A MARVELLOUS DEVELOPMENT.

Bush Advocate, Volume I, Issue 11, 31 May 1888, Page 2

A MARVELLOUS DEVELOPMENT.

* . The dream of engineers and mechanicians is boing realised. A rotary steam engine has boen shown to be not only possible, but fulfilling tho requirements at which intelligent designers of steam engines have always aimed. Tho new engine is compact, economical, expansive in its working, and capable of developing an almost infinite amount of power. This sounds a little imaginative, but it is sober truth. The engine is the patent of Messrs Sturgess aud Towlson, of the Vulcan Iron Works, St. Miohael-at-Coslany, and is the invention of Mr Edward Towlson. The difficulty is to describe the little Avonder, because being simplicity itself, showing very little outside gear, it will be supposed that something is being left unsaid, no matter how full and ample that description may be. Imagine, then two small cylinders with a broak at their internal point of contact, so that neither is a complete circle. "Within each oompartment of this duplex oylindor is set a wheel, furnished with ono largo tooth, which acts as a piston. The tooth of either wheel falls each revolution into a corresponding space of the other wheel, an arrangement which, it will be seen, was necessary for forming a perfectly steamtight space for the steam admitted. The power obtained may be utilised from either one or both wheels. "When steam is admitted both wheels commence to revolve in opposite directions, and upon the point of completing their first ..revolution, the tbotjl

passes an exhaust port which relieves the cylinder of the back steam before the tooth passes to the feecl port ; and thus the thing works merrily and without any complication of parts, etc. The principal feature, then, of the invention, consists in the application of high pressure of steam to the faces of two teeth enclosed in two cylinders. .Literally; speaking, ? one of the engines * developing "ton-horse power, with .a steam pressjuriJ-fif^Ol^j may be put into a tall hat, at least one df the old-fashioned stoye>pipphats. One of the most approved ''forms and mOst modern df 'horizontal steam engines, giving ten-horse power, weighs 10c wt. This new rotary engine, weighs lowt. It has already been put to the test of practical work in driving the patentees' engineering plant, and at Thorpe Asylum was worked for twelve hours, performing 1,500 revolutions per minute, being used on that occasion in; driving dynamos for electric lighting, for whicli, with its high speed, it is peculiarly suitable. "When worked at a speed of 2,000 revolutions per minute it can be stopped, . reversed, and started again in ten seconds. Engineers will understand when it |s. stated that it has a running piston-speed of from 4,000 ft to 5,000fi ; per minute. The inyehtion is .destined to revolutionise steiiffi engine'construction iv the future.