Since the date of the publication of the "Century of Inventions" was the year 1663, the experiments here mentioned must have been made before that year. The description of the machine here given, as well as others in the same work, was intended by the author, not to convey a knowledge of the nature of the mechanism which he used, but only to express the effects produced, and to indicate the physical principle on which they depended. It should also be observed, that an air of mystery was thrown by Worcester over the accounts of all the machines which he described; and therefore any obscurity in the above description ought not to be regarded as an evidence against his claim to the discovery of the mechanical agency of steam, so far as that agency is indicated by the effects said by him to be produced. The above account is, however, sufficiently distinct and explicit to enable any one possessing a knowledge of the mechanical qualities of steam to perceive the general nature of the machine described. To render this machine, and that of De Caus, previously described, intelligible to those who are not familiar with physical science, we must here explain some general principles on which their agency depends. [Pg025]
(8.) Fluid bodies are of two kinds, inelastic fluids, or liquids, and elastic fluids, or gases. Of the former of these classes, water is the most familiar example, and of the latter, air.
These two species of fluids are each distinguished by peculiar mechanical properties.
(9.) The constituent particles of a liquid are distinguished from those of solids by having little or no coherence; so that unless the mass be confined by the sides of the vessel which contains it, the particles will fall asunder by their gravity. A mass of liquid, therefore, unlike a solid, can never retain any particular form, but will accommodate itself to the form of the vessel in which it is placed. It will press against the bottom of the vessel which contains it with the whole force of its weight, and it will press against the sides with a force proportional to the depth of the particles in contact with the sides measured from the surface of the liquid above. This lateral pressure also distinguishes liquids from solids. Let us take for illustration the case of a square or a cubical vessel, A B C D, _fig._ 3. If a solid body, such as a piece of lead, be cut to the shape of this vessel, so as to fit in it without pressing with any force against its sides, the mechanical effect which would be produced by it when placed in the vessel, would be merely a pressure upon the bottom, B C, the amount of which would be equal to the weight of the metallic mass. No pressure would be exerted against the sides; for the coherence of the particles of the solid maintaining them in their position, the removal of the sides would not subject the solid body contained in the vessel to any change.