Steam, Its Generation and Use | Page 2

third method,
which is known as "Hero's engine", is described as a hollow sphere
supported over a caldron or boiler by two trunnions, one of which was
hollow, and connected the interior of the sphere with the steam space of
the caldron. Two pipes, open at the ends and bent at right angles, were
inserted at opposite poles of the sphere, forming a connection between
the caldron and the atmosphere. Heat being applied to the caldron, the
steam generated passed through the hollow trunnion to the sphere and
thence into the atmosphere through the two pipes. By the reaction
incidental to its escape through these pipes, the sphere was caused to
rotate and here is the primitive steam reaction turbine.
Hero makes no suggestions as to application of any of the devices he
describes to a useful purpose. From the time of Hero until the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, there is no record of progress,
though evidence is found that such devices as were described by Hero
were sometimes used for trivial purposes, the blowing of an organ or
the turning of a skillet.
Mathesius, the German author, in 1571; Besson, a philosopher and
mathematician at Orleans; Ramelli, in 1588; Battista Delia Porta, a
Neapolitan mathematician and philosopher, in 1601; Decause, the
French engineer and architect, in 1615; and Branca, an Italian architect,
in 1629, all published treatises bearing on the subject of the generation
of steam.
To the next contributor, Edward Somerset, second Marquis of
Worcester, is apparently due the credit of proposing, if not of making,
the first useful steam engine. In the "Century of Scantlings and
Inventions", published in London in 1663, he describes devices
showing that he had in mind the raising of water not only by forcing it
from two receivers by direct steam pressure but also for some sort of
reciprocating piston actuating one end of a lever, the other operating a
pump. His descriptions are rather obscure and no drawings are extant
so that it is difficult to say whether there were any distinctly novel
features to his devices aside from the double action. While there is no
direct authentic record that any of the devices he described were

actually constructed, it is claimed by many that he really built and
operated a steam engine containing pistons.
In 1675, Sir Samuel Moreland was decorated by King Charles II, for a
demonstration of "a certain powerful machine to raise water." Though
there appears to be no record of the design of this machine, the
mathematical dictionary, published in 1822, credits Moreland with the
first account of a steam engine, on which subject he wrote a treatise
that is still preserved in the British Museum.
[Illustration: 397 Horse-power Babcock & Wilcox Boiler in Course of
Erection at the Plant of the Crocker Wheeler Co., Ampere, N. J.]
Dr. Denys Papin, an ingenious Frenchman, invented in 1680 "a steam
digester for extracting marrowy, nourishing juices from bones by
enclosing them in a boiler under heavy pressure," and finding danger
from explosion, added a contrivance which is the first safety valve on
record.
The steam engine first became commercially successful with Thomas
Savery. In 1699, Savery exhibited before the Royal Society of England
(Sir Isaac Newton was President at the time), a model engine which
consisted of two copper receivers alternately connected by a three-way
hand-operated valve, with a boiler and a source of water supply. When
the water in one receiver had been driven out by the steam, cold water
was poured over its outside surface, creating a vacuum through
condensation and causing it to fill again while the water in the other
reservoir was being forced out. A number of machines were built on
this principle and placed in actual use as mine pumps.
The serious difficulty encountered in the use of Savery's engine was the
fact that the height to which it could lift water was limited by the
pressure the boiler and vessels could bear. Before Savery's engine was
entirely displaced by its successor, Newcomen's, it was considerably
improved by Desaguliers, who applied the Papin safety valve to the
boiler and substituted condensation by a jet within the vessel for
Savery's surface condensation.

In 1690, Papin suggested that the condensation of steam should be
employed to make a vacuum beneath a cylinder which had previously
been raised by the expansion of steam. This was the earliest cylinder
and piston steam engine and his plan took practical shape in
Newcomen's atmospheric engine. Papin's first engine was unworkable
owing to the fact that he used the same vessel for both boiler and
cylinder. A small quantity of water was placed in the bottom of the
vessel and heat was applied. When steam formed and raised the piston,
the heat was withdrawn and the piston did