NOVEMBER 19, 1903] 
NATURE 
67 
hood, and the field experiments are carried out on farms 
in all parts of the county, this system having the double 
advantage that manurial trials can be made on every class 
of land, and that farmers in each district are able to see 
for themselves the results. 
THE NEWCOMEN ENGINE.* 
(ae GREAT deal has been written on the steam-engine 
generally, but the author has not met with any con- 
nected record of the invention and construction of the first 
steam-engine—the atmospheric engine of Newcomen. Un- 
fortunately it does not appear that very detailed inform- 
ation is available, but the author has been able to bring 
together some facts which, with the aid of appendices con- 
tributed by others and some illustrations of the engine 
itself, may be found to be a useful contribution to place 
on record in the Proceedings of the Institution. There are 
not many examples of the engine now in existence, and 
when they are consigned to the scrap heap, the receptacle 
of great efforts of the past, all will perhaps be forgotten. 
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, philosophers 
and mathematicians searched for a new method of obtain- 
ing motive power. Mining was an important industry re- 
quiring in most cases a new power, that the mines might 
be worked to greater depths. Water-power, where avail- 
able, was often insufficient, and manual and animal power 
was altogether too small and too expensive for working 
any but shallow mines. Deep mining was, and is, only 
possible with pumping machinery. Water-wheels were 
used for working pumps. The construction of the common 
pump was known. Papin had proposed to transmit power 
by means of pistons moving in cylinders acted on by the 
atmosphere, a vacuum having been formed under the pistons 
by the explosion of gunpowder, and he even hinted that it 
might be done by steam. 
It was claimed for Papin that he invented the steam- 
engine, because in 1685, in one of his letters, he illustrated 
what was known of the properties of steam by saying that 
if water was put in the bottom of a cylinder under a piston, 
and the cylinder be put on a fire, the water would evaporate 
and raise the piston, and that if, after the piston had been 
raised, the cylinder were removed from the fire and cooled, 
the steam would condense and the piston would descend ; 
but this was only an illustration of common knowledge. 
Sir Samuel Morland had, in 1683, stated* that steam 
occupied about two thousand times the space of the water 
from which it was produced, and made some calculations 
as to the powers to be obtained from different sized cylinders, 
but suggested no practical mode of operation. An experi- 
ment to determine the density of steam was made by John 
Payne in 1741. Payne concluded, as the result of his experi- 
ments, published in the Phil. Trans., vol. xli. p. 821, that 
one cubic inch of water formed 4000 cubic inches of steam. 
Beighton calculated, from an experiment with the Griff 
engine, the second Newcomen engine erected, that the 
specific volume of steam was 2893. 
The properties of steam were, probably, no better known 
to philosophers than to the ordinary observer who had seen 
the lid of a kettle dance under pressure, or steam issue 
from the spout. The only practical application of steam 
was made by Savery, who, in 1696, described his invention 
in.a pamphlet entitled ‘‘ The Miner’s Friend.’’ Savery’s 
engine was a pistonless steam pump—in fact, the pulso- 
meter of to-day without its automatic action. It remained 
for Newcomen to associate the bits of common knowledge 
in his mind for inventing the steam-engine. He was a 
blacksmith, probably accustomed to invent methods of con- 
struction in the prosecution of his art. At that time 
mechanics were more self-reliant than they are now. He 
knew from experience what a lever was, a pump, a piston, 
a cylinder, a boiler, and he knew that the atmosphere had 
pressure, and that steam possessed a far greater volume 
than the water which produced it. It did not require much 
more than common knowledge and observation to realise 
that. To produce the steam-engine from such known facts 
1 Abstract of a paper read before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 
on October 16 by Mr. Henry Davey. 
2 See Tredgold’s ‘‘ Steam Engine.” 
NO. 1777, VOL. 69] 
ie 
required invention. Philosophers probably knew what 
might be done, but Newcomen had the advantage of seeing 
what could be done, and he did it. The engine, when pro- 
duced, was imperfect, but defects became obvious to the 
designers and constructor of steam-engines, and the want 
of perfection at the present day is not from want of theory, 
but because of practical limitations and want of practical 
invention. 
