The Washington bee. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1884-1922, 1893-02-18
A STORY OF INVENTION.
AN EARLY IDEA OF THE POWER
OF STEAM.

OF STEAM.
The Effort to Introduce a Great Revolu-
tionizing Force to an Increduious PUB
lie in the Sixteenth Century Wrecked
Scientific Mind.
There lived in Normandy, where he
was born, in 1876, man named Solo,
mon Caus. He was an engineer and
architect, and had held several impor-
tant positions. He wrote great many
scientific works and papers, of which,
however, no one took much notice dur
ing his life, and finally was seized with
an idea which made his friends and
relatives fear that he was mad. After
Fostering the King and the Cardinal at
Paris, he was ordered to be taken to
Bicetre-the mad house-and there
shut up. This was done. They had
just one way with mad people in those
days They shut them in iron cages
and fed them through the bars like
wild beasts. They did this to Solomon
Caus. For a long time he stood be-
hind those bars all day and called to
those who would listen, and to them
repeated the story he had told the
Cardinal. He became the jest OF the
place. Some of them even gave him
writing materials, and then, amid the
misery of his surroundings, he wrote
down his ideas and amused mis- jailers
so much the more. However, it could
not be long before such life, such
surroundings, would shatter shy brain.
In time Solomon Caus was as mad as
every one believed him.
1t was in 1924 that an English noble
man, Lord Worcester, went to Paris
and visited Bicetre. AS he was passing
through the great court accompanied
by the keeper, a hideous face, with
matted beard and hair appeared at the
grating and voice shrieked wildly,
stop stop I am not mad. / am shut
up here most unjustly. [ have made
an invention which would enrich the
country that adopted it. What does
ne speak of ?" the Marquis asked his
guide. "Oh, that is his madness. said
the man, laughing. THAT is a man
called Solomon Caus he is from Nor
mandy he believes that by the use of
the steam of boiling water he can make
ships go over the ocean and carriages
travel by land in fact, do all SORTS of
wonderful things. He has even written
book about it which can show you.
Lord Worcester asked for the book,
glanced over it, and desired to be con-
Quoted to the cell of the writer When
he returned he had been weeping.
The poor man is certainly mad now,
he said, "but when you imprisoned him
here he was the greatest genius of the
age. He has certainly made very
great discovery" After this Lord
Worcester made many efforts to pro.
cure the liberty of the man, who doubt
less would have been restored to reason
by freedom and ordinary surroundings,
but in vain the Cardinal was against
him, and his English friends began to
fancy that he himself had lost his
senses, for one wrote to another : MY
lord is remarkable for never being sat
isfied with any explanations which are
given him, but always wanting to know
for himself, although he seems to
fierce to the very center of a speakers
thoughts with his big blue eyes that
never leave theirs. At visit to BIZ
cetre he thought he had discovered a
genius in mailman, who declares that
he would travel the world over with a
kettle of boiling water. He desired to
carry him away to London that he
might listen to his extravagances from
morning till night, and would, I think,
if the maniac had not been actually
raving and chained to the wall"
Thus in Bicetre died the man to
whom, after his works were published,
many people gave the credit of being
the discoverer of steam power, and it
is said that from the manuscript writ
ten in his prison LORD Worcester gath
cred the idea of a machine spoken of as
water commanding engine. which
he afterward invented. Historians
have denied that Caus died in prison,
but there exists letter written by Mar
ion de Lorme, who was with Lord
Worcester at the time of his interview
with Caus, which establishes the fact
beyond doubt.