Mr Bramah procured a patent, in 1809, for a mode of making and holding pens for writing, calculated to save the substance of the quill, by cutting a num, ber of pens out of it, instead of a single one ; and those, who are not in the habit of making their own pens, may often find a convenience in the portable form, in which this and other similar " pterophori " are arranged. In 1812, he brought forward his pa tent for the construction of main pipes, to be carried through the principal streets of a metropolis. of suet, Meat thickness to withstand a great force, to which the water within them is intended to be subjected, by proper pumps, furnished with air vessels ; so that the water may not only be ready for the immediate extinction of fires, without the necessity of bringing an engine to the spot. but may also furnish a con. veuieut moving power for various mechanical pur poses, such as raising weights. by means of tubes sliding out of each other, like those of a telescope. He observe& that he has frequently had occasion In employ a hydrostatic pressure, in many of his operae lions, equivalent to that of a column of wateo. 10,000 feet high, which about 4 tons tar every square inch. He also asserts that he can form 500 tubes, each 5 feet long, capable of sliding within each other, and of being extended in a few seconds, by the pressure of air forced into them, to a length of 2500. feet; and, with a power of this kind, he seems to have imagined that he could raise wrecks, and regulate the descent of weights of various descrip tions.
His improvements in wheel-carriages, for which he obtained a patent in 1814, consisted in fixing' each wheel to a separate moveable axis, having its bearings at two distinct points of its length, but loose ly inclosed between these points, in a cylinder filled with oil; and, in some cases, he proposes to fix the opposite wheels to the same axis, though with a power of turning very stiffly round it, in order to lessen the lateral motion of the shafts in very rough roads. He also suggests the use of pneumatic springs, formed by pistons, sliding in cylinders, as a Substitute for common springs of metal.
The purpose of Mr Bramah's last patent was the prevention of the dry rot, by laying on the timber, meant to be preserved from it, a thin coat of Parker's Roman cement, much diluted with water ; but he does not appear to have pursued this experiment, having transferred his right in the invention to other hands.
' In addition to the seventeen patents which have been mentioned, he took out two or three others of less importance, at different times, besides a variety of contrivances, which he did not think necessary to appropriate to himself by a legal privilege. Mr Nicholson has mentioned a double plunger for a forcing pump, as described to him by Mr Bramah (Nick. Jour. VII. 50) ; which, in the form he has delineated, is certainly possessed of no particular ad vantage, producing only with a large apparatus the effect of a much smaller. Mr Bramah had erected, in the latter years of his life, some large machines at the Thames Bank, for sawing stones and timber ; he hadbegun to devise some improvements in bridges and in kicks for canals ; and he had at one time been actually employed in the execution of some water ' works belonging to the department of the civil engi neer, which he had completed with ability and with success. His great and various exertions appear in some measure to have exhausted the strength of his constitution ; and his last illness was immediately oc casioned by a severe cold, taken in the prosecution of his experiments on the tearing up of trees, made in Holt Forest. He died in his sixty-sixth year, on the gth of December 1814.
Mr Bramah was a sincere believer in the doctrines of the Christian religion ; and, notwithstanding his diversified avocations, be left several manuscript es says on religious subjects. In his moral character, he was cheerful, benevolent, and affectionate ; in his habits he was neat and methodical; and he knew well how to temper liberality with economy. He often kept his workmen employed more for their sake than his own, when the stagnation of trade de prived him of the means of disposing of the products of their labour. It is surely on the characters of such individuals that the wealth and prosperity of the British empire most essentially depend•; an in ventive imagination, controlled by a sound judgment, an incessant activity of mind and body, a head that can direct, and a heart that can feel, are the genuine sources of that practical superiority which is well known to distinguish the productions of our national industry. (Life of Mr Bramah, by Dr Brown, in the New Monthly Magazine for April 1815.) (s. r.)