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SECTION 11, BOOK NO Q. i-
NOT TO BE TAKEN FROM THE LIBRARY
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Engineering Reminiscences
CONTRIBUTED TO
" Power " and "American Machinist"
BY
CHARLES T. JDRTER
Honorary Member of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Author of "A Treatise on the Richards Steam-engine Indicator
and the Development and Application of Force in the
Steam-engine ," JS74; " Mechanics and Faith " 1885
REVISED AND ENLARGED
FIRST EDITION
FIRST THOUSAND
NEW YORK
JOHN WILEY & SONS
London : CHAPMAN & HALL, Limited
1908
Copyright[jL908_
BY
CHARLES T. RORTER
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER AND MOTHER
^m^xo
My Father
My Mother
PREFACE
A word of explanation seems due to both the reader and
myself.
The idea of writing these reminiscences did not originate with
me. I was invited to write them by Mr. F. R. Low, the editor
of Power. This invitation I declined, saying that I felt averse to
writing a story in which I must be the central figure. Mr. Low
replied that I should regard it as a duty I owed to the profession.
Engineers demanded to know the origin and early development
of the high speed system of steam engineering. I was the only
person who could meet this demand; no one else possessed the
necessary information.
I felt obliged to yield to this view, and can only ask the reader
to imagine that I am writing about somebody else.
C. T. P.
MONTCLAIR, N. J.,
December, 1907.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Birth, Parentage and Education. Experience in the Practice of Law.
Introduction to Centrifugal Force. Invention and Operation of a Stone-
dressing Machine 1
CHAPTER II
The Evolution and Manufacture of the Central Counterpoise Governor.
Introduction of Mr. Richards 17
CHAPTER III
Invention and Application of my Marine Governor 34
CHAPTER IV
Engineering Conditions in 1860. I meet Mr. Allen. Mr. Allen's Inventions.
Analysis of the Allen Link 42
CHAPTER V
Invention of the Richards Indicator. My Purchase of the Patent. Plan
my London Exhibition. Engine Design. Ship Engine Bed to London,
and sail myself 58
CHAPTER VI
Arrival in London. Conditions I found there. Preparations and Start ... . 65
CHAPTER VII
My London Exhibit, its Success, but what was the matter? Remarkable
Sale of the Engine 71
vii
vin TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII
PAGE
Sale of Governors. Visit from Mr. Allen. Operation of the Engine Sold
to Easton, Amos & Sons. Manufacture of the Indicator. Application
on Locomotives 80
CHAPTER IX
Designs of Horizontal Engine Beds. Engine Details. Presentation of the
Indicator at the Newcastle Meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science 93
CHAPTER X
Contract with Ormerod, Grierson & Co. Engine for Evan Leigh, Son & Co.
Engine for the Oporto Exhibition. Getting Home from Portugal. . . . 101
CHAPTER XI
Trouble with the Evan Leigh Engine. Gear Patterns from the Whitworth
Works. First Order for a Governor. Introduction of the Governor
into Cotton Mills. Invention of my Condenser. Failure of Ormerod,
Grierson & Co 1 13
CHAPTER XII
Introduction to the Whitworth Works. Sketch of Mr. Whitworth. Ex-
perience in the Whitworth Works. Our Agreement which was never
Executed. First Engine in England Transmitting Power by a Belt. . . 122
CHAPTER XIII
The French Exposition of 1867. Final Break with Mr. Whitworth 139
CHAPTER XIV
Study of the Action of Reciprocating Parts. Important Help from Mr.
Frederick J. Slade. Paper before Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Appreciation of Zerah Colburn. The Steam Fire Engine in England. . 153
CHAPTER XV
Preparations for Returning to America. Bright Prospects 165
CHAPTER XVI
Return to America. Disappointment. My Shop. The Colt Armory Engine
Designed by Mr. Richards. Appearance of Mr. Goodfellow. My
Surface Plate Work. Formation of a Company 173
TABLE OF CONTENTS IX
CHAPTER XVII
PAGE
Mr. Allen's Invention of his Boiler. Exhibition at the Fair ^f the American
Institute in 1870 190
CHAPTER XVIII
Demonstration to the Judges of Action of Reciprocating Parts. Explana-
tion of this Action. Mr. Williams' Instrument for Exhibiting this
Action 198
CHAPTER XIX
Boiler Tests in Exhibition of 1871. We Lose Mr. Allen. Importance of
Having a Business Man as President. Devotion of Mr. Hope 208
CHAPTER XX
Close of the Engine Manufacture in Harlem. My Occupation During a
Three Years' Suspension 219
CHAPTER XXI
Production of an Original Surface Plate 233
CHAPTER XXII
Efforts to Resume the Manufacture. I Exhibit the Engine to Mr. Holley.
