BRAMAH, Joseph, a practical engineer and machinist, was born at Stainborough, in Yorkshire, on the 13th of April 1749. He exhibited at a very early age an unusual talent for the mechanical arts, and having been incapacitated, when he was about sixteen, by an accidental lameness in his ankle, for the pursuit of agricultural labour, he was apprenticed to a carpenter and joiner. When the term of his engagement had expired he obtained employment for some time in the workshop of a cabinetmaker in London, and soon after established himself as a principal in that business. His first patent for some improvements in the mechanism of water-closets was taken out in 1783. In the following year he took out a patent for‘the peculiar locks which have long been named after him. His fertile invention led him to devise new arrangements for pumps, fire-engines, steam-boilers, and paper machinery, for all of which he obtained patents. The invention which has proved of most practical service, the hydraulic press, was first brought forward in 1796. Its principle is that of the hydrostatic paradox, and it has been found of very great use in all operations requiring the application of immense mechanical force. In 1806 Bramah patented a very ingenious printing-machine, specially adapted for bank notes, which was adopted in the following year by the Bank of England. During the latter years of his life Bramah erected some large machines at the Thames bank for sawing stones and timber, began to devise some improvements in bridges and in locks for canals, and was at one time actually employed in the execution of some water-works belonging to the department of the civil engineer, which he completed with ability and success. His great and various exertions appear in some measure to have exhausted ...