The Steam Engine Explained and Illustrated (Seventh Edition): With an Account of Its Invention and Progressive Improvement, and Its Application to Navigation and Railways; Including Also a Memoir of WattLardner, Dionysius
History
The Steam Engine Explained and Illustrated (Seventh Edition): With an Account of Its Invention and Progressive Improvement, and Its Application to Navigation and Railways; Including Also a Memoir of Watt
Lardner, Dionysius
Steam-engines; Watt, James, 1736-1819
In the case of the apparatus of _De Caus_ (5.), the heat of the
fire acting on the vessel D C (_fig._ 2.) will raise the
temperature of the water contained in it, and also of the air
confined within it above the surface of that water. This air, as
it is increased in temperature, will also increase in elasticity;
it will therefore press on the surface of the water with increased
force, and will gradually force the water upwards in the tube; and
this effect would continue until all the water in the vessel would
be forced up the tube.
But at the same time that the heat acting on the vessel increases
the temperature of the air above the water, it also produces a
partial evaporation of the water, so that more or less steam is
mixed with the air in the vessel above the surface [Pg031] of the
water; and this steam possessing elasticity, unites with the air
in pressing on the surface of the water, and in raising it in the
tube.
[Illustration: _Figs._ 4, 5, and 6.]
Let us now revert to the brief account of the engine of the
Marquis of Worcester, described in "The Century of Inventions." We
collect from that description that the vessel in which the water
was evaporated was separate from those which contained the water
to be elevated; also that there were two vessels of the like
description, the contents of which were alternately elevated by
the pressure of the "water rarefied by the fire;" in other words
by steam; and that the water was raised in an uninterrupted
stream, by the management of two cocks communicating with these
vessels and with the boiler. The following is such an apparatus as
would answer this description. Let E (_fig._ 4.) be the vessel
containing the water to be evaporated, placed over a proper
furnace A; let S be a pipe to allow the steam produced from the
boiling water in E to pass into the vessels where its mechanical
action is required. Let R represent a cock or regulator, having in
it a curved passage, leading from S to the tube T, when the lever
or handle L is in the position represented by the cut; but leading
to the tube T′, when the lever L is turned one quarter of a
revolution to the right, as represented in _fig._ 5. By the
shifting of this lever, therefore, the steam pipe S may be made to
communicate alternately with the tubes T and T′. The tubes T and
T′ are carried respectively to two vessels V and V′, which are
filled with the water required to be raised. In these [Pg032]
vessels tubes enter at C and C′, descending nearly to the bottom:
these tubes have valves at B and B′, opening upwards, by which
water will be allowed to pass into the vertical tube F, but which
will not allow it to return downwards, the valves B and B′ being
then closed by the weight of the water above them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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