482 JAMES WATT. 
as a motive power; but we have yet to learn that that power 
was ever applied by him to the organic parts of an engine, 
calculated to overcome the resistance of a load, such as the 
propulsion of machinery or the raising water from mines. 
The discovery of an element of power is a totally different 
thing to its application through the organic parts of a machine. 
The first is the result of experimental research in the labora- 
tory ; the second is the result of toilsome labour in the work- 
shop, in the actual production of a machine; merit for the 
former belongs to Dr. Papin, for the latter, exclusively to 
Newcomen and James Watt. 
Savery constructed an engine for raising water upon the 
principle of condensation. It consisted of two vessels,—a 
boiler and a condenser, if we may so term them, the latter 
being connected by pipes with the water in the mine and the 
reservoir to which it was to be raised. Under the boiler a fire 
was lighted, and the steam was allowed to fill the condenser ; 
the connection with the boiler was then cut off, and a jet of 
cold water thrown into the condenser, which at once created 
a vacuum; the pressure of the atmosphere now forced the 
water from a depth not exceeding 30 feet in the mine, into 
the condenser, where it was retained by a valve. Steam from 
the boiler then forced the water from the condenser upwards 
through the pipe to the reservoir above, and as soon as it was 
again filled with steam, the process was repeated. This slow 
and tedious operation was regulated by hand, but that could 
only be done under the limits stated above, and with an enor- 
mous consumption of fuel. This was the apparatus adopted 
by Savery, but we have no satisfactory information that Dr. 
Papin ever constructed an engine worked by steam; his at- 
tempts were made on models which were never usefully 
applied; and Dr. Hooke, in his correspondence with New- 
comen and. the Royal Society, pointed out the absurdity and 
fallacy of the air-pipes and pistons, which he proposed as a 
means of raising water from mines. The only real inventor, 
antecedent to Watt, was Newcomen, who introduced the open - 
top cylinder, and the reciprocating motion of the piston and 
