1822.] Mr. Partington on the History of the Steam Engine. 57 
a brief notice of this stupendous machine, of which a detailed 
account is given in the above work. 
The historical data furnished by Mr. P. certainly throw consi- 
derable light upon the early history and subsequent improve- 
ments which have been effected in the steam engine, and to 
this part of the work we shall principally confine ourselves. 
- Among the numerous competitors for the honour of having 
first suggested steam as a moving power in mechanics, we must 
certainly place Brancas and the Marquis of Worcester in the 
foremost rank. The former of these was an Italian philosopher, 
of considerable eminence, and who, in 1629, published a treatise, 
entitled ‘ La Machine,’ &c. which contained a description of a 
machine for this purpose. The apparatus employed by Brancas 
was in fact nothing more than a large eolipile, similar to the 
blowpipe suggested by M. Pictet, of Geneva, with this difference, 
that the aperture in the pipe connected with the body of the 
wolipile instead of being directed towards the lamp (or in this 
case the furnace that heated the machine) was made to strike 
against the floats or vanes of a wheel, by which means a rotatory 
motion was produced,” 
“ After the publication of this scheme, which it is probable 
was never put in practice with any useful effect, nearly 30 years 
elapsed ere the further consideration of this important subject 
was resumed by the Marquis of Worcester. The mode of 
employing steam recommended by the Marquis, and which he 
describes in his ‘Century of Inventions’ to have completely 
carried into effect, was entirely different from that of his prede- 
cessor ; and it is evident that the noble author had received no 
previous hint of Brancas’s invention, as he expressly states in 
another part of the above work, that he ‘desired not to set down 
any other men’s inventions ;’ andif he had in any case acted on 
them, ‘ to nominate likewise the inventor.’ ”* 
“ In 1683, a scheme for raising water by the agency of steam 
was offered to the notice of Louis X1V. by an ingenious English 
mechanic of the name of Morland. This, however, was evidently 
* “ This work was written about the middle of the seventeenth century, and, consi- 
dered as the united discoveries of one individual, is certainly one of the most extraordi- 
nary scientific productions which has yet issued from the press in any age ornation, In 
addition, however, to its value, as containing the first tangible suggestion for the em~ 
ployment of steam as an hydraulic and pneumatic force, it has unquestionably formed 
the foundatien of a large portion of patent inventions which make so prominent a feature 
in the present day. The praiseworthy labours, however, of this indefatigable noble- 
man shared the fate which usually attends on projectors; and it was left to the slow 
though certain march of scientific improvement to award to his memory a posthumous 
praise. The Marquis also published a work, entitled ‘‘ An Exact and True Definition 
of the most Stupendous Water-commanding Engine, invented by the Right Hon. (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 II, our 
most gracious Sovereign.” This was published in a small quarto volume of only 22 pages, 
and consists of little more than an enumeration of the wonderful properties of the above 
pe a and it is most probable that he never published any key to the first hint fure 
in the Century of Inventions.” 
