A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine Part 29

The modern steamship is as wonderful an ill.u.s.tration of ingenuity and skill in all interior arrangements as in size, power, and speed. The size of sea-going steamers has become so great that it is unsafe to intrust the raising of the anchor or the steering of the vessel to manual power and skill; and these operations, as well as the loading and unloading of the vessel, are now the work of the same great motor--steam.

The now common form of auxiliary engine for controlling the helm is one of the inventions of the American engineer F. E. Sickels, who devised the "Sickels cut-off," and was first invented about 1850. It was exhibited at London at the International Exhibition of 1851. It consists[98] princ.i.p.ally of two cylinders working at right angles upon a shaft geared into a large wheel fastened by a friction-plate lined with wood, and set by a screw to any desired pressure on the steering-apparatus. The wheel turned by the steersman is connected with the valve-gear of the cylinders, so that the steam, or other motor, will move the rudder precisely as the helmsman moves the wheel adjusting the steam-valves. This wheel thus becomes the steering-wheel. The apparatus is usually so arranged that it may be connected or disconnected in an instant, and hand-steering adopted if the smoothness of the sea and the low speed of the vessel make it desirable or convenient. This method was first adopted in the United States on the steamship Augusta.

[98] "Official Catalogue," 1862, vol. iv., Cla.s.s viii., p. 123.

The same inventor and others have contrived "steam-windla.s.ses," some of which are in general use on large vessels. The machinery of these vessels is also often fitted with a steam "reversing-gear," by means of which the engines are as easily man[oe]uvred as are those of the smallest vessels, to which hand-gear is always fitted. In one of these little auxiliary engines, as devised by the author, a small handle being adjusted to a marked position, as to the point marked "stop" on an index-plate, the auxiliary engine at once starts, throws the valve-gear into the proper position--as, if a link-motion, into "middle-gear"--thus stopping the large engines, and then it itself stops. Setting the handle so that its pointer shall point to "ahead,"

the little engine starts again, sets the link in position to go ahead, thus starting the large engines, and again stops itself. If set at "back," the same series of operations occurs, leaving the main engines backing and the little "reversing engine" stopped. A number of forms of reversing engine are in use, each adapted to some one type of engine.

The hull of the transatlantic steamer is now always of iron, and is divided into a number of "compartments," each of which is water-tight and separated from the adjacent compartments by iron "bulkheads," in which are fitted doors which, when closed, are also water-tight. In some cases these doors close automatically when the water rises in the vessel, thus confining it to the leaking portion.

Thus we have already seen a change in transoceanic lines from steamers like the Great Western (1837), 212 feet in length, of 35-1/2 feet beam, and 23 feet depth, driven by engines of 450 horse-power, and requiring 15 days to cross the Atlantic, to steamships over 550 feet long, 55 feet beam, and 55 feet deep, with engines of 10,000 horse-power, crossing the Atlantic in 7 days; iron subst.i.tuted for wood in construction, the cost of fuel reduced one-half, and the speed raised from 8 to 18 knots and over. In the earlier days of steamships they were given a proportion of length to breadth of from 5 to 6 to 1; in forty years the proportion increased until 11 to 1 was reached.

The whole naval establishment of every country has been greatly modified by the recent changes in methods of attack and defense; but the several cla.s.ses of ships which still form the naval marine are all as dependent upon their steam-machinery as ever.

[Ill.u.s.tration: H. B. M. Iron-Clad Captain. H. B. M. Iron-Clad Thunderer. U. S. Iron-Clad Dictator. U. S. Iron-Clad Monitor. H. B. M.

Iron-Clad Giatton. French Iron-Clad Dunderberg. FIG. 145.--Modern Iron-Clads.]

It is only recently that the attempt seems to have been made to determine a cla.s.sification of war-vessels and to plan a naval establishment which shall be likely to meet fully the requirements of the immediate future. It has. .h.i.therto been customary simply to make each ship a little stronger, faster, or more powerful to resist or to make attack than was the last. The fact that the direction of progress in naval science and architecture is plainly perceivable, and that upon its study may be based a fair estimate of the character and relative distribution of several cla.s.ses of vessels, seems to have been appreciated by very few.

In the year 1870 the writer proposed[99] a cla.s.sification of vessels other than torpedo-vessels, which has since been also proposed in a somewhat modified form by Mr. J. Scott Russell.[100] The author then remarked that the increase so rapidly occurring in weight of ordnance and of armor, and in speed of war-vessels, would probably soon compel a division of the vessels of every navy into three cla.s.ses of ships, exclusive of torpedo-vessels, one for general service in time of peace, the others for use only in time of war.

