WITH NOTES. 459 



changing heights in the water in the two tanks or 

 cisterns, may easily be adapted for &quot; working some 

 little effect besides its own motion, without the help 

 of any man within sight or hearing,&quot; and of course too 

 far off to be the acting agent in such additional 

 &quot; working of some little effect, 5 some see-sawing action, 

 to work automata or like &quot; little effects&quot; for the delecta 

 tion of the ingenious and the delight of all the lovers 

 of the marvellous. And note &quot;if during the ebbing,&quot; 

 when that globe and that cistern is all but empty, u you 

 take out the globe, the water of that vessel presently 

 returneth to flow,&quot; showing that the globe thus removed 

 was quite empty ; and therefore would be shown as part 

 of the miracle, the same empty globe had been per 

 forming such strange motions in the water. But let 

 &quot; the globe be returned (empty as it was before) into it 

 [the cistern], and then the motion beginneth as before.&quot; 



If we are correct in this conjecture, the principle 

 involved would easily account for the inventions 

 couched in the terms of articles No. 22, An ebbing and 

 flowing river ; and No. 23, An ebbing and flowing 

 Castle Clock. 



The present article, viewed in any other light than 

 as illustrative of the peculiar properties of the great 

 principle with which he was operating, and which 

 he was incessantly investigating, and varying its appli 

 cations, is altogether incomprehensible. But it was very 

 natural for him to preserve in this simple but striking 

 form the sure signs of greater applications. In the 

 present example, we have no attempt, in this philoso 

 phical demonstrative model, to cater to the popular 

 taste, although the fertile genius of the noble inventor 

 could not permit the suggestion to escape his pen that 

 the rise and the fall of the water might be made to 

 operate shall we say bellows, mills and the like, and 



