THE STEAM ENGINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 41, 18 February 1933, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE STEAM ENGINE.

AX ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY. The discovery of the method of making a vacuum by the condensation of steam was reproduced, before 1098, by Captain Thomas Savery. His discovery of the condensing principle arose from the following circumstance : Having drunk a flask of wine at a tavern, and flung the empty flask in the fire, he called for a basin of water to wash his hands. A small quantity which remained in the flask began to boil, and steam issued from its mouth. It occurred to him to try -what effect would be pi'oduced by inverting the flask and plunging its mouth in the cold water. Putting on a thick glove to defend hie hand from the heat, he seized the flask, and the moment he plunged ite mouth in the water the liquid immediately rushed up into the flask and filled it. Savery stated this circumstance immediately suggested to him the possibility of giving effect to the atmospheric pressure by creating a vacuum in tliis manner. .Hβ thought that if, instead of exhausting the barrel of a pump by the usual laborious method of a piston

and sucker, it .was exhausted by first fillin" it with steam and then condensing the same steam, the. atmospheric pressure would force the water from the well into the pump barrel, and into any vessel connected with it, provided that vessel were not more than about 34 feet above the elevation of the water in the well. He perceived aleo that, having lifted the water to this height, he might use the elastic force of steam to raise the same water to a still greater elevation, and that the same steam, which accomplished this mechanical effect would serve, by its subsequent condensation, to reproduce the vacuum, and draw up more water. It was on this principle that Savery constructed the first engine in which steam was ever brought into practical operation.