_Miner_. Sir, having been some time concerned in the engines now used for drawing water out of our mines, and hearing so much talk of this wonderful invention of yours, of raising water by fire, I was very desirous to enter into some discourse with you concerning the nature, use, and application of your engine, so strangely differing from all other engines ever yet invented for our works, and which, you positively affirm, will every way tend so much to our advantage in the use of them; and I do not doubt of meeting with that plainness, freedom, and good humour, that your discourse is generally accompanied with. And with the same freedom resolve me in such questions as the general sense of us miners may naturally propose to object against the use of your engine, especially such of us as are yet ignorant of its use and operation, who are more capable to judge of fact, than of the nature and power of that force which raises your water. _Author_. Sir, I am extremely obliged to you for your freedom, and shall readily embrace all opportunities to inform and explain to you the true use and nature of my engine; and, therefore, desire you, with all imaginable freedom, to proceed and ask what questions you please, either as to your own thoughts, as well as what has been suggested to you by others. And you may be assured of a plain and candid answer to all your objections. _Miner_. Then, sir, which way will you go to work with your engine to clear an old work full of water? _Author_. Why, sir, to deal plainly with you, if your shafts are, or may be cut straight, your tub-engines, or chain pumps, may draw forth the water. And the charge, in that respect, is not to be accounted for, because no mine would be thrown up or neglected but on account of the feeders or springs, which being certain, and constantly to be carried off winter and summer, the prospect of being likely to succeed, makes your mine worth working or emptying within twenty feet of the bottom, if ever they were worth sinking, though you work or drain by the common way of tubs or chain-pumps. And could the constant charge of those engines be afforded, numbers of them will empty and keep under any work; but it is the constant charge of carrying off what the springs bring in is the chief thing to be considered in the business of mines, which constant charge is what we lessen very much by this engine of mine. _Miner_. What signifies your engine then, sir, if it be not capable of sinking or forking an old mine?