Opening Temple DoorsFig. 1.—Opening Temple-Doors by Steam,b. c.200.
Fig. 1.—Opening Temple-Doors by Steam,b. c.200.
Hero sketches and describes a method of opening temple-doors by the action of fire on an altar, which is an ingenious device, and contains all the elements of the machine of the Marquis of Worcester, which is generally considered the first real steam-engine, with the single and vital defect that the expanding fluid is air instead of steam. Thesketch, from Greenwood’s translation, exhibits the device very plainly. Beneath the temple-doors, in the spaceA B C D, is placed a spherical vessel,H, containing water. A pipe,F G, connects the upper part of this sphere with the hollow and air-tight shell of the altar above,D E. Another pipe,K L M, leads from the bottom of the vessel,H, over, in syphon-shape, to the bottom of a suspended bucket,N X. The suspending cord is carried over a pulley and led around two vertical barrels,O P, turning on pivots at their feet, and carrying the doors above. Ropes led over a pulley,R, sustain a counterbalance,W.
On building a fire on the altar, the heated air within expands, passes through the pipe,F G, and drives the water contained in the vessel,H, through the syphon,K L M, into the bucket,N X. The weight of the bucket, which then descends, turns the barrels,O P, raises the counterbalance, and opens the doors of the temple. On extinguishing the fire, the air is condensed, the water returns through the syphon from the bucket to the sphere, the counterbalance falls, and the doors are closed.
Another contrivance is next described, in which the bucket is replaced by an air-tight bag, which, expanding as the heated air enters it, contracts vertically and actuates the mechanism, which in other respects is similar to that just described.
In these devices the spherical vessel is a perfect anticipationof the vessels used many centuries later by several so-called inventors of the steam-engine.
Proposition 45 describes the familiar experiment of a ball supported aloft by a jet of fluid. In this example steam is generated in a close cauldron, and issues from a pipe inserted in the top, the ball dancing on the issuing jet.
Steam FountainFig. 2.—Steam Fountain,b. c.200.
Fig. 2.—Steam Fountain,b. c.200.
No. 47 is adevicesubsequently reproduced—perhaps reinvented by the second Marquis of Worcester.
A strong, close vessel,A B C D, forms a pedestal, on which are mounted a spherical vessel,E F, and a basin. A pipe,H K, is led from the bottom of the larger vessel into the upper part of the sphere, and another pipe from the lower part of the latter, in the form of a syphon, over to the basin,M. A drain-pipe,N O, leads from the basin to the reservoir,A D. The whole contrivance is called “A fountain which is made to flow by the action of the sun’s rays.”
It is operated thus: The vessel,E F, being filled nearly to the top with water, or other liquid, and exposed to the action of the sun’s rays, the air above the water expands, and drives the liquid over, through the syphon,G, into the basin,M, and it will fall into the pedestal,A B C D.
Hero goes on to state that, on the removal of the sun’s rays, the air in the sphere will contract, and that the waterwill be returned to the sphere from the pedestal. This can, evidently, only occur when the pipeGis closed previous to the commencement of this cooling. No such cock is mentioned, and it is not unlikely that the device only existed on paper.
Hero's EngineFig. 3.—Hero’s Engine,b. c.200.
Fig. 3.—Hero’s Engine,b. c.200.
Several steam-boilers are described, usually simple pipes or cylindrical vessels, and the steam generated in them by the heat of the fire on the altar forms a steam-blast. This blast is either directed into the fire, or it “makes a blackbird sing,” blows a horn for a triton, or does other equally useless work. In one device, No. 70, the steam issues from a reaction-wheel revolving in the horizontal plane, and causes dancing images to circle about the altar. A more mechanical and more generally-known form of this device is that which is frequently described as the “First Steam Engine.” Thesketchfrom Stuart is similar in general form, but more elaborate in detail, than that copied by Greenwood, which is here also reproduced, as representing more accurately the simple form which the mechanism of the “Æolipile,” or Ball of Æolus, assumed in those early times.
