Just Published-Price 1d.; (Continued Monthly,) No. 2 of

THE REFORMER; the Organ of

the NORWICH PARLIAMENTARY and FINANCIAL REFORM ASSOCIATION. Edited by "The NORWICH OPE. RATIVE.

The object of THE REFORMER may be gathered from its title; in strict accordance with which its especial aim is to facilitate the social and political progression of the industrious classes.

With this view "The Reformer" energetically supports the principles of the National Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association, and the Financial Reform Movement, as constituting the means of so changing the character of the House of Commons, as to qualify it for the impartial consideration of the claims of the people to an extensive reduction of taxation, and to their entire political enfranchisement.

"The Reformer" also devotes attention to a subject which has hitherto met with but little notice on the part of the public press; viz., the legal right of the occupiers of compounded rated property (particularly under the provisions nsually inserted in local acts), to the possession of the municipal franchise.

The establishment of permanent and universal peace; the amelioration of our criminal code, and the utter abolition of death punishments,; the voluntary abbreviation of the hours of labour; the disentanglement of Christianity from the trammels of the State, and the extinction of all compulsory payment towards its support; the extirpation of every species of slavery; the substitution of direct for indirect taxation; the abolition of the system of primogeniture, and of the Gamelaws; with every other means calculated to advance the operation of the law of human progression, will receive "The Reformer's" unflinching support.

To Correspondents.

OUR YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN must not think because we have partly changed our title that we are about to throw them overboard; we shall care for them as much as ever our opinions as to their duties and privileges remain unchanged-we shall give them space in our pages to care for themselves and again invite their contributions on the momentous questions of the day;-the claims of the times and the welfare of Man demanded this deviation from our original plans, and we have no doubt that all our present subscribers will be gra tified to see us throwing off the pall of neutrality. We do not, however, mean to be outrageous while contending for purer principles, nor dogmatical in enunciating them, believing that if truth has a clear stage she will move with more freedom and gracefulness independently of our crutches. What we ask of our friends now is to "clear the way;' no other PENNY MONTHLY SO expressly indicates the mind of the masses in their own language, or has so many claims on their sympathy and support.

Thanks to J. W. S. and E. N.—Our plans will not afford so much room now for Institutional Papers, unless they happen to be of very general interest. When our circulation will afford a cover, which we hope will be very soon, we shall be glad to record their progress.

Our Poetical friends will please bear in mind that we are getting critical, and also that we shall decidedly prefer those efforts which manifest an earnest and thorough spirit in reference to the great problems of the day.

compromise.

Although the advocacy of social reform will necessarily be the leading characteristic of "The Reformer," its pages will furnish ample evidence that it regards individual intelligence and virtue as the groundwork of national progression. Its projectors venture to hope it will be found worthy the earnest support of all who are interested in hastening the coming epoch of Justice, Intelligence, and Freedom.

All Communications, Advertisements, and Books for Review to be addressed to the "Editor of the 'Reformer,' care of Messrs. Jarrold and Sons, 47, St. Paul's-churchyard, or London-street, Norwich.

London: JARROLD and SONS, 47, St. Pau 'schurchyard; and, by order, of any Booksellers.

favours earlier in the month; we cannot ensure their insertion in the next No. if they are not in our hands by the 12th. All communications and books for review should be addressed, post paid, to the Editor, Melbourne, Derbyshire; or inclosed to the publisher, Benjamin L. Green, Paternoster Row.

LONDON: BENJAMIN L. GREEN,

62, PATERNOSTER-ROW; Printed by C. S. Barker, at his Office,

Market Head, Melbourne, Derbyshire.

which is made moveable, to turn round on its pivots or axis. The construction is ingenious, but not of a nature to be of any practical use. A patent some years ago was obtained for an engine which acted on a similar principle.

In modern times, the earliest notice of the application of steam as a first power, is found in a book published by one Solomon de Caus in the year 1615. The machine he describes consists of a globular vessel or boiler. Two pipes are inserted into this boiler: one of them descends through the water until it almost touches the bottom of the boiler, and is open at the other end the other pipe, which receives the water, has a stop-cock at its extremity. When sufficiently heated, De Caus says that the water in the boiler rises and issues from the open tube by the pressure of the confined steam. This, considering the period in which it was made, is a very fine experiment, and approached nearly to the invention of the Marquess of Worcester. De Caus, too, was acquainted with the fact, that a given weight of steam might be condensed into the same weight of water.

