No. LXVIII.
An admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire, not by drawing or sucking it upwards, for that must be, as the philosopher calleth it, infra sphæram activitatis, which is but at such a distance. But this way hath no bounder, if the vessels be strong enough; for, I have taken a piece of a whole cannon, whereof the end was burst, and filled it three-quarters full, stopping and screwing up the broken end, as also the touchhole; and making a constant fire under it, within twenty-four hours it burst and made a great crack: so that having found a way to make my vessels, so that they are strengthened by the force within them, and the one to fill after the other, have seen the water run like a constant fountain stream, forty feet high; one vessel of water, rarefied by fire, driveth up forty of cold water: and a man that tends the work is but to turn two cocks, that one vessel of water being consumed, another begins to force and refill with cold water, and so successively, the fire being tended and kept constant, which the self-same person may likewise abundantly perform in the interim between the necessity of turning the said cocks.
NOTE.
Vide Article C., to which is prefixed a brief historical and descriptive account of that stupendous machine, the Steam-engine.