STEAM. 209 



cester, whom the English regard as the real inventor 

 of the fire-engine, lived in the reign of the Stuarts, 

 and having lost his immense fortune during the revo- 

 lutions of those times, he was cast into prison, but 

 escaped to Trance. Eeturning to England, he was 

 detected and shut up in the Tower of London. It is 

 said that "Worcester's idea as to the impulse which 

 steam could give originated in his remarking how the 

 lid of the saucepan in which his food was being cooked 

 was suddenly lifted up. A second edition of Salomon 

 de Caus's book had appeared in France while he was 

 residing there. Worcester's apparatus is thus de- 

 scribed in his book entitled A Century of Inventions: 



u I have discovered an admirable and very powerful 

 means of raising water by means of fire, not by 

 suction, for then, as the philosophers say, one would 

 be limited intra spheram activitatis^ as suction only 

 operates for a given distance. But there is no limit to 

 my means if the vessel is strong enough. By way of 

 trying it, I took a whole cannon, the mouth of which 

 had burst, and three parts filling it with water, I closed 

 the end which had burst and the touch-hole with screws. 

 I kept up a very strong fire inside, and in twenty-four 

 hours the gun broke up with a loud report." 



Denis Papin (1690-1695). The machines of Salo- 

 mon de Caus and the Marquis of Worcester were 

 merely apparatus for raising water. This was the 

 first object which Papin had in view with his engine, 

 but at the same time he had quite seen that the up 



