Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/78

 invention for raising 'water out of pits to any reasonable height by the force of aire and powder conjointly' (Publ. Rec. Office Warrant Book, v. 85; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1661-2, pp. 175, 199). The method employed seems to have been as follows. An air-tight box or cistern was fixed at a height above the level of the water to be raised. A charge of gunpowder was exploded within this cistern, and the air expelled by means of valves; a (partial) vacuum being thus formed, the water is driven up from the reservoir below by the atmospheric pressure. The simple apparatus used was subsequently developed by Jean de Hauteville and by Huyghens (1679). In February 1674 a bill to enable Morland 'to enjoy the sole benefit of certain pumps and water-engines by him invented' was read a second time in the House of Commons (Commons' Journals, ix. 300, 308, 314). The introduction of the bill elicited 'Reasons offered against the passing of Sir Samuel Morland's Bill touching Water-Engines,' in which it was urged that the inventor should have recourse to the ordinary letters patent for fourteen years. Morland published an 'Answer,' stating that he had expended twenty years' study and some thousands of pounds on his experiments. The measure, however, failed to pass, as did a similar bill in 1677 (ib. ix.403, 412), and he had to be content with a patent (No. 175, dated 14 March 1674). The pump in question, referred to as 'raising great quantities of water with farre less proportion of strength than can be performed by an Chayne or other Pumpe,' was apparently what is known as the 'plunger-pump,' the most important new feature in which is the gland and stuffing-box. This important contrivance, with which James Watt has often been wrongly credited, was undoubtedly the invention of Morland (cf., Treatise on the Cornish Pumping-Engine, 1844; , Pumps, historically, theoretically, and practically considered, 1890, p. 11). With a cast-iron perpendicular-action pump of this nature it is stated that Morland in 1675 raised water from the Thames sixty feet above the top of Windsor Castle at the rate of sixty barrels per hour by eight men (cf. Philosoph. Trans. 1674, ix. 25). Elsewhere Morland states he raised twelve barrels of water 140 feet high in one hour by the force of one man. An interesting schedule of his prices, with other papers concerning his inventions, is among the 'British Museum Tracts' (816, m. 10). For a brass force-pump suitable for raising water from a deep well he charged 60l., and for an 'engine to quench fire or wet the sails of a ship' from 23l. upwards.

Another very interesting and important evidence of Morland's inventive genius is supplied by a manuscript in the Harleian collection at the British Museum (No. 5771). This manuscript is a thin book upon vellum, written in elegant and ornamental characters, and entitled 'Elevation des Eaux, par toutesorte de machines, reduite à la mesure, au poids, et à la balance,' 1683. At page 35 is an account of what seems to be one of the first steps made towards the art of working by steam. It has this separate title : 'Les principes de la nouvelle force de feu; inventée par le Chev. Morland l'an 1682, et presentee à sa majesté tres Chrestienne, 1683.' The author thus reasons on his principle : 'L'Eau estant evaporée par la force de Feu, ces vapeurs demandent incontinent une plus grand espace (environ deux mille fois) que 1'eau n'occupoiet [sic] auparavant, et plus tost que d'etre toujours emprisonnées, feroient crever un piece de Canon. Mais estant bieu gouvernées selon les regies de la Statique, et par science reduites a la mesure, au pöids et a la balance, alors elles portent paisiblement leurs fardeaux (comme des bons chevaux) et ainsi servient elles du grand usage au gendre humain, particulierement pour Felevation des Eaux.' Then follows a table of weights to be thus raised by cylinders half full of water, according to their diameters. Subsequently Morland printed a book at Paris, with the same title, from 'Elevation des Eaux' to 'à la balance,' after which it runs thus : 'par le moyen d'un nouveau piston, et corps de pompe, et d'un nouveau mouvement cyclo-elliptique, en rejettant 1'usage de toute sorte de Manivelles ordinaires : avec huit problemes de mechanique proposez aux plus habiles et aux plus scavans du siecle, pour le bien public,' Paris, 1685, 4to. In the dedication to the king of France Morland says that as his majesty was pleased with the models and ocular demonstrations he had the honour to exhibit at Saint-Germain, he thought himself obliged to present his book as a tribute to so great a monarch. He states that it contains an abridged account of the best experiments he had made for the last thirty years respecting the raising of water, with figures in profile and perspective, calculated to throw light upon the mysteries of hydrostatics. It begins with a perpetual almanac, showing the day of the month or week for the time past, present, and to come, and it contains various mathematical problems and tables. This suggestion for the employment of high-pressed steam to raise water (probably by means of Morland's own force-pump) was doubtless brought forward in connection with the many schemes suggested for supplying Versailles with water