A History of the Growth of the Steam-EngineThurston, Robert Henry
History
A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine
Thurston, Robert Henry
Steam-engines -- History
By the same patent, Watt secured the now common "puppet-valve" with
beveled seat, and the application of the steam-engine to driving
rolling-mills and hammers for forges, and to "wheel-carriages for
removing persons or goods, or other matters, from place to place." For
the latter purpose he proposes to use boilers "of wood, or of thin
metal, strongly secured by hoops or otherwise," and containing
"internal fire-boxes." He proposed to use a condenser cooled by
currents of air.
It would require too much space to follow Watt in all his schemes for
the improvement and for the application of the steam-engine. A few of
the more important and more ingenious only can be described. Many of
the contracts of Boulton & Watt gave them, as compensation for their
engines, a fraction--usually one-third--of the value of the fuel saved
by the use of the Watt engine in place of the engine of Newcomen, the
amount due being paid annually or semiannually, with an option of
redemption on the part of the purchaser at ten years' purchase. This
form of agreement compelled a careful determination, often, of the
work done and fuel consumed by both the engine taken out and that put
in its place. It was impossible to rely upon any determination by
personal observation of the number of strokes made by the engine. Watt
therefore made a "counter," like that now familiar to every one as
used on gas-meters. It consists of a train of wheels moving pointers
on several dials, the first dial showing tens, the second hundreds,
the third thousands, etc., strokes or revolutions. Motion was
communicated to the train by means of a pendulum, the whole being
mounted on the beam of the engine, where every vibration produced a
swing of the pendulum. Eight dials were sometimes used, the counter
being set and locked, and only opened once a year, when the time
arrived for determining the work done during the preceding
twelve-month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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