430 Mr. J. Taylor on the Didi/ ofSteam-Engines in Conmall. 



wall, and that the rate of improvement has been well expressed 

 by the printed reports. The same system and the same mode 

 of estimating duty have been adopted in the lead-mines in Flint- 

 shire, and the advantages are sufficiently manifest. I can add 

 that I now receive a regular duty paper from Mexico, show- 

 ing the great advantage that the steam-engines at Real del 

 Monte have derived from the application of the later improve- 

 ments to them. 



The evidence has been long before the public ; and your 

 predecessor Dr. Tilloch, who indeed was interested with Mr. 

 Woolf, repeatedly published statements in the early numbers 

 of the Philosophical Magazine. Mr. Farey visited Cornwall 

 with a view to investigate this subject, and this he did as long- 

 ago as 1818, He conducted an experiment on one of Woolf 's 

 engines, then working at "Wheal Abraham, and the result 

 was in his opinion conclusive. The learned President of the 

 Royal Society, who has had longer acquaintance with the 

 progress of improvement of steam-engines in Cornwall than 

 almost any other person, and who was in the year 1798 one 

 of five individuals to whom disputes relative to the real per- 

 formance of Mr. Watt's engines were referred, has illustrated 

 the subject in two papers read before the Royal Society: one 

 printed in the Transactions for 1827; and the second in the 

 present session, just published. He quotes in both the duty 

 papers as authorities to be relied on ; and in the latter, states 

 that the best engine, which is the same that Mr. Rennie has 

 taken for experiment, performed a duty in the whole month 

 of December 1829, exceeding the average of 17 engines on 

 Mr. Watt's construction in 1793, by a proportion of nearly 

 4 to 1. 



My paper in the " Records of Mining " was published in 

 the early part of last year ; and as it was noticed in your fifth 

 volume, 1 shall only say that I considered the account there 

 given of the progress of improvement from year to year as the 

 most interesting part of it, particularly as a great portion is 

 taken from documents which are not in the hands of many. 

 The results are quoted in your pages. 



I trust and hope Mr. Kennie's opinion and conclusions on 

 this interesting subject may also be communicated in some 

 manner to the public, and that it may be strictly investigated 

 by those who may continue to doubt. 



As much has been said about the motives of those who 

 publish statements on this subject, I must be allowed to re- 

 peat for myself and other adventurers in the mines in Corn- 

 wall, that we have no interest vvhatever in inducing others to 

 give credit to those statements. We know that we are reap- 

 ing 



