CHAPTER VII

My London Exhibit, its Success, but what was the matter? Remarkable Sale of the Engine.

Thus, as the result of a remarkable combination of circumstances, upon which I look back with feelings more of awe than of wonder, the high-speed system made its appearance in the London International Exhibition of 1862, installed in the midst of the British machinery exhibit, under conditions more advantageous than any which I could have imagined.

But the engine had a weak feature: it was wanting in an essential respect, of which I was, and remained to the end, quite unconscious, as will presently appear. Before entering on this subject I will give the reader an idea of what the exhibit was like. The accompanyinghalf-tonefrom a photograph will, with the help of a little explanation, make this quite real.

The location was in a narrow space between a side aisle and the wall of the temporary wooden structure, 300 feet wide by nearly 1000 feet long, which formed the machinery hall. The engine was crowded closely by looms on both sides. Here were shown together the first high-speed engine, the first high-speed governor, and the first high-speed indicator. My marine governor could not be accommodated there, and had to be shown elsewhere. I was so much afraid of deflection or vibration of the shaft that I shortened up the length between the bearings and placed the driving-pulley on the overhanging end of the shaft, which for the light work to be done there answered sufficiently well. I showed also the largest and the smallest sizes of my stationary-engine governors. These were belted from the shaft to revolve so as tostand always in positions coincident with those of the governor which regulated the engine.

On a table between the railing and the head of the engine I showed mahogany sectional models of the valves at one end of the cylinder in the engine exhibited, and of the now well-known Allen slide valve, with double opening for admission made by a passage over the exhaust-cup.

The Richards indicator is seen placed on the cylinder midway of its length, and connected by pipes with the ends over the clearances, so that in the familiar manner by means of a three-way cock the opposite diagrams could be taken on the same sheet. After a few days’ use I mistrusted that the lead lines were not correctly drawn, and I took away these pipes, placing the indicator on the cylinder itself, at the opposite ends alternately. The diagrams then taken showed that the error from transmission through these pipes had been even greater than I had feared. I have, of course, employed the close connection ever since.

This identifies the time when the photograph was taken. It must have been within a few days after starting.

The center of the eccentric coinciding with the crank, as already stated, and the center line of the link being in the same horizontal plane with that of the engine, I was able to take the motion of the paper drum from the sustaining arms of the link instead of from the cross-head. This was very convenient.

During the first two or three weeks the steam pressure was kept up to 75 pounds, as intended, and I was able to get diagrams cutting off quite early, which were then erroneously supposed to show superior economy. But when all the steam-eaters had got in their work the pressure could not be maintained much above 40 pounds, and for that exhibition the day of fancy diagrams was over. Gwynne & Co. showed a large centrifugal pump driven by a pair of engines which always brought the pressure down at the rate of a pound a minute. They were not allowed to run longer than fifteen minutes at a time, but it took a long time after they stopped before the pressure could be got up again even to 40 pounds. Whenever I took a diagram somebody was always standing ready to take it away, and so among my mementoes I have been able to find none cutting off earlier than the one here represented. Onthe wall at the back I hung the largest United States flag I could find, with a portrait of President Lincoln. This seems all that needs to be said about the photograph and the diagram.

INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT1862DIAGRAM TAKEN FROM1862THE ALLEN ENGINE BY THE RICHARDS INDICATOR.ENGINE, 8 INCHES BY 24 INCHES, REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE, 150.SCALE, 40 LBS. TO THE INCH.

