100. A stupendous Water-work 100 THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER'S CENTURY OF INVENTIONS, EXPLAINED AND ILLUSTRATED. No. I. Several sorts of seals, some showing by screws, others by gauges, fastening or unfastening all the marks at once: others, by additional points and imaginary places, proportionable to ordinary escutcheons and seals at arms, each way palpably and punctually setting down (yet private from all others, but the owner, and by his assent) the day of the month, the day of the week, the month of the year, the year of our Lord, the names of the witnesses, and the individual place where any thing was sealed, though in ten thousand several places, together with the very number of lines contained in a contract, whereby falsification may be discovered, and manifestly proved, being upon good grounds suspected. Upon any of these seals a man may keep accounts of receipts and disbursements, from one farthing to an hundred millions, punctually showing each pound, shilling, penny, or farthing. By these seals, likewise, any letter, though written but in English, may be read and understood in eight several languages; and in English itself, to clear contrary and different sense, unknown to any but the correspondent, and not to be read or understood by him neither, if opened before it arrive unto him; so that neither threats, nor hopes of reward, can make him reveal the secret, the letter having been intercepted, and first opened by the enemy. NOTE. The use of _sigili_ or "autograph seals" is very ancient, indeed we find them mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah (chap. xxii. v. 10); these, however, were invariably engraved on the collets or stones of rings, and it was not till a much later date that hand stamps were applied to that purpose. In England, the first sealed charter extant is that of Edward the Confessor, upon his founding Westminster Abbey; and many of our English kings used them, from an inability to affix any other kind of signature: this indeed is candidly acknowledged by Caedwalla, a Saxon king, who says, at the conclusion of one of his charters, "_propriâ manu pro ignorantiâ literarum signum sanctæ crucis expressi et subscripsi_."