 nor had it any connection either with the events of a civil war, 

 or with a celebrated State-prison, or even with the sudden 

 elevation of the pot-lid of an unfortunate prisoner ; but, what 

 is of far more importance in a question of priority, it is, ac- 

 cording to the date of its publication, forty-eight years ante- 



