292 LIFE, TIMES, AND SCIENTIFIC LABOURS [1666-7. 



more active business agents. That a public company 

 was intended to be carried out by means of several 

 shareholders, is also highly probable, judging from 

 remarks occasionally made by himself, and from the 

 dispersion of placards and similar written statements, 

 headed a &quot; Definition&quot; of the Engine. 



Now it is assuredly a matter of surprise that an 

 invention so singular and novel in character, promising 

 unheard of advantages, should not have attracted the 

 general attention of all patrons and promoters of science. 

 The only instance of a passing remark from a scientific 

 source is anything but gratifying. Dr. Hook, writing 

 to the Honourable Eobert Boyle about the early part 

 of 1667, 14 reports certain experiments with glass tubes 

 then being carried on at Gresham College, after which 

 he says : u Sir R. Moray presented the Society with 

 an engine sent them by Prince Eupert ; being for raising 

 water, such a one as, I am sure, you have seen and taken 

 notice of in Scottus his mechanics, whose contrivance 

 is, continually to raise water, by turning round a cylin 

 der with a sliding board in it, included in another 

 hollow cylinder, or barrel. The Engine has not been 

 tried, but it will be the next Wednesday. But I find 

 that it goes exceedingly hard with the several grating 

 and sliding motions that it has, so that it is more likely 

 to prove a pretty curiosity than a useful engine. But 

 this gave an occasion for producing the definition or 

 description of the Marquis of Worcester s Water-com 

 manding Engine, which is so purely romantic that it 

 would serve one rarely to fill half a dozen pages in the 

 History of Fortunatus his Wishing Cup. A transcript 

 of some of the most observable passages, because I 



14 Boyle, Vol. v. page 532. 



