SPONTANEOUS RISE OF HOT LIB IN A PUMP; JQl 



was to be stopped >" Three men immediately came with 

 buckets of cold water, which they dashed against the pump, till cold water 

 and the stream immediately slackened, but did not quite cease. Tg^aiJst die" 

 It was recovering strength, and I have no doubt would have pump. 

 arisen to its former violence if a fourth bucket of water had 

 not been brought in time, and dashed against the pump, upon 

 which it entirely ceased. These are the facts; to which I will 

 only add> that I think the immersed part of the pump was be- 

 tween three and four feet, and the spout might have been be- 

 tween two and three feet above the surface of the fluid in the 

 boiler. Why hot soap lie, in these or any other circumstances, 

 should spontaneously rise and run with violence out of an aper- 

 ture more than two feet above its quiet level, is an event upon 

 which I cannot make even a probable conjecture. 

 I am. Sir, 



Your obliged Reader, 



R. B. 



Reply. W. N. 



Some years ago, an application was made to me to report pro- Account of a 

 fessionally upon a pump, which was described to me ; and it was [* "jselj water 

 added, that if produced the effect of raising water to a greater by suction 

 height, by what is called suction, than 33 or 34 feet. My report j^'^herthan si 

 was, that the pump was a bad one, and that it was incapable of 

 producing the pretended effect. Some time afterward, how- 

 ever, the same person called on me, and said, that the parties 

 who had commissioned him to apply to me had been deceived 

 by the inventor, who had made a small hole in the suction-pipe. 

 This led to observation on my part, that ray general- conclusion 

 upon the merits of the pump would have been the same, if this 

 fact had been stated along with the others ; but that it would 

 have been accompanied with an indication of the time and 

 place where that trick had been played a century before j which 

 does in truth, by mixing air with the column of water, enable 

 it, (because upon the whole lighter,) to rise to a greater height 

 than mere water ; but that the effect, taking height and quantity 

 into the consideration, would be less than that of a common 



/ pump. 



