De Caus, in his large folio work, in which varieties of fountains are explained by elaborate copper-plates, and minute descriptions, satisfies himself with the above brief explanation of the simple woodcut figure, which we have here reproduced; from which we infer that he laid no claim to its being his own invention, or at all events that he presented it to his readers as a gratuitous offering, for its curious and amusing results. It is not likely that the author of a considerable work, amidst recondite descriptions and sumptuous engravings of comparatively common affairs would consign his own most valuable contribution to a few lines of bare description and a coarsely engraved diagram. It is obvious, therefore, that De Caus himself, set no great store by this toy fountain; he saw no great scope in its application, and certainly never assumed it to be of greater value than as an amusing experimental fountain. To claim more for an Inventor, than an Inventor claims for himself is mere infatuation. To say that De Caus had only to add another pipe, and only to make another arrangement or two, and then this petite fontaine would somewhat resemble a steam engine, is neither sound nor admissible. An inventor must be judged by his own aim and object, and the example he offers us, without any additions or subtractions at other hands. What De Caus desribes, therefore, is not a continuous but an intermittent fountain; not self-feeding, but to be refilled by a syringe; not emitting cold, but boiling hot water; and the difficulties and delays in the use of which materially increased in proportion with its dimensions. But there was shortly afterwards published another highly suggestive work, on a mechanical application of steam, in “Le Machine,” by Giovanni Branca, 4to. 1628; in which the 25th figure represents the operation of pounding, the pestles being acted on by pulleys and cog-wheels set in motion by a jet of steam issuing from a pipe against the vanes of a horizontal wheel. The boiler is in the fanciful form of the bust of a negro, with the steam pipe issuing from the mouth. On the 21st of January, 1630, a patent was granted to David Ramsey, for, among other inventions, one “to raise water from low pits by fire.” But unfortunately, like all patents of that period, it is unaccompanied by any description.