An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Steam Engine

One of the largest engines yet constructed, is now in action at the United Mine in Cornwall; it raises eighty thousand pounds one hundred feet in height per minute: and to effect this enormous labour, it only requires about thirty pounds of coal for the same period of time.

To the mining interests this valuable present of Science to the Arts has been peculiarly acceptable; as a large portion of our now most productive mineral districts must long ere this have been abandoned, had not the Steam Engine been employed as an active auxiliary in those stupendous works. In the draining of fens and marsh lands this machine is in the highest degree valuable; and in England, particularly, it might be rendered still more generally useful. In practice it has been ascertained that an engine of six-horse power, will drain more than eight thousand acres, raising the water six feet in height; while the cost of erection for an engine for this species of work, including the pumps, will not exceed seven hundred pounds. This is more than ten windmills can perform, at an annual expenditure of several hundred pounds; while, in the former case, the outgoings will not exceed one hundred and fifty pounds per annum.

To the mariner, also, the Steam Engine offers

advantages of a no less important and novel nature than those we have already described. By its use he is enabled to traverse the waters, both against wind and tide, with nearly as much certainty, and, as the machinery is now constructed, with much less danger, than by the most eligible road conveyance.

In proof of the speed of these vessels, it may be sufficient to state that the passage from or to London and Margate, which is more than eighty miles, by water, is often performed in the short space of seven or eight hours! It too frequently, however, happens that the faults of any new invention are unjustly magnified, while its real advantages are seldom duly appreciated; and this axiom has been fully verified, in the clamour so unjustly raised against the application of the Steam Engine to nautical purposes. Accidents are now, however, of but rare occurrence; and it is more than probable, that the great improvements that have been made in the boiler and safety-valve, will effectually secure these parts of the engine' from a recurrence of those tremendous explosions, which unfortunately characterized the first introduction of Steam Navigation.

And, lastly, the political economist must hail

with the most heartfelt gratification, the introduction of so able and efficient a substitute for animal labour as the Steam Engine. It has been calculated that there are at least ten thousand of these machines at this time at work in Great Britain; performing a labour more than equal to that of two hundred thousand horses, which, if fed in the ordinary way, would require above one million acres of land for subsistence; and this is capable of supplying the necessaries of life to more than fifteen hundred thousand human beings.

Books