The cauldron,A B, contains water, and is covered by the steam-tight cover,C D. A globe is supported above the cauldron by a pair of tubes, terminating, the one,C M, in apivot,L, and the other,E F, opening directly into the sphere atG. Short, bent pipes,HandK, issue from points diametrically opposite each other, and are open at their extremities.
A fire being made beneath the cauldron, steam is formed and finds exit through the pipe,E F G, into the globe, and thence rushes out of the pipes,H K, turning the globe on its axis,G L, by the unbalanced pressure thus produced.
The more elaborate sketch which forms thefrontispiecerepresents a machine of similar character. Its design and ornamentation illustrate well the characteristics of ancient art, and the Greek idea of the steam-engine.
This “Æolipile” consisted of a globe,X, suspended between trunnions,O S, through one of which steam enters from the boiler,P, below. The hollow, bent arms,WandZ, cause the vapor to issue in such directions that the reaction produces a rotary movement of the globe, just as the rotation of reaction water-wheels is produced by the outflowing water.
It is quite uncertain whether this machine was ever more than a toy, although it has been supposed by some authorities that it was actually used by the Greek priests for the purpose of producing motion of apparatus in their temples.
It seems sufficiently remarkable that, while the power of steam had been, during all the many centuries that man has existed upon the globe, so universally displayed in so many of the phenomena of natural change, that mankind lived almost up to the Christian era without making it useful in giving motion even to a toy; but it excites still greater surprise that, from the time of Hero, we meet with no good evidence of its application to practical purposes for many hundreds of years.
Here and there in the pages of history, and in special treatises, we find a hint that the knowledge of the force of steam was not lost; but it is not at all to the credit ofbiographers and of historians, that they have devoted so little time to the task of seeking and recording information relating to the progress of this and other important inventions and improvements in the mechanic arts.
Malmesbury states[7]that, in the yeara. d.1125, there existed at Rheims, in the church of that town, a clock designed or constructed by Gerbert, a professor in the schools there, and an organ blown by air escaping from a vessel in which it was compressed “by heated water.”
Hieronymus Cardan, a wonderful mathematical genius, a most eccentric philosopher, and a distinguished physician, about the middle of the sixteenth century called attention, in his writings, to the power of steam, and to the facility with which a vacuum can be obtained by its condensation. This Cardan was the author of “Cardan’s Formula,” or rule for the solution of cubic equations, and was the inventor of the “smoke-jack.” He has been called a “philosopher, juggler, and madman.” He was certainly a learned mathematician, a skillful physician, and a good mechanic.
Many traces are found, in the history of the sixteenth century, of the existence of some knowledge of the properties of steam, and some anticipation of the advantages to follow its application. Matthesius,a. d.1571, in one of his sermons describes a contrivance which may be termed a steam-engine, and enlarges on the “tremendous results which may follow the volcanic action of a small quantity of confined vapor;”[8]and another writer applied the steam æolipile of Hero to turn the spit, and thus rivaled and excelled Cardan, who was introducing his “smoke-jack.”
As Stuart says, the inventor enumerated its excellent qualities with great minuteness. He claimed that it would “eat nothing, and giving, withal, an assurance to thosepartaking of the feast, whose suspicious natures nurse queasy appetites, that the haunch has not been pawed by the turnspit in the absence of the housewife’s eye, for the pleasure of licking his unclean fingers.”[9]
Jacob Besson, a Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Orleans, and who was in his time distinguished as a mechanician, and for his ingenuity in contriving illustrative models for use in his lecture-room, left evidence, which Beroaldus collected and published in 1578,[10]that he had found the spirit of his time sufficiently enlightened to encourage him to pay great attention to applied mechanics and to mechanism. There was at this time a marked awakening of the more intelligent men of the age to the value of practical mechanics. A scientific tract, published at Orleans in 1569, and probably written by Besson, describes very intelligently the generation of steam by the communication of heat to water, and its peculiar properties.
