Fig. 8.—Worcester’s Engine, a. d. 1665.
We nowhere find an illustrated description of the machine, or such an account as would enable a mechanic to reproduce it in all its details. Fortunately, the cells and grooves ([Fig. 9]) remaining in the wall of the citadel of Raglan Castle indicate the general dimensions and arrangement of the engine; and Dircks, the biographer of the inventor, has suggested the form of apparatus shown in the sketch ([Fig. 8]) as most perfectly in accord with the evidence there found, and with the written specifications.
Fig. 9.—Wall of Raglan Castle.
The two vessels, A A′, are connected by a steam-pipe, B B′, with the boiler, C, behind them. D is the furnace. A vertical water-pipe, E, is connected with the cold-water vessels, A A′, by the pipes, F F′, reaching nearly to the bottom. Water is supplied by the pipes, G G′, with valves, a a′, dipping into the well or ditch, H. Steam from the boiler being admitted to each vessel, A and A′, alternately, and there condensing, the vacuum formed permits the pressure of the atmosphere to force the water from the well through the pipes, G and G′. While one is filling, the steam is forcing the charge of water from the other up the discharge-pipe, E. As soon as each is emptied, the steam is shut off from it and turned into the other, and the condensation of the steam remaining in the vessel permits it to fill again. As will be seen presently, this is substantially, and almost precisely, the form of engine of which the invention is usually attributed to Savery, a later inventor.
Worcester never succeeded in forming the great company which he hoped would introduce his invention on a scale commensurate with its importance, and his fate was that of nearly all inventors. He died poor and unsuccessful.
His widow, who lived until 1681, seemed to have become as confident as was Worcester himself that the invention had value, and, long after his death, was still endeavoring to secure its introduction, but with equal non-success. The steam-engine had taken a form which made it inconceivably valuable to the world, at a time when no more efficient means of raising water was available at the most valuable mines than horse-power; but the people, greatly as it was needed, were not yet sufficiently intelligent to avail themselves of the great boon, the acceptance of which was urged upon them with all the persistence and earnestness which characterizes every true inventor.
Worcester is described by his biographer as having been a learned, thoughtful, studious, and good man—a Romanist without prejudice or bigotry, a loyal subject, free from partisan intolerance; as a public man, upright, honorable, and humane; as a scholar, learned without being pedantic; as a mechanic, patient, skillful, persevering, and of wonderful ingenuity, and of clear, almost intuitive, apprehension.