[99] _Journal Franklin Inst.i.tute_, 1870. H. B. M. S. Monarch.

[100] London _Engineering_, 1875.

"The first cla.s.s may consist of unarmored vessels of moderate size, fair speed under steam, armed with a few tolerably heavy guns, and carrying full sail-power.

"The second cla.s.s may be vessels of great speed under steam, unarmored, carrying light batteries and as great spread of canvas as can readily be given them; very much such vessels as the Wampanoag cla.s.s of our own navy were intended to be--calculated expressly to destroy the commerce of an enemy.

"The third cla.s.s may consist of ships carrying the heaviest possible armor and armament, with strongly-built bows, the most powerful machinery that can be given them, of large coal-carrying capacity, and unenc.u.mbered by sails, everything being made secondary to the one object of obtaining victory in contending with the most powerful of possible opponents. Such vessels could never go to sea singly, but would cruise in couples or in squadrons. It seems hardly doubtful that attempts to combine the qualities of all cla.s.ses in a single vessel, as has. .h.i.therto been done, will be necessarily given up, although the cla.s.sification indicated will certainly tend largely to restrict naval operations."

The introduction of the stationary, the floating, and the automatic cla.s.ses of torpedoes, and of torpedo-vessels, has now become accomplished, and this element, which it was predicted by Bushnell and by Fulton three-quarters of a century ago would at some future time become important in warfare, is now well recognized by all nations.

How far it may modify future naval establishments cannot be yet confidently stated, but it seems sufficiently evident that the attack, by any navy, of stationary defenses protected by torpedoes is now quite a thing of the past. It may be perhaps looked upon as exceedingly probable that torpedo-ships of very high speed will yet drive all heavily-armored vessels from the ocean, thus completing the historic parallel between the man-in-armor of the middle ages and the armored man-of-war of our own time.[101]

[101] _Vide_ "Report on Machinery and Manufactures, etc., at Vienna," by the author, Washington, 1875.

Of these cla.s.ses, the third is of most interest, as exhibiting most perfectly the importance and variety of the work which the steam-engine is made to perform. On the later of these vessels, the anchor is raised by a steam anchor-hoisting apparatus; the heavier spars and sails are handled by the aid of a steam-windla.s.s; the helm is controlled by a steering-engine, and the helmsman, with his little finger, sets in motion a steam-engine, which adjusts the rudder with a power which is unimpeded by wind or sea, and with an exactness that could not be exceeded by the hand-steering gear of a yacht; the guns are loaded by steam, are elevated or depressed, and are given lateral training, by the same power; the turrets in which the guns are incased are turned, and the guns are whirled toward every point of the compa.s.s, in less time than is required to sponge and reload them; and the ship itself is driven through the water by the power of ten thousand horses, at a speed which is only excelled on land by that of the railroad-train.

The British Minotaur was one of the earlier iron-clads. The great length and consequent difficulty of man[oe]uvring, the defect of speed, and the weakness of armor of these vessels have led to the subst.i.tution of far more effective designs in later constructions. The Minotaur is a four-masted screw iron-clad, 400 feet long, of 59 feet beam and 26-1/2 feet draught of water. Her speed at sea is about 12-1/2 knots, and her engines develop, as a maximum, nearly 6,000 indicated horse-power. Her heaviest armor-plates are but 6 inches in thickness. Her extreme length and her unbalanced rudder make it difficult to turn rapidly. With _eighteen men at the steering-wheel_ and sixty others on the tackle, the ship, on one occasion, was 7-1/2 minutes in turning completely around. These long iron-clads were succeeded by the shorter vessels designed by Mr. E. J. Reed, of which the first, the Bellerophon, was of 4,246 tons burden, 300 feet long by 56 feet beam, and 24-1/2 feet draught, of the 14-knot speed, with 4,600 horse-power; and having the "balanced rudder" used many years earlier in the United States by Robert L. Stevens,[102] it can turn in four minutes with eight men at the wheel. The cost of construction was some $600,000 less than that of the Minotaur. A still later vessel, the Monarch, was constructed on a system quite similar to that known in the United States as the Monitor type, or as a turreted iron-clad.

