“By these (his quintessence of motions) I can make one pound raise an hundred, as high as the pound falls; and the one pound taken off the 112 pounds shall again descend, performing the entire effect of an hundred weight, that is, have the force which nothing less than 112 pounds can have any other way. An incredible effect till seen, but true as strange.”—See [Appendix A.]
Keeping in view Nos. 25 and 27, we have here a third application of the same principle, by which it is proposed with one pound to raise a hundred “as high as one pound falleth.” In the engraved figure of this demonstrative model, one steam cylinder B, is shown, with its steam pipe and valve at A; one end of a cord is attached to the piston B, and passing over the drum wheel D, is attached to the weight X. As condensation ensues, the descent of B, will raise X; and it may be reset for another lift by drawing off the condensed water at E, and readmitting steam.
Here we are required “to make one pound weight” so that it shall be able to raise 100 times its own weight, always bearing in mind—“as high as one falleth.” This being no Archimedian experiment would be unintelligible to any man ignorant of steam, and some mode of applying its property of condensation.
James Rollock,[S] in his doggerel verses, attempts some description of this principle as applied to raising water, when he says:—
“Here little David curbs the Giant’s brood, Small drops of Rain contend with Noah’s flood; One weighs a thousand coming down apace, Weighs but himself when he hath ran his race.
The Heavens admire, the Centre stands amaz’d, To see such Streams by so small Forces rais’d. Great is the Work, but greater is the Fame Of that great Peer who did invent the same.”
The plain English of Rollock’s feeble lines is, that a stream of water falling like “small drops of rain,” on the steam cylinder, caused the elevation of a hundred or more gallons, which he likens to “Noah’s flood,” in illustration of the greatness of the result; while the steam “weighs but itself,” being condensed. “Here little David,” is no more than the single attendant on the “Giant’s brood,”—the Water-commanding Engine.
The distribution of the three articles, Nos. 25, 27, and 99, is evidently adopted to conceal their connection; as we have already seen in the instance of Nos. 22, 23, and 58, which, although related to each other, are yet separated, as though they were quite independent.
100.