the cylinder was mounted a beam or lever pivoted centrally and coupled at one end to the piston and at the other to the pump rods. Steam was admitted beneath the piston in the cylinder and condensed by the injection of cold water, with the result that a vacuum was formed, the piston was thereupon pressed down by the weight of the column of air upon its upper surface, and its downward movement produced an upward movement of the pump rods at the other end of the beam. The movement of the piston in the opposite direction was effected by the weight of the pump rods.

We are in complete ignorance as to the manner in which Newcomen first took up the subject, for we may dismiss, as a fairy tale, the tea-kettle story. It has been said that he was employed in the erection of some of the early Savery engines; and again that the description and drawing thereof came into his hands, and that he made a model himself and so found out its imperfections. Switzer, who was personally acquainted with both Newcomen and Savery, however, states in his Hydrostaticks and Hydraulicks, 1729, that:

"I am well inform'd that Mr. Newcomen was as early in his invention as Mr. Savery was in his, only the latter being nearer the Court had obtain'd his patent before the other knew it, on which account Mr. Newcomen was glad to come in as a partner to it."

Again, Dr. Robison, in his article on the Steam Engine in the 1797 edition of The Encyclopædia Britannica, has the following account:

Newcomen was a person of some reading, and was in particular acquainted with the person, writings, and projects of his countryman, Dr. Hooke. There are to be found among Hooke's papers, in the possession of the Royal Society, 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. Papin's project was to employ the mill to work two air-pumps of great diameter.

It would appear from these notes that Dr. Hooke had dissuaded Mr. Newcomen from erecting a machine on this principle, of which he had exposed the fallacy in several discourses before the Royal Society. One

E. Regulator

N. Injection Cock

n. Injection Nozzle
G. Gauge Cocks ona Manhole Cover
h.h2 Great Beam

i Main Pump Rod

Q Plug Frame for working

g. Cistern for Condensing Water Injection Cock & Regulator

SAVERY, NEWCOMEN, ETC.-To face page 460.

passage is remarkable. Could he (meaning Papin) make a speedy vacuum under your second piston, your work is done.'

"It is highly probable that in the course of this speculation, it occurred to Mr. Newcomen that the Vacuum he so much wanted might be produced by steam, and that this gave rise to his new principle and construction of the steam-engine. The specific desideratum was in Newcomen's mind, and therefore when Savery's engine appeared, and became known in his neighbourhood many years after, he would readily catch at the help which it promised."

The papers referred to have been lost sight of, and subsequent writers have had to rely upon Dr. Robison's note; there is, however, no reason to doubt its accuracy. This information establishes the fact that Newcomen was engaged in the problem before the end of 1702-Hooke died in March, 1703-and it suggests that he may have been so engaged before 1690, the year in which Papin published on the Continent his plan for the production of a vacuum by the condensation of steam. The note clearly is subsequent in date to 1687, when Papin proposed to transmit power by means of a vacuum.

Galloway (The Steam Engine and its Inventors, 1881) suggests that although Newcomen may have been contemplating the construction of an atmospheric engine before the date, 1698, of Savery's patent, he may have thought Savery's plan, when he became aware of it, to be superior to his own, and so deferred proceeding further with his scheme until it became clear that Savery's plan was a failure.

The persistence of the idea that a patent was granted to Newcomen in 1705 also seems to lend colour to the view that he was in the field almost, if not quite, as early as Savery. It has been established that no patent was granted to Newcomen; a recent search at the Record Office failed to reveal even a petition for a patent in his name, and it is now the generally accepted view that Newcomen's invention was worked under Savery's patent. Probably it was held at the time that the grant to Savery covered all means for raising water by the aid of fire.

However, we do not learn of any attempt to apply the

Newcomen engine in practice until the year 1711, or of an actual application until 1712. Desaguliers (Experimental Philosophy, 1744) states that Tho. Newcomen, Ironmonger, and John Cawley, or Calley, glazier, of Dartmouth -Anabaptists-in the latter part of the year 1711 made proposals to draw the water at Griff in Warwickshire, but, their invention being rejected, they, in the following March, through the acquaintance of Mr. Potter, of Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire, bargained to draw water for Mr. Back, of Wolverhampton, where after a great many laborious. attempts they did make the engine work.

This is the first cylinder and piston steam-engine of which we have any record, and fortunately contemporary engravings are still in existence which show the construction fairly clearly. The prints bear the inscription: The Steam Engine near Dudley Castle. Invented by Capt. Savery & Mr. Newcomen. Erected by y latter 1712. Delin: & Sculp: by T. Barney 1719. The engine is shown with a self-acting valve gear, and with an arrangement for injecting water into the cylinder; but it will be observed that the print is seven years later in date than the engine. Whether the engine when first set up was so equipped is a. moot point.

Savery's patent and Act of Parliament, under which Newcomen's invention was worked, became vested in a. Company-" The Proprietors of the Invention for raising water by fire"; it is not clear at what date, possibly on the death of Savery in 1715. In 1716 we find in the London Gazette, August 11-14, an announcement by the Company:

"Whereas the invention of raising water by the impellant force of fire, authorised by Parliament, is lately brought to the greatest perfection, and all sorts of mines, &c., may be thereby drained, and water raised to any height with more ease and less charge than by the other methods hitherto used, as is sufficiently demonstrated by diverse engines of this invention now at work in the several counties of Stafford, Warwick, Cornwall and Flint.

66

These are therefore to give notice that if any person shall be desirous to treat with the Proprieters for such engines, attendance will be given for that purpose every Wednesday, at the Sword-Blade Coffee-House in Birchin