"I remain, Sir,
"Your humble servant,
"Richard. Trevithick.
"If you can spare time please to write to me."
The foregoing may be classed either under cannon or steam-engine; Trevithick combined them under the general laws of expansion by heat. Three years had passed since the committee of artillery officers sitting on his gun had given a verdict of no go; yet the subject was not forgotten, and his calculations enabled him to discover the explosive force, and the speed of the projectile in different parts of the gun, things which are now ascertained by mechanical tests and measures.
If a 7-inch cannon 9 feet long loses by absorption of heat during the time of the passage of the shot to the muzzle one-half of the expansive force of the powder, it is time to wrap our guns as well as our steam-engines in non-conductors. The greater heat of exploded powder than of steam caused eighty-eight times the amount of loss from abstracted heat, and yet the force from a pound of carbon in powder, was fourteen times as much as the Watt engine gave from a pound of coal.
"London, No. 42, St. Mary Axe, June 18th, 1828.
""Mr. Giddy,
"Sir,—A few days since a Mr. Linthorn called on me and requested me to accompany him to Cable Street, near the Brunswick Theatre, to see a crane worked by the atmosphere, in a double-acting engine attached to it. He has a patent, and has entered into a contract with the St. Katharine's Dock Company to work their cranes, 140 in number, by a steam-engine of sufficient power to command the whole of them, by placing air-pipes around the docks, with a branch to each crane. To each crane is fixed a 10-inch cylinder, 20-inch stroke, double-acting. The atmosphere pressing on the piston like steam, the air is drawn from the pipes by a large air-pump and steam-engine.
"On being requested to give my opinion on this plan, after seeing one crane worked, I informed them of the disappointment that the ironmaster, Mr. Wilkinson, in Shropshire, several years since experienced, on the resistance of air in passing through long pipes from his blast-engine to his furnaces. He said he was aware of that circumstance, and it had since been further proved in London by one of the gas companies attempting to force gas a considerable distance, and who also failed.
"He thought that forcing an elastic fluid, and drawing it by a vacuum, were very different things, and that the error was removed by drawing in place of forcing. For my part I am not convinced on this head; but am still of opinion that the result on trial will be found nearly the same. However, let that be as it may, the expense and complication of the machine, having a double engine, with its gear attached to every separate crane, together with the immense quantity of air thrown into the air-pump from 140 double engines of 10 inches diameter, 20-inch stroke, eighty strokes per minute, and considering the numerous air leaks in such an extent of pipes and machines, must reduce the effect of the pressure of the atmosphere on each piston to a comparatively small power, unless the air-pump and steam-engine are beyond all reasonable bounds.
"Those objections I made them acquainted with, and said that, before they went to such an expense, it would be a safer plan to first make further inquiry, so that their first experiment might be on a sure plan, for the other dock companies were looking for the results of this experiment.