in which
it raised a water-tight piston. When forced up to a given point a
self-acting stop-cock shut off the pressure of the descending column,
while a self-acting valve enabled the water contained in the cylinder
to be discharged, on which the piston again descended, and the process
was repeated like the successive strokes of a steam-engine. Pump-rods
were attached to this hydraulic apparatus, which were carried to the
bottom of the shaft, and each worked a pump at different levels,
raising the water stage by stage to the level of the main adit. The
pumps of these three several stages each raised 1790 cubic feet of
water from a depth of 600 feet in the hour. The regular working of the
machinery was aided by the employment of a balance-beam connected by a
chain with the head of the large piston and pump-rods; and the whole of
these powerful machines by means of three of which as much as 789,840
gallons of water were pumped out of the mines every 24 hours--were set
in operation and regulated merely by the turning of a stopcock. It
will be observed that the arrangement thus briefly described was
equally applicable to the working of machinery of all kinds, cranes,
&c., as well as pumps; and it will be noted that, notwithstanding the
ingenuity of Bramah, Armstrong, and other eminent English mechanics,
the Austrian engineer Holl was thus decidedly beforehand with them in
the practical application of the principles of hydrostatics.

[8] Dr. Brown published a brief memoir of his friend in the New Monthly
Magazine for April, 1815, which has been the foundation of all the
notices of Bramah's life that have heretofore appeared.

[9] Notwithstanding his well-known religious character, Bramah seems to
have fallen under the grievous displeasure of William Huntington, S.S.
(Sinner Saved), described by Macaulay in his youth as "a worthless ugly
lad of the name of Hunter," and in his manhood as "that remarkable
impostor" (Essays, 1 vol. ed. 529). It seems that Huntington sought
the professional services of Bramah when re-edifying his chapel in
1793; and at the conclusion of the work, the engineer generously sent
the preacher a cheque for 8L. towards defraying the necessary expenses.
Whether the sum was less than Huntington expected, or from whatever
cause, the S.S. contemptuously flung back the gift, as proceeding from
an Arian whose religion was "unsavoury," at the same time hurling at
the giver a number of texts conveying ep