Papin had discovered a method of producing a vacuum by the condensation of steam, but Thomas Savery is one of the many instances of the case where two men in different countries were working separately and unknown to each other at a common problem. The latter had patented an apparatus for raising water by the impellent force of fire so far back as the year 1698, or nine years before Papin’s steamboat made her appearance; but he had also independently discovered a method of producing a vacuum by the condensation of steam just as had Papin. And this same Savery had shown that the same problem which Papin had succeeded in solving was also interesting himself: for he had gone so far as to ask for a patent for an invention for moving a paddle-wheel on either side of a ship by means of a capstan, which capstan was to be revolved by men. Eventually it occurred to him, as it had not occurred to the Marquis of Worcester, that steam might be employed as helpful to ships. Nevertheless, Savery did not carry this idea to any practical test. We come now to Thomas Newcomen, who, notwithstanding the fact that his home was at Dartmouth, where in the Elizabethan years so much had been done in connection with ship-building and the sending forth of so many naval expeditions across the seas, does not seem ever to have done anything directly for the development of the steamboat. But indirectly Newcomen did much, and the machine which he introduced, and with which his name is inseparably connected, was practically an English equivalent of Papin’s atmospheric engine, to which we have already referred. Newcomen’s engine is important to us, inasmuch as it embodied in a practical manner the main characteristics of what eventually became the familiar reciprocating steam engine; and had it not been for this, Watt might not have evolved his historic engine, and consequently Fulton not succeeded as he did. I shall endeavour not to weary the non-technical reader, but I must pause a moment here to give some idea of the nature of Newcomen’s engine, because of the close relation which it bears to the subsequent development of the steam engine as fitted in ships and boats. It consisted, then, of a vertical cylinder, which, unlike our modern cylinders, was open at the top. It was provided with a piston to which were attached chains that connected with one end of a beam, the centre of the beam being so fixed as to allow it to oscillate. Steam was generated in a boiler, on the top of which was a primitive cylinder, and by opening a valve, steam was admitted into the cylinder and so pushed up the piston. When the piston had reached the top of the cylinder the valve was closed so that the steam was shut off. Then cold water from a cistern was allowed to enter the bottom of the cylinder, and by this means the steam was condensed, so causing a vacuum; by the pressure of the air--which, as already mentioned, is 15 pounds to the square inch--the piston was forced down again.