Brancas, an Italian mathematician, in a book which was printed in 1629, gives a view, and a description, of a somewhat different mode of applying steam as a moving power. His apparatus consisted of a boiler, in which a bent pipe or spout was inserted, and the steam which issued from the spout was made to strike on the vanes of a wheel, (like the water on the float - boards of a water wheel,) which turned it round. Brancas applied this apparatus to move a stamping mill.

We know not whether this in

vention travelled to or from Ger

many; but a few years after the date of this book it appears not to have been an uncommon contrivance in that country to turn the spit for the cook-superseding the labour of some animals generally used in that employment.

This machine has lately been often alluded to by mechanical writers, as giving Brancas some claim to an honourable mention among those ingenious men, to whose genius we are indebted for the successive improvements which have been made on the steam engine. The Italian mechanics even claim the merit of a first idea for their countryman. But if any one of these apparatuses which we have described, has any pretension to be noticed, as an experiment which may have led to the production of the magnificent mechanism, as begun by the Marquess of Worcester, and completed by Mr. Watt, it certainly is not Brancas's. It was not the first hint of the force of steam in closed vessels. Of the three toys, it possesses the least ingenuity, and wants the merit of the direct application which appears in De Caus's contrivance.

In fact, the condensation, as well as the elastic force of the steam, must have been united before any thing similar to our present steam engine could be said to have been suggested; and it is the union of these two effects which gives the honour of having invented the beautiful mechanism of the steam engine to a Marquess of Worcester, who lived in the reign of Charles II. In 1663, the Marquess first gave a description of the uses and effects of his engine, in a book entitled the

Scantlings of One Hundred In

ventions." This treatise contained a mere description of the uses of one hundred contrivances, which the Marquess said he had invented.

Some of these, even in our times, when so much mechanical genius is in action, appear so impossible and extravagant, that we need not wonder at the whole book being soon forgotten, as a collection of absurdities; and that the Marquess, although a man of deep knowledge, and of wonderful mechanical ingenuity, being treated as an empirical projector and a visionary. This reputation was not lessened by his importunate applications for public encouragement to his mysterious projects. The steam engine is the sixtyeighth among the one hundred inventions, and is thus described by the Marquess:-

"I have invented an admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire; not by drawing or sucking it upwards, for that must be, as the philosopher calleth it, intra sphærum activitatis, which is but at such a distance; but this way hath no bounder, if the vessel be strong enough; for I have taken a piece of a whole cannon, whereof the end was burst, and made a great crack, so that having a way to make my vessels, so that they are strengthened by the force within them, and the one to fill after the other, I have seen the water to run like a constant fountain stream forty feet high. One vessel of water, rarefied by fire, draweth up forty of cold water; and a man that tends the work is but to turn two cocks, that one vessel of water being consumed, another begins to force and refill, and so successively; the fire being tended and kept constant, which the self-same person may

likewise abundantly perform in the interim between the necessity of turning the said cocks."

The Marquess afterwards published another book, containing only 22 pages, called, "An exact

and true definition of the most stupendous water-commanding engine, invented by the Right Honourable (and deservedly to be praised and admired) Edward Somerset, Lord Marquess of Worcester." This consists of little else but an account of the uses and properties of his engine. No description of the manner of its construction is known to be

extant.

From the description in his "Scantlings," and that in his "Exact and True Definition," it is highly probable that he had constructed a machine on a large scale; for, as far as it goes, his account of the structure and operation and effect agrees with our modern knowledge on the subject. Our figure, therefore, is constructed from the Marquess's description, aided by those suggestions which arose from our being better acquainted with the properties of steam; not as shewing what the Marquess performed, for unfortunately all representations and record of his experiment are lost.

We know of no attempt to represent the Marquess's engine before that by Mr. Millington: from the figure in his book we are indebted for our representation,

a is a boiler, or strong close vessel, to contain water, set in brickwork like a common copper, with a fire c underneath it, and the smoke escaping by the chimneyi: this copper generates the steam: into this boiler are inserted two pipes ss, (which have two cocks or valves at e), communicating to two