A History of the Growth of the Steam Engine

e ; and Ercker n ("Aula Subterranea," 1672) gives a picture illustrating their application to the production of a blast in smelting ores. They seem to have been frequently used, and in all parts of Europe, during the seventeenth century, for blowing fires in houses, as well as in the practical work of the various trades, and for improving the draft of chimneys. The latter application is revived very frequently by the modern inventor. Section II. ? The Period Of Application?WorcesTer, Papin, And Savery. We next meet with the first instance in which the expansive force of steam is supposed to have actually been applied to do important and useful work. In 1663, Edward Somerset, second Marquis of Worces-4 ter, published a curious collection of descriptions of his inventions, couched in obscure and singular language, and called " A Century of the Names and Scantlings of Inventions by me already Practised." One of these inventions is an apparatus for raising water by steam. The description was not accompanied by a drawing, but the sketch here given (Fig. 7) is thought probably to resemble one of his earlier contrivances very closely. Steam is generated in the boiler , and thence is led into the vessel e, already nearly filled with water, and fitted up like the apparatus of De Caus. It drives the water in a jet out through the pipe/. The vessel e is then shut oif from the boiler a, is again filled through the pipe h, and the operal iun is repeated. Stuart thi...