This vessel is 330 feet long, 57-1/2 feet wide, and 36 feet deep, drawing 24-1/2 feet of water. The total weight of ship and contents is over 8,000 tons, and the engines are of over 8,500 horse-power. The armor is 6 and 7 inches thick on the hull, and 8 inches on the two turrets, over a heavy teak backing. The turrets contain each two 12-inch rifled guns, weighing 25 tons each, and, with a charge of 70 pounds of powder, throwing a shot of 600 pounds weight with a velocity of 1,200 feet per second, and giving it a _vis viva_ equivalent to the raising of over 6,100 tons one foot high, and equal to the work of penetrating an iron plate 13-1/2 inches thick. This immense vessel is driven by a pair of "single-cylinder" engines having steam-cylinders _ten feet_ in diameter and of 4-1/2 feet stroke of piston, driving a two-bladed Griffith screw of 23-1/2 feet diameter and 26-1/2 feet pitch, 65 revolutions, at the maximum speed of 14.9 knots, or about 17-1/2 miles, an hour. To drive these powerful engines, boilers having an aggregate of about 25,000 square feet (or more than a half-acre) of heating-surface are required, with 900 square feet of grate-surface.

The refrigerating surface in the condensers has an area of 16,500 square feet--over one-third of an acre. The cost of these engines and boilers was 66,500.

[102] Still in use on the Hoboken ferry-boats.

Were all this vast steam-power developed, giving the vessel a speed of 15 knots, the ship, if used as a "ram," would strike an enemy at rest with the tremendous "energy" of 48,000 foot-tons--equal to the shock of the projectiles of eight or nine such guns as are carried by the iron-clad itself, simultaneously discharged upon one spot.

But even this great vessel is less formidable than later vessels. One of the latter, the Inflexible, is a shorter but wider and deeper ship than the Monarch, measuring 320 feet long, 75 feet beam, and 25 draught, displacing over 10,000 tons. The great rifles carried by this vessel weigh 81 tons each, throwing shot weighing a half-ton from behind iron-plating two feet in thickness. The steam-engines are of about the same power as those of the Monarch, and give this enormous hull a speed of 14 knots an hour.

The navy of the United States does not to-day possess iron-clads of power even approximating that of either of several cla.s.ses of British and other foreign naval vessels.

The largest vessel of any cla.s.s yet constructed is the Great Eastern (Fig. 146), begun in 1854 and completed in 1859, by J. Scott Russell, on the Thames, England. This ship is 680 feet long, 83 feet wide, 58 feet deep, 28 feet draught, and of 24,000 tons measurement. There are four paddle and four screw engines, the former having steam-cylinders 74 inches in diameter, with 14 feet stroke, the latter 84 inches in diameter and 4 feet stroke. They are collectively of 10,000 actual horse-power. The paddle-wheels are 56 feet in diameter, the screw 24 feet. The steam-boilers supplying the paddle-engines have 44,000 square feet (more than an acre) of heating-surface. The boilers supplying the screw-engines are still larger. At 30 feet draught, this great vessel displaces 27,000 tons. The engines were designed to develop 10,000 horse-power, driving the ship at the rate of 16-1/2 statute miles an hour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 146.--The Great Eastern.]

The figures quoted in the descriptions of these great steamships do not enable the non-professional reader to form a conception of the wonderful power which is concentrated within so small a s.p.a.ce as is occupied by their steam-machinery. The "horse-power" of the engines is that determined by James Watt as the maximum obtainable for eight hours a day from the strongest London draught-horses. The ordinary average draught-horse would hardly be able to exert two-thirds as much during the eight hours' steady work of a working-day. The working-day of the steam-engine, on the other hand, is twenty-four hours in length.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 147.--The Great Eastern at Sea.]

The work of the 10,000 horse-power engines of the Great Eastern could be barely equaled by the efforts of 15,000 horses; but to continue their work uninterruptedly, day in and day out, for weeks together, as when done by steam, would require at least three relays, or 45,000 horses. Such a stud would weigh 25,000 tons, and if harnessed "tandem"

would extend thirty miles. It is only by such a comparison that the mind can begin to comprehend the utter impossibility of accomplishing by means of animal power the work now done for the world by steam.

The cost of the greater power is but about one-tenth that of horse-power, and by its means tasks are accomplished with ease which are absolutely impossible of accomplishment by animal power.

It is estimated that the total steam-power of the world is about 15,000,000 horse-power, and that, were horses actually employed to do the work which these engines would be capable of doing were they kept constantly in operation, the number required would exceed 60,000,000.

Thus, from the small beginnings of the Comte d'Auxiron and the Marquis de Jouffroy in France, of Symmington in Great Britain, and of Henry, Rumsey, and Fitch, and of Fulton and Stevens, in the United States, steam-navigation has grown into a great and inestimable aid and blessing to mankind.

We to-day cross the ocean with less risk, and transport ourselves and our goods at as little cost in either time or money as, at the beginning of the century, our parents experienced in traveling one-tenth the distance.

