How to Become an Engineer

The Project Gutenberg eBook, How to Become an Engineer, by Frank W. Doughty

Containing Full Instructions How to Proceed in Order to Become a Locomotive Engineer; Also Directions for Building a Model Locomotive; together with a Full Description of Everything an Engineer Should Know.
PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED.
BY AN OLD ENGINEER ON THE NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD.
New York: FRANK TOUSEY, Publisher 29 West 26th Street.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1898, by FRANK TOUSEY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C.
HISTORICAL.
To begin a subject properly you must begin at the beginning.
Boys who don't like history need not read this chapter, for in it we tell how the steam engine began, and if it never had begun, you know, there would never have been any engineers, nor any necessity for writing this book.
For two or three generations we have had the story of James Watt told us; how when a boy and watching his mother's tea-kettle one day he saw the steam lift the lid, and that suggested the idea that if a little steam could lift the lid of a kettle, a great deal would lift still heavier weights and revolutionize the world.
Now they tell us that Watt was not the first one to have this idea by several, that it was first suggested by the Marquis of Worcester, in his book called the Century of Inventions, as a way to drive up water by fire, A. D. 1663.