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.
No. LXIX.
A way how a little triangle and screwed key shall be capable and strong enough to bolt and unbolt, round about a great chest, an hundred bolts through fifty staples, two in each, with a direct contrary motion, and as many more from both sides and ends, and at the self-same time shall fasten it to the place, beyond a man's natural strength to take it away; and, in one and the same turn, both locketh and openeth it.
NOTE.
This invention, with its two following modifications, is evidently intended to operate on the principle of applying a screw for the purpose of forcing the lock bolt, in lieu of using the handle of the key as a lever for that purpose. That this plan might be applied to locks generally, there can be no doubt, and by a similar contrivance the large keys at present in use for outer doors, iron chests, &c. might be advantageously reduced to the size described by the noble author. By employing the escutcheon mentioned in No. LXXII. these locks would be equally safe and much more simple than those in common use. For the latter part of the Article, any ingenious smith may make a lock with an hundred bolts; and to fasten it to the place, the power of a screw key is abundantly sufficient to force an iron bar through a staple previously fixed in the floor.
No. LXX.
A key, with a rose-turning pipe, and two roses pierced through endwise; together with several handsomely contrived wards, which may likewise do the same effects.