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 Cans, 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 i-eigns of the Stuarts, was con- 

 fined in the tower of London. 



" Que faire en p.areil gite, a moins que I'on ne songe? " 

 What could we do in such a bed but dream? 



* The term "un humble ing^nieur" 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 t!ie 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 Eich- 

 mond Gardens. His work was entitled Les Raisons des Forces Mou- 

 vcmtes, nvec cUverses; Mnchines tant utiles que plnisantes. In Partington's 

 Lectures on the Steam Engine, he quotes a book by Isaac De Caus, 

 "natif de Dieppe;" it is named Nouvelle Invention de lever V Eau plus 

 hant que sa source, avec quelques Machines movmintes par le nioyen de 

 fEau; it is a folio volume without date or place. — Translator. 



