554 
STEAM ENGINE. 
his expression, of one vessel of water, converted into steam, 
forcing up forty vessels of cold water to the height of forty 
feet, it is very probable that he had actually tried the expe¬ 
riment by a working model. 
The marquis concluded his Century of Inventions by a 
promise to leave to posterity a book, wherein under each 
head the means of putting his several inventions in execution 
were to be described, with the assistance of plates; but as 
this work never appeared, we can only judge of his abilities 
by this specimen. He appears to have been a person of 
much knowledge and ingenuity; but his obscure and enig¬ 
matical account of these inventions, seems not so much in¬ 
tended to instruct the public as to raise wonder; and his 
encomiums on their utility and importance are, to a great 
degree, extravagant, resembling more the puff of an adver- 
vertising tradesman, than the patriotic communications of a 
gentleman. The Marquis of Worcester was indeed a pro¬ 
jector, and very importunate and mysterious withal in his 
applications'for public encouragement. 
It does not appear that he met with any public encourage¬ 
ment to his propositions; and though, at first sight, it seems 
surprising that an invention, by which the steam of boiling 
water is stated to be capable of producing a power equal to 
hat of gunpowder, should be neglected for almost forty 
years; yet if we consider that the greater part of this Century 
of Inventions consists of things highly in the style of leger¬ 
demain, and some of them absolutely impossible, and con¬ 
trary to all established rules of science, we need not so much 
wonder at the neglect which the whole experienced. For 
example, the 99th number of the Century is as follows:— 
“ How to make one pound weight to raise an hundred as 
high as one pound falleth, and yet the hundred pounds de¬ 
scending doth what nothing less than one hundred pounds 
can effect.” 
It must be also further considered, that these projects were 
published at a time when true science was beginning to take 
place of empiricism. 
The Century of Inventions appeared about three years after 
the establishment of the Royal Society, during the time of 
Mr. Boyle, Dr. Hooke, Dr. Wallis, Sir Christopher Wren, 
Sir Isaac Newton, and others equally skilled in calculations, 
as in the inventive parts of mechanics. 
Under all these circumstances, it is not astonishing that 
the marquis’s propositions in general should meet with a cool 
reception, or that this celebrated invention should be con¬ 
demned to obscurity, amongst the other wonders with which 
it was accompanied. 
The next attempt upon record, is that of Captain Thomas 
Savery, a commissioner of the sick and wounded, who, in 
the year 1698, obtained a patent for a new invention for 
raising water, and occasioning motion to all sorts of mill- 
work, by the impellent force of fire. This patent bears date 
the 25th July, in the tenth year of the reign of William III., 
that is 1698. The patent states, that the invention will be 
of great use for draining of mines, serving towns with water, 
and for working all sorts of mills. 
In June 1669, he shewed a working modql of his engine 
to the Royal Society, and in their Transactions for that year, 
viz. No. 253, vol. xxi. there is the following register:— 
“ Mr. Savery, June 14th, 1699, entertained the Royal 
Society with shewing a small model of his engine for raising 
water by the help of fire, which he set to work before them : 
the experiment succeeded according to expectation, and to 
their satisfaction.” For the form and description of this 
engine, see the article Mechanics. 
Captain Savery, in the “ Miner’s Friend,” in addition to 
the description of his engine, enumerates the following uses 
to which it may be applied, and which he describes rather 
fully, as follows; viz., 1st, to raise water for turning all sorts 
of mills; 2dly, supplying palaces, noblemen’s and gentle¬ 
men’s houses with water, and giving the means of extin- 
tinguishing fires therein, by the water so raised; 3dly, the 
supplying cities and towns with water; 4thly, draining fens 
and marshes; 5thly, for ships; 6thly, for draining mines of 
water; and 7thly, for preventing damps in the said mines. 
