A Historical Account of Useful Inventions and Scientific Discoveries: Being a manual of instruction and entertainment.Grant, George
History
A Historical Account of Useful Inventions and Scientific Discoveries: Being a manual of instruction and entertainment.
Grant, George
Inventions -- History
However, it appears that it was necessary to have two boilers, or
vessels of copper, one large and the other smaller: those boilers have
a gauge-pipe inserted into the smaller boiler, within about eight
inches of its bottom, and about the centre of the side of the larger
boiler; the small boiler must be quite full of water, and the larger
one only about two-thirds full. The fire is then to be lighted beneath
the larger boiler, to make the water boil, by which means the steam
being confined, will be greatly compressed, and will, therefore, on
opening a way for it to issue out (which is done by pushing the handle
of a regulator from the operator), rush with great violence through a
steam-pipe into a receiver, driving out all the air before it, sending
it up into a force-pipe through a clack, as may be perceived from its
noise; when the air is expelled, the receiver will be very much heated
by the steam. When it is thoroughly emptied of atmospheric air, and
grown very hot, which may be both seen and felt, then the handle of
the regulator is to be drawn towards the operator, by which means the
first steam-pipe will be stopped, so that no more steam can rise into
the first receiver, by which means a second receiver will be filled
in like manner. Whilst this is doing, some cold water must be poured
on the first receiver, by which means the steam in it will be cooled,
and thereby condensed into smaller room: consequently the pressure
in the valve, or cock, at the bottom of the receiver--there being
nothing to counterbalance the atmospheric pressure at the surface of
the receiver in the inner part of the sucking-pipe, it will be pressed
up into the receiver, driving up before it the valve at the bottom,
which afterwards falling again, prevents the descent of the water that
way. Then the first receiver being, at the same time, emptied of its
air, push the handle of the regulator, and the steam which rises from
the boiler will act upon the surface of the water contained in the
first receiver, where the force or pressure on it still increasing its
elasticity, till it exceeds the weight of a column of water in another
receiving-pipe, then it will necessarily drive up through the passage
into the force-pipe, and eventually discharge itself at the top of the
machinery.
After the same manner, though alternately, is the first receiver
filled and emptied of water, and by this means a regular stream kept
continually running out of the top of a force-pipe, and so the water is
raised very often from the bottom of a mine, to the place where it is
meant to be discharged.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account