As regards No. 20, it seems, at first, absurd to expect to raise water which is to be in a balance and pass from one bucket to the other. But let us suppose an arrangement, as in the subjoined engraving, where A, B, is a strong vertical wooden frame carrying six metal or wooden pipes C, C, which can be moved simultaneously up and down on centres, a, a, being connected by the iron rods, b, b; these pipes are united with the top of six buckets at D, D', and with the bottom of six other buckets at E, E'. The buckets D, D', are also connected at the bottom with six other pipes F, F, each open at the end F, F, and so arranged that the topmost pipe passes over a pulley c, but the other five pipes with guide rods d, d, at their ends, enter the top end of the five uppermost buckets on the side E; the pipe F, passing over c, delivers the contents of bucket D, while the lower-most bucket E', is being replenished, “thus the uppermost yielding its water at the same time when the lower-most taketh it in.” In the present position of the machine the pipes C, C, are inclined, and the pipes F, F, are horizontal, but when the bucket E' is elevated, then these pipes will all reverse their positions, being connected with the buckets by means of flexible leather hose, or suitable jointed metal tubing.
We have next to consider the present article No. 21. The conditions stated require the use of but one pulley, one cord, and two buckets, without any “force” or pump plunger, or “any wheel, or sucker.” An arrangement so simple seems only possible to be attained by some such plan as that exhibited in the illustration given below. We have here an endless chain or cord, A B, passing over the pulley C, with a bucket D, at the upper end; and another bucket E, at the lower end; the first in the act of discharging its contents into the trough G, the second re-charging with water at the level E. This endless chain is further supplied with a series of conical or other shaped buckets, a, a', set on the endless cord in a reverse direction, so as to receive water conveyed from an upper stream by the spout F, by which means the side B, of the cord will descend, and the side A, ascend, “without any other force than its own motion,” and that “with two buckets only, day and night.” On the side a', the conical buckets reverse and empty themselves, thereby lightening the ascending side A, of the endless chain or cord.
22.
To make a River in a Garden to ebbe and flow constantly, though twenty foot over, with a childs force, in some private room or place out of sight, and a competent distance from it.
[An ebbing and flowing River.] In reference to this invention Mr. Partington has quoted Peter Bogaerts’ ingenious method of a canal lock, so contrived that, in a model, a weight of seven pounds was made to raise ten hundred weight of water more than four feet in a few seconds.
But still the process of ebbing and flowing is not made out; it does appear, however, that its operation requires the constant services of a boy or other attendant, probably to keep alternately opening and closing certain sluice arrangements, placed somewhere concealed from view; the whole affording a water-work to amuse and surprise, and forming a variety on the usual strange schemes attached to grottos, caves, &c. spouting water in every variety of form.
See further the comments on article [No. 57], which very probably includes the principle here employed by the Marquis.
There is no communication in this article of facts requisite to direct an engineer or inventor in the adjustment of any special kind of machinery to obtain the desired ebbing and flowing river; which is a novelty, in this respect, peculiar to the Marquis of Worcester’s ingenuity. He was evidently not copying or improving any anterior system of water-work. The next article is but an application of this new system; and it is not until he has taken us through descriptive hints of thirty-three totally different designs or devices, that in No. 57, he offers “A constant water-flowing and ebbing motion.” We think the three may be taken together, that is, No. 57, refers to the principle and mechanism, of which Nos. 22 and 23, are mere simple applications.
Thus, referring to what we have stated under No. 57, the purpose named in the present article might be attained by means of two domed or bell-shaped vessels, placed like gasometers, but otherwise immoveable, partially immersed in a pond, or other artificial piece of water; which being arranged so that, by admitting a steam pipe into each, the contained air could be driven out thereby, condensation would naturally follow, or might be accelerated; and one vessel immediately filling with water, while the other was emptying, the surface of the pond or river would be kept in a continual state of agitation, and the water might be said to “ebb and flow constantly, though 20 feet over.”