Steam Engine- 3?9 
the compiler had cited, by name, the author of this ac- 
count : this mode of blind reference is a very silly prac° 
tice. 
2. The first person who appears to have reduced the 
theory of the Steam Engine to actual practice, was Capto 
Savary^ about 1696. He made a vacuum in a pipe whose 
lower end descended into water, by condensing steam 
thrown into a reservoir connected with the pipe ; and this 
permitted the atmosphere to press the water upward to the 
usual height that will counteract or sustain the atmosphe- 
ric column : he then forced it upward by the pressure of 
Steam upon the surface of the water in his receiver, or re- 
servoir. 
3. Newcomen and Crawley^ in 1712, erected an en- 
gine wherein the piston working in a cylinder, was raised 
upward by the force of Steam ; which being condensed 
by injecting water into the cylinder, a vacuum was form- 
ed, and the piston was depressed by the weight of the at- 
mosphere on the top of it, no longer counteracted by the 
atmosphere underneath it. 
In Savary'^s engine, there was great v’aste of steam by 
tlie condensation occasioned by the water on tlie surface 
whereof the steam acted : in Newcofneri’s engine, there 
was great loss of time and of fuel, by the cooling of the 
cylinder by the water injected to cohdeiise tlie steam : the 
Steam also was of no further use, after having raised the 
piston to the required height. Hence, 
4. Mr. James JVatt of Glasgow, now of Birmingham, 
after much reflection and experiment, introduce^l die fol- 
lowing improvements. 
He condensed the steam in a vessel separate and at a 
distance from the cylinder ; which is now no longer cool 
ed by the injection- water, as in Newcomtiv s or the at - 
mospheric engine. 
He makes an approximation to a vacuum by pumping 
