The Century of Inventions of the Marquis of Worcester / from the Original MS., with Historical and Explanatory Notes and a Biographical Memoir

by Marquis of Edward Somerset Worcester

No. XX.

How to bring up water balance-wise, so that as little weight or force as will turn a balance, will be only needful, more than the weight of the water within the buckets, which counterpoise and empty themselves one into the other, the uppermost yielding its water (how great a quantity soever it holds) at the same time when the lowermost taketh it in, though it be an hundred fathom high.

NOTE.

An engine answering the above description may be composed of a series of ladles or buckets, the handles of which being hollow will admit a passage for the water by elevating the bucket end. A number of these, sufficient for the required height, must be fastened in a frame; each ladle being suspended by a fulcrum so balanced that when filled with water, they may remain in equilibrio. The whole of the buckets thus constructed may be connected by rods passing from the top of the machine to the lowest handle, and the continued series so placed, that the handle of the one bucket will empty itself into the reservoir of the succeeding one, so that by alternately raising and depressing the rods the water is raised to the top of the machine.