anni Branca of Loretto in Italy, an engineer and architect,
proposed to work mills and other machinery by steam blowing against
vanes, much in the same way as water does in turning a wheel. The waste
of steam in such a plan is so obvious, that it is not to be wondered at
that it did not produce any great results, as we all know that the
moment we let steam out of his case, the case is all up with him, and he
dies a natural death. He is a most delicate yet powerful agent, and
requires to be kept warm in all weathers--this fact does not seem to
have struck Mons. Branca when he let him out of his boiler.

The next person we come to, and perhaps the first of any note, is the
Marquis of Worcester in 1663 (died 1667). He was a man who seems, as far
as history tells us, to have taken a great interest in furthering the
advancement of steam. He was not contented with one invention, but
published a book entitled "A Century of Inventions," and in this work he
describes a means of raising water by the pressure of steam. The Marquis
appears to have been a politician as well as an inventor, as we find he
was engaged on the side of the Royalists in the Civil Wars of the
Revolution, lost his fortune and went to Ireland, where he was
imprisoned. Escaping to France, from thence he returned to London as a
secret agent of Charles II., but was detected and imprisoned in the
Tower, where he remained till the Restoration, when he was set at
liberty. One day, while in prison, he observed the lid of the pot in
which his dinner was being prepared lifted up by the vapour of the water
boiling inside. Reflecting on this, he turned his mind to the matter,
and thought that this vapour, if rightly applied, might be made a useful
moving power. He thus describes his invention in his 68th Article: "I
have contrived an admirable way to drive up water by fire, not by
drawing or sucking it upwards, thirty-two feet. But this way hath no
bounds, if the vessels be strong enough." He then goes on to say, that
"having a way to make his vessels, so that they are strengthened by the
force within, I have seen the water run like a constant stream forty
feet high. One vessel rarified by fire driveth forty of cold water, and
one being consumed, another begins to force, and refill with cold water,
and so on successively, the fire being kept constant. The engineman
having only to turn two cocks, so as to connect the steam with the one
or the other vessel."

In this eng