262 LIFE, TIMES, AND SCIENTIFIC LABOURS [1664 



CHAPTER XVII. 



HIS OPERATIONS AT VAUXHALL PETITIONS AND DECEASE 



CASPAR KALTOFF AND FAMILY M. SORBIERE COSMO, 



GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY THE DOWAGER MARCHIONESS 



OF WORCESTER. 



IN the second Dedication to his &quot; Century&quot; the Marquis 

 of Worcester expressly alludes to u the experiments 

 extant, and comprised under these several heads, prac 

 ticable with my directions, by the unparalleled workman 

 both for trust and skill, Caspar Kaltoff s hand, who hath 

 been these five and thirty years as in a school under me 

 employed; and still at my disposal, in a place by my 

 great expenses made fit for public service, yet lately 

 like to be taken from me, and consequently from the 

 service of King and kingdom, without the least regard 

 of above 10,000 expended by me through my zeal to 

 the common good.&quot; 



We have thus the fact on record, that Kaltoff was 

 employed by him in the execution of his mechanical 

 experiments from 1628 to 1663, commencing with the 

 period of his first marriage, when he was about twenty- 

 seven years of age. 



In 1664, M. Samuel Sorbiere, historian to the King 

 of France, published in Paris a small work entitled 

 &quot; Eelation d un voyage en Angleterre, &c.&quot; As he ap 

 pears to have interested himself in scientific matters, 

 as much or more than in any other single subject, no 



