o VARIOUS INVENTIONS. 



that country by making his engines known there. His 

 proposal to make the sugar-cane convert itself into sugar 

 by the use of his patent high-pressure steam-engine may 

 be more theoretical than practical ; but many more 

 unlikely things have come to pass. 



At that time several of his engines were at work in 

 Wales, Worcester, Staffordshire, Coalbrookdale, Man- 

 chester, Derbyshire, Liverpool, Cornwall, and New- 

 castle-upon-Tyne. Twelve were at work in London, 

 and so familiar were people with them, that founders 

 intended to construct them of different sizes, and send 

 them for sale at the large market or county towns ; 

 their cost complete, ready for work, to be 200/., more 

 or less, according to size, with a range of application 

 unlimited. His one letter, casually written sixty-seven 

 years ago, mentions them as grinding corn, dressing 

 leather, winding coal, crushing sugar-cane, prepared to 

 boil sugar, and distil rum; pumping water, rolling 

 iron, railway locomotion, portable steam fire-engine, 

 portable steam-crane, mine engines on wheels ; so that 

 it may almost be said he was not too sanguine in 

 hoping to send in 1804 a thousand of his engines to 

 South America, for in those cursory remarks he draws 

 attention to no less than thirty-six high-pressure steam- 

 puffers at work. 



The Penberthy Croft Mine portable engine could be 

 placed on wheels or otherwise, according to the wish of 

 the purchaser, as though steam locomotion was an 

 every day occurrence in 1804. 



" Mil. GlDDY, " CAMBORNE, January 13th, 1811. 



" Sir, From calculating the quantity of blast given to 

 a blast-furnace, I find a considerable quantity more of coal con- 

 sumed by the same quantity of air in this way, than by the 



