[46] “It may be interesting to know that it required three hands to work Newcomen’s first engines. I have heard it said that when the engine was stopped, and again set at work, the words were passed “Snift Benjy!” “Blow the fire, Pomery!” “Work away, Joe!” The last let in the condensing water. Lifting the condensing clack was called “snifting,” because on opening the valve, the air rushing through it made a noise like a man snifting. The fire was increased through artificial means by another hand, and all being ready, the machine was set in motion by a third.”--Cyrus Redding, ‘Yesterday and To-day.’ London, 1863. The “snifting clack” was a valve in the cylinder opening outwards, which permitted the escape of air or permanently elastic fluid, which could not be condensed by cold and run off through the eduction-pipe. Though the use of Newcomen’s engine rapidly extended, nothing is known of the man himself during this time. All over the mining districts his name was identified with the means employed for pumping the mines clear of water, and thereby enabling an important branch of the national industry to be carried on; but of Newcomen’s personal history, beyond what has been stated above, we can gather nothing. It is not known when or where he died, whether rich or poor. The probability is that, being a person of a modest and retiring disposition, without business energy, and having secured no protection for his invention, it was appropriated and made use of by others, without any profit to him, whilst he quietly subsided into private life. It is supposed that he died at Dartmouth about the middle of last century; but no stone marks the place where he was laid. The only memorial of Newcomen to be found at his native place is the little steam-boat called by his name, which plies between Totness and Dartmouth.