engine-beam

Updated: May 3, 2025

Next Humphrey Potter, a youngster hired to open and shut the valves of a Newcomen engine, made it self-acting by tying cords to the engine-beam, had his hour for play or idling, and proved that if necessity is the mother of invention, laziness is sometimes its father.

Oscar Douglas Skelton - The Railway Builders: A Chronicle of Overland Highways