of thirty feet from the fountain I would have a valve in the pipe, opening upwards. Immediately above this, a pipe branching horizontally from the main pipe to what I will call a second pump box, from which the air would be exhausted by the operation of the piston at the top of the main pipe. In the top of the second pump box I would likewise place a small valve opening upwards. This valve should communicate with a piece of cork or other light wood appended to the valve by a rod within the box. The air being exhausted within the machine, the water would rise and flow into the second pump box, and by floating the wood, would lift the valve at the top of the box, the air would rush in, and shutting the valve below, operate by its spring or pressure to force the water into the box at the top of the main pipe. If the main pipe were continued to a greater perpendicular height from the fountain, suppose ninety feet, by placing a third pump box, branching pipe and valves similar to the second and its apparatus as above described, and an exhaustion made at the top of the pipe, the water would be raised by renovated pressure of the atmosphere ninety feet; and by a succession of similar machinery, to any height short of that in which the pressure of the atmosphere would cease to operate. This invention I proposed to apply to raising water from deep wells, coal mines, &c. and in situations where it was necessary to raise water a great height, but impossible or inconvenient to apply the machinery of a common lifting or forcing pump. Having completed a tolerable sketch by way of a dia gram of this invention, I consulted Mr. Nicholson, and some other gentlemen of mechanical skill, respecting its merits. They all agreed that it was new, ingenious, and might be in some situations useful; but thought that the expense of a patent, which in England is near £120 and the difficulty of obtaining patronage for a new thing, though it might be really useful, ought to deter me from attempting to prosecute my improvement. I now relinquished all hopes of being able to effect any thing beneficial to my employers or myself by Langdon's machine, or by any possible modification of any of its principles, and in August 1801 was preparing to return to America. At this juncture, an American introduced himself to me at my lodgings in the Strand, whom I had never before seen. He informed me that he was the inventor of a new and curious machine for grinding corn and other useful purposes, for which he had obtained a patent. That sir William Staines, then mayor of London, was at the head of a company for carrying his patent into effect.-That he had sold one fourth part of his patent for £500 sterling to a gentleman who was a great mechanick, a person of much respectability, a city surveyor, and possessed of a large property-That he, the inventor, had built a number of mills in America, and was fully competent to direct, in every particular, respecting his invention. He produced the counterpart of his assignment of one fourth part of his patent, in which £500 was expressed as the consideration of the deed. I found on inquiry that he had married the daughter of a clergyman, settled in London, and a person of respectable appearance, and I saw no reason to disbelieve any of his statements. This adventurer likewise produced a small model of his machine, which seemed to be the work of considerable ingenuity. At length, after some hesitation and inquiry, I was prevailed on to purchase one fourth of the patent, and was sufficiently punished for my temerity. concern. The mayor soon took the liberty of seceding from the The rich partner who was prior to me in the purchase of a part of the patent, was not exactly so rich, nor quite so respectable as had been represented. The £500 stated to have been paid by him was only a nominal sum to induce others to purchase. The patentee sold out, and I found that no ordinary exertions were necessary to prevent the total failure of the whole scheme. A company of four persons was now formed to build a machine, on a cheap scale, on the Thames, which, it was hoped, would display the principles of the patent, and perform work enough to requite the expense of construction. In order to become in some measure competent to render assistance in this undertaking I set about investigating the principles on which a machine ought to be built, which would come within the patent. From the writings of Smeaton, Ferguson, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and some other authors who had treated on such branches of mechanical philosophy as were connected with this subject compared with experiments, which had been made with a view to this patent, I was able to develop its principles and recommended such rules as those concerned have been taught by experience to adopt. But I found myslf connected with men who despised science, who could not even comprehend my statements, and who proceeded in spite of my remonstrances to spoil the machine. After suffering no small degree of vexation, fatigue, and anxiety, I induced to attempt to make my pen subsidiary to my support. In the prosecution of this last plan, I published Terrible Tractoration, and a volume of Original Poems, both of which met a favourable reception by the publick, and were recommended by professional criticks. Those, however, who are best acquainted with me, will do me the justice to believe, that I never should have written a work calculated to give the tractors favourable notice, had I not fully believed in their efficacy. As conductors of animal electricity, and in principle allied to the Galvanick stimulants, even their modus operandi may be in a great measure explained:* and the cases of their hav ing performed cures are attested by too many respectable characters, both in Europe and America, to render it possible that they should be an illusion. I likewise found that though by many they were condemned as the offspring of quackery, their most bitter opponents were generally men who deserved to be ranked with the Solomons and Brodums who disgrace the profession of physickt. Justice requires that I should acknowledge my obligations to some friends in London, for many materials which * I am tempted in this place to present the reader with a quota. tion from Cavallo, which shows that metallick substances have a powerful effect on animals. "The principle phenomena of animal electricity, viz. the property of being put in motion by a metallick communication between the nerves and muscles is not peculiar to a few animals, but must be a property of all; a law of nature which admits of few exсерtions, and these of a very doubtful nature. The experiments have already been tried with a great variety of terrestrial, aerial, and aquatick animals. The human body, whilst undergoing certain chirurgical operations on its recently amputated limbs, has been convulsed by the application of metals. From the ox and the horse down to the fly, the effects of metallick applications have been repeatedly and unequivocally observed, with the same power." † Many respectable English reviews spoke in favourable terms of the tractors. I shall here quote the authority of the Anti-Jacobin Review, the reputation of which is so well established that we cannot suppose it possible that its conductors would give any thing like quackery the sanction of their authority. In a review of a satyrical work of one Corry who had written against the tractors, they observe, " with equal avidity, though certainly with but little knowledge or skill, does our angry satirist fall upon Perkins's metallick tractors. Much as we detest and reprobate quackery of every description, we do not feel ourselves authorized to restrain or suppress the extension of scientifick discovery; and considering the tractors to be constructed on known philosophical principles, they do not appear so contemptible as this author affects to represent them." Anti Jacobin Review for April, 1802, p. 399. composed the London edition of the following performance. The verse, with the exception of about half a dozen stanzas, is mine, with no other assistance but such as conversation with those friends afforded me by occasionally supplying hints and topicks, which I afterwards displayed in rhyme. Some of the notes were printed with but little alteration from matter furnished me by correspondents. As many of these communications, however, are of a personal nature, I do not feel at liberty to divulge the names of their authors without their consent. Such was the origin of the English editions of the following work. I thought it proper briefly to narrate the circumstances, which led to its publication, in consequence of inaccurate statements, which have been circulated. The present edition contains nearly double the quantity of matter published in the last English edition, the satire is more general, and it is hoped the additional matter will be thought not inferiour to what has repeatedly obtained the sanction of British and American professional criticks. My object has been not only to disclose the follies of philosophy, falsely so called, but to give publicity to such inventions and improvements as are really useful. I have the highest reason to be satisfied with the reception which the performance has met in Europe and America from men of literature and candour. It is true that some pitiful attempts have been made to persuade the publick, not only that this poem, but the immortal work of which this is an imitation is "gross and nauseous." But such malignant and sorry criticisms will serve merely to render their authors ridiculous, and their folly will ever serve as an antidote to their malevolence.* * I allude here to a critique upon this poem and Democracy Unveiled, written by a pitiful American scribbler for Philips's Monthly Magazine, London, and republished with much ostentation, as the opinion of British criticks, by an editor of a very contemptible paper at New York. This man, not contented with abusing my poems, X |