Every-day Science: Volume 6. The Conquest of Nature

by Henry Smith Williams; Edward Huntington Williams

A MODEL OF THE NEWCOMEN ENGINE.

This engine has particular interest not only because it was a practical pumping engine, but also because it was while repairing an engine of this type that Watt was led to the experiments that resulted in his epoch-making discovery.

THE COMING OF JAMES WATT

The Newcomen engine had low working efficiency as compared with the modern engine; nevertheless, some of these engines are still used in a few collieries where waste coal is available, the pressure enabling the steam to be generated in boilers unsafe for other purposes. The great importance of the Newcomen engine, however, is historical; for it was while engaged in repairing a model of one of these engines that James Watt was led to invent his plan of condensing the steam, not in the working cylinder itself, but in a separate vessel,—the principle upon which such vast improvements in the steam engine were to depend.

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the work which Watt accomplished in developing the steam engine. Fully to appreciate it, we must understand that up to this time the steam engine had a very limited sphere of usefulness. The Newcomen engine represented the most developed form, as we have seen; and this, like the others that it had so largely superseded, was employed solely for the pumping of water. In the main, its use was confined to mines, which were often rendered unworkable because of flooding. We have already seen that a considerable number of engines were in use, yet their power in the aggregate added but a trifle to man's working efficiency, and the work that they did accomplish was done in a most uneconomical manner. Indeed the amount of fuel required was so great as to prohibit their use in many mines, which would have been valuable could a cheaper means have been found of freeing them from water. Watt's inventions, as we shall see, accomplished this end, as well as various others that were not anticipated.

It was through consideration of the wasteful manner of action of the steam engine that Watt was led to give attention to the subject. The great inventor was a young man at the University of Glasgow. He had previously served an apprenticeship of one year with a maker of philosophical instruments in London, but ill health had prevented him from finishing his apprenticeship, and he had therefore been prohibited from practising his would-be profession in Glasgow. Finally, however, he had been permitted to work under the auspices of the University; and in due course, as a part of his official duties, he was engaged in repairing a model of the Newcomen engine. This incident is usually mentioned as having determined the line of Watt's future activity.

It should be recalled, however, that Watt had become a personal friend of the celebrated Professor Black, the discoverer of latent heat, and the foremost authority in the world, in this period, on the study of pneumatics. Just what share Black had in developing Watt's idea, or in directing his studies toward the expansive properties of steam, it would perhaps be difficult to say. It is known, however, that the subject was often under discussion; and the interest evinced in it by Black is shown by the fact that he subsequently wrote a history of Watt's inventions.

It is never possible, perhaps, for even the inventor himself to re-live the history of the growth of an idea in his own mind. Much less is it possible for him to say precisely what share of his progress has been due to chance suggestions of others. But it is interesting, at least, to recall this association of Watt with the greatest experimenter of his age in a closely allied field. Questions of suggestion aside, it illustrates the technical quality of Watt's mind, making it obvious that he was no mere ingenious mechanic, who stumbled upon his invention. He was, in point of fact, a carefully trained scientific experimenter, fully equipped with all the special knowledge of his time in its application to the particular branch of pneumatics to which he gave attention.

The first and most obvious defect in the Newcomen engine was, as Watt discovered, that the alternating cooling and heating of the cylinder resulted in an unavoidable waste of energy. The apparatus worked, it will be recalled, by the introduction of steam into a vertical cylinder beneath the piston, the cylinder being open above the piston to admit the air. The piston rod connected with a beam suspended in the middle, which operated the pump, and which was weighted at one end in order to facilitate the raising of the piston. The steam, introduced under low pressure, scarcely more than counteracted the pressure of the air, the raising of the piston being largely accomplished by the weight in question.