Soon after the first arrival of the steamer “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse,” about 1900 (I forget the year), I obtained a letter of introduction to the chief engineer of that vessel, and called upon him for the purpose of asking him to favor me with indicator diagrams from its engines. In the course of conversation I said to him: “I have rather a partiality for this line, for I put my first marine governor on its first vessel, the old ‘New York,’ in ’61.” He replied to me: “I remember that very well, Mr. Porter; I was an oiler on that ship.” He had risen from that position to be chief engineer of the line. At that time the Germans were commencing to form a steam marine. They had not only to procure their vessels abroad, but also engineers to run the machinery. They set in earnest about this development, and took out of their polytechnic schools the brightest young men to put them on foreign-built vessels and in foreign shops to learn the business, with the wonderful results we are now witnessing, and the chief engineer was one of those lads. He said to me: “I have an acquaintance in your town, Montclair--Mr. Clemens Herschel,” a prominent civil engineer. “He was an old friend and fellow student of mine in the polytechnic.” About the diagrams, he said he would take a set for me on their next voyage. He kept his promise. I have the diagrams now, and very instructive ones they are. CHAPTER IV Engineering conditions in 1860. I meet Mr. Allen. Mr. Allen’s inventions. Analysis of the Allen link. Before resuming my narrative, it seems desirable to present a brief sketch of steam engineering conditions forty years ago. The science of thermodynamics had been established on the foundation laid in the experiments of Joule, determining with precision the rate at which, through the medium of water, heat is converted into dynamical force. This science was, however, as yet without practical results. The condensation of steam in the cylinder from the conversion of its heat into mechanical energy was unregarded. The same was true also respecting the far greater loss from the changing temperatures of the surfaces with which the steam comes in contact in alternately entering and leaving the cylinder. The action of these surfaces in transmitting heat from the entering to the exhaust steam without its doing any work was imagined by very few. In the United States economy of steam was sought only by mechanical means--by cutting off the admission of the steam at an early point of the stroke in a single cylinder and permitting the confined steam to complete the stroke by its expansion. By this means a large saving of steam over that consumed in earlier practice was effected, and with this gain the universal disposition was to rest content.