Page 12 Advertisements Column 7

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21530, 30 December 1931, Page 12

A very old steam engine, which helped to riek the corn and acted at other times as a scarecrow, rests to-day in Mr Henry Ford’s museum at Dearborn, presented to him by the Earl of Stamford. Fairbottom Bobs, as this engine is called, was a feeble old thing, a most primitive beam engine, its cylinder piston kept steam tight by throwing shovels of rubbish and water upon it every now and then, the modern steel piston ring not having then been invented. When first erected the engine was used to pump water from a mine, but to do this it had to be helped by a water wheel. The engine got its name from Fairbottom Farm in Ashton-under-Lyne, where it was built,of wood, iron and chains. The fact of its beam bobbing up and down when at work made it very effective as a scarecrow in days when the birds had a more tranquil time of it. The engine had stood idle for 100 years, half buried but -almost intact.