The steam-engine, however, changed all this; on the one hand the hitherto unheard of accuracy of fit required by its working parts created a demand for tools of increased power and precision, and on the other it rendered the use of such tools possible in almost any situation. Thus, acting and re-acting on each other, machine tools and steam engines have grown side by side, although the first steps were costly and difficult to a degree which is not now easy to realize. James Watt, for instance, in 1779 was fain to be content with a cylinder for his “fire-engine,” of which, though it was but 18 inches in the bore, the diameter in one place exceeded that at another by about 3/8 of an inch; its piston was not unnaturally leaky; though he packed it with “paper, cork, putty, pasteboard and old hat.” _The early history of the pumping-engine is the history of the steam-engine_, for originally and for many years the only way in which the steam-engine was utilized was for pumping water out of the coal mines of England and from the low lands of the Netherlands. In 1698 Capt. Thomas Savery secured Letters Patent for a machine for raising water by steam. It consisted of two boilers and two receivers for the steam, with valves and the needful pipes. One of the receivers being filled with steam, its communication with the boiler was then cut off and the steam condensed with cold water outside of it; into the vacuum thus formed the atmosphere forced the water from below, when the steam was again caused to press upon the water and drive it still higher. This engine was used extensively for draining mines and the water was, in some instances, made to turn a water wheel, by which lathes and other machinery were driven. In 1705 Thomas Newcomen, with his associates, patented an engine which combined, for the first time, the cylinder and piston and separate boiler. _This soon became extensively introduced for draining mines and collieries_, and the engines grew to be of gigantic size, with cylinders 60 inches in diameter and other parts in proportion. This engine was, in course of years, used in connection with the Cornish pump, whose performance in raising water from mines came to be a matter of the nicest scientific investigation, and adopted as the standard for the duty or work, by which to compare the multitudinous experimental machines very soon introduced by many inventors. But there is an earlier history which long antedates the achievements of Savery, Newcomen and Watt, which belongs, however, principally to the domain of hydraulics. Before proceeding to discuss the advancements made within the memory of men now living, it may be well to take a glance backward and occupy a few pages with their appropriate illustrations, with the facts recorded in history.