model to pass from the Fulda to the Weser; but at length he succeeded, and the little vessel reached Münden, when, to Papin’s great grief, it was seized by the boatmen of the river, and barbarously destroyed. The year after this calamity befell Papin’s machine he wrote an urgent letter to his old friends of the Royal Society at London, asking them to advance him sufficient money to construct another engine “and to fit it so that it might be applied for the rowing of ships.” The Society, however, did not see their way to assisting Papin in the manner proposed, most likely because of the expense as well as uncertainty of the experiment. Two years later, worn out by work and anxiety, the illustrious exile died; and it was left for other labourers to realise the great ideas he had formed as to locomotion by steam-power. The apparently resultless labours of these men will serve to show what a long, anxious, and toilsome process the invention of the steam-engine has been. The early inventors had not the gratification of seeing their toils rewarded by even the faintest glimmering of practical success. One after another, they took up the subject, spent days and nights of study over it, and, laying down their lives, there left it. To many the study brought nothing but anxiety, toil, distress, and sometimes ruin; while some fairly broke their hearts over it. But it was never abandoned. Disregarding the fate of their predecessors, one labourer after another resumed the investigation, advancing it by further stages, until at length the practicable working steam-engine was invented, presenting, perhaps, the most remarkable illustration of the power of human skill and perseverance to be found in the whole history of civilisation. CHAPTER III. CAPTAIN SAVERY--HIS FIRE-ENGINE. The attempts hitherto made to invent a working steam-engine, it will be observed, had not been attended with much success. The most that could be said of them was, that, by demonstrating the impracticable, they were gradually leading other experimenters in the direction of the practicable. Although the progress made seemed but slow, the amount of net result was by no means inconsiderable. Men were becoming better acquainted with the elastic force of steam. The vacuum produced by its condensation in a closed vessel, and the consequent atmospheric pressure, had been illustrated by repeated experiments; and many separate and minor inventions, which afterwards proved of great value, had been made, such as the four-way cock, the safety-valve, and the piston moving in a cylinder. The principle of a true steam-engine had not only been demonstrated, but most of the separate parts of such an engine had been contrived by various inventors. It seemed as if all that was now wanting was a genius of more than ordinary power to combine them in a complete and effective whole.