Salomon de Caus

Salomon de Caus (1576 to 1626) was a French Huguenot engineer and architect, born in Dieppe, whose work ranged over architecture, mechanics, hydraulics, perspective, music, organ building and sundials. Living as a Protestant meant moving across Europe. He reached England in late 1610 or early 1611, was patronised by Anne of Denmark and Prince Henry, designed fountains and gardens at Hatfield House, Somerset House, Greenwich and Richmond, and later laid out the Hortus Palatinus, the garden of the Palatinate at Heidelberg. In 1615 he published Les Raisons des forces mouvantes, which showed a steam-driven water pump, similar to one devised by Giovanni Battista della Porta, and the French physicist François Arago later called him the inventor of the steam engine on that basis. He also described a just-intonation musical scale and was among the first to use the word work in the sense it has in modern mechanics. His life remained little known until recent times.