tised the arts of spinning and weaving, but, generally speaking, they were rather the patrons than the cultivators of art; and whether we view them as agriculturists, architects, or mechanics, we shall find that the great works in Rome, and in the Roman towns of Italy, were designed and executed by foreigners, and chiefly by the Greeks and Tuscans. The Romans laid the whole of their vast conquered possessions under contribution for the gratification of their own ambition and the enrichment of their own homes and cities. The results of their conquests are still to be seen in the magnificent remains of monuments and edifices, and works of public utility scattered throughout Italy and the provinces. The scenes of rapine and murder which were enacted during the latter days of the empire, and the consequent insecurity of life and property, with the increasing luxury and indolence of the people, readily account for the stagnation of useful art which preceded the decay of the empire.

The consideration of the state of art amongst the Romans brings us down to the period of Alaric and his successors, when the empire was destroyed by the inroads of the Northern barbarians, and all progress in the arts stayed for almost a thousand years. About the beginning or middle of the fifteenth century, and during the Italian Republics, the light of civilisation began again to dawn upon a new generation of men. In 1474 was born Michael Angelo Buonarotti, one of the greatest painters, sculptors, and architects of any time; one of the ablest designers, and a skilful anatomist. His works are celebrated throughout all Europe, and the beauty of his paintings and the originality of his conceptions in the highest regions of art, are to this day the subjects of universal admiration.

After Michael Angelo came Galileo, born in 1564, and to that great man we owe the telescope and pendulum, applied by his son Vincenzio to the regulation of the clock. He

was one of the first of the school of experimental philosophers who, abandoning the barren methods of the schoolmen, have produced such brilliant results in physical science.

Michael Angelo in the fine arts, and Galileo as the representative of theoretical and experimental science, were followed by those who in our own country led the van of progress in another department. The Marquis of Worcester, in his "Century of Inventions," announced the steam engine; and however crude his invention may have been, it must still be taken as the starting point from which have sprung the vast developments of steam power. The Marquis actually erected one of his engines of about 2-horse power on the banks of the Thames, and it was employed in supplying the town with water.

In "The Journal of the Visit to England of Cosmo de Medicis, Grand Duke of Tuscany," in 1699, there is an interesting record of this engine of Worcester's. "His highness," writes his secretary, "went again after dinner to the other side of the city, extending his excursion as far as Vauxhall, beyond the palace of the archbishop of Canterbury, to see an hydraulic machine, invented by my Lord Somerset, Marquis of Worcester. It raises water more than forty geometrical feet, by the power of one man only; and in a very short space of time will draw up four vessels of water, through a tube or channel not more than a span in width, on which account it is considered to be of greater service to the public than the other machine near Somerset House."

This interesting document proves that the plans of the Marquis were practical and capable of advantageous employment. Yet it was reserved for Captain Savery to introduce steam generally as a means of raising water. Savery's engine, of which fig. 29 is a sketch, consisted of two boilers, in which the necessary steam was generated, and two receivers with valves, which were placed at the bottom of the mine shaft, about thirty feet above the

water to be drained, as at A. The process of pumping was effected by admitting steam into one of the receivers, as a, and then cutting off the connection with the boiler. The steam was suddenly condensed by means of a jet of cold water, which, forming a vacuum, the water to be lifted immediately rushed up the pipe b, by atmospheric pressure, to refill the receiver. Steam being then admitted from the boiler to press upon the water in the receiver, and all connection with 6 being cut off by a valve, the water was forced up the pipe c, and discharged into the trough d. The steam in a being then again condensed, the process was repeated, and thus by the alternate action of two receivers a continuous stream was maintained.

Dr. Papin shortly after this made some contributions to our knowledge of the properties of steam by his experiments with the cylinder and piston, and by the invention of the digester, in which he dissolved bones and other animal solids by means of the high temperature which water attains under great pressure. It is upon these researches of Papin that Arago* (in his Éloge of Watt) and other French philosophers, have founded his claim to the

* Arago's Biographies of distinguished Scientific Men, p. 604.

Fig. 29.

invention of the steam engine. I have taken some pains to inquire into the justice of this assertion and find the claim to be altogether baseless, and to depend entirely the construction of a small model which could never have been used for any practical purpose, and cannot be shown to have had any influence on the actual introduction of the steam engine.

upon

Savery's engine, attended as it was by such an enormous

waste of steam, was shortly afterwards superseded by that of Newcomen, a far more perfect and economical machine. This engine, introduced in 1705, is well known as the atmospheric engine, having an open-top cylinder, that the atmosphere may press freely upon the upper side of the piston. Fig. 30 represents a large engine on the Newcomen principle, constructed by Smeaton in 1775, at Chasewater; c is the cylinder 72 inches in diameter, with its piston of iron coated with wood, it is placed immediately over the boiler b, with which it is in communication; a a is a pipe for the injection water for condensing the steam, supplied by the pump d from the cold water cistern; the reciprocating motion of the piston, e, is communicated through the huge timber main working beam ff, to the pump rods g g, which pass down the mine shaft. In working this engine, the steam was first admitted into the cylinder c, and with the weight of the pump rods gg immediately dragged the piston to the top of the stroke; a forked rod, worked by the engine, then shut off the communication of the boiler, and opened the cold water injection cock a, the result of which was the sudden condensation of the steam in the cylinder, and the formation of a vacuum under the piston; when the pressure of the atmosphere forced down the piston and completed the down stroke, raising at the same time the buckets and plungers of the pumps in the mine, the steam was then readmitted, and the process repeated for every stroke all the day through. Now it is evident that every time the injec

*For comparison with other engines, to which reference may be made, we may add the dimensions of this, which was the largest engine Smeaton had seen :