France when Pascal took up the question in 1646,—he, after a while, came quite over to the new ideas. He caused the memorable first barometric measurement to be made on the Puy-de-Dôme in 1648. It was conclusive, and the joyful bells of Münster and Osnabruck rang in the triumph of the young science.
The line in which the centre of this newly-awakened activity moved now turned to the north-east, towards Germany, into the country of the great Electors. Tilly had not been able to destroy the intellectual life of Magdeburg. There in 1650 Otto von Guerike brought a new idea into what was the question of the day in physical science,—that namely of the possibility of utilising the atmospheric pressure as a force. He showed this both popularly and scientifically with the air-pump and other experimental apparatus. The search for means of utilising the power stored in the atmosphere by some simple vacuum arrangement now began everywhere. For a long time no satisfactory results were obtained, but at last, in 1696, Papin at Marburg discovered the true solution—the condensation of steam in a cylinder fitted with a piston. The steam-engine was invented. Papin, an experimenter really worthy of respect, who attempted to solve the problem in the most various ways, and who has made a whole series of other remarkable inventions, is its true inventor. His arrangement, however, was as yet very incomplete and unpractical; the great ideas required still to be carried beyond learned circles and Latin treatises into practical life. In this Papin did not succeed; he never got beyond the beginning. His first large steam cylinder still stands incomplete as a monument in the court of the Museum at Cassel, but his ideas crossed the English Channel and found their way directly to practical men. The mechanics Newcomen and Cawley produced in 1705 a really useful pumping-engine, which soon found actual employment in mining operations.
The spirit of invention now rested for a while, as if exhausted with the exertions of the last few years. The pause was unavoidable, for the necessary means for making progress did not exist. It was necessary that more should first be known of heat, which could not yet even be measured. The thermometer had first to be perfected, the whole theory of heat had to be greatly advanced. Then came Watt (circa 1763), whose far-reaching genius furnished
