Previous to 1605 steam was employed in artillery instead of gunpow der. Rivaul in 1608 announced the invention in the form of a problem, " How a cannon might be fired with pure water." Inc Calls's de Cans (i6r r) was employed by the prince of Wales to decorate his gardens at Richmond ill Surrey. He clearly understood the action of the "air" in " Hero's fountain," and improved the machine by the insertion of valves to prevent the return of the water which had been elevated, though lie did not observe that it was the expansion and condensation of the vapor in the air that mainly pro duced the effects in the Egyptian machine and ill his own. Had Dc Caus made a coal fire under his improved fountain, lie would have had a good steam-engine. In 1615 he suggested forcing water by a steam-fountain from a vessel by the expansion of steam within the same. In Figure 3, taken from a drawing probably made by Dc Caus's own hand, A is a spherical boiler containing water, I> is the cock at the extremity of the pipe winch, takes water from the bottom of the vessel boiler at C, and 1) is Ole c;ick through which the boiler is filled. The elastic force of the steam formed in the boiler by the application of fire drives the water out through the vertical pipe.
David Ramsey and Thomas Wildgosse patented in 1618 a compendious form of engine to plough ground without horses or oxen, to raise water from any low place to high places for well-watering cities, towns, and gen tlemen's houses, and to make boats run upon the water as swift in calms and more safe in storms than boats full-sailed in great winds. In 163o, Ramsey took out another patent of nine claims, the second of which reads, " To raise water from love pittes by fire;" and this is considered the ear liest notice of an engine for raising water by fire in England.
In 1629, Giovanni Branca published at Rome an account of an engine, shaped like a water-wheel, which was driven by steam issuing in a jet from a boiler and impinging on the vanes of the wheel (fig. 4).
Worcester's — Tradition relates that the marquis of Worcester had the first glimpse of his steam-engine when lie was a prisoner in the Tower of London in T655. The marquis wrote (about 1659) his celebrated manuscript entitled "A centurie of the names and scantlings of such inventions as att present I can call to nivude to have tryed and perfected." The sixty-eighth scantling of this manuscript announces the great invention which has popularized and preserved the fame of this wonderful inventor in the public mind. He calls it "An admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire," etc. Worces ter's ninety-ninth scantling can be explained only by the use of a piston in a cylinder with water under it. In 1663, Worcester, in his Century of Inventions, describes an engine no drawings of which are extant, but which his biographer, Dircks, has suggested was like the sketch shown in Figure 5 (pi. So). Two vessels (A, A) are connected by a steam-pipe (B, 13) with
the boiler C, which is placed behind them. D is the furnace. A vertical water-pipe (E) is connected with the cold-water vessels A, A, by the pipes F, F, which reach nearly to the bottom. Water is supplied by the pipes G, G, containing valves (a, a), and dipping into the well If. Steam being admitted from the boiler to each vessel A, A alternately, is there con densed, and the vacuum formed permits the pressure of the atmosphere to force the water from the well through the pipes G, G. While one is being filled, the steam is forcing the water from the other up the discharge-pipe E. As soon as one is emptied the steam is shut of and turned into the other, and the condensed steam remaining in the vessel permits it to fill again. Worcester's apparatus was not an engine in the proper sense, but a water-raising machine. One of Worcester's engines of about two horse power was in use at Vauxhall in 1656, but the hopes of its inventor were not realized, as it never became a commercial success.
Mr. Boyle, while experimenting with molipiles in 167S, observes, " The elastical power of the steam seems manifestly due to the heat that expands and agitates the aqueous particles whereof the steam consists;" and he considered that these were alone condensible, while air was not— the explanation of a fact which may be said to have laid the foundation of the condensing steam-engine. Hautefeuille in r6S2 introduced alcohol into a cylinder and evaporated and condensed it without allow ing it to escape or be lost in the processes. In T6S2, " Sir Samuel More land announces his principles of the new force of fire. Water being evap orated, these vapors immediately acquire a greater space, and, too forcible to be always imprisoned, will burst a piece of cannon. But, being gov erned according to the rules of statics and reduced to science, weight, and measure, they will then peaceably carry their burden, and thus become of great service to mankind." Papin found, in 169o, that " a small quantity of water converted into steam by heat had an elastic force like that of air, but when exposed to cold was again resolved into water, so that no trace of its elastic force remained." He constructed a machine wherein water, by means of no very intense heat, produced that perfect vacuum which lie could not obtain by firing off gunpowder. Papin further says, " Immense power may be accumulated by the enlargement of the piston that can be employed to draw water or ore from mines or propel ships against the wind." In T695, Papin still further developed the power of steam by improve ments in the method of making it. The flame and air were made to descend through the fuel, completing the combustion. The smoke was conducted through the boiler in a zigzag immersed flue, and, still further to hasten the evaporation, lie used his rotary fan to blow the fire.