At this distance of time it is difficult to appreciate the 
invention required to produce the atmospheric engine from 
the crude ideas of Papin and others. It appears, from 
papers in possession of the Royal Society, that Dr. Hooke 
had demonstrated the impracticability of Papin’s scheme, 
and, in a letter addressed. to Newcomen, advised him not 
to attempt to make a machine on that principle, adding, 
however, that if Papin could produce a speedy yacuum, his 
work would be done.t A great deal of controversy hangs 
about this as about all things historical, and little is to be 
gained by minute research into disputed claims. What we 
do with certainty know is that with the common knowledge 
existing, and the mechanical contrivances available, New- 
comen alone succeeded in making a workable engine. 
In 1698, Thomas Savery, of London, obtained a patent 
for raising water by the elasticity of steam.” It is stated 
in many popular histories that in 1705 Thomas Newcomen, 
John Cawley, of Dartmouth, and Thomas Savery, of 
London, secured a patent for ‘‘ condensing the steam an- 
troduced under a piston. and producing a reciprocating 
motion by attaching it to a lever,’’ but no record of such 
a patent exists in the Patent Office. Stuart gives a list of 
patents commencing with 1698, and in that list is one said 
to have been granted in 1705. Dr. Pole, author of *‘ The 
Cornish Engine,’’ had a search made at the Patent Office 
and no such record could be found. It is possible that 
Savery’s patent was thought to cover Newcomen’s inven- 
tion (as Savery was associated with Newcomen).* This 
was sixty-four years before Watt invented his separate con- 
denser. Very little is known of Newcomen. It is recorded 
that he was a blacksmith or ironmonger residing at Dart- 
mouth, in Devonshire, and that he was employed by Savery 
to do some work in connection with his water-raising 
engines. In this way he had some experience in the con- 
densation of steam.* 
Newcomen appears to have conceived the idea of using 
a piston for giving motion to pumps. He became associ- 
ated with John Cawley, a glazier of Dartmouth, probably 
for business reasons. His connection with Savery was 
doubtless because of Savery’s patent for condensing steam 
for raising water. He must, however, have been a good 
mechanic, because the construction of such an engine at 
a time when there was no previous experience or data to 
guide him was a-task of no ordinary magnitude. He could 
not get workmen skilful enough to do his work until, 
erecting an engine near Dudley in 1712, he secured the 
assistance of mechanics from Birmingham. 
The Newcomen engine was soon brought into use, for 
in 1712 Newcomen, through the acquaintance of Mr. Potter, 
of Bromsgrove, erected an engine, near Dudley Castle, for 
a Mr. Back, of Wolverhampton. The cylinder of this 
engine was surrounded with water. The piston was 
packed and had a water seal. It is reported that by acci- 
dent a hole in the piston admitted water into the cylinder, 
and the condensation thereby became so rapid compared 
with that produced by cooling the cylinder from the outside 
that the engine worked much quicker. This may or may 
not be correct, but it is certain that, by accident or design, 
the first improvement in the engine was condensation by 
injection in the cylinder. It appears that the second engine 
was erected at the Griff Colliery, in Warwickshire, in 1715. 
It had a 22-inch cylinder. At this time the cocks and 
1 See Stuart’s ‘‘ History of the Steam Engine.” 
2 Savery was born at Shilston, near Modbury, in Devonshire, in 1650; 
died in London 1715. 
3 It appears that there is every reason to believe that Newcomen had 
no patent, and that his invention was supposed to be covered by Savery's 
patent of 1698, and that the latter was kept in ferce for thirty-five years, the 
original patent having been extended for twenty-one years. 
4 Newcomen was born at Dartmouth about tke middle of the seventeenth 
century, and died in London in 1729. It is stated in Haydn's “‘ Dictionary 
of Dates" that at the time of his death he was in London trying to secure a 
patent. A sketch of the house in Dartmouth occupied by Newcomen 
when he invented the steam-engine is shown in a pamphlet published in 
1869 for Mr. Thomas Lidstone of Dartmouth. 
“ 