But what was the matter? I will clear the way to answering this question by relating the following incident: Six months later, with a feeling of bitter disappointment, I contemplated my engine standing alone where the place had been thronged with surging life. All the other exhibits had been removed. This was left in stillness and desolation, and I was making up my mind to the necessity of shipping it home again, its exhibition to all appearance absolutely fruitless—a failure, which I was utterly at a loss to comprehend, when I had a call from Mr. James Easton, the same man who had first welcomed me in England. His firm had perhaps the largest exhibit in the Machinery Hall, of a waterfall supplied by a centrifugal pump, and they had been frequent observers of the running of my engine, which was quite near them. Mr. Easton bluntly asked me if I thought my engine could be run 50 per cent. faster or at 225 revolutions per minute, because they had concluded that it could be, and if I agreed with them they had a use for it themselves. Under the circumstances I did not hesitate long about agreeing with them in respect to both ability and price, and the sale was quickly concluded. I noted an entire absence of any disposition to take an undue advantage. Mr. Easton then told me that they were troubled with lack of power every afternoon when the foundry blower was on, and had long wanted to drive this blower independently. It needed to make 2025 revolutions per minute to give the blast they required, and they had planned to drive it by a frictional gearing, nine to one, if my engine could run at thenecessary speed. So this most peculiar and exceptional opportunity for its application, absolutely the only chance for its sale that had appeared, and that at the very last moment, prevented my returning home in disappointment. It is hardly necessary to add that the engine proved completely successful. I shall refer to it again.

The point of the incident is this: It established the fact, the statement of which otherwise no one from the result would credit for an instant, that, from the afternoon when the black and averted looks of my loom exhibitors were changed to smiling congratulations down to the close of the exhibition, the engine never once had a warm bearing or was interrupted for a single moment. It was visited by every engineer in England, and by a multitude of engine users, was admired by every one, and won the entire confidence of all observers in its speed, its regulation, and the perfection of its diagrams; and yet in all that six months not a builder ever said a word about building it, nor a user said a word about using it; and, as week after week and month after month passed without a sign, I became almost stupefied with astonishment and distress.

The explanation of this phenomenon was entirely simple, but I did not know it, and there was no one to even hint it to me. I was among a people whose fundamental ideas respecting steam-engines were entirely different from those to which I had been accustomed, and I knew nothing about them, and so could not address myself to them. In the view of every Englishman a non-condensing engine was rubbish. Those which were made were small, cheap affairs, mostly for export. Neither a builder nor a user could regard a non-condensing engine with the slightest interest.

Now I do not think that in my limited sphere of observation at home I had ever seen a condensing stationary engine, except the engine which pumped out the dry-dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In my mind condensing engines were associated with ships and steamboats. At this exhibition also there were shown only non-condensing engines. I did not think of the reason for this, that in this part of London, far away from the Thames, no water could be had for condensing purposes. I took it all as a matter of course,though I was astonished at the queer lot of engines in the company of which I found myself.

I was, of course, familiar with the development of the stationary engine in England from the original type, in which the pressure of steam below that of the atmosphere, and sometimes the pressure of the atmosphere itself furnished the larger proportion of the power exerted; but after all I carried with me my American ideas, which were limited to non-condensing engines, and had no conception of the gulf that separated my thoughts from those of the men about me.

My visitors always wound up with the same question, “How do you drive your air-pump?” And in my innocence I uniformly replied, “The engine is a non-condensing engine; it has no air-pump”; all unconscious that every time I said that I was consigning the engine to the rubbish heap. This reply was taken necessarily as a frank admission that the high-speed engine was not adapted for condensing. Of course, then, it had no interest for them. No doubt many wondered why I should have troubled myself to show it there at all. If I had thought more deeply I must have been struck by the unvarying form of this question, always assuming the air-pump to be a part of the engine, but which, of course, could not be used there, and only inquiring how I worked it; and also by the fact that after getting my answer the questioner soon departed, and I scarcely ever saw the same visitor again. But I did not think deeply. Perhaps the conditions of excitement were not favorable to reflection. All I thought was that this same everlasting question, which at home I would never have heard, was getting awfully monotonous. After a while this annoying question came to be asked less and less frequently, and also the engine attracted less and less attention. The engine had failed in a vital respect, and I did not know it. That the fact of the engine being non-condensing should have been an objection to it never once entered my mind.

But I doubt if I could have bettered the matter, however alive to this difficulty I might have been. I showed all I had yet accomplished. In the minds of my visitors it no doubt appeared impossible to run an air-pump successfully at such a speed; the water and air would be churned into foam, and the valves would not closein time. This objection I was not prepared to meet, for I had not thought on the subject at all. Moreover, it could not have been met in any way except by a practical demonstration. For that demonstration I had yet to wait five years.

There were many things connected with this season which were well worth remembering. One of these was the visit of the jury. It was the only time I ever met Professor Rankine. There were two or three Frenchmen on the jury, and they engaged in an animated discussion of the question whether the steam could follow the piston at so great a speed. I well remember the sharp exclamation with which Professor Rankine put an end to this nonsense, when he had got tired of it. “There is no limit to the speed at which steam will follow a piston.”

One day I had a call from Mr. John Penn, Mr. William Fairbairn, and Mr. Robert Napier, who came together on a visit of ceremony, and presented me their cards. In return I presented to them the cards of the engine. But their visit, like most others, closed with the same inevitable question.

It was a delightful hour that Mr. F. W. Webb spent with me. He was then assistant engineer of the London & Northwestern Railway under Mr. Ramsbottom, afterwards Mr. Ramsbottom’s successor, and the pioneer builder of compound-cylinder locomotives. He told me about the new form of traveling-crane invented by Mr. Ramsbottom for the shops at Crewe, which was driven by a flying-rope, a ³⁄₄-inch cotton cord, and also of other inventions of Mr. Ramsbottom—among these the automatic cylinder lubricator, in which the condensation of the steam was so rapid, from the locomotive rushing through the atmosphere, that only the water formed on the conical end of a bolt was permitted to drop into the oil, other condensation running into a circular trough and back through an external gooseneck pipe to the steam-chest; and of their experiments to observe the rate of this condensation. For this purpose they used soda-water bottles, which they found capable of resisting a pressure of 200 pounds on the square inch, and in which they could see the rapidity with which the condensed water displaced the oil, thus leading to the above device for limiting this action; also about the Ramsbottom piston rings, which came to be, and still are, so largely used. These consist, as is well known, of squarewrought-iron rods, say ¹⁄₂ inch square, two for each piston, sprung into grooves. What is not so generally known is the way in which these rings were originated, which Mr. Webb then described to me. As sold, these are not circular rings, but when compressed in the cylinder they become truly circular and exert the same pressure at every point. The original form was found for each size in this way: A circular iron table was prepared, provided with a large number of pulleys located radially and equidistant around its edge. A ring having the section of the proposed rings, turned to the size of the cylinder, and cut on one side, was laid on this table, and cords were attached to it at equal distances passing over these pulleys. Equal weights were hung on these cords, sufficient to expand this ring to the extent desired. The form of the expanded ring was then marked on the table, and to the lines thus obtained the rings were then rolled. He told me also of the trough and scoop invented by Mr. Ramsbottom, and now used the world over, for refilling locomotive tanks while running at full speed. Being a locomotive man, Mr. Webb did not ask about the way I drove my air-pump.

Mr. Clark formed a scheme to indicate all the engines in the exhibition, twenty-four in number, all English except mine, so far as I remember, and employed my indicator for the purpose, the diagrams being taken by myself. Only two exhibitors declined to have their engines indicated. As I afterwards learned, most of the engines were bought for use there, as exhibitors would not exhibit non-condensing engines.

One of those who refused permission were Gwynne & Co., the principal partner a nephew of my centrifugal-force friend of earlier days. They exhibited a centrifugal pump supplying a waterfall. They employed Mr. Zerah Colburn, then editor ofThe Engineer, to investigate their pair of non-condensing engines and find out why they used so much steam. He borrowed my indicator to make a private test. Of course, I never saw the diagrams, but Mr. Colburn informed me that by making some changes he had reduced the back pressure to 7 pounds above the atmosphere, which he claimed to be as good as could be expected. No material improvement in the engines was to be observed, however.

Some of the diagrams taken on these tests exhibited almostincredible faults. The only really good ones were from a pair of engines made by Easton, Amos & Sons, also to drive a large centrifugal pump, built for drainage purposes in Demerara, and sustaining another waterfall. These showed the steam cut off sharply at one third of the stroke by separately driven valves on the back of the main slides. A mortifying feature of this work for myself was that on testing the indicator Mr. Clark found that the area of the piston, which was represented to be one quarter of a square inch, was really considerably less than this, showing lamentable inaccuracy on the part of the makers, as well as my own neglect to discover it. This rendered the instrument valueless for measuring power, but it showed the character of the diagrams all right.

The finest mechanical drawing I ever saw—or any one else, I think—was shown in this exhibition. It was a drawing of the steamship “Persia,” then the pride of the Cunard fleet, and was the only mechanical drawing ever admitted to the walls of the National Gallery, where it had appeared the year before. It represented side and end elevations and plan, as well as longitudinal and cross-sections, was painted and shaded in water-colors, and involved an almost incredible amount of work. It was made by Mr. Kirkaldy, then a draftsman in the employ of the Napiers, of Glasgow, the builders of the vessel. I am tempted to refer to this, as it forms a prominent datum point from which to measure the development of steam navigation in the brief space of forty years. The vessel did not possess a single feature, large or small, that now exists. It was of only about 3000 tons burden. It was an iron ship built in the days of the rapid transition from wood to steel. It was propelled by paddle-wheels. These were driven by a pair of side-lever engines. The engines had each a single cylinder. The steam pressure carried was nominally 25 pounds above the atmosphere, but practically only from 15 to 20 pounds. Full pressure was not pretended to be maintained. They had jet condensers. All forged work was of iron. The vessel was steered by hand. The rigging, standing as well as running, was of hemp. It was full bark-rigged.

Frederick E. Sickels

There I first met Mr. Frederick E. Sickels, the inventor of the trip cut-off; that immortal man who conceived the idea of tripping the valve mechanism of a steam-engine at any point in its opening movement, thus releasing the valve and permitting it to be suddenly closed. He had come over to exhibit his steam steering gear, which is now used throughout the world. It was astonishing how little attention it attracted. He had it connected and showed it in operation. While he turned the wheel precisely as the steersman did, the steam did all the work of moving the rudder and holding it in any position. Nobody seemed to take the slightest interest in it. I attributed this largely to his mistake in showing a very rough affair, the very thing which he thought would add to its effect. He had an apparatus that had been used on a coasting steamer which was captured by the Confederates and employed by them as a blockade-runner, and afterwards captured by our cruisers, taken into New York and condemned. He bought this gear out of it at auction and sent it to the exhibition just as it was. He believed that the more evidences of neglect and rough usage it showed, the greater admiration its perfect action would inspire. He learned better. Polished iron and brass and mahogany would have led people to believe that he himself thought it was worth showing properly.

The picture gallery in the second story of the main building of this exhibition was really wonderful. Its most prominent feature was a collection of paintings representing the progress of British art from the days of Hogarth. All Europe was represented. I was told that the entire wall surface was seven eighths of a mile long.

We also had a gallery of American art, consisting of a number of remarkable large photographs of the Yosemite Valley, California, and one painting. Mr. J. F. Cropsey, an American landscape artist of considerable celebrity at home, had formed a scheme for establishing himself in London. He took with him a number of his works. Hispièce de résistancewas “Autumn on the Hudson,” which was greatly admired and for which he was offered a large price, but he preferred to show it in London. He had sent it to the National Gallery, and, to his consternation, it was refused, the committee declaring that there were no such colors in nature. It also offended the English taste, by which our autumnal tints are regarded as “very gaudy,” so he hung it in Mr. Holmes’ office at the exhibition. He and I had each a lot to learn about the way things look to our cousins.

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