A century of the names and scantlings of inventions by me already prac tised. 1. SEVERAL sorts of seals, some shewing by scrues, others by gages, fastening or unfastening all the marks at once; others by additional points and imaginary places, proportionable to ordinary escutcheons and seals at arms, each way palpably and punctually setting down, yet private from all others, but the owner, and by his assent, the day of the month, the day of the week, the month of the year, the year of our Lord, the names of the witnesses, and the individual place where any thing was sealed, though in ten-thousand several places, together with the very number of lines contained in a contract, whereby falsification may be discovered, and manifestly proved, being upon good grounds suspected. Upon any of these seals a man may keep accounts of receipts and disbursements from one farthing to an hundred millions, punctually shewing each pound, shilling, penny, or farthing. By these seals likewise any letter, though written but in English, may be read and understood in eight several languages, and in English itself to a clean contrary and different sense, unknown to any but the correspondent, and not to be read or understood by him neither, if opened before it arrive unto him; so that neither threats, nor hopes of reward, can make him reveal the secret, the letter having been intercepted, and first opened by the enemy. 2. How ten-thousand persons may use these seals to all and every of the purposes aforesaid, and yet keep their secrets from any but whom they please. 3. A cypher and character so contrived, that one line, without returns and circumflexes, stands for each and every of the twenty-four letters; and as ready to be made for the one letter as the other. 4. This invention refined, and so abbreviated, that a point only sheweth distinctly and significantly any of the twenty-four letters; and these very points to be made with two pens, so that no time will be lost, but as one finger riseth the other may make the following letter, never clogging the memory with several figures for words, and combination of letters; which with ease, and void of confusion, are thus speedily and punctually, letter for letter, set down by naked, and not multiplied points. And nothing can be less than a point, the mathematical definition of it being cujus pars nulla. And of a motion no swifter imaginable than semiquavers or releshes, yet applicable to this manner of writing. 5. A way by a circular motion, either along a rule or ring-wise, to vary any alphabet, even this of points, so that the self-same point individually placed, without the least additional mark or variation of place, shall stand for all the twenty-four letters, and not for the same letter twice in ten sheets writing; yet as easily and certainly read and known, as if it stood but for one and the self-same letter constantly signified. 6. How at a window, as far as eye can discover black from white, a man may hold discourse with his correspondent, without noise made or notice taken; being, according to occasion given or means afforded, ex renata, and no need of provision before-hand; though much better if foreseen, and means prepared for it, and a premeditated course taken by mutual consent of parties. 7. A way to do it by night as well as by day, though as dark as pitch is black. 8. A way how to level, and shoot cannon by night as well as by day, and as directly; without a platform or measures taken by day, yet by a plain and infallible rule. 9. An engine, portable in one's pocket, which may be carried and fastened on the inside of the greatest ship, tanquam aliud agens, and at any appointed minute, though a week after, either of day or night, it shall irrecoverably sink that ship. 10. A way from a mile off, to dive and fasten a like engine to any ship, so as it may punctually work the same effect either for time or execution. 11. How to prevent and safeguard any ship from such an attempt by day or night. 12. A way to make a ship not possible to be sunk, though shot an hundred times betwixt wind and water by cannon, and should lose a whole plank, yet in half an hour's time should be made as fit to sail as before. 13. How to make such false decks, as in a moment should kill and take prisoners as many as should board the ship, without blowing the decks up, or destroying them from being reducible, and in a quarter of an hour's time, should recover their former shape, and to be made fit for any employment without discovering the secret. 14. How to bring a force to weigh up an anchor, or to do any forcible exploit in the narrowest or lowest room in any ship, where few hands shall do the work of many; and many hands applicable to the same force, some standing, others sitting, and by virtue of their several helps, a great force augmented in little room, as effectual as if there were sufficient space to go about with an axle trec, and work far from the center. 15 A way how to make a boat work itself against wind and tide, yea both without the help of man or beast; yet so that the wind or tide, though directly opposite, shall force the ship or boat against itself; and in no point of the compass, but it shall be as effectual, as if the wind were in the poop, or the stream actually with the course it is to steer, according to which the oars shall row, and necessary motions work and move towards the desired port or point of the compass. 