Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Extract of a Letter from Bedford (in the Commonwealth) Nov. 4, 1785.

"This idle hour I will employ in giving you some account of a great discovery lately made in Hydrostaticks, by a Mr. Allen, from Martha's Vineyard—a man of good natural abilities, but who never had any advantage of philosophical studies, or other than common education. By accident, he was led to attempt the important trial of separating fresh from salt water, and has succeeded in a wonderful manner: He informs me that with his present machine he can separate ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT gallons, in twenty four hours; and that he is now constructing one on the same principle, capable of producing between seven and eight hundred gallons in that time.

"How inconceivable its utility to mankind! Ships may be furnished with daily supplies of fresh water at a very small expence and trouble, and the freight of water in navigation, in the present mode, is enormous, particularly those on long voyages, and in transporting live stock; ships to India are one third laden with water. Destitute islands may be supplied by this method. And what I conceive fully equal to either, is the manufacture of salt, whereby we may supply ourselves without importing; as by this easy and quick progress, the fresh water may be separated so effectually, that the remainder will chrystalize almost immediately—and I dare prognosticate, that many other eminent advantages will be derived to this and succeeding generations from this discovery.

"He has communicated as much of the secret (reserving intricacies) as has convinced a learned Doctor West. of this parish, of its feasibility: He is to undertake for Mr. Allen, to lay it before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at their next meeting; if they will secure to him a premium, which he may think adequate to its importance, and his merits, he will divulge it to them; otherwise he proposes for Europe.

"I am informed that Mr. Allen, when a boy, on a whaling voyage, approaching very near a Water-Spout, he observed the circumfluous water to have the exact colour of fresh water, down to the very surface of the sea; and as the rain which poured down from the cloud above was fresh, he had no doubt but the separation took place at the surface before drawn up: This first gave him an idea of this noble project, without having even one principle of the hydrostatick laws. The hypothesis, that the salt water is drawn up to the clouds in water-spouts, and there by a certain operation of the air, while it is expanding, and dispersing in the clouds, is separated from the saline particles, must be exploded, by this and several other new theories. From what I can gather, by the character and conversation of Mr. Allen, both his theory and machinery must be very simple.

"I should conjecture, by some peculiar temperature, and action of the air on the surface, he produces the effect to sink the grosser particles, while the pure and subtle float on top, to be received free from salt—Whatever may be the method, I am sure it must be simple, and therefore it will be more useful to mankind—he assured me that the apparatus may be made compleat for a trifle, will wear (as his own phrase is) 'as long as stem, knee and stern post of a ship,' and be very little liable to derangement.

"You have lately heard the lectures of the celebrated Doctor M[itchell?] on water-spouts. I believe you will never be able to reconcile his darling theory to this discovery: Although as yet we can only conjecture, but I dare say, Mr. Allen has a little knowledge of the laws of the electrical fluid, as of the doctrines of Confucius or Zoroaster. I hope the learned President of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, will open a correspondence with Mr. Allen, and by some promises of reward to his heirs, induce him to commit the whole to writing, that in case he should die before the negociation is finished for the purchase of the secret, mankind may not even run the hazard of loosing so valuable a discovery."