488 THE CENTURY, 



with whom I had the honour long since to be well 

 acquainted ; I mean the ingenious Captain Savery, some 

 time since deceased, but then a most noted engineer, 

 and one of the Commissioners of the Sick and Wounded. 

 This gentleman s thoughts (as appears by a preface of 

 his to a little book, entitled, L The Miners Friend ), 

 were always employed in Hydrostatics and Hydraulics ; 

 and the first hint from which it is said he took his 

 engine, was from a tobacco pipe, which he immersed to 

 wash or cool it, as is sometimes done ; he discovered by 

 the rarefaction of the air in the tube by the heat or 

 steam of the water, and the gravitation or impulse of 

 the exterior air, that the water was made to spring- 

 through the tube of the pipe in a wonderful surprising 

 manner ; though others say, that the learned Marquis 

 of Worcester, in his 4 Century of Inventions, (which 

 book I have not seen), see page 68, gave the first hint 

 for this raising water by fire.&quot;- -Vol. ii. p. 325. 



Thirty-four years later, Dr. J. T. Desaguliers, F.K.S., 

 and Chaplain to His Eoyal Highness, Frederick, late 

 Prince of Wales, &c., published his u Course of Experi 

 mental Philosophy,&quot; in two volumes, quarto, 1763. 

 His 13th section is a discourse on the u Fire-engine,&quot; 

 as the steam-engine was then designated. And the 

 following lecture treats largely on the Marquis of Wor 

 cester s present article in the u Century,&quot; which he 

 quotes and then observes : 



&quot; Captain Savery, having read the Marquis of Wor 

 cester s book, was the first who put in practice the 

 raising Water by Fire, which he proposed for the 

 draining of mines. His Engine is described in Harris s 

 Lexicon (on the word Engine), which being compared 

 with the Marquis of Worcester s description, will easily 

 appear to have been taken from him ; though Captain 

 Savery denied it, and the better to conceal the matter. 