Dr. Harris, in his account of the fife engine, speaks of 
Captain Savery as one that he was acquainted with, and as 
a person of great merit and ingenuity. He first mentions 
another machine of Savery’s, for rowing a ship in a calm by 
paddle-wheels placed at the vessel’s side, of which the cap¬ 
tain published an account in 1698 ; and it is worthy of re¬ 
mark, that the same kind of wheels, when actuated bv im¬ 
proved steam engines, is the only method, amongst an infi¬ 
nite number of others, which at present has been found to 
answer for rowing vessels. Dr. Harris, in proceeding to the 
fire engine, says, “The other engine is for raising water by 
the force of fire, in which he has shewn as great ingenuity, 
depth of thought, and true mechanic skill, as ever discovered 
itself in any design of this nature.” Notwithstanding this. 
Dr Desaguliers has endeavoured to take away all the merit 
of the invention of the fire engine from Captain Savery, as if 
he had merely copied it from the Marquis of Worcester. 
The account given by Dr. Desaguliers has been so fre¬ 
quently copied by different writers, that it is generally con¬ 
sidered as correct; and we therefore think it a piece of jus¬ 
tice to the memory of Captain Savery, to set his pretensions 
in a clearer light than has been generally done. The doctor 
says, “ Captain Savery having read the Marquis of Wor¬ 
cester’s book, was the first who put in practice the raising 
Water by fire, which he proposed for the draining of mines. 
His engine is described in Harris’s Lexicon (see the word 
Engine), which, being compared with the Marquis of Wor¬ 
cester’s description, will easily appear to have been taken 
from him, though Captain Savery denied it; and the better 
to conceal the matter, bought up all the Marquis of Wor¬ 
cester’s books that he could purchase in Faternoster-Row, 
and elsewhere, and burned them in the presence of the gen¬ 
tleman, his friend, who told me this. He said that he found 
out the power of steam by chance, and invented the follow¬ 
ing story to make people believe it; viz., that, having drank 
a flask of Florence at a tavern, and thrown the empty flask 
-upon the fire, he called for a bason of water to wash his 
hands, and perceiving that the little wine left in the flask 
had filled up the flask with steam, he took the flask by the 
neck, and plunged the neck of it under the surface of the 
water in the bason, and the water of the bason was imme¬ 
diately driven up into the flask by the pressure of the air. 
Now he never made such an experiment then nor designedly 
afterwards, which I thus prove-.—■ 
“ I made the experiment purposely with about half a glass 
of wine in a flask, which I laid upon the fire till it boiled 
into steam ; then putting on a thick glove to prevent the neck 
of the flask from burning me, I plunged the mouth of the 
flask under the water that filled a bason, but the pressure of 
the atmosphere was so strong, that it beat the flask out of my 
hand with violence, and threw it up to the ceiling. As this 
must also have happened to Captain Savery, if ever he had 
made the experiment, he would not have failed to have told 
such a remarkable incident, which would have embellished 
his story.” 
This conclusion of the doclor’s is altogether unphilosophi- 
cal, and does not at all invalidate Captain Savery’s account. 
We know that the Marquis of Worcester gave no hint con¬ 
cerning the contractibility or sudden condensation of steam, 
upon which all the merit of the modern engine depends. 
The Marquis of Worcester’s engine was actuated wholly by 
the elastic power of steam, which he either found out, or 
proved by the bursting of a cannon, in part filled with water; 
but he gave not the least hint that steam so expanded is 
capable of being again so far contracted in an instant, as 
to leave the space it occupied in a vessel in a great measure 
a vacuum. This grand discovery was reserved to Captain 
Savery, and his account of its accidental origin is not at all 
improbable. The captain tells us, in the “ Miner’s Friend,” 
that he did not bring his design to bear, until after a great 
number of fatiguing inquiries : and he actually erected seve¬ 
ral machines before he obtained his patent in July 1698. 
Many objections were made against the grant of that patent 
being passed ; but in the hearing of these objections, the dis¬ 
covery of the Marquis of Worcester’s prior claim was not 
mentioned: 
