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

by Charles T. Porter

My knowledge of mechanics may be illustrated by a story I once heard in England of a man who had been prosecuted for selling adulterated tobacco. He got off by proving that there was no tobacco at all in the article that he sold. But this illustration hardly does the case justice.

I had some mechanical ideas, but they were exactly wrong. For example, I could not see any difficulty in perpetual motion. All one had to do was to pump up water, which by its fall would furnish power to run the pump. This, however, was no more absurd than were two inventions which were brought out in England while I was there. One of these was corrugating the faces of the piston, so as to present more extended surfaces for the steam pressure to be exerted upon. The other was a device for utilizing that half of the force of the steam which had been wasted against the cylinder heads. Both of these were published with commendatory remarks in the Mechanics’ Magazine. The last, if I recollect rightly, was the original bottom feature of the Wells balance-engine. My error was that I made no account of friction, which must be overcome before motion can take place. We shall see before long the same disregard of friction by men who ought to have known better.

My utter ignorance of everything mechanical at that time is capable of proof. I stepped right into one of those “springes to catch woodcocks” which were being set in those days, and proved myself to be about as green a gosling mechanically as ever was plucked.

I had a client by the name of Searle, who was a “dead-beat.” He owed me about $100, which I could not collect. He finally called upon me and told me frankly that he could not pay me one red cent, because he had no money; but he could put me in the way of making a fortune, and he was anxious in that way to discharge the great obligation which he felt himself under to me.

A new invention had appeared, called the Gwynne & Sawyer static-pressure engine, that was bound to revolutionize all applications of power. It was, he told me, attracting great attention in engineering circles, and there had been a hot discussion over its theoretical principles, but its advocates had successfully vanquished all their antagonists and now the invention was established on a perfectly sound scientific basis. If I would give him a receipt in full for the money that he owed me and put another $100 into this enterprise, he was in a position to secure for me a number of rights to use the machine. He kindly offered to introduce me to Mr. Sawyer. Mr. Gwynne was unfortunately absent from home at the time. (I learned afterwards that he was in jail.) Mr. Sawyer received me most graciously. I think he had been told by Mr. Searle about how much taffy I might be expected to swallow, but he must have ventured far beyond his instructions. He told me that he was delighted to make my acquaintance; he had frequently heard of me through our mutual friend, Mr. Searle, and of my triumphs at the bar, and had come to feel a great admiration for me, and was proud to show this great invention to a man so eminently capable of appreciating it. He told me that the invention was a practical method of utilizing that wonderful power known as centrifugal force. This force could be obtained in any amount. In fact, it was the force that kept the universe in motion. It had lain unutilized for so long a time because engineers had never been able to apply it practically. This difficulty had been completely overcome in this great invention, and this wonderful power was now to be made available for the world. He gave me quite an oration on the subject, saying, “We do not antagonize the forces of nature, we utilize them and apply them to beneficial purposes; consequently all nature co-operates with us,” and more to the same effect. He was able to show me a working model of this great invention; was very sorry that he could not put it in motion for me that day, as it happened to be a little out of order; but I would be able to see the principle of its operation very distinctly. I was flattered into believing that I saw the principle, with the result that Mr. Sawyer saw the principal, and with the further result that after that I never saw or heard of either principal or interest. Our mutual friend, Mr. Searle, also disappeared.

This was my first lesson in mechanics, given to me by a master of his art. I am not sure, on the whole, but that in one way and another it has been worth the trifle it cost me.

Had any one at that time told me that the expression “centrifugal force” is entirely misleading, that in reality there is no such force, that what goes by this name is not a force at all, nothing but a resistance, the resistance which a body revolving around an exterior point opposes to being continually deflected from a straight line of motion, and which ceases the instant the deflecting force ceases, when the body merely moves on in a straight line tangent to the circle, and in bodies revolving around their own axes or centers of gravity is the same resistance of their atoms, he would probably have had about the same success in making me see it that I long afterwards had with some engineering friends.

It is difficult at the present day to conceive the confusion of thought which then prevailed on this subject. The language of text-books was vague in the extreme.

The coincidence is not without interest, that my first mechanical experience, though in this ridiculous fashion, should have been with what was to become so prominent a feature of the high speed governors and engine.

I had for some time felt a growing disgust with the profession of the law. The contrast between the glorious science of human rights and the art of its practical application was very forcibly presented to my mind. I realized the fitness of the protest of Bryant, who described himself as being “forced to drudge for the dregs of men.” I was a regular reader of the Evening Post, in which an article appeared one day, written by John Bigelow, then the editor of the Post, laudatory of a certain judge whose term on the bench had lately closed, and who then retired from the profession. On this act Mr. Bigelow warmly congratulated him. Among a number of pungent expressions in the article I was particularly struck by this one: “The association of lawyers is mostly with knaves and fools.” My own experience bore witness to the truth of this statement. A few legal successes, which cost me incredible labor, interspersed of course with disappointments, weighed nothing compared with the daily association which I seemed compelled to endure. I formed a scheme for establishing a conciliation office for the amicable settlement of disputes, but found every man prepared to compromise on the extreme verge of his own position. So I gave that up.