United States or South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


This moving force is produced by the oxidation of the zinc; and, setting aside the name given to the force in this case, we know that it can be produced in another manner. If we burn the zinc under the boiler of a steam-engine, consequently in the oxygen of the air instead of the galvanic pile, we should produce steam, and by it a certain amount of force.

This goes on sometimes for centuries, until at length some man, greater perhaps than his fellows, seeking to fulfil the needs of his time, gathers the various threads together, treasures up the gain of past successes and failures, and uses them as the means for some solid achievement, Thus Newton discovered the law of gravitation, and thus James Watt invented the steam-engine.

It was a mere act of borrowing, and borrowing was never accounted a crime; borrowing not money even, only a name, and for so short a time. No harm; it could do no one in the world any harm. While these reasonings went on in his mind, his heart dropped down again into its right place; his pulse ceased to beat like the pistons of a steam-engine; he came gradually to himself. After all, what was it?

Watt was a working engineer at Glasgow, whose mind had for some time been bent on the improvement of the steam-engine; but it was not till the spring of 1765, amidst the political turmoil which characterized the early reign of George the Third, that as he strolled on a Sunday afternoon across the Green of Glasgow the means of effecting it burst on him.

More probable is it as has already been indicated that the analogy of the rock-drill in mining work will be followed. The farmer will use an implement much smaller and handier than a movable steam-engine, but supplied with power from a central station, either on his own land or in some place maintained by co-operative or public agency.

The fire-teazer of a modern steam-engine produces by his exertions far greater effects than Milo of Crotona could, but he is not therefore a stronger man. The Greeks seldom knew any language but their own. This rendered it far more difficult for them than it is for us, to acquire a readiness in detecting ambiguities.

This which, in inanimate Nature, is manifested now as magnetism, now as electricity, and now as chemical agency, is supposed, on entering an organized body, to constitute its vital principle, something in the same manner as the steam becomes the mechanic power of the steam-engine, in consequence of its compression by the steam-engine; or as the breeze that murmurs indistinguishably in the forest becomes the element, the substratum, of melody in the Æolian harp, and of consummate harmony in the organ.

'The formation of a railroad from Halifax to Quebec, he wrote in 1839, 'would entirely alter some of the distinguishing characteristics of the Canadas. Even before this, young Joseph Howe had seen what the steam-engine might do for his native province, and in 1835 he had advocated, in a series of articles in the Nova Scotian, a railway from Halifax to Windsor.

A draught of cold air is continually forced through a large apparatus of steam-pipes, and, as it becomes vitiated in the rooms above, passes out through ventilators placed just below the ceiling. Our next visit was to the laundry, where two men, three women, and, last but not least, a steam-engine of 45-horse power, were perpetually engaged in washing the soiled linen of the hospital.

When his minister showed him a drawing of Newcomen's engine, in "Martin's Philosophy," he was chagrined to find that his invention had been anticipated in regard to the mode of producing the power, but he was confirmed in his belief of its availability for navigation. With no better resources than a blacksmith's shop could furnish, he set himself at work to make a steam-engine to test his theory.