PETITION TO PARLIAMENT. 313 



having had the slightest connection with trade or with manufac- 

 ture in any part of my life, I am entirely unacquainted with 

 mercantile concerns. I cannot, however, but conjecture that you 

 should make a fair and full estimate of what would be the 

 expense of making a decisive experiment on a scale sufficiently 

 large to remove all doubt ; and that your proposal should be, 

 that anyone willing to incur that expense should, in the event 

 of success, be entitled to a certain share of your patent. On 

 such conditions some man of property may perhaps be found 

 who would undertake the risk ; and if the experiment proves 

 successful, he will be sure to use every exertion afterwards for 

 his own sake. With every wish for your success, 



" Believe me, 

 i( Yours very sincerely and faithfully, 



" DA VIES GILBERT." 



The petition to Parliament for a national payment 

 for national gains, so hopefully taken up on his return 

 from America, when experience had proved the value 

 of his inventions, after four weary years of deferred 

 expectation, was consigned to the tomb of forge tfulness. 



Compare the petition of 1828 with a modern report. 



" Prior to the invention of your petitioner's boiler, the most 

 striking defect observable in every steam-engine was in the 

 form of the boiler which in shape resembled a tilted wagon ; 

 your petitioner's invention consists principally in introducing 

 the fire into the midst of the boiler, and in making the boiler of 

 a cylindrical form, which is the form best adapted for sustaining 

 the pressure of high steam, and does not require half of the 

 materials, nor does it occupy half the space required for any 

 other boiler, and greater duty Can be performed by an engine 

 with this boiler with less than half the fuel, than by any 

 engine without it, and is the only one that can be used with 

 success in steam- vessels, as none of the old boilers could have 

 withstood a pressure of above 6 Ibs. on the inch, much less a 

 pressure of GO Ibs. or even of 150 Ibs. when necessary." 



