



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 allowance for your suspicions, because I know very well what
miscarriages there have been by people ignorant of what they pretend
to. These I know have been so frequent, so fair and promising at
first, but so short of performing what they pretended to, that your
prudence and discretion will not now suffer you to believe any thing
without a demonstration, your appetites to new inventions of this
nature having been balked too often; yet, after all, I must beg you
not to condemn me, before you have read what I have to say for myself;
and let not the failures of others prejudice me, or be placed to my
account. I have often lamented the want of understanding the true
powers of nature, which misfortune has, of late, put some on making
such vast engines and machines, both troublesome and expensive, yet of
no manner of use, inasmuch as the old engines, used many ages past,
far exceeded them; and I fear, whoever, by the old causes of motion,
pretends to improvements within this last century, does betray his
knowledge and judgment; for more than an hundred years since, men and
horses would raise by engines, then made, as much water as they have
ever since done, or I believe ever will, or according to the law of
nature ever can do; and though my thoughts have been long employed
about water-works, I should never have pretended to any invention of
that kind, had I not happily found out this new, but yet a much
stronger and cheaper force or cause of motion, than any before made
use of. But finding this of rarefaction by fire, the consideration of
the difficulties the miners and colliers labour under by the frequent
disorders, cumbersomeness, and in general of water-engines, encouraged
me to invent engines to work by this new force; that though I was
obliged to encounter the oddest and almost insuperable difficulties, I
spared neither time, pains, nor money, till I had absolutely conquered
them. I hope this will, at least, encourage you to read over this
small treatise I now put into your hands, for the further and more
particular information of the nature and uses of this engine for
raising water by the force of fire; after which, I shall patiently
submit to any judgment you shall please to pass upon me or the
invention, and may have reason to believe you will not any longer
suffer your judgments to be imposed on by those, whose profit and
interest it may seem to be to condemn both right and wrong; I mean
such who make your common gins, and their friends and acquaintance
among you; though I am very sure the promotion of the use of this
engine is their true interest, as I very plainly prove thus:--

The cheaper water is drawn, the more is the miner encouraged to
adventure; the more the miner adventures, the more pits or shafts must
be sunk; the more shafts or pits are sunk, the more wood-work will be
necessarily employed in timbering them, or supporting the sides from
falling in where the earth is loose; besides windlasses and all other
utensils of wood used in mines, or the trades depending thereon must
be more, which, by increasing the carpenters' trade in general, will
make them sufficient amends for the loss of a small part of that
branch of their trade, called gin-making. As for pump-making, that
part of the trade will be much improved by my engine; for I must use
board and timber for pipes, and have considerable employment for
pump-makers and carpenters for timber used about my engine; but shall
never employ any other person in making pipes, or any other
carpenter's work I shall have to do, but the person who was before
employed in the work, or such as shall be recommended, as a person
employed in the mines of the country wheresoever I shall fix engines,
provided they will work as cheap, and fairly, and observe the orders
and directions given them; for my design is not, in the least, to
prejudice the artificers, or, indeed, any other sort of people by this
invention; but, on the contrary, is intended for the benefit and
advantage of mankind in general, especially the people of my own
nation; and wherein, you gentlemen concerned in mines, may, if you
please, reap the greatest profit.

And although I do not question but the plan and draught of my engine
will be very well and readily understood with many gentlemen, by the
description here given; yet it will require a longer time in others to
employ their minds and thoughts more intensely about it, especially
such as have not been familiar and acquainted with things of this
kind; but should the engine, to the apprehension of some, seem
intricate and difficult to be worked, after all the description I have
given of it in this book, yet I can, and do assure them, that the
attending and working the engine is so far from being so, that it is
familiar and easy to be learned by those of the meanest capacity, in a
very little time; insomuch, that I have boys of thirteen or fourteen
years of age, who now attend and work it to perfection, and were
taught to do it in a few days; and I have known some learn to