A History of the Growth of the Steam-engine |
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Common terms and phrases
adopted applied beam boat boiler Boulton Boulton & Watt Boulton and Watt built carriage carried century Charlotte Dundas coal compound engine condensation connected connecting-rod construction crank cross-head cut-off cylinder driving efficiency energy expansion experiments feet long feet stroke fire-box fire-engine Fitch flue form of engine fuel Fulton furnace gases George Stephenson gine heat heating-surface horse-power hull improvement inches in diameter introduced invention inventor James Watt John Fitch later locomotive London machine machinery mechanical method miles an hour motion Newcomen engine Oliver Evans paddle-wheels Papin patent philosophy pipe piston-rod placed pounds per square pressure proposed pump pumping-engine railroad raised Richard Trevithick road Savery screw secured seen shaft sketch Soho speed square inch steam steam-boiler steam-carriage steam-cylinder steam-engine steam-pipe steam-pressure steamboat steamer Stephenson Stevens stroke of piston success temperature Thomas Savery tion tons Trevithick tubes usually valve valve-gear vessel Watt's weight wheels
Popular passages
Page 416 - Soon shall thy arm, unconquered Steam, afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car ; Or, on wide-waving wings expanded bear The flying chariot through the fields of air...
Page 191 - What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stage-coaches! We would as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate.
Page 489 - This book is a preservation photocopy. It is made in compliance with copyright law and produced on acid-free archival 60# book weight paper which meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper) Preservation photocopying and binding by Acme Bookbinding Charlestown...
Page 98 - I intend, in many cases, to employ the expansive force of steam to press on the pistons, or whatever may be used instead of them, in the same manner as the pressure of the atmosphere is now employed in common fire engines. In cases where cold water cannot be had in plenty, the engines may be wrought by this force of steam only, by discharging the steam into the open air, after it has done its office.
Page 301 - ... comes the potent agency of steam. In comparison with the past, what centuries of improvement has this single agent comprised, in the short compass of fifty years ! Everywhere practicable, everywhere efficient, it has an arm a thousand times stronger than that of Hercules, and to which human ingenuity is capable of fitting a thousand times as many hands as belonged to Briareus. Steam is found in triumphant operation on the seas ; and under the influence of its strong propulsion, the ..gallant...
Page 98 - In engines that are to be worked wholly or partially by condensation of steam, the steam is to be condensed in vessels distinct from the...
Page 129 - THOSE WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE, THE KING HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO JAMES WATT, WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS, EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE...
Page 154 - The time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam engines, from one city to another, almost as fast as birds fly, fifteen or twenty miles an hour.
Page 301 - It is on the rivers, and the boatman may -repose on his oars; it is in highways, and begins to exert itself along the courses of land conveyance; it is at the bottom of mines, a thousand feet below the earth's surface ; it is in the mill, and in the workshops of the trades. It rows, it pumps, it excavates, it carries, it draws, it lifts, it hammers, it spins, it weaves, it prints.
Page 99 - ... the valves successively to give a circular motion to the wheel; the valves opening in the direction in which the weights are pressed, but not in the contrary. As the...