bonsehold purposes. •' from mominij till night — 

 all the days in the year." au abundance was 

 raised into B, witliout anj- exertion or expense. 



Such was the first water-raiu. As an original 

 device, it is hip'hly honorable to the gagacity 

 and ingenuity of its author : and the introduc- 

 tion of iin air vessel without which all appa- 

 ratus of the kind could never be made durable, 

 strengthens his claims upon oar regard, in this 

 machine he has shown tiiat the mere act of 

 dra\\ing water from long tubes for ordinarj- 

 purposes, may serve to raise a portion of tlieir 

 contents to a higher level ; an object that does 

 not appear to have been previously attempted, 

 or even tliought of. The device also exhibits 

 another mode, besides that by pressure engines, 

 of deri\nng motive force from liquids thus 

 drawn, and consequently opens another way 

 by which the immense power expended in 

 raising water for supplying cities, may again be 

 given out with the liquid from the lateral pipes. 

 Not^vilhstanding the advantages derived from 

 such an appai^atus. under circumstances similar 

 to those indicated by the figure, it does not ap- 

 pear to have elicited the attention of engineers, 

 nor does ^Vhiteharst himself seem to have been 

 aware of its adaptation as a substitute for forcing 

 pumps, in locations where the water drawn 

 from the cock was not required, or could not be 

 u.sed. Had he pursued the subject, it is proba- 

 ble the idea of opening and closing the cock 

 |by means of the w-atertiiat escaped) with some 

 such apparatus as that invented bj" Fluid, would 

 have occurred to him and then his machine be- 

 ing made seh-acting. would have been applica- 

 ble in a thousand locations. But these additions 

 were not made, and the consequence was, that 

 the invention \vas neglected, and bat for the one 

 next to be described, it would most likely have 

 passed into oblivion, like the steam machines of 

 Branca, Kircher, and Decaus, till called forth by 

 Uie application of the same principle in more 

 recent devices. 



Whenever we peruse accounts of the labors 

 of ingenious men. in search of ne\v discov- 

 eries -in science or the arts, sympathy leads 

 us to rejoice at their success and to grieve at 

 their failure : like the readers of a well written 

 novel who enter into the views, feelings and 

 hopes of the hero : realize his disappointments, 

 partake of his jtlcasures, and become interested 

 in his fate : hence something like regret comes 

 over us, when an industrious experimenter, led 

 by his researches to the verge of an important 

 discovery, is, by some circumstance, diverted 

 (perhaps temporarily) from it :^and a more for- 

 tunate or more sagacious inval steps in and bears 

 off the prize from his grasp — a prize, which a 

 few steps more would have put him in posses- 

 sion of Tims Whitchurst with the water-ram. 

 like Papin with the steam engine, discontinued 

 his researches at the most interesting point — at 

 the verj- turning of the tide that would have 

 carried him to the goal ; and hence the fruit of 

 both tlieir labors has contributed but to enhance 

 the glory of their successors. 



The Belicr hj/Jrau/ique of Montgolfier was 

 invented in 1796. [lis author was a French 

 paper maker, and the same gentleman who, in 

 conjunction with his brother, invented balloons 

 in 1T80.I Although it is on the principle of 

 Whitehnrst's machine, its invention is believed 

 to have been entirely independent of the latter. 

 But if it were even admitted that Montgolfier 

 was acquainted with whax Whitehurst had 

 done, stiil he has. by his improvements, made 

 (7i:5) 



the ram entirely his own. He foimd it a com- 

 paratively useless de\nce. and he rendered it one 

 of the most efiicient — it was neglected or for- 

 gotten, and he not only revived it. but gave it a 

 permanent place among hydratdic machines, 

 and actually made it the most interesting of them 

 all. It wa-s. previous to his time, but an em- 

 bryo; when, like another Promctlieus. he not 

 only wrought it into shape and beauty, but im- 

 parted to it, as it were, a principle of life, that 

 rendered its movements self-acfing ; for it re- 

 quires neither the attendance of man, nor any 

 thing else, to keep it in play, but the momentum 

 of the w^ater it is employed to elevate. Like 

 the organization of animid life, and the mechan- 

 ism by which tlie blood circulates, the pulsa- 

 tions of this admirable machine incessantly con- 

 tinue day and night, for months and years; 

 while nothing but deficiency of the liquid, or 

 defects in the apparatus can induce it to stop. — 

 It is. compared to '^'hitehnrst's. what the steam- 

 engine of Watt is to that of Savary or Ne^-- 

 comen. 



Montgolfier positively denied having borrowed 

 the idea from any one — he claimed the inven- 

 tion as wholly his own. and there is no reason 

 whatever to question his veracity. The same 

 discoveries have often been, and still are. made 

 in the same and in distant countries. ii:depend- 

 ently of each other. It is a common occurrence, 

 and from the constitution of the human mind 

 will always be one. A patent was taken out in 

 England for self-acting rams in 1797 by Mr. 

 Boultou, the partner of "VVatt, and as no refer- 

 ence \vas made in the specification to Montgol- 

 fier, many persons imagined them to be of 

 English origin, a circumstance that elicited some 

 remarks from their author. " Cette invention 

 ,says Montgolfier) n"est point d'origine Anglaise, 

 elle appartient toute entiere a la France ; je de- 

 clare que jen suis le seul inventeur. et que 

 I'idee ne men a ete foumie parpersonne: il 

 est vrai qu'un de mes amis a fait passer, avec 

 mon agrement. a MM. Watt et Boulton, copie 

 de plusieurs dessias que j'avais fatfs de cetie 

 machine, avec uu memoire detaille sur ses ap- 

 plications. Ce sont ces mimes dexsins qui ont 

 ete fidelement copies dans la patente prise par 

 M. Boulton a Londres. en date du 13 Decembre 

 1797 : ce qui est une verite dont il est bien 

 eloigne de disconvenier, ain.si que le respectable 

 M. Watt." \Ve have insened tliis extract from 

 Hachette, because we really supfwsed on read- 

 ing the specification of Boulton's patent in llie 

 Repertory of Arts, (for 1793. vol. ix.) that the 

 various modifications of the ram there described 

 were the invention of tliat gentleman. The 

 patent was granted to " Matlhev.- Boulton. for 

 /((.< invention of improved ajiparatus and meth- 

 ods for raising water and otlier fluids." 



No. 168 represents a simple form of Montgol- 

 fier's ram. The motive column descends from 

 a spring or brook A through the pipe B. near 

 the end of %vhich an air chamber D, and rising 

 main F, are attached to it as shown in the cat. 

 At the extreme end of B, the orifice is opened 

 and closed by a valve E, instead of the cock in 

 No. 167. This valve opens downwards and 

 may either be a spherical one as in No. 168, or a 

 common spindle one as in No. 169. It is the 

 play of this valve that renders the machine self- 

 acting. To accomplish this, Uie valve is made 

 of or loaded with, such a weight as just to open 

 when the water in B is at rest ; i. e. it must be 

 so heavy as to overcome the pressure against 

 its under side when closed, as represented at 