The French were now becoming more interested in mechanics and the allied sciences, and philosophers and literati, of native birth and imported by the court from other countries, were learning more of the nature and importance of such studies as have a bearing upon the work of the engineer and of the mechanic.
Agostino Ramelli, an Italian of good family, a student and an artist when at leisure, a soldier and an engineer in busier times, was born and educated at Rome, but subsequently was induced to make his home in Paris. He published a book in 1588,[11]in which he described many machines, adapted to various purposes, with a skill that was only equaled by the accuracy and general excellence of his delineations. This work was produced while its author wasresiding at the French capital, supported by a pension which had been awarded him by Henry III. as a reward for long and faithful services.
The books of Besson and of Ramelli are the first treatises of importance on general machinery, and were, for many years, at once the sources from which later writers drew the principal portion of their information in relation to machinery, and wholesome stimulants to the study of mechanism. These works contain descriptions of many machines subsequently reinvented and claimed as new by other mechanics.
Leonardo da Vinci, well known as a mathematician, engineer, poet, and painter, of the sixteenth century, describes, it is said, a steam-gun, which he calls the “Architonnerre,” and ascribes to Archimedes. It was a machine composed of copper, and seems to have had considerable power. It threw a ball weighing a talent. The steam was generated by permitting water in a closed vessel to fall on surfaces heated by a charcoal fire, and by its sudden expansion to eject the ball.
In the year 1825, the superintendent of the royal Spanish archives at Simancas furnished an account which, it was said, had been there discovered of an attempt, made in 1543 by Blasco de Garay, a Spanish navy-officer under Charles V., to move a ship by paddle-wheels, driven, as was inferred from the account, by a steam-engine.
It is impossible to say to how much credit the story is entitled, but, if true, it was the first attempt, so far as is now known, to make steam useful in developing power for practical purposes. Nothing is known of the form of the engine employed, it only having been stated that a “vessel of boiling water” formed a part of the apparatus.
The account is, however, in other respects so circumstantial, that it has been credited by many; but it is regarded as apocryphal by the majority of writers upon the subject. It was published in 1826 by M. de Navarrete, inZach’s “Astronomical Correspondence,” in the form of a letter from Thomas Gonzales, Director of the Royal Archives at Simancas, Spain.
In 1601, Giovanni Battista della Porta, in a work called “Spiritali,” described an apparatus by which the pressure of steam might be made to raise a column of water. It included the application of the condensation of steam to the production of a vacuum into which the water would flow.
Porta's ApparatusFig. 4.—Porta’s Apparatus,a. d.1601.
Fig. 4.—Porta’s Apparatus,a. d.1601.
Porta is described as a mathematician, chemist, and physicist, a gentleman of fortune, and an enthusiastic student of science. His home in Naples was a rendezvous for students, artists, and men of science distinguished in every branch. He invented the magic lantern and the camera obscura, and described it in his commentary on the “Pneumatica.” In his work,[12]he described this machine for raising water, as shown inFig. 4, which differs from one shown by Hero in the use of steam pressure, instead of the pressure of heated air, for expelling the liquid.
The retort, or boiler, is fitted to a tank from which the bent pipe leads into the external air. A fire being kindled under the retort, the steam generated rises to the upper part of the tank, and its pressure on the surface of the water drives it out through the pipe, and it is then led to any desired height. This was called by Porta an improved “Hero’s Fountain,” and was named his “Steam Fountain.” He described with perfect accuracy the action of condensation in producing a vacuum, and sketched an apparatus in which the vacuum thus secured was filled by water forced in by the pressure of the external atmosphere. His contrivances were not apparently ever applied to any practically useful purpose. We have not yet passed out of the age of speculation, and are just approaching the period of application. Porta is, nevertheless, entitled to credit as havingproposed an essential change in this succession, which begins with Hero, and which did not end with Watt.
The use of steam in Hero’s fountain was as necessary a step as, although less striking than, any of the subsequent modifications of the machine. In Porta’s contrivance, too, we should note particularly the separation of the boiler from the “forcing vessel”—a plan often claimed as original with later inventors, and as constituting a fair ground for special distinction.