Contract with Mr. Phillips. Sale of Engine to Mr. Peters 238
CHAPTER XXIII
Experience as Member of the Board of Judges at the Philadelphia Centen-
nial Exhibition 245
CHAPTER XXIV
Engine Building in Newark. Introduction of Harris Tabor 259
CHAPTER XXV
Engine for the Cambria Iron and Steel Company 271
x TABLE OF COX TENTS
CHAPTER XXVI
PAGE
My Downward Progress 275
CHAPTER XXVII
My Last Connection with the Company 325
CHAPTER XX VI 1 1
The Fall and Rise of the Southwark Foundry and Machine Company.
Popular Appreciation of the High-speed Engine 331
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TAGE
My First Mechanical Drawing. Longitudinal Section of my Stone-dressin«-
Machine 7
The First Porter Governor 21
The Porter Marine Governor 37
Porter-Allen Engine. Diagram of Admission — Valve Movements 48
Vertical Adjustment of Sustaining Pin for Trunnions of the Allen Link. 52
My Improvement in Cranks and Journal Boxes 54
My Improvement in Eccentrics 50
Diagram from the First Allen Engine taken with the First Richards
Indicator 59
Mr. Porter's Exhibit at the London International Exhibition, 1862 71
Diagram from Allen Engine in London Exhibition of 1862 73
Spring-testing Instrument L'sed in the Manufacture of the Richards Indicator 86
Plan of Spring-testing Instrument 89
Diagrams from English Locomotive, taken with the Richards Indicator. . 91
Engine Bed Designed by Mr. Porter 95
Cross-head Designed by Mr. Porter 96
Connecting-rod and Strap 99
Attaching a Steam-drum to a Lancashire Boiler 107
Diagrams from Engine of Evan Leigh, Son & Co 114
Condenser and Air-pump Designed by Mr. Porter. (Cross-section) 118
Diagrams from Engine Built for Mr. Adams 138
Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1867. Diagrams from the "Allen"' Engine
Employed in Driving Machinery 142
Pair of Diagrams from 18X30 Allen Engine at South Tyne Paper Mill, 108
Revolutions, Vacuum 28 Inches. Only Half Intended Load on Engine 160
Cross-section of Machine Shop Proposed by Mr. Porter in 1868. after the
Design of Smith & ( 'oventry 168
( !ard from Allen Engine in Colt's Armory 178
Sectional and Front Elevations of One of the Two Pairs of Porter-Allen
Engines in the Colt Armory. Hartford, Conn 180
SecWonal and Side Elevations of One of the Two Pairs of Porter-Allen Engines
in the Colt Armory, Hartford. Conn 181
Porter- Allen Engines in the Colt Armory, Hartford. Conn. Front View. 181
Porter-Allen Engines in the Colt Armory, Hartford, Conn. Rear View. 181
Surface Plates Designed by Mr. Porter 182
Diagram from Allen Engine, Back End of Cylinder, at Fair of American
Institute, 1870 194
xn LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PA8E
Friction Diagram from Allen Engine at Fair of American Institute, 1870. . 196
Diagram from Allen Engine, Fair of American Institute, 1870, Cutting Off
at \ Stroke 196
Apparatus for Graphically Showing the Acceleration and Retardation of
the Reciprocating Parts of an Engine 205
The Allen Boiler Facing 208
The Prototype of the Modern High-speed Engine, Fly-wheel Side 223
Prototype of the Modern High-speed Engine, Crank Side 224
Longitudinal Section of Cylinder and Valves 225
Cross-section of Cylinder and Valves 226
( onnections of Admission Valves 226
First Arrangement of Exhaust Valves 228
Mani Bearing 230
Eccentric and Cross-head and Crank-pin Lubricators 230
Surface Plate for Producing a True Plane 234
Mr. Porter's Regulating Valve 244
The Corliss Engine Exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition 249
Porter- Allen Engine Equal in Power to the Exhibited Corliss Engine 250
Mr. Porter's Fly-wheel 269
( 'onnection of Arms and Rim in Mr. Fritz' Fly-wheel 273
Mr. Allen's Patent Pressure Plate^ 293
Diagrams from the Otis Engine 311
( M is Engine. Dash Pot for Governor 313
Diagrams from my First and Only Compound Engine 318
LIST OF FULL-PAGE HALF-TONE PORTRAITS
PAGE
Charles T. Porter Facing title page
My Father After dedication
My Mother " <<
George T. Hope g
Charles B. Richards, a.d. 1858 26
John F. Allen 4$
Joseph E. Holmes gg.
