Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century

by Robert Routledge

Some time has elapsed since the foregoing paragraph was written for an earlier edition of this work, and during that period there has been an advance in both practice and opinion; so that now it has become highly probable that before the century ends a great change may be witnessed in our modes of locomotion, even on ordinary roads. Already every town of importance throughout the United Kingdom has been provided with excellent tramways, along which, in not a few instances, horseless vehicles roll smoothly, to the great convenience of the general public, while not one of the difficulties and dangers to general street traffic has been experienced that were so confidently predicted by those who were unable to perceive that an innovation might be an improvement. The now universally-popular bicycle has been continually receiving improvements, of which there appears to be no end, and as the machine and all the contrivances connected with it are so familiar to everyone, there is no need here to do more than to refer to them, because they have led the way to great improvements in ordinary carriages.

The steam-propelled vehicle for common roads has just been mentioned as an invention belonging to the first half of the century, and the reasons it did not find favour have been alluded to. There exists in the United Kingdom a law concerning horseless carriages travelling on highways, which was passed to apply to traction engines, and enacts that other than horse vehicles are not to go along a road at a greater speed than four miles an hour, and only two miles an hour through a town, and moreover they are to be preceded by a man bearing a red flag, etc. But a bill has been introduced (1895) into the legislature to amend this law, and permit the British people to use on their common roads such light self-propelled carriages as are becoming popular in France, as may be seen from the following account:—

On Tuesday, 11th June, 1895, a race was started from Versailles to Bordeaux and back, a distance of 727 miles or more for the double journey. The first prize was the substantial sum of 40,000 francs (£1,600), to which was attached the condition of the carriage seating four persons, and other prizes were also to be awarded to various kinds of automatic vehicles. No fewer than sixty-six vehicles were entered for competition, and these were variously supplied with motive power from steam, electricity, or petroleum spirit. The starting place was Versailles at 12·9 p.m., and at 10·32 on Wednesday morning MM. Panhard & Levassor’s petroleum carriage arrived at Bordeaux, whence, after a stop of only four minutes, the return journey was begun, but shortly afterward an accident caused a delay of one hour, but the carriage made the whole distance at the average of 14·9 miles per hour. In this and three other carriages belonging to the same firm, the propeller was the Daimler motor. Though this carriage was the first to accomplish the trip it received only the second prize, the condition of seating four persons not having been complied with. The first prize fell to a four-seated vehicle by Les Fils de Peugeot Frères, a firm who carried off besides the third and fourth prizes. These carriages were also driven by so-called petroleum motors. These motors are really gas engines on the principle to be presently mentioned, but the gas is produced by the vapourisation of a volatile constituent of petroleum (benzoline). The Daimler motor is a compact combination of two cylinders connected with a chamber containing the explosive mixture of gas and air. The pistons perform their in and out strokes simultaneously, but their working strokes alternately.

PORTABLE ENGINES.

The application of steam power to agricultural operations has led to the construction of engines specially adapted by their simplicity and portability for the end in view. The movable agricultural engines have, like the locomotives, a fire-box nearly surrounded by the water, and horizontal tubes, and are set on wheels, so that they may be drawn by horses from place to place. There is usually one cylinder placed horizontally on the top of the boiler; and the piston-rod, working in guides, is, as in the old locomotive, attached by a connecting-rod to the crank of a shaft, which carries a fly-wheel, eccentrics, and pulleys for belts to communicate the motion to the machines. Engines of this kind are also much used by contractors, for hoisting stones, mixing mortar, &c. These engines are made with endless diversities of details, though in most such simplicity of arrangement is secured, that a labourer of ordinary intelligence may, after a little instruction, be trusted with the charge of the engine; while their economy of fuel, efficiency, and cheapness are not exceeded in any other class of steam engine.