It is largely in consequence of this ingenious application of a power that reminds one of the fabled genii of Eastern romance, that the mechanic and the laborer of to-day enjoy comforts and luxuries that were denied to wealth, and to royalty itself, a century ago.

The magnitude of our modern steamships excites the wonder and admiration of even the people of our own time; and there is certainly no creation of art that can be grander in appearance than a transatlantic steamer a hundred and fifty yards in length, and weighing, with her stores, five or six thousand tons, as she starts on her voyage, moved by engines equal in power to the united strength of thousands of horses; none can more fully awaken a feeling of awe than an immense structure like the great modern iron-clads (Fig. 145), vessels having a total weight of 8,000 to 10,000 tons, and propelled by steam-engines of as many horse-power, carrying guns whose shot penetrate solid iron 20 inches thick, and having a power of impact, when steaming at moderate speed, sufficient to raise 35,000 tons a foot high.

Far more huge than the Monarch among the iron-clads even is that prematurely-built monster, the Great Eastern (Fig. 147), already described, an eighth of a mile long, and with steam doing the work of a stud of 45,000 horses.

Thus we are to-day witnessing the literal fulfillment of the predictions of Oliver Evans and of John Stevens, and almost that contained in the couplets written by the poet Darwin, who, more than a century ago, before even the earliest of Watt's improvements had become generally known, sang:

"Soon shall thy arm, unconquered Steam, afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car; Or, on wide-waving wings expanded, bear The flying chariot through the fields of air."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VII.

_THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE STEAM-ENGINE._

THE HISTORY OF ITS GROWTH; ENERGETICS AND THERMO-DYNAMICS.

"Of all the features which characterize this progressive economical movement of civilized nations, that which first excites attention, through its intimate connection with the phenomena of production, is the perpetual and, so far as human foresight can extend, the unlimited growth of man's power over Nature. Our knowledge of the properties and laws of physical objects shows no sign of approaching its ultimate boundaries; it is advancing more rapidly, and in a greater number of directions at once, than in any previous age or generation, and affording such frequent glimpses of unexplored fields beyond as to justify the belief that our acquaintance with Nature is still almost in its infancy."--MILL.

The growth of the philosophy of the steam-engine presents as interesting a study as that of the successive changes which have occurred in its mechanism.

In the operation of the steam-engine we find ill.u.s.trated many of the most important principles and facts which const.i.tute the physical sciences. The steam-engine is an exceedingly ingenious, but, unfortunately, still very imperfect, machine for transforming the heat-energy obtained by the chemical combination of a combustible with the supporter of combustion into mechanical energy. But the original source of all this energy is found far back of its first appearance in the steam-boiler. It had its origin at the beginning, when all Nature came into existence. After the solar system had been formed from the nebulous chaos of creation, the glowing ma.s.s which is now called the sun was the depository of a vast store of heat-energy, which was thence radiated into s.p.a.ce and showered upon the attendant worlds in inconceivable quant.i.ty and with unmeasured intensity. During the past life of the globe, the heat-energy received from the sun upon the earth's surface was partly expended in the production of great forests, and the storage, in the trunks, branches, and leaves of the trees of which they were composed, of an immense quant.i.ty of carbon, which had previously existed in the atmosphere, combined with oxygen, as carbonic acid. The great geological changes which buried these forests under superinc.u.mbent strata of rock and earth resulted in the formation of coal-beds, and the storage, during many succeeding ages, of a vast amount of carbon, of which the affinity for oxygen remained unsatisfied until finally uncovered by the hand of man. Thus we owe to the heat and light of the sun, as was pointed out by George Stephenson, the incalculable store of potential energy upon which the human race is so dependent for life and all its necessaries, comforts, and luxuries.

This coal, thrown upon the grate in the steam-boiler, takes fire, and, uniting again with the oxygen, sets free heat in precisely the same quant.i.ty that it was received from the sun and appropriated during the growth of the tree. The actual energy thus rendered available is transferred, by conduction and radiation, to the water in the steam-boiler, converts it into steam, and its mechanical effect is seen in the expansion of the liquid into vapor against the superinc.u.mbent pressure. Transferred from the boiler to the engine, the steam is there permitted to expand, doing work, and the heat-energy with which it is charged becomes partly converted into mechanical energy, and is applied to useful work in the mill or to driving the locomotive or the steamboat.

Thus we may trace the store of energy received from the sun and contained in our coal through its several changes until it is finally set at work; and we might go still further and observe how, in each case, it is again usually re-transformed and again set free as heat-energy.