16. How to make a sea-castle or fortification cannon-proof, and capable of a thousand men, yet sailable at pleasure to defend a passage, or in an hour's time to divide itself into three ships as fit and trimmed to sail as before. And even whilst it is a fort or castle, they shall be unanimously steered, and effectually driven by an indifferent strong wind. 17. How to make upon the Thames a floating garden of pleasure, with trees, flowers, banqueting-houses, and fountains, stews for all kind of fishes, a reserve for snow to keep wine in, delicate bathing-places, and the like; with musick made with mills; and all in the midst of the stream, where it is most rapid. 18. An artificial fountain to be turned like an hour-glass by a child in the twinkling of an eye, it holding a great quantity of water, and of force sufficient to make snow, ice, and thunder, with a chirping and singing of birds, and shewing of several shapes and effects usual to fountains of pleasure. 19. A little engine within a coach, whereby a child may stop it, and secure all persons within it, and the coachman himself, though the horses be never so unruly in a full career; a child being sufficiently capable to loosen them, in what posture soever they should have put themselves, turning never so short; for a child can do it in the twinkling of an eye. 20. How to bring up water balance-wise, so that as little weight or force as will turn a balance will be only needful, more than the weight of the water within the buckets, which counterpoised empty themselves one into the other, the uppermost yielding its water, how great a quantity soever it holds, at the self-same time the lower-most takes it in, though it be an hundred fathom high. 21. How to raise water constantly with two buckets only day and night, without any other force than its own motion, using not so much as any force, wheel, or sucker, nor more pullies than one, on which the cord or chain rolleth, with a bucket fastened at each end. This, I confess, I have seen and learned of the great mathematician Claudius's studies at Rome, he having made a present thereof unto a cardinal; and I desire not to own any other men's inventions, but if I set down any, to nominate likewise the inventor. 22. To make a river in a garden to ebb and flow constantly, though twenty feet over, with a child's force, in some private room or place out of sight, and a competent distance from it. 23. To set a clock in a castle, the water filling the trenches about it; it shall shew, by ebbing and flowing, the hours, minutes, and seconds, and all the comprehensible motions of the heavens, and counter-libration of the earth, according to Copernicus. 24. How to increase the strength of a spring to such an height, as to shoot bumbasses and bullets of a hundred pounds weight, a steeple height, and a quarter of a mile off, and more, stone-bow-wise, admirable for fire-works, and astonishing of besieged cities, when without warning given by noise, they find themselves so forcibly and dangerously surprised. 25. How to make a weight that cannot take up an hundred pounds, and yet shall take up two-hundred pounds, and at the self-same distance from the center; and so proportionably to millions of pounds. 26. To raise weight as well and as forcibly with the drawing-back of the lever, as with the thrusting it forwards; and by that means to lose no time in motion or strength, This I saw in the arsenal at Venice. 27. A way to remove to and fro huge weights with a most inconsiderable strength from place to place. For example, ten ton, with ten pounds, and less; the said ten pounds not to fall lower than it makes the ten ton to advance or retreat upon a level. 28. A bridge portable in a cart with six horses, which in a few hours time may be placed over a river half a mile broad, whereon with much expedition may be transported horse, foot, and cannon. 29. A portable fortification able to contain five-hundred fighting men, and yet, in six hours time, may be set up, and made cannonproof, upon the side of a river or pass, with cannon mounted upon it, and as compleat as a regular fortification, with half-moons and counterscarps. 30. A way, in one night's time, to raise a bulwark twenty or thirty feet high, cannon proof, and cannon mounted upon it, with men to overlook, command, and batter a town; for though it contain but four pieces, they shall be able to discharge two-hundred bullets each hour. 31. A way how safely and speedily to make an approach to a castle or town-wall, and over the very ditch at noon-day. 32. How to compose an universal character methodical and easy to be written, yet intelligible in any language; so that, if an English-man write it in English, a French-man, Italian, Spaniard, Irish, Welsh, being scholars, yea, Grecian or Hebritian, shall as perfectly understand it in their own tongue, as if they were perfect English, distinguishing the verbs from nouns, the numbers, tenses, and cases as properly expressed in their own language as it was written in English. 33. To write with a needle and thread, white, or any colour upon white, or any other colour, so that one stitch shall significantly shew any letter, and as readily and as easily shew the one letter as the other, and fit for any language. 34. To write by a knotted silk-string, so that every knot shall signify any letter with a comma, full-point, or interrogation, and as legible as with pen and ink upon white paper. 35. The like by the fringe of gloves. 36. By stringing of bracelets. 37. By pinked gloves. 38. By holes in the bottom of a sieve. 39. By a lattin or plate lanthorn. 40. By the smell. 41. By the taste. 42. By the touch. By these three senses, as perfectly, distinctly, and unconfusedly, yea as readily as by the sight. 43. How to vary each of these, so that ten-thousand may know them, and yet keep the understanding part from any but their correspondent. 44. To make a key of a chamber-door, which to your sight hath its wards and rose-pipe but paper thick, and yet at pleasure in a minute of an hour shall become a perfect pistol, capable to shoot through a |