THE CORNISH PUMPING ENGINE. 
7 
consideration whether it be worth yonr while to make use of it or no.” The latter 
part of the work is devoted to a curious “ dialogue between a miner and the author,” 
wherein are stated and answered several objections which had been brought against 
the engine. 
10. But all his arguments failed to induce the Cornish miners to avail themselves 
of his offers, or at least no record or tradition of any such use of the engine has been 
preserved ; 9 and he was therefore obliged to content himself with applications of his 
engine to purposes for which it was better adapted. The objections to its use in 
deep shafts were very formidable, and such as the miners, who Savery tells us were 
by no means unaccustomed to weigh the merits and defects of cf new inventions of 
this nature,” foresaw would be fatal. 
The principal of these objections may be enumerated. 
1st. To apply Savery’s engine, it was necessary to divide a deep shaft into a 
series of lifts of about 15 fathoms each, this being the greatest height one 
engine could be made to raise water with safety. A separate engine, with its 
boiler and appurtenances complete, was then required to be fixed at each lift, 
in an excavation made at the side of the shaft for the purpose (as shown in the 
original drawing published in the ‘Miner’s Friend’); this involving much in 
convenience from the situation of the engines, and great outlay of money from 
the number required. 
2nd. Another consequence of this arrangement was, that as each engine 
formed an essential part of the whole series, if one was deranged or ceased 
working from any cause, the whole process of draining was stopped, the works 
were flooded, and some of the other engines probably drowned; the accident 
itself thus effectually preventing the application of the means best calculated 
for its remedy. 
9 Pryce remarks, “ Captain Savery was the first who erected an engine for this purpose (raising great 
quantities of water by the force of fire converting water into steam) in the form, we have since had them, 
and which has been lately improved by Mr. Blakey (who took out a patent for improvements on Savery’s 
engine in 1766), though not to a degree of power sufficient to unwater a deep mine.” The passage in 
italics refers to an attempt made by Blakey to introduce his improved Savery’s engine into Cornwall at a 
subsequent period. The bursting of a boiler of one of these erected there, put a stop to this speculation. 
(See Gregory’s Mechanics, vol. ii. 1st edition, p. 362.) 
Blakey was the first who used tubular generators, and his name ought to be associated with the early 
application of the expansive power of high-pressure steam. 
In the article “ Mining ” in Rees’s Cyclopaedia occurs the passage, “ The mine owners of Cornwall 
successively adopted and encouraged the inventions of Savery, Newcomen, and Watt, some of the earliest 
of the efforts of these ingenious men having been seconded and rewarded in this district.” This must be 
an error as far as the adoption of Savery’s engine is concerned.