I received the Letter you did me the honour of writing to me, respecting what was suppos’d a new Invention, the blowing of Furnaces by a Fall of Water. When Mr. Zantzinger deliver’d me your Letter, I told him that I had several Books in my Library which describ’d the same Contrivance, and I have since shown them to him. They are the French Encyclopedia, of Dictionary of Arts and Sciences; Swedenbourg’s Latin Treatises of Iron Works; and the French Work Des Arts et des Metiers, in the Article of Forges. These Descriptions are all accompanied with Figures in Copper Plate, which demonstrate them to be the same precisely in all its essential Parts; and in the Accounts of it, it is said to have been first practised in Italy about 100 Years since; whence it was brought into France, where it is now much us’d; thence into Sweden and Germany: And I remember to have been informed by a Spaniard who was here forty Years ago, and gave me a Drawing of it, that it was practis’d in some Parts of Mexico, in their Furnaces for smelting their Silver Ore. This being the Case, you see, Gentlemen, that Mr. McClintock cannot properly be recommended to the Assembly as the Discoverer of something new. It is however not an uncommon thing for ingenious Men in different Ages, as well as in different Countries, to hit upon the same Contrivances without knowing or having heard what has been done by others; and Mr Mc Clintock has at least the Merit of having introduc’d the Knowledge of this useful Invention into this Part of America, and of demonstrating by his own Example its Practicability. I am, Gentlemen, with great Regard, Your most obedient, and most humble Servant