374 JAMES WATT. 
the water will rise in proportion to its temperature. The 
only limits of the ascending movement will be the resist- 
ance of the walls of the apparatus. 
For our bomb let us substitute a thick metal caldron, 
of vast capacity, and nothing will prevent our carrying 
large quantities of fluid to indefinite heights by the sim- 
ple action of steam ; we shall have constructed, in the full 
meaning of the word, a steam-engine capable of emptying 
or exhausting. 
You now know the invention which France and Eng- 
land have disputed upon, as formerly seven towns of 
Greece claimed respectively the honour of having been 
the cradle of Homer. On the other side of the Chan- 
nel the honour is assigned to the Marquis of Worcester, 
of the illustrious house of Somerset. On this side of the 
Straits, we feel that it belongs to a humble engineer,* 
almost entirely forgotten in biographical works ; to Solo- 
mon de Caus, born at Dieppe, or in its environs. Let us 
cast an impartial glance on the claims of these two com- 
petitors. 
Worcester, deeply implicated in the political intrigues 
of the latter years of the reigns of the Stuarts, was con- 
fined in the tower of London. 
“ Que faire en pareil gite, & moins que l’on ne songe?”’ 
What could we do in such a bed but dream? 
* The term “un humble ingénieur’’ is hardly applicable, for De 
Caus was, before the year 1612, engineer and architect to Louis XIII., 
King of France; he then entered the service of the Elector Palatine, 
who married the daughter of James I., with whom he came to Eng- 
land, and was employed by the Prince of Wales in ornamenting Rich- 
mond Gardens. His work was entitled Les Raisons des Forces Mou- 
vantes, avec diverses Machines tant utiles que plaisantes. In Partington’s 
Lectures on the Steam Engine, he quotes a book by Jsaac De Caus, 
“natif de Dieppe;”’ it is named Nouvelle Invention de lever Eau plus 
haut que sa source, avec quelques Machines mouvantes par le moyen de 
U Eau; it is a folio volume without date or place.— Translator. 
