The Sun.
London, England, 1835-12-10 00:00:00

SUBSTITUTE FOR STEAM.

The following letter of Mr. Galt to the Glasgow Herald,
refers to that gentleman's discovery :
Sia,—Since childhood, gathering gowans on the banks of
the gotts or ditches of the meadows of Irvine, about fifty years
ago, I have been instinctively an observer of hydrostatic effects,
and this predilection has led me to an important discovery.
Be assured, Sir, I take no more merits han the cock which
scraped up the precious stone from the dunghill. It is a sub-
stitute for steam, arising from the incompressibility of water.
Bramah's press demonstrates that by reiterated pressure
"by little and little," vast effects may be produced. It sug-
gested to me that by continued pressure I should obtain simi-
lar results ; and I have done it in this way :
It is quite clear that if water be for all practical purposes
incompressible, it must follow that a strong box filled with it will
be equivalent to a solid. Now, if in such a box there be a
moveable wheel, before any water is let in, when water is let
in by a pipe, that wheel will be set in motion, and so continue,
if the water continue to flow out by another pipe. If, there-•
fore, the water flow in a constant stream by a pipe of a
certain size, and flow out by another pipe of a smaller size,
the water by the larger pipe will act with pressure on the
water in the box, that water having only an outlet by the
smaller pipe, and thus keep the wheel in constant motion at
the rate the water is driven out of the smaller pipe. The
desideratum, then, is a constant stream from a dam for the
close mill-lade, as the pipe may he called which takes the
water in. _

Sir, I propose the ocean for my mill-dam. It is clear that
if you can, by a pipe in the bottom of a vessel, conduct the
water of the ocean into the box in her bold with the wheel,
and out of the box into a reservoir lower in the vessel than the
surface of the sea, you will acquire a pressure-power to set the
wheel 3.-going, I:m:ted only by the weight of the whole atmo-
sphere of the earth, and the treight of the ocean above the
level of the box.

But, Sir, this course of the water into the box, end thence
into the vessel, would, however small, in time sink her, unless
a mode were contrived to discharge the water issuing from the
box back into the sea. By my pressure—syphon this can be
effected in a constant stream ; but a common hand-pump, in a
small cistern, would be sufficient ; arid a simple, cock on the
pipe which lets in the water from the Ocean, or exterior, will
at any time serve to .stop the w heel, which will go again on
opening the cock rice versa. The wheel, may be so constructed
as a moving power as to set paddles a-goiog. This is the whole
of my discovery.
Few men have had it in their power to communicate to the
public that a stone so precious has by mere scraping been
brought to light ; anti I say at this moment, with an awful
feeling, that I have not been sent into the world in vain, nor
been so afflicted wi!hout a compensation ; for unless I had been
confined to my scat, and often lonely enough in my study, I
could not have had this cause to acknowledge the mercy of
Almighty God.
I remain, your most obedient Servant,
JOHN GALT.

A foolish pli...ter at -Lewes, after printing a hook,
;aid a day or two ago that i.e had now finished the best work
that England ever produced, and he would immediately en-
;age himself on another work equally good, by going to
tight for DOn Carlos. Accordingly he prepared himself for
the undertaking, purchased a copy of the worlt, which he
mid he wooed present upon his arrival to the l:githuatc
Sovereign of Spain, last week enrolled himself in the cause
It Portsmouth, and in a few days leaves England for the
seat of ivar, there perhaps to conTose a line of glory, and
be locked up in the force of death on his coffin.