The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-08-31 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

THE STEAM-ENGINE,

(Frans Sir john Barrow's Autobiography.)
The first discoverer, as we Englishmen deem him to be,
of the power of steam for moving weights, lifting water,
&c., as well as of its locomotive power, has, in later
times, been a subject of doubt and dispute. Not only
has the story of the Marquis of Worcester, as told by
himself, been called in question, but the French, even
before his time, and M. Arago in our time, have claimed
the discovery for another, one Salomon de Cans, a cele-
brated engineer in the time of Lous XIII., to whom he
dedicated a book, published in 1615, entitled, An Ac-
count of Moving Forces, with various Machines as well
for Use as for Pleasure. This work is undoubtedly prior,
by nearly half a century, to Worcester's Century of In-
ventions, which was not published till 1663. This would
prove nothing against the Marquis's discovery unless

am among his

" moving

ny ign

ins Int the charge of the Marquis having learnt
his invention from De Caus himself is curious, and, if

decides the question against

In an amusing French work, La France Historique, B(c.,
par Henri Berthoud, interestingerthoud, I find a very curious and
_ _

the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, in which sl.
`' I have done the honours of Paris to your English
lord, the Marquis of Worcester. I have led him, or,
rather, he has led me, from one curiosity to another;
always. making choice of the most sad and the most
serious, speaking little, and listening with marked attten-
tion.

ae• says,

" We went to Becetre, where he pretends. to have dis-
covered in a madman a man of genius. Had he not
been raving, I verily believe your Marquis would have
'-ed his liberty to t-' ' -ndon. In crossing the
t w - dead than alive

.. observed, on the other side of a strong bar-
rier, an ugly face, screaming out, `I am not mad I have
made a discovery that would enrich the country that
would carry it into effect.' 'And what is his discovery?'
I asked the keeper. Ah Fr said he, ' you would' never
_Less :it is the vapour of boiling water. His name,'
continued he, 'is Solomon de Caus. He came from Nor-
mandy, four years.ago, to pres2nt a memorial to the king
of the wonderful effect of steam for turning machinery,
driving carriages, and a thousand other wonderful things ::
but the cardinal drove him away without listening to him.
From that time he- pursued the cardinal wherever he
went, so that lie ordered him to be- shut up in the Becetre
as a madman, where he has been three years and a-half.
He has written a book on his wonderful discovery, which
I have here.' Lord Worcester is quite ravished with it ;
and, after reading a few pages, ' This person,' said he, ' is
no madman, and in my country, instead of shutting him
up, they would heap riches r ""P

tie was taken to him

turned sorrowful and pensive. 'At present,' he said, he
is very mad. Misfortune and captivity have for ever es-
trancr'ed his reason. -You have made him mad ; but when
you threw him into this prison, you there buried the
greatest genius of your agE

From this time, it is said, the Marquis of Worcester
never ceased talking of Saloman de Caus, and well he
might talk and think of this poor maniac, if the story be
true. The writer of the letter, the person it is written to,
and the genius of whom it treats, were all well known

characters of the time. De Caus was a distinguished
-gineer and architect, is known to have been the author
several ingenious works ; one of them is Les Raisons
de Forces Mouvantes, Brc., above mentioned, which went
through several editions, and was published in several
He also published four or five other works,
ne of which, entitled Institution Harmonique, he dedi-
ted to Queen Anne of England. The above letter,

is well known among the beaux esprits of Paris and the
She was accounted a woman of great talent for
and was the friend and associate of the celebrated
Arago asserts that De Caus was the first to dis-
cover the power of steam ; any one, even Papin, with his
was an inventor, according to Arago, rather
Ilishmen. If De l'Orme's story be true, Wor-
tory of the cover of thp cooking-pot being blown
...ney is indeed blown up, and must be con-
Al as a romance. We English, however, are inclined
Jelieve what the Marquis has declared to be the fact ;
I that his assurance may be relied on, that " he desired
to - down any other men's inventions ;" and,

, acted on them

AT GLASGOISN

TWO B(

Mail of Tuesday details a tr

t-rending c

James Wil

As the

rtain if the ru

which is attacheCl 6 the wood-yard, for

purpose of procuring some provender for the animal, which
had, it appears, been out in a park from the Saturday

The provend

feet long and about thr

The Duke of Newcastle, and the clergy and gentry re-
siding in the vicinity of Worksop, have formed them-
selves into a society to suppress prize-fighting, as that
neighbourhood has lately become the daily theatre o
which pugilistic encounters have been decided.
On Monday, two children, one four, the other two
years of age, who had been left in the house alone a few
minutes by their mother, a poor woman, in the Gallogate,
Glasgow, wen?, found burning, on her return, and died the

same evening.

On Wednesday, Miss Marianne Hannah Enock, an
adult, was baptized publicly in Leominster Church, by
the Rev. Charle 3 'Walter Robinson, A.M., curate. This
young, lady had been a disciple of the Society of Friends

istence in the w

LONGS

name of 11