It is this Edition that Fitch alludes to in his " Preface, post. p. 1040." But it is identically a reprint of the above, with the exception of a paragraph complaining of some person in Baltimore who in June, 1787, borrowed his plan of raising water by steam, and then had a machine made on Mr. Rumsey's principle. This person "had the audacity to petition the Maryland Assembly to give him an exclusive right for the emoluments of another's invention, so surreptitiously obtained; but he received the denial he so justly merited." The " Postscript" and the Extract of General Washington's Letter of 10th March, 1785, are not in the first Edition.

Whoever desires to consult this last mentioned Edition of Rumsey, will find it in " Pamphlets," Vol. 82, N. Y. Soc. Library, to which Institution we are indebted for the copy of Rumsey published above. A copy is also mentioned in the Catalogue of the Library Company, Philadelphia. -- Ed.

1036 EARLY STEAM

THE KUMSEIAN SOCIETY, PHILADELPHIA, TO THE SPEA]ai:il OF THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, N. Y.

[N. Y. Assembly Papers, Miscel. Vol. 3.]

September 23d 1788. James Rumsey an ingenious Gentleman a native of Maryland but lately from Virginia in December last exhibited before a number of respectable characters in Maryland and Virginia the effects of Steam in propelling a boat of considerable Burthen against the Current of the River Powtomack, and models of machines for the Raising Water to a great height and in large Quantities by the force of Steam, in both which a Boiler upon entirely new Construction invented by himself is used with the greatest apparent probability of far Exceeding all others heretofore known, not only in point of Force but in the Smallness of the Quantity of Fuel necessary to generate the Steam.