



Produced by Steffen Haugk




[Illustration: CAPTAIN THOMAS SAVERY, The inventor of the steam engine - see frontispiece.gif]


THE
MINER'S FRIEND;
OR,
~An Engine~
TO
RAISE WATER BY FIRE,
DESCRIBED.
AND OF THE MANNER OF FIXING IT IN MINES;
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE SEVERAL OTHER USES IT
IS APPLICABLE UNTO; AND AN
ANSWER TO THE OBJECTIONS MADE AGAINST IT.
BY
THOMAS SAVERY, Gent.

Pigri est ingenii contentum esse his, quae ab aliis inventa sunt.
                                                    SENECA.

LONDON: PRINETD FOR S. CROUCH, AT THE CORNER
OF POPE'S HEAD-ALLEY IN CORNHILL. 1702.

Reprinted, 1827.




LONDON:
Printed by W. Clowes.
Stanford-street




TO THE KING.


SIR,
Your Majesty having been graciously pleased to permit an experiment
before you at Hampton-court, of a small model of my engine described
in the following treatise, and at that time to show a seeming
satisfaction of the power and use of it; and having most graciously
enabled me, by your royal assent to a patent and act of parliament, to
pursue and perfect the same. By which your royal encouragement, it
being now fully completed, and put in practice in your dominions with
that repeated success and applause, that it is not to be doubted but
it will be of universal benefit and use to all your Majesty's
subjects. Of whom, your Majesty being the universal patron and father,
all arts and inventions that may promote their good and advantage,
seem to lay a just and natural claim to your Majesty's sacred
protection.

It is upon this consideration I am encouraged, with a profound
respect, to throw this performance of mine, with the author, at your
Majesty's royal feet, most humbly beseeching your Majesty, that, as it
had birth in your Majesty's auspicious reign, you will vouchsafe to
perpetuate it to future ages by the sanction of your royal
approbation, which is the utmost ambition of,

    May it please your Majesty,
        Your Majesty's
      most humble, most loyal,
        and most obedient Subject,

                          THOMAS SAVERY.




TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY.


At the request of some of your members, at the weekly meeting, at
Gresham-college, June the 14th, 1699, I had the honour to work a small
model of my engine before you, and you were pleased to approve of it.
Since which I have met with great difficulties and expense, to
instruct handicraft artificers to form my engine according to my
design; but my workmen, after so much experience, are become such
masters of the thing, that they oblige themselves to deliver what
engines they make me exactly tight and fit for service, and as such I
dare warrant them to any body that has occasion for them.

Your kindness in countenancing this invention in its first appearance
in the world, gives me hopes the usefulness of it will make it more
acceptable to your honourable Society, as they are the most proper
judges of what advantage it may be to mankind. And it would be
ungrateful in me not to make use of this opportunity to return you my
most humble and hearty thanks for the honour and favour you did me in
approving my design, and publishing it to the world,[1] which shall be
always acknowledged by

      Your most obliged
            and most humble Servant,
                          THOMAS SAVERY.


[1] Philosoph. Transact. Numb. 252.




TO THE
GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS
IN THE
MINES OF ENGLAND.


I am very sensible a great many among you do as yet look on my
invention of raising water by the impellent force of fire, a useless
sort of a project, that never can answer my designs or pretensions;
and that it is altogether impossible that such an engine as this can
be wrought under ground, and succeed in the raising of water, and
draining your mines, so as to deserve any encouragement from you. I am
not very fond of lying under the scandal of a bare projector; and,
therefore, present you here with a draught of my machine, and lay
before you the uses of it, and leave it to your consideration whether
it be worth your while to make use of it or no. I can easily give
grains of