Engineering reminiscences contributed to "Power" and "American machinist"

by Charles T. Porter

I left my smiling friends with a passport or something just as good, added my twelve pounds sterling to the account of the ship, and had time before it sailed to eat a sumptuous dinner at the hotel. I was in the land of olives, and ate freely of the unaccustomed delicacy, in consequence of which I lost my dinner before the ship was well out of the Tagus and have never cared much for olives since.

I was full of wrath against the United States minister, and determined to send a protest to the State Department as soon as I reached Manchester. But there I found something else to attend to and dropped the matter. I read, however, with satisfaction, a few months after, that the item of the salary of the minister to Portugal had been cut out of the appropriation bill by the House of Representatives.

CHAPTER XI

Trouble with the Evan Leigh Engine. Gear Patterns from the Whitworth Works. First Order for a Governor. Introduction of the Governor into Cotton Mills. Invention of my Condenser. Failure of Ormerod, Grierson & Co.

The Evan Leigh engine was not quite ready to be started when I left England. On my return I found an unexpected trouble and quite an excitement. The engine had been started during my absence, and ran all right, but it was found almost impossible to supply the boilers with water. Two injectors were required, and two men feeding the furnaces, and everybody was agreed that the fault lay with the engine. The boilers were a pair of Harrison boilers, from which great results had been expected. These were formed of cast-iron globes, 8 inches internal diameter, with 3-inch necks, held together by bolts running through a string of these globes. They were an American invention, and naturally Mr. Luders (who was introducing them in England) and I fraternized. I felt greatly disappointed. I did not then see Mr. Leigh, but had the pleasure of an interview with his son. This young gentleman denounced me in good Saxon terms as a fraud and an impostor, and assured me that he would see to it that I never sold another engine in England. He knew that the boilers were all right. His friend Mr. Hetherington, an extensive manufacturer of spinning and weaving machinery, and who had taken the agency to sell these boilers, had had one working for a long time in company with a Lancashire boiler, and there was no difference in their performance. He finished by informing me that the engine would be put out as quickly as they could get another.

I put an indicator on the engine, and show [here] the diagrams it took. I could not see that much fault was to be found with those diagrams. Old Mr. Leigh, after looking at them, said nothing, but he did something. He went to an old boiler-yard and bought a second-hand Lancashire boiler, had it carted into his yard and set under an improvised shed alongside his boiler-house, and in two or three days it was supplying the steam for my engine, and all difficulties had vanished. The consumption of steam and coal fell to just what it had been calculated that it should be, and everybody felt happy, except my friend Mr. Luders, who, notwithstanding his grievous disappointment, had never gone back on me, and young Mr. Leigh, who owed me an apology which he was not manly enough to render. Repeated efforts were tried to make the Harrison boilers answer, but the result was always the same, and they were abandoned.

Diagrams from Engine of Evan Leigh, Son & Co. Sixteen Pounds to the Inch.

And, after all, the fault was largely mine. I did not think of it till long afterwards, and it did not occur to anybody else, not even to those most deeply interested in the boiler. My surface condenser was the cause of all the trouble, and that was why I have to this day deeply regretted having put it in. The oil used in the cylinder was all sent into the boilers, and accumulated there. It saponified and formed a foam which filled the whole boiler and caused the water to be worked over with the steam as fast as it could be fed in. I have always wondered why the engine, being vertical, should not have exhibited any sign of the water working through it at the upper end of the cylinder. The explanation after all appears simple. The water on entering the steam chest mostly fell to the bottom and little passed through the upper ports. The trouble from oil was not felt at all in the Lancashire boiler. This, I suppose, was due to three causes. The latter held a far greater body of water, had a much larger extent of evaporating surface, and far greater steam capacity. I was always sorry that I did not give the Harrison boiler the better chance it would have had with a jet condenser.