The rude engraving (Fig. 4) above is copied from the book of Porta, and shows plainly the boiler mounted above a furnace, from the door of which the flame is seen issuing, and above is the tank containing water. The opening in the top is closed by the plug, as shown, and the steam issuingfrom the boiler into the tank near the top, the water is driven out through the pipe at the left, leading up from the bottom of the tank.
Florence Rivault, a Gentleman of the Bedchamber toHenry IV., and a teacher of Louis XIII., is stated by M. Arago, the French philosopher, to have discovered, as early as 1605, that water confined in a bomb-shell and there heated would explode the shell, however thick its walls might be made. The fact was published in Rivault’s treatise on artillery in 1608. He says: “The water is converted into air, and its vaporization is followed by violent explosion.”
In 1615, Salomon de Caus, who had been an engineer and architect under Louis XIII. of France, and later in the employ of the English Prince of Wales, published a work at Frankfort, entitled “Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes, avec diverses machines tant utile que plaisante,” in which he illustrated his proposition, “Water will, by the aid of fire, mount higher than its source,” by describing a machine designed to raise water by the expanding power of steam.
De Caus's ApparatusFig. 5.—De Caus’s Apparatus,a. d.1605.
Fig. 5.—De Caus’s Apparatus,a. d.1605.
In the sketch here given (Fig. 5), and which is copied from the original in “Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes,” etc.,Ais the copper ball containing water;B, the cock at the extremity of the pipe, taking water from the bottom,C, of the vessel;D, the cock through which the vessel is filled. The sketch was probably made by De Caus’s own hand.
The machine of De Caus, like that of Porta, thus consisted of a metal vessel partly filled with water, and in which a pipe was fitted, leading nearly to the bottom, and open at the top. Fire being applied, the steam formed by its elastic force drove the water out through the vertical pipe, raising it to a height limited only by either the desire of the builder or the strength of the vessel.
Branca's Steam EngineFig. 6.—Branca’s Steam-Engine,a. d.1629.
Fig. 6.—Branca’s Steam-Engine,a. d.1629.
In 1629, Giovanni Branca, of the Italian town of Loretto, described, in a work[13]published at Rome, a number of ingenious mechanical contrivances, among which was a steam-engine (Fig. 6), in which the steam, issuing from a boiler, impinged upon the vanes of a horizontal wheel. This it was proposed to apply to many useful purposes.
At this time experiments were in progress in England which soon resulted in the useful application of steam-power to raising water.
A patent, dated January 21, 1630, was granted to David Ramseye[14]by Charles I., which covered a number of distinct inventions. These were: “1. To multiply and make saltpeter in any open field, in fower acres of ground, sufficient to serve all our dominions. 2. To raise water from low pitts by fire. 3. To make any sort of mills to goe on standing waters by continual motion, without help of wind, water, or horse. 4. To make all sortes of tapistrie without any weaving-loom, or waie ever yet in use in this kingdome. 5. To make boats, shippes, and barges to goe against strong wind and tide. 6. To make the earth more fertile than usual. 7. To raise water from low places and mynes, and coal pitts, by a new waie never yet in use. 8. To make hard iron soft, and likewise copper to be tuffe and soft, which is not in use in this kingdome. 9. To make yellow waxe white verie speedilie.”
This seems to have been the first authentic reference tothe use of steam in the arts which has been found in English literature. The patentee held his grant fourteen years, on condition of paying an annual fee of £3 6s.8d.to the Crown.
The second claim is distinct as an application of steam, the language being that which was then, and for a century and a half subsequently, always employed in speaking of its use. The steam-engine, in all its forms, was at that time known as the “fire-engine.” It would seem not at all improbable that the third, fifth, and seventh claims are also applications of steam-power.
Thomas Grant, in 1632, and Edward Ford, in 1640, also patented schemes, which have not been described in detail, for moving ships against wind and tide by some new and great force.
