Caus was the elder brother of
Isaac de Caus. Being a Huguenot, Caus spent his life moving across Europe. He worked as a hydraulic engineer and architect under
Louis XIII. Caus also designed gardens in England, that of
Somerset House among them; also, the
Hortus Palatinus, or Garden of the Palatinate, in
Heidelberg,
Germany. Caus arrived in England late in 1610 or in the first months of 1611. His first royal patron was
Anne of Denmark or her son,
Prince Henry who granted him a pension of £100 in 1610. Anne of Denmark made him a groom of her chamber, with the authors
Samuel Daniel and
John Florio. In November 1611 Caus was advising the
Earl of Salisbury at
Hatfield House. He is described in the exchequer records beginning in 1611 or 1612 (the date is uncertain) as "Gardener to the Queen". He designed a fountain for the east garden of
Hatfield House, and a receipt of May 1612 describes him as the Prince's engineer. He worked at
Greenwich Palace and
Denmark House where he made a fountain with an artificial "rock". An engineer Richard Barnwell made a pump for the fountain. The "rock" represented
Mount Parnassus and featured shells and a cavern inhabited by the nine
Muses. On top was a figure of
Pegasus and nearby a female personification of the
River Thames in black marble. At Greenwich, Caus may have designed a grotto which served as an aviary. He revamped the gardens at
Richmond Palace for Prince Henry, and worked at Heidelberg for
Elizabeth of Bohemia.
King James gave him a gift of £50 in 1614. Salomon de Caus carried letters from
Viscount Lisle, the Chamberlain of the Queen's Household, to his wife at
Penshurst Place. His name in letters and other court records was often spelled "Solomon Cole". In 1615, he published
Les Raisons des forces mouvantes which showed a steam-driven pump similar to one developed by
Giovanni Battista della Porta fourteen years earlier. Nevertheless,
François Arago called him the inventor of the steam engine as a result. Caus also describes a
just-intonation scale, now known as the Ellis Duodene, after
Alexander John Ellis who reinvented it. Caus was one of the first to employ the term
work in the sense that it is used in the modern field of mechanics. == Works ==