Alexander Gordon go
Wellington Lee gg
Ch \rles T. Porter, a.d. 1SG2 gg
Frederick E. Sickels -0
W. H. Maw 92
William J. Hoyle j.»
Sir Joseph Whitworth
President F. A. P. Barnard
124
Frederick J. Slade j-4
Professor Charles B. Richards |-o
198
Joseph Nason 9 q ,
Edwin F. Williams Q gg
Professor Robert H. Thurston 9 q^
J. C. HOADLEY 90 q
Alexander Lyman Holley 23s
William R. Jones 04 1
Professor Francis Reuleaux 94c
Colonel Alexis Petroff 9-9
James Moore 9-4
Emil Brugsch 256
Robert W. Hunt o (i .,
Stephen W. Baldwin 264
Harris Tabor 266
Daniel N. Jones 9 -.,
John Fritz 07 j
E. D. Leavitt 3QQ
Samuel T. Wellman 3 10
Charles A. Otis ;!1 .>
Daniel J. Morrell 3^4
Benjamin F. Avery 394
James C. Brooks 332
xiii
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
CHAPTER I
Birth, Parentage and Education. Experience in the Practice of Law. Intro-
duction to Centrifugal Force. Invention and Operation of a Stone-dressing
Machine.
WAS born in Auburn in the State of New York,
January 18th, 1826. My parents were both of New
England descent. My father, John Porter, was born in
Hadley, Mass. His father, William Porter, was the son
of Eleazer Porter and his wife Susannah, one of the daughters of
Jonathan Edwards. My father's mother was Lois Eastman. My
mother was born in Middletown, Conn. Her maiden name was
Abigail Phillips. Her ancestry in the maternal line is traced
back to Governors Saltonstall, Dudley and the two Winthrops.
I graduated at Hamilton College, New York, in 1845, read
law in my father's office, and in the fall of 1847 was admitted
to the bar. Practiced my profession for six or seven years, first
in Rochester, N. Y., afterwards in New York City.
My knowledge of mechanics may be illustrated by a story I
once heard in England of a man who had been prosecuted for
selling adulterated tobacco. He got off by proving that there
was no tobacco at all in the article that he sold. But this illustra-
tion hardly does the case justice.
I had some mechanical ideas, but they were exactly wrong.
For example, I could not see any difficulty in perpetual motion.
All one had to do was to pump up water, which by its fall would
furnish power to run the pump. This, however, was no more absurd
2 EXGIXEERIXG REMIXISCEXCES
than were two inventions which were brought out in England while
I was there. One of these was corrugating the faces of the piston,
so as to present more extended surfaces for the steam pressure to
be exerted upon. The other was a device for utilizing that half of
the force of the steam which had been wasted against the cylin-
der heads. Both of these were published with commendatory
remarks in the Mechanics' Magazine. The last, if I recollect
rightly, was the original bottom feature of the Wells balance-
engine. My error was that I made no account of friction, which
must be overcome before motion can take place. We shall see
before long the same disregard of friction by men who ought to
have known better.
My utter ignorance of everything mechanical at that time is
capable of proof. I stepped right into one of those "springes to
catch woodcocks" which were being set in those days, and proved
myself to be about as green a gosling mechanically as ever was
plucked.
I had a client by the name of Searle, who was a " dead-beat."
He owed me about $100, which I could not collect. He finally
called upon me and told me frankly that he could not pay me one
red cent, because he had no money; but he could put me in the
way of making a fortune, and he was anxious in that way to dis-
charge the great obligation which he felt himself under to me.
