The Life, Times, and Scientific Labours of the Second Marquis of Worcester / To which is added a reprint of his Century of Inventions, 1663, with a Commentary thereon.

by Henry Dircks

[9]but that the. P.

[1]the—for that.

[2]of—omitted. MS. and P.

[3]at that instant. P.

[4]that—for the.

[5]unless—for until.

[A constant Water-flowing and ebbing motion.] We are very much mistaken if this is not the result of one of the Marquis’s early experimental model demonstrations, and a happy illustrative example for the lecture-table of raising water by the condensation of steam.

A, B, represents two water tanks or cisterns, permanently connected by the water-pipe C, and having within, D, D, two perforated shelves or false bottoms; E, is a main steam-pipe, with a four-way steam cock at F, branching into the form shown at G, G', and passing through the bottom of each tank, rises vertically to the level of the false bottoms, where each is supplied with a valve at the top end, to prevent the ingress of water. G', is shown receiving steam from E. H, I, are two hollow metal globes, surmounted with a small crown ornament to conceal a spring valve, to which a floating weight is suspended by a chain, as at X'; but floated upwards at X, where it operates to open the spring valve within the crown. In the above diagram, it is obvious that water placed in A, will flow onward to B, and stand at the same level in both cisterns. The valve in each globe requires to be so arranged, that when forced open its spring will prevent its closing until acted on by a weight, which weight must hang to the inside of the valve by means of a chain, and be able to float on the surface of the water, and it will be requisite to adjust the chain to such a length that when the water is at a certain level it shall have no influence on the float-weight of the valve, which will then close.

With this apparatus, the operator can conceal the connection between the two cisterns, and that between the bottoms to admit steam. The water is now seen at the same level in “two vessels,” and with a perforated shelf about an inch below the surface of each. We may now find, “if a globe be cast in,” the water “instead of rising, it presently ebbeth, and so remaineth,” doing nothing further “until a like globe be cast into the other vessel; which the water is no sooner sensible of, but that vessel presently ebbeth, and the other floweth.” For it must be observed, the first globe was placed in the centre, over a steam pipe, its nozzle protected with a valve, and on letting in the steam, being otherwise empty and the valve purposely opened for the escape of steam and air, but which its weight closed as soon as permitted to act, and thereon condensation followed, the water flowed into that vessel, but ebbed in the other. We then insert a second globe, in the second cistern, under like conditions; and as soon as the rising water has opened the top valve of the first globe, this second globe will repeat the operation, “and so continueth ebbing and flowing until one or both the globes be taken out.” And this ebbing and flowing, this rising, and these changing heights in the water in the two tanks or cisterns, may easily be adapted for “working some little effect besides its own motion, without the help of any man within sight or hearing,” and of course too far off to be the acting agent in such additional “working of some little effect,” some see-sawing action, to work automata or like “little effects” for the delectation of the ingenious and the delight of all the lovers of the marvellous. And note “if during the ebbing,” when that globe and that cistern is all but empty, “you take out the globe, the water of that vessel presently returneth to flow,” showing that the globe thus removed was quite empty; and therefore would be shown as part of the miracle, the same empty globe had been performing such strange motions in the water. But let “the globe be returned (empty as it was before) into it [the cistern], and then the motion beginneth as before.”