Dr. John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, an eccentric but learned and acute scholar, described, in 1648, Cardan’s smoke-jack, the earlier æolipiles, and the power of the confined steam, and suggested, in a humorous discourse, what he thought to be perfectly feasible—the construction of a flying-machine. He says: “Might not a ‘high pressure’ be applied with advantage to move wings as large as those of the ‘ruck’s’ or the ‘chariot’? The engineer might probably find a corner that would do for a coal-station near some of the ‘castles’” (castles in the air). The reverend wit proposed the application of the smoke-jack to the chiming of bells, the reeling of yarn, and to rocking the cradle.
Bishop Wilkins writes, in 1648 (“Mathematical Magic”), of æolipiles as familiar and useful pieces of apparatus, and describes them as consisting “of some such material as may endure the fire, having a small hole at which they are filled with water, and out of which (when the vessels are heated) the air doth issue forth with a strong and lasting violence.” “They are,” the bishop adds, “frequently used for the exciting and contracting of heat in the melting of glasses ormetals. They may also be contrived to be serviceable for sundry other pleasant uses, as for the moving of sails in a chimney-corner, the motion of which sails may be applied to the turning of a spit, or the like.”
Kircher gives an engraving (“Mundus Subterraneus”) showing the last-named application of the æolipile; and Erckern (“Aula Subterranea,” 1672) gives a picture illustrating their application to the production of a blast in smelting ores. They seem to have been frequently used, and in all parts of Europe, during the seventeenth century, for blowing fires in houses, as well as in the practical work of the various trades, and for improving the draft of chimneys. The latter application is revived very frequently by the modern inventor.
We next meet with the first instance in which the expansive force of steam is supposed to have actually been applied to do important and useful work.
In 1663, Edward Somerset, second Marquis of Worcester, published a curious collection of descriptions of his inventions, couched in obscure and singular language, and called “A Century of the Names and Scantlings of Inventions by me already Practised.”
Worcester's Steam FountainFig. 7.—Worcester’s Steam Fountain,a. d.1650.
Fig. 7.—Worcester’s Steam Fountain,a. d.1650.
One of these inventions is an apparatus for raising water by steam. The description was not accompanied by a drawing, but the sketch here given (Fig. 7) is thought probably to resemble one of his earlier contrivances very closely.
Steam is generated in the boilera, and thence is led into the vessele, already nearly filled with water, and fitted up like the apparatus of De Caus. It drives the water in a jet out through the pipef. The vesseleis then shut off from the boilera, is again filled through the pipeh, and the operationis repeated. Stuart thinks it possible that the marquis may have even made an engine with a piston, and sketches it.[15]The instruments of Porta and of De Caus were “steam fountains,” and were probably applied, if used at all, merely to ornamental purposes. That of theMarquis of Worcesterwas actually used for the purpose of elevating water for practical purposes at Vauxhall, near London.
WorcesterEdward Somerset, the Second Marquis of Worcester.
Edward Somerset, the Second Marquis of Worcester.
How early this invention was introduced at Raglan Castle by Worcester is not known, but it was probably not much later than 1628. In 1647 Dircks shows the marquis probably to have been engaged in getting out parts of the later engine which was erected at Vauxhall, obtaining hismaterials from William Lambert, a brass-founder. His patent was issued in June, 1663.
Worcester's EngineFig. 8.—Worcester’s Engine,a. d.1665.
Fig. 8.—Worcester’s Engine,a. d.1665.
We nowhere find an illustrated description of the machine, or such an account as would enable a mechanic to reproduce it in all its details. Fortunately, the cells and grooves (Fig. 9) remaining in the wall of the citadel of Raglan Castle indicate the general dimensions and arrangement of the engine; and Dircks, the biographer of the inventor, has suggested the form of apparatus shown in the sketch (Fig. 8) as most perfectly in accord with the evidence there found, and with the written specifications.
Raglan Castle WallFig. 9.—Wall of Raglan Castle.
