“An admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire, not by drawing or sucking it upwards, for that must be as the Philosopher calleth it, _Intra sphæram activitatis_, which is but at such a distance. But this way hath no bounder, if the vessels be strong enough; for I have taken a piece of a whole cannon, whereof the end was burst, and filled it three-quarters full of water, stopping and screwing up the broken end, as also the touch-hole; and making a constant fire under it, within twenty-four hours it burst and made a great crack. So that having a way to make my vessels, so that they are strengthened by the force within them, and the one to fill after the other; I have seen the water run like a constant fountain-stream forty foot high; one vessel of water rarified by fire driveth up forty of cold water. And a man that tends the work is but to turn two cocks, that one vessel of water being consumed, another begins to force and refill with cold water, and so successfully, the fire being tended and kept constant, which the selfsame person may likewise abundantly perform in the interim between the necessity of turning the said cocks.” On this evidence the claim is made that the marquis was the original inventor of the steam engine. Is he at all entitled to the honour? The whole affair is still surrounded with mystery. It is known that he was an enthusiastic student of physical science, and that for years he had working for him a Dutch mechanic, Caspar Kaltoff; it seems certain that he actually made a water-pumping engine worked by steam, of whose value he was so impressed that he promised to leave the drawings of it to Gresham College and intended to have a model of it buried with him.[72] But neither model nor drawings has ever yet been traced. And, considering the social influence of the inventor and the importance of the invention, the silence of his contemporaries on the discovery is strange and inexplicable. He received a patent for some form of water-pumping engine. Distinguished visitors came to Vauxhall to see his engine at work. He numbered among his acquaintances Sir Jonas Moore, Sir Samuel Morland, Flamstead and Evelyn: probably Mr. Pepys, Sir W. Petty, and others of the group of eminent men of his time who were interested in natural science. Yet no trace of his inventions has come down to us. His _Century_ was admittedly compiled from memory--“my former notes being lost”--and perhaps it was designedly obscure; science was at that time a hobby of the cultured few, and scientific men loved to mystify each other by the exhibition, without explanation, of paradoxes and toys of their own construction. The marquis, it will be agreed, left valuable hints to later investigators. Whether his claim to have invented the steam engine is sufficiently substantiated, we leave to the opinion of the interested reader, who will find most of the evidence on this subject in Dirck’s _Life of the Marquis of Worcester_.