[Illustration: Pl. XIII. AMERICAN HIGH-PRESSURE ENGINE] THE STEAM ENGINE FAMILIARLY EXPLAINED AND ILLUSTRATED; WITH AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ITS INVENTION AND PROGRESSIVE IMPROVEMENT; ITS APPLICATIONS TO NAVIGATION AND RAILWAYS; WITH PLAIN MAXIMS FOR RAILWAY SPECULATORS. BY THE REV. DIONYSIUS LARDNER, LL. D., F. R. S., FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH; OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY; OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY; OF THE CAMBRIDGE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; OF THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS; OF THE LINNÆAN AND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETIES; OF THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING USEFUL ARTS IN SCOTLAND, ETC. WITH ADDITIONS AND NOTES, BY JAMES RENWICK, LL. D., PROFESSOR OF NATURAL EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY AND CHEMISTRY IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK. ILLUSTRATED BY ENGRAVINGS AND WOODCUTS. SECOND AMERICAN, FROM THE FIFTH LONDON, EDITION, CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED. PHILADELPHIA: E. L. CAREY & A. HART. 1836 Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by E. L. CAREY & A. HART, in the Clerk's office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PREFACE OF THE AMERICAN EDITOR. Several of the additions, which were made by the Editor to the first American edition, have been superseded by the great extension, which the original has from time to time received from its author. This is more particularly the case, with the sections which had reference to the character of steam at temperatures other than that of boiling water, to the use of steam in navigation, and to its application to locomotion. These sections have of course been omitted. A few new sections, and several notes have been added, illustrative of such points as may be most interesting to the American reader. COLUMBIA COLLEGE, _New York, March, 1836_. PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. This volume should more properly be called a new work than a new edition of the former one. In fact the book has been almost rewritten. The change which has taken place, even in the short period which has elapsed since the publication of the first edition, in the relation of the steam engine to the useful arts, has been so considerable as to render this inevitable.