Fig. 9.—Wall of Raglan Castle.
The two vessels,A A′, are connected by a steam-pipe,B B′, with the boiler,C, behind them.Dis the furnace. A vertical water-pipe,E, is connected with the cold-water vessels,A A′, by the pipes,F F′, reaching nearly to the bottom. Water is supplied by the pipes,G G′, with valves,a a′, dipping into the well or ditch,H. Steam fromthe boiler being admitted to each vessel,AandA′, alternately, and there condensing, the vacuum formed permits the pressure of the atmosphere to force the water from the well through the pipes,GandG′. While one is filling, the steam is forcing the charge of water from the other up the discharge-pipe,E. As soon as each is emptied, the steam is shut off from it and turned into the other, and the condensation of the steam remaining in the vessel permits it to fill again. As will be seen presently, this is substantially, and almost precisely, the form of engine of which the invention is usually attributed to Savery, a later inventor.
Worcester never succeeded in forming the great company which he hoped would introduce his invention on a scale commensurate with its importance, and his fate was that of nearly all inventors. He died poor and unsuccessful.
His widow, who lived until 1681, seemed to have become as confident as was Worcester himself that the invention had value, and, long after his death, was stillendeavoring to secure its introduction, but with equal non-success. The steam-engine had taken a form which made it inconceivably valuable to the world, at a time when no more efficient means of raising water was available at the most valuable mines than horse-power; but the people, greatly as it was needed, were not yet sufficiently intelligent to avail themselves of the great boon, the acceptance of which was urged upon them with all the persistence and earnestness which characterizes every true inventor.
Worcester is described by his biographer as having been a learned, thoughtful, studious, and good man—a Romanist without prejudice or bigotry, a loyal subject, free from partisan intolerance; as a public man, upright, honorable, and humane; as a scholar, learned without being pedantic; as a mechanic, patient, skillful, persevering, and of wonderful ingenuity, and of clear, almost intuitive, apprehension.
Yet, with all these natural advantages, reinforced as they were by immense wealth and influence in his earlier life, and by hardly lessened social and political influence when a large fortune had been spent in experiment, and after misfortune had subdued his spirits and left him without money or a home, the inventor failed to secure the introduction of a device which was needed more than any other. Worcester had attained practical success; but the period of speculation was but just closing, and that of the application of steam had not quite yet arrived.
The second Marquis of Worcester stands on the record as the first steam-engine builder, and his death marks the termination of the first of those periods into which we have divided the history of the growth of the steam-engine.
The “water-commanding engine,” as its inventor called it, was the first instance in the history of the steam-engine in which the inventor is known to have “reduced his invention to practice.”
It is evident, however, that the invention of the separate boiler, important as it was, had been anticipated by Porta,and does not entitle the marquis to the honor, claimed for him by many English authorities, of beingtheinventor of the steam-engine. Somerset was simplyoneof those whose works collectively made the steam-engine.
After the time of Worcester, we enter upon a stage of history which may properly be termed a period of application; and from this time forward steam continued to play a more and more important part in social economy, and its influence on the welfare of mankind augmented with a rapidly-increasing growth.
The knowledge then existing of the immense expansive force of steam, and the belief that it was destined to submit to the control of man and to lend its immense power in every department of industry, were evidently not confined to any one nation. From Italy to Northern Germany, and from France to Great Britain, the distances, measured in time, were vastly greater then than now, when this wonderful genius has helped us to reduce weeks to hours; but there existed, notwithstanding, a very perfect system of communication, and the learning of every centre was promptly radiated to every other. It thus happened that, at this time, the speculative study of the steam-engine was confined to no part of Europe; inventors and experimenters were busy everywhere developing this promising scheme.
Jean Hautefeuille, the son of a Frenchboulanger, born at Orleans, adopted by the Duchess of Bouillon at the suggestion of De Sourdis, profiting by the great opportunities offered him, entered the Church, and became one of the most learned men and greatest mechanicians of his time. He studied the many schemes then brought forward by inventors with the greatest interest, and was himself prolific of new ideas.