A new invention had appeared, called the Gwynne & Sawyer
static-pressure engine, that was bound to revolutionize all applica-
tions of power. It was, he told me, attracting great attention in
engineering circles, and there had been a hot discussion over its
theoretical principles, but its advocates had successfully van-
quished all their antagonists and now the invention was estab-
lished on a perfectly sound scientific basis. If I would give him
a receipt in full for the money that he owed me and put another
$100 into this enterprise, he was in a position to secure for me a
number of rights to use the machine. He kindly offered to intro-
duce me to Mr. Sawyer. Mr. Gwynne was unfortunately absent
from home at the time. (I learned afterwards that he was in jail.)
Mr. Sawyer received me most graciously. I think he had been
told by Mr. Searle about how much taffy I might be expected to
swallow, but he must have ventured far beyond his instructions.
MY FIRST LESSON IN MECHANICS 3
He told me that he was delighted to make my acquaintance; he
had frequently heard of me through our mutual friend, Mr. Searle,
and of my triumphs at the bar, and had come to feel a great admi-
ration for me, and was proud to show this great invention to a man
so eminently capable of appreciating it. He told me that the inven-
tion was a practical method of utilizing that wonderful power
known as centrifugal force. This force could be obtained in any
amount. In fact, it was the force that kept the universe in motion.
It had lain unutilized for so long a time because engineers had
never been able to apply it practically. This difficulty had been
completely overcome in this great invention, and this wonderful
power was now to be made available for the world. He gave me
quite an oration on the subject, saying, "We do not antagonize the
forces of nature, we utilize them and apply them to beneficial pur-
poses; consequently all nature co-operates with us," and more
to the same effect. He was able to show me a working model of
this great invention; was very sorry that he could not put it in
motion for me that day, as it happened to be a little out of order;
but I would be able to see the principle of its operation very dis-
tinctly. I was flattered into believing that I saw the principle,
with the result that Mr. Sawyer saw the principal, and with the
further result that after that I never saw or heard of either principal
or interest. Our mutual friend, Mr. Searle, also disappeared.
This was my first lesson in mechanics, given to me by a master of
his art. I am not sure, on the whole, but that in one way and
another it has been worth the trifle it cost me.
Had any one at that time told me that the expression "centri-
fugal force" is entirely misleading, that in reality there is no such
force, that what goes by this name is not a force at all, nothing
but a resistance, the resistance which a body revolving around an
exterior point opposes to being continually deflected from a
straight line of motion, and which ceases the instant the deflect-
ing force ceases, when the body merely moves on in a straight line
tangent to the circle, and in bodies revolving around their own
axes or centers of gravity is "the same resistance of their atoms,
he would probably have had about the same success in making
me see it that I long afterwards had with some engineering
friends.
4 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
It is difficult at the present day to conceive the confusion of
thought which then prevailed on this subject. The language of
text-books was vague in the extreme.
The coincidence is not without interest, that my first mechan-
ical experience, though in this ridiculous fashion, should have
been with what was to become so prominent a feature of the
high speed governors and engine.
I had for some time felt a growing disgust with the profession
of the law. The contrast between the glorious science of human
rights and the art of its practical application was very forcibly
presented to my mind. I realized the fitness of the protest of
Bryant, who described himself as being "forced to drudge for the
dregs of men.'' I was a regular reader of the Evening Post, in
which an article appeared one day, written by John Bigelow, then
the editor of the Post, laudatory of a certain judge whose term on
the bench had lately closed, and who then retired from the pro-
fession. On this act Mr. Bigelow warmly congratulated him.
Among a number of pungent expressions in the article I was
particularly struck by this one: "The association of lawyers is
mostly with knaves and fools.'' My own experience bore wit-
ness to the truth of this statement. A few legal successes, which
cost me incredible labor, interspersed of course with disappoint-
ments, weighed nothing compared with the daily association
which I seemed compelled to endure. I formed a scheme for
establishing a conciliation office for the amicable settlement of
disputes, but found every man prepared to compromise on the
extreme verge of his own position. So I gave that up.
I had another client, a Mr. Hastings, who had invented a stone-
dressing machine, which he had patented, and the patent for which
lie wanted to dispose of. He had a working model of his invention,
which was operated for visitors in the shop where it was built.