Besides the steam engines already described or alluded to, there are many interesting forms of the direct application of steam power. There are, for example, the steam roller and the steam fire-engine. The former is a kind of heavy locomotive, moving on ponderous rollers, which support the greater part of the weight of the engine. When this machine is made to pass slowly over roads newly laid with broken stones, a few repetitions of the process suffice to crush down the stones and consolidate the materials, so as at once to form a smooth road. Steam power is applied to the fire engine, not to propel it through the streets, but to work the pumps which force up the water. The boilers of these engines are so arranged that in a few minutes a pressure of steam can be obtained sufficient to throw an effective jet of water. The cut at the end of this chapter represents a very efficient engine of this kind, which will throw a jet 200 feet high, delivering 1,100 gallons of water per minute. It has two steam cylinders and two pumps, each making a stroke of two feet. These are placed horizontally, the pumps and the air reservoir occupying the front part of the engine, while the vertical boiler is placed behind. The steam cylinders, which are partly hid in the cut by the iron frame of the engine, are not attached to the boiler, which by this arrangement is saved from injurious strains produced by the action of the moving parts of the mechanism. There are seats for eight firemen, underneath which is a space where the hose is carried. A first-class steam fire-engine of this kind, completely fitted, costs upwards of £1,300.

A cheap and very convenient prime mover has lately come into use, which has certain advantages over even the steam engine. Where a moderate or a very small power is required, especially where it is used only at intervals, the gas engine is found to be more convenient. It is small and compact, no boiler or furnace is required, and it can be started at any moment. As now made, it works smoothly and without noise. The piston is impelled, not by the expansive force of steam, but by that of heated air, the heat being generated by the explosion of a mixture of common coal gas and air within the cylinder itself. Thus a series of small explosions has the same effect as the admissions of steam through a valve. A due quantity of gas and air is introduced into the cylinder, and is ignited by the momentary opening of a communication with a lighted gas jet outside. But the machine is provided with a regulator or governor, which so acts on the valve mechanism that this communication is made at each stroke only when the speed of rotation falls below a certain assigned limit, and thus the number of the explosions is less than the number of strokes, unless its work absorbs the machine’s whole energy, which, according to the size of the engine, may be from that of a child up to 30–horse power.

THE STEAM HAMMER.

Before the invention of the steam hammer, large forge hammers had been in use actuated by steam, but in an indirect manner, the hammer having been lifted by cams and other expedients, which rendered the apparatus cumbersome, costly, and very wasteful of power, on account of the indirect way in which the original source of the force, namely, the pressure of the steam, had to reach its point of application by giving the blow to the hammer. Not only did the necessary mechanism for communicating the force in this roundabout manner interfere with the space necessary for the proper handling of the article to be forged, but the range of the fall of the hammer being only about 18 in., caused a very rapid decrease in the energy of the blow when only a very moderate-sized piece of iron was introduced. For example, a piece of iron 9 in. in diameter reduced the fall of the mass forming the hammer to one-half, and the work it could accomplish was diminished in like proportion. Besides, as the hammer was attached to a lever working on a centre, the striking face of the hammer was parallel to the anvil only at one particular point of its fall; and again, as the hammer was always necessarily raised to the same height at each stroke, there was absolutely no means of controlling the force of the blow. When we reflect on the fact that the rectilinear motion of the piston in the cylinder of the engine had first to be converted into a rotary one, by beams, connecting-rod, crank, &c., and then this rotary movement transformed into a lifting one by the intervention of wheels, shafts, cams, &c., while all that is required in the hammer is a straight up-and-down movement, the wonder is that such an indirect and cumbersome application of power should have for so many years been contentedly used. But in November, 1839, Mr. Nasmyth, an eminent engineer of Manchester, received a letter from a correspondent, informing him of the difficulty he had found in carrying out an order received for the forging of a shaft for the paddle-wheels of a steamer, which shaft was required to be 3 ft. in diameter. There was in all England no forge hammer capable of executing such a piece of work. This caused Mr. Nasmyth to reflect on the construction of forge hammers, and in a few minutes he had formed the conception of the steam hammer. He immediately sketched the design, and soon afterward the steam hammer was a fait accompli, for Mr. Nasmyth had one at once executed and erected at his works, where he invited all concerned to come and witness its performances. Will it be believed that four years elapsed before this admirable application of steam power found employment outside the walls of Mr. Nasmyth’s workshops? After a time he succeeded in making those best able to profit by such an invention aware of the new power—for such it has practically proved itself, having done more to revolutionize the manufacture of iron than any other inventions that can be named, except, perhaps, those of Cort and Bessemer. The usual prejudice attending the introduction of any new machine, however obvious its advantages are afterward admitted to be, at length cleared away, and the steam hammer is from henceforth an absolute necessity in every engineering workshop, and scarcely less so for some of the early stages of the process of manufacturing crude wrought iron. Whether blows of enormous energy or gentle taps are required, or strokes of every gradation and in any order, the steam hammer is ready to supply them.