In 1678, he proposed the use of alcohol in an engine, “in such a manner that the liquid should evaporate and be condensed,tour à tour, without being wasted”[16]—the firstrecorded plan, probably, for surface-condensation and complete retention of the working-fluid. He proposed a gunpowder-engine, of which[17]he described three varieties.
In one of these engines he displaced the atmosphere by the gases produced by the explosion, and the vacuum thus obtained was utilized in raising water by the pressure of the air. In the second machine, the pressure of the gases evolved by the combustion of the powder acted directly upon the water, forcing it upward; and in the third design, the pressure of the vapor drove a piston, and this engine was described as fitted to supply power for many purposes. There is no evidence that he constructed these machines, however, and they are here referred to simply as indicating that all the elements of the machine were becoming well known, and that an ingenious mechanic, combining known devices, could at this time have produced the steam-engine. Its early appearance should evidently have been anticipated.
Hautefeuille, if we may judge from evidence at hand, was the first to propose the use of a piston in a heat-engine, and his gunpowder-engine seems to have been the first machine which would be called a heat-engine by the modern mechanic. The earlier “machines” or “engines,” including that of Hero and those of the Marquis of Worcester, would rather be denominated “apparatus,” as that term is used by the physicist or the chemist, than a machine or an engine, as the terms are used by the engineer.
Huyghens's EngineFig. 10.—Huyghens’sEngine,1680.
Fig. 10.—Huyghens’sEngine,1680.
Huyghens, in 1680, in a memoir presented to the Academy of Sciences, speaks of the expansive force of gunpowder as capable of utilization as a convenient and portable mechanical power, and indicates that he had designed a machine in which it could be applied.
This machine of Huyghens is of great interest, notsimply because it was the first gas-engine and the prototype of the very successful modern explosive gas-engine of Otto and Langen, but principally as having been the first engine which consisted of a cylinder and piston. Thesketchshows its form. It consisted of a cylinder,A, a piston,B, two relief-pipes,C C, fitted with check-valves and a system of pulleys,F, by which the weight is raised. The explosion of the powder atHexpels the air from the cylinder. When the products of combustion have cooled, the pressure of the atmosphere is no longer counterbalanced by that of air beneath, and the piston is forced down, raising the weight. The plan was never put in practice, although the invention was capable of being made a working and possibly useful machine.
At about this period the English attained some superiority over their neighbors on the Continent in the practical application of science and the development of the useful arts, and it has never since been lost. A sudden and great development of applied science and of the useful arts took place during the reign of Charles II., which is probably largely attributable to the interest taken by that monarch in many branches of construction and of science. He is said to have been very fond of mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, and natural history, and to have had a laboratory erected, and to have employed learned men to carry on experiments and lines of research for his satisfaction. He was especially fond of the study and investigation of the arts and sciences most closely related to naval architecture and navigation, and devoted much attention to the determination of the best forms of vessels, and to the discovery of the best kinds of ship-timber. His brother, the Duke of York, was equally fond of this study, and was his companion in some of his work.
Great as is the influence of the monarch, to-day, in forming the tastes and habits and in determining the direction of the studies and labors of the people, his influence was vastly more potent in those earlier days; and it may well be believed that the rapid strides taken by Great Britain from that time were, in great degree, a consequence of the well-known habits of Charles II., and that the nation, which had an exceptional natural aptitude for mechanical pursuits, should have been prompted by the example of its king to enter upon such a course as resulted in the early attainment of an advanced position in all branches of applied science.
The appointment, under Sir Robert Moray, the superintendent of the laboratory of the king, of Master Mechanic, was conferred upon Sir Samuel Morland, a nobleman who, in his practical knowledge of mechanics and in his ingenuity and fruitfulness of invention, was apparently almost equal to Worcester. He was the son of a Berkshire clergyman, was educated at Cambridge, where he studied mathematics with great interest, and entered public life soon after. He served the Parliament under Cromwell, and afterward went to Geneva. He was of a decidedly literary turn of mind, and wrote a history of the Piedmont churches, which gave him great repute with the Protestant party. He was induced subsequently, on the accession of Charles II., to take service under that monarch, whose gratitude he had earned by revealing a plot for his assassination.
