Iv.]

AND AIR ENGINE.

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useful machine. He proposed to apply this power to draw water, or ore, from mines; to discharge iron bullets to a great distance; to propel ships against the wind (by an arrangement of paddle-wheels which he describes); and to a multitude of other similar purposes. It does not appear, however, that he constructed any successful engines.

An account of the above invention, as also of his method of transmitting the power of a water-wheel to a distance by exhausting air through pipes, was included in a small treatise published by Papin, both in Latin and French, at Marburg and Cassel respectively, in the year 1695.1 His later history will be referred to hereafter; for the present we must leave him in order to follow the course of events in England.

1 Fasciculus Dissertationum de novis quibusdam Machinis, &c., authore Dionysio Papin, Marburgi Cattorum, 1695. Recueil de diverses Pièces touchant quelques nouvelles Machines, Cassel, 1695. They were also published in a treatise entitled Traité de plusieurs nouvelles Machines et Inventions Extraordinaires sur différents sujets, par M. D. Papin, Dr en Med. &c., Paris, 1698. The latter publication is not mentioned in Mr. Muirhead's lists of the works of Papin. [Life of Watt, 2nd ed., p. 525; Mechanical Inventions of Watt, Vol. III., p. 155.]

CHAPTER V.

THOMAS NEWCOMEN BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH THE PROPOSALS OF PAPIN AND CONTEMPLATES THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN ATMOSPHERIC ENGINE. HE IS ANTICIPATED BY CAPTAIN SAVERY, WHO OBTAINS A PATENT FOR AN ENGINE FOR RAISING WATER BY FIRE.

So far we have traced the progress of the atmospheric engine the parent of the modern steam engine-in the hands of philosophers. We have seen them well aware of the practicability of deriving a new motive power from the atmospheric pressure. We have followed their attempts to embody in a machine the principles which philosophy had expounded. Their efforts, however, were attended with very limited success; no really useful engine had resulted from them. But if philosophers had failed to solve the problem themselves, their essays had the effect of arousing attention to the subject from men of another class

CH. V.] PAPIN'S SCHEMES KNOWN TO NEWCOMEN.

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workers in brass and iron, artisans and mechanicsand put them in possession of the scientific principles upon which a new motive engine might be constructed. Science joined hands with Art; out of their union was evolved Newcomen's admirable engine.

Of

Thomas Newcomen was a native of Dartmouth, in Devon. Of his personal history little has been preserved. At what precise date, or under what circumstances, he began to study the subject of constructing an atmospheric engine, we are are not informed. the various projects which had been brought forward by Papin for employing the atmospheric pressure as a motive power, no account had been published in England previous to a brief notice of them in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1697, in a review of the little book published on the Continent by Papin, as above mentioned, in 1695.1 It is evident that in some way Newcomen had become acquainted with them. When he first comes before us, we find him in communication with Dr. Hook upon the subject. "There are to be found among Hook's papers, in the possession of the Royal Society," says Dr. Robison, "some notes of observations, for the use of Newcomen, his countryman, on Papin's boasted method of transmitting to a great distance the action of a mill by means of pipes.

It would appear from these notes that Dr. Hook had dissuaded Mr. Newcomen from erecting a 1 See Phil. Trans. No. 226, p. 481.

machine on this principle, of which he had exposed the fallacy in several discourses before the Royal Society. One passage is remarkable: 'Could he (meaning Papin) make a speedy vacuum under your second piston, your work is done.'” 1

To what exact date these notes belong we cannot tell, but we can assign limits to the period during which they must have been made, viz., between 1687, the year when Papin proposed his novel plan of working an atmospheric engine at a distance by exhausting air through pipes, and March 1702-3, the date of Dr. Hook's death. The statement of a contemporary writer, however, enables us to limit still further the period in which Newcomen first began to devote his attention to the subject. "I am well informed," says Switzer, "that Mr. Newcomen was as early in his invention as Mr. Savery was in his, only the latter being nearer the Court had obtained his patent before the other knew it; on which account Mr. Newcomen was glad to come in as a partner to it."2 Savery obtained his patent on the 25th of July, 1698, from which it follows that Newcomen had already been

1 A System of Mechanical Philosophy, by John Robison, LL.D., with Notes, by David Brewster, LL.D., Edinburgh, 1822, Vol. II., p. 57. It has been ascertained by personal inquiry at Burlington House that it is not at present known whether these papers of Dr. Hook are still in the possession of the Royal Society.

2 An Introduction to a General System of Hydrostaticks and Hy. draulicks, &c., by Stephen Switzer, London, 1729. Vol. II., p. 342.

v.]

BY SAVERY.

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contemplating the construction of an atmospheric engine previous to this time.1

For the next twelve years there appears to be no reliable information regarding Newcomen. Whether the success of Savery's first engines led him for a time to abandon his own schemes and adopt those of Savery, or whether he spent this time in brooding over his own invention, and only joined Savery after having succeeded in overcoming all its difficulties, we know not. The first hypothesis, however, seems most in accordance with the statement of Switzer quoted above, and would readily account for the amicable relationship which appears to have all along existed between the two inventors.2

It seems certain at all events that so long as Savery's

1 The fact of Newcomen having begun to turn his attention to the atmospheric engine, apparently about 1697 or 1698, renders it highly probable that his doing so was occasioned by the publication of the account of Papin's proposals in the Philosophical Transactions.

2 Papin regarded Savery's method of raising water as superior to the plans proposed by himself before, and adopted it, as will be seen hereafter. It seems probable that Newcomen did the same for a time. This supposition receives some support from the following account of the origin of Newcomen's invention, which, though containing some errors, may nevertheless not be altogether incorrect:

“Mr. Harris, in his Lex[icon] Tech[nicum] published a draught of Mr. Savery's engine, and gave an account of this power and machine, which, falling into the hands of Mr. Newcomen, of Dartmouth, he formed anew the model of an engine by it, fixed it in his own garden, and soon found out its imperfections. When he had done this he obtained a patent," &c. [Shaw's History of Staffordshire, Vol. II., P. I., p. 120.]