WITH NOTES. 479 



only to add another pipe, and only to make another 

 arrangement or two, and then this petite fontaine would 

 somewhat resemble a steam engine, is neither sound nor 

 admissible. An inventor must be judged by his own aim 

 and object, and the example he offers us, without any 

 additions or subtractions at other hands. What De 

 Caus desribes, therefore, is not a continuous but an 

 intermittent fountain ; not self-feeding, but to be re 

 filled by a syringe ; not emitting cold, but boiling hot 

 water ; and the difficulties and delays in the use of which 

 materially increased in proportion with its dimensions. 



But there was shortly afterwards published another 

 highly suggestive work, on a mechanical application of 

 steam, in &quot; Le Machine,&quot; by Giovanni Branca, 4to. 

 1628 ; in which the 25th figure represents the opera 

 tion of pounding, the pestles being acted on by pulleys 

 and cog-wheels set in motion by a jet of steam issuing 

 from a pipe against the vanes of a horizontal wheel. 

 The boiler is in the fanciful form of the bust of a 

 negro, with the steam pipe issuing from the mouth. 



On the 21st of January, 1630, a patent was granted 

 to David Ramsey, for, among other inventions, one &quot; to 

 raise water from low pits by fire.&quot; But unfortunately, 

 like all patents of that period, it is unaccompanied by 

 any description. 



John Bate, in his &quot; Mysteries of Art and Nature,&quot; 

 1635, 4to. has &quot; a conceited lamp, for forcing water or air 

 through the figure of a bird/ A minute description is 

 given for constructing a small boiler in the form of a 

 crown, surmounted by a bird, and enclosing various per 

 forated pipes and valves, capable of being turned in 

 various directions; the whole is set over a circular 

 lamp, with several cotton wicks. Water being put in the 

 boiler, Bate observes &quot; Then the water being by little 

 and little converted into ay re, by the heate of the lights 