He invited me to go and see it, which I did, and it certainly worked
very well indeed. I recalled afterwards that the stone was care-
fully bedded on the table of the machine. I was quite fascinated
with it and took some friends to see it, who were equally captivated,
and the result was that we bought the patent. To make sure of
its value, however, I first called with Mr. Hastings on Mr. Munn,
INVENTION OF A STONE-DRESSING MACHINE 5
his patent solicitor, and received Mr. Munn's assurance that he had
a very high opinion of it.
I gradually abandoned my law business, and devoted myself
to the exploitation of this invention. I put into it all the
money I had and all that I could borrow. After a while a
large working machine was completed for us, the drawings for
which I had made by a German draftsman, and which was
built under my direction at the works of Mott & Ayers, near the
foot of West Twenty-sixth Street. When this machine was fin-
ished the parties in interest assembled at these works to see it
tried.
One experiment was enough. I had put into the machine a
stone that was quite a foot thick and which was supported at
two points. At the first cut made across this stone it broke in
two in the middle. I found myself, in the words of President
Cleveland, " confronted not by a theory but by a condition." The
machine was absurd. The patent was worthless. The enterprise
was a failure. Our money had all been thrown into the sea. Noth-
ing could be done unless I did it; and I knew niching of mechanics,
of machine design or construction, or of mechanical drawing, except
the little that I had picked up in the works of Mott & Ayers while
this machine was in process of construction. I should say, how-
ever, that the head draftsman in that establishment had given
me some instruction in mechanical drawing, so that I knew the
use of the instruments and what kind of ink to use.
I cannot recollect that I was in the least cast down or dis-
couraged. I cannot now account for my confidence. I believed
that the fundamental features of this machine were correct. These
were : cutting stone by a blow given by a hammer moving in an
inclined direction, and which was thrown up by a cam and thrown
down by springs. The more I reflected upon it the more I became
convinced that a successful stone-dressing machine could be made
on those general lines, and in no other way; and I also became im-
pressed with what seems the almost absurd conviction that I
could make it.
The machine that broke the stone had a broad hammer— a cast-
iron plate wkh tongues on the sides running in grooves in a frame,
6 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
and to the end of which a long steel blade was bolted. My first
idea was to divide the single broad hammer into several hammers
working side by side and striking their blows successively; the
second was to separate the hammers from the tool-holders, the
third, to employ the same tools that were used by stone-cutters,
namely, the point, tooth-chisel and drove, and to give them as
nearly as possible the same blow that was given to them by the
workman, and the fourth, to give to the tools only the blow
necessary to do their work.
I infused my own enthusiasm into my associates to such a
degree that they agreed to put up the money and let me try the
experiment. That also is something that I now wonder at.
The most influential member of this devoted band was George
T. Hope, President of the Continental Fire Insurance Co., a gen-
tleman whom I shall have frequent occasion to mention, and who
remained my steadfast friend till his death, which occurred soon
after the close of my engineering career.
I set about my work in this manner. My house, on the south
side of Twenty-second Street west of Seventh Avenue, had been
arranged in its construction to use the extension room back of
the parlor as a dining-room. That left the front basement avail-
able for me. This I equipped for a drawing-office, and set myself
at work to learn mechanical drawing, and at the same time to
design this machine. I bought a Scotch instruction book, and a
sheet of "antiquarian" drawing-paper. In those days all draw-
ings were made on white linen paper, and this was nearly
the largest size that was made, and cost 75 cents a sheet. My
principal drawing-implement was india-rubber. As my plans
grew in my mind I had to rub out my preceding sketches. I spent
a great deal of my time in visiting the large engineering works
on the East River — the Allaire Works, the Morgan Works and the
Novelty Works— and studying tools and machines and principles
and methods of construction. I tried to get my mind saturated
with mechanics. I finally succeeded in producing the design,
this vertical section of which I have sketched from memory after
fifty years.
It will be seen that this machine was massive in its construction.
This was required on account of the speed — 300 rotations of the
George T. Hope
INVENTION OF A STONE-DRESSING MACHINE 7
shaft per minute — at which I had determined to run it. This was
my first employment of high speed.
The original model of the machine made 60 strokes per minute.
In the machine that broke the stone I had increased the speed to
100 strokes per minute. In designing the successful machine I
made the great jump to 300 revolutions of the cam-shaft per
minute. This was done after much study of practical require-
ments. I observed carefully the speed of planing-machines. I
My First Mechanical Drawing.
Longitudinal Section of my Stone-dressing Machine.
had also the opportunