Part 8 (2/2)

Born at Greenock, Scotland, January 19, 1736. Died at Birmingham, Staffords.h.i.+re, England, August 25, 1819.

Watt came of a respectable and industrious family. His grandfather was a professor of mathematics, while his father was an instrument maker, councillor and manufacturer. After a limited education young Watt went to London, in 1755, and became a mathematical and nautical instrument maker.

In that capacity he became connected with Glasgow University, and there made his discoveries that resulted in the practical improvements in the steam engine which made him famous. He was a.s.sociated with Matthew Boulton, under the firm name of Boulton & Watt, from 1774 to 1800, and the Watt engines that were built by that concern at Soho revolutionized England's mining industries. His steam engines represented a great step beyond the Newcomen engines, though still using low-pressure steam.

Watt's connection with steam carriages for use on the common roads, a subject that was of much moment in his day, was limited to a single patent and generally to discouraging the plans of others in that direction, owing to his fear that the introduction of high-pressure steam use would harm the engine business. In the patent granted to him in 1784 he proposed that the boiler of his carriage should be made of wooden staves, fastened with iron hoops, like a cask, and the furnace to be of iron, and placed in the inside of the boiler, surrounded with water.

Watt, however, never built the steam carriage. He retained the deepest prejudices against the use of high-pressure steam, saying: ”I soon relinquished the idea of constructing an engine on this principle; from being sensible it would be liable to some of the objections against Savery's engine, viz., the danger of bursting the boiler, and also that a great part of the power of the steam would be lost, because no vacuum was formed to a.s.sist the descent of the piston.”

ROBERT FOURNESS

Born in Otley, Yorks.h.i.+re, England. Died at an early age.

Fourness became a practical engineer and invented several labor-saving machines. One of his first inventions was for a machine to split hides, that was set up and operated in the establishment of his father. Later in life he established works for himself in Sheffield, and afterwards in Gainsborough. In 1788, he was a resident of Elland, Halifax, and there made a steam carriage that was run by a three-cylinder inverted engine.

Spur-gearing transmitted the driving power from the crank shaft to the axle. His patent was taken out in conjunction with James Ashworth. This vehicle was mounted on two driving wheels and had a smaller steering wheel in front.

GEORGE MEDHURST

Born at Sh.o.r.eham, Kent, England, in February, 1759. Died in September, 1827.

Medhurst was educated as a clock maker, but in 1789 started as an engineer. In the same year he secured a patent for a windmill and pumps for compressing air to obtain motive power. One of the first investigators in this direction, the idea on which he worked and which continued to absorb his energy throughout life, was to make use of the wind when it served in order to compress large bodies of air for use when needed. In 1800, he took out a patent on an aeolian engine and demonstrated how carriages could be driven upon the common roads by compressed air stored in reservoirs underneath the body of the vehicle. He also contemplated applying this engine to other useful purposes and calculated that small carriages could be worked by a rotary engine and larger ones by reciprocating engines with special gear for varying power.

In describing his inventions and explaining his ideas regarding compressed air, Medhurst said: ”The power applied to the machinery is compressed air, and the power to compress the air I obtain generally by wind, a.s.sisted and improved by machinery described in this specification, and in order to render my invention universally useful I propose to adapt my machinery and magazine so that it may be charged by hand, by a fall of water, by a vacuum obtained by wind and also by explosive and effervescent substances, for the rapid conveyance of pa.s.sengers, mails, dispatches, artillery, military stores, etc., and to establish regular stage coaches and wagons throughout the kingdom, to convey goods and pa.s.sengers, for public accommodation, by erecting windmills, water-mills, etc., at proper intervals upon the roads, to be employed in charging large magazines at these stations with compressed air, or in raising large magazines of water by wind, etc., by the power of which portable magazines may be charged when required by machinery for that purpose.”

Medhurst contemplated establis.h.i.+ng regular lines of coaches, with pumping stations at regular stopping places. He endeavored to form a company to work his inventions and develop his plans and published a pamphlet on the subject of compressed air. About 1800, he established himself as a machinist and ironmaster in Denmark street, Soho, and about ten years later was the first to suggest pneumatic tubes for the carriage of parcels or pa.s.sengers. Some two years later he brought out the proposition for what has come to be known as the atmospheric railway, an appliance for conveying goods and pa.s.sengers by the power of a piston in a continuous tube laid between the rails.

ANDREW VIVIAN

A resident of Cornwall, England, Andrew Vivian, a cousin of Richard Trevithick, became much interested in the engineering experiments of his famous relative. He worked with his cousin and particularly a.s.sisted him in experiments on steam engines for propelling road carriages. In 1802, he was a joint patentee with Trevithick, in the early steam vehicle that was taken to London and was exhibited in that city, where for a short time it occasioned a great deal of public curiosity.

DU QUET

A Frenchman who, in 1714, designed a small windmill to give motion to the wheels of his carriages.

J. H. GENEVOIS

A Swiss clergyman, of the early part of the eighteenth century. He proposed to use windmills or sails on his wagon and by a system of springs to store the energy thus obtained until such time as it should be needed for driving purposes.

JOHN DUMBELL

In 1808, John Dumbell secured a patent for an engine that had many peculiar features. He planned to have the steam act on a series of vanes, or fliers, within a cylinder, ”like the sails of a windmill,” causing them to rotate together with the shaft to which they were fixed. Gearing transmitted the motion of this shaft to the driving wheels. The inventor proposed to raise steam by permitting water to drop upon a metal plate, kept at an intense heat by means of a strong fire, which was stimulated by a pair of bellows.

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