[i]

THE
CENTURY OF INVENTIONS.

[ii]

"A practical mathematician, who has quickness to seize ahint, and sagacity to apply it, might avail himself greatly ofthese scantlings. It is extremely probable, that Savery tookfrom the Marquis the hint of the Steam Engine, for raisingwater with a power made by fire, which invention alonewould entitle the author to immortality."—Granger's Biog.Hist. vol. v. p. 278.

"Here it may not be amiss to recommend to the attentionof every mechanic the little work entitled a 'Century ofInventions,' by the Marquis of Worcester, which, on accountof the seeming improbability of discovering many thingsmentioned therein, has been too much neglected; but whenit is considered that some of the contrivances apparently notthe least abstruse, have, by close application been found toanswer all that the Marquis says of them, and that the firsthint of that most powerful machine, the Steam Engine, isgiven in that work, it is unnecessary to enlarge on the utilityof it."—Trans. of the Society of Arts, vol. iii. p. 6.

L O N D O N:
PRINTED BY C. ROWORTH, BELL YARD,
TEMPLE BAR.

[iii]

THE
CENTURY OF INVENTIONS

OF THE
MARQUIS OF WORCESTER.

FROM THE ORIGINAL MS.

WITH

HISTORICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES AND
A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR.

BY
CHARLES F. PARTINGTON,

AUTHOR OF A DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE STEAM ENGINE,
AND LECTURER AT THE
LONDON, RUSSEL, SURREY, AND METROPOLITAN INSTITUTIONS,
MECHANICS' INSTITUTE, &c. &c.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
MDCCCXXV.

[iv]
[v]

TO
DOCTOR GEORGE BIRKBECK,
PRESIDENT OF THE LONDON MECHANICS' INSTITUTION
AND OF THE CHEMICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL
SOCIETIES, FOUNDER AND PATRON OF THE
GLASGOW MECHANICS' INSTITUTE,
&c. &c. &c.

Dear Sir,

As a connecting link in the Historyof the Steam Engine, I know that your attentionhas been directed to the Marquis ofWorcester's Century of Inventions, andthat its merits were duly appreciated by youat a very early period of Life.—That theseIllustrations of one of the most valuable scientificproductions of the seventeenth century,may deserve your favourable notice,[vi]and prove an acceptable present to the extensiveclass of Readers which your patrioticexertions are now so rapidly adding to theScientific World, is the sincere wish of,

Dear Sir,
Your faithful and obliged
humble Servant,
Charles F. Partington.

London Institution,
Feb. 6th, 1825.

[vii]

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR
OF

E D W A R D
MARQUIS OF WORCESTER.

[viii]
[ix]

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR
OF

...