He received his appointment and a baronetcy in 1660, and immediately commenced making experiments, partly at his own expense and partly at the cost of the royal exchequer, which were usually not at all remunerative. He built hand fire-engines of various kinds, taking patents on them, which brought him as small profits as did his work for the king, and invented the speaking-trumpet, calculating machines, and a capstan. His house at Vauxhall was full of curious devices, the products of his own ingenuity.
He devoted much attention to apparatus for raising water. His devices seem to have usually been modifications of the now familiar force-pump. They attracted much attention, and exhibitions were made of them before the king and queen and the court. He was sent to France on business relating to water-works erected for King Charles, and while in Paris he constructed pumps and pumping apparatus for the satisfaction of Louis XIV. In his book,[18]published in Paris in 1683, and presented to the king, and an earlier manuscript,[19]still preserved in the British Museum, Morland shows a perfect familiarity with the power of steam. He says, in the latter: “Water being evaporated by fire, the vapors require a greater space (about two thousand times) than that occupied by the water; and, rather than submit to imprisonment, it will burst a piece of ordnance. But, being controlled according to the laws of statics, and, by science, reduced to the measure of weight and balance, it bears its burden peaceably (like good horses), and thus may be of great use to mankind, especially for the raising of water, according to the following table, which indicates the number of pounds which may be raised six inches, 1,800 times an hour, by cylinders half-filled with water, and of the several diameters and depths of said cylinders.”
He then gives the following table, a comparison of which with modern tables proves Morland to have acquired a very considerable and tolerably accurate knowledge of the volume and pressure of saturated steam:
The rate of enlargement of volume in the conversion of water into steam, as given in Morland’s book, appears remarkably accurate when compared with statements made by other early experimenters. Desaguliers gave the ratio of volumes at 14,000, and this was accepted as correct for many years, and until Watt’s experiments, which were quoted by Dr. Robison as giving the ratio at between 1,800 and 1,900. Morland also states the “duty” of his engines in the same manner in which it is stated by engineers to-day.
Morland must undoubtedly have been acquainted with the work of his distinguished contemporary, Lord Worcester, and his apparatus seems most likely to have been amodification—perhaps improvement—of Worcester’s engine. His house was at Vauxhall, and the establishment set up for the king was in the neighborhood. It may be that Morland is to be credited with greater success in the introduction of his predecessor’s apparatus than the inventor himself.
Dr. Hutton considered this book to have been the earliest account of the steam-engine, and accepts the date—1682—as that of the invention, and adds, that “the project seems to have remained obscure in both countries till 1699, when Savery, who probably knew more of Morland’s invention than he owned, obtained a patent,” etc. We have, however, scarcely more complete or accurate knowledge of the extent of Morland’s work, and of its real value, than of that of Worcester. Morland died in 1696, at Hammersmith, not far from London, and his body lies in Fulham church.
From this time forward the minds of many mechanicians were earnestly at work on this problem—the raising of water by aid of steam. Hitherto, although many ingenious toys, embodying the principles of the steam-engine separately, and sometimes to a certain extent collectively, had been proposed, and even occasionally constructed, the world was only just ready to profit by the labors of inventors in this direction.
But, at the end of the seventeenth century, English miners were beginning to find the greatest difficulty in clearing their shafts of the vast quantities of water which they were meeting at the considerable depths to which they had penetrated, and it had become a matter of vital importance to them to find a more powerful aid in that work than was then available. They were, therefore, by their necessities stimulated to watch for, and to be prepared promptly to take advantage of, such an invention when it should be offered them.
The experiments of Papin, and the practical application of known principles by Savery, placed the needed apparatus in their hands.