8/43 Daring his residence in England, he was elected Professor of Mathematics in the University of Marburg. It was while at that city that he constructed, in 1707, a small steam-engine, which he fitted in a boat--une petite machine d'un, vaisseau a roues--and despatched it to England for the purpose of being tried upon the Thames. The little vessel never reached England. At Munden, the boatmen on the River Weser, thinking that, if successful, it would destroy their occupation, seized the boat, with its machine, and barbarously destroyed it. Papin did not repeat his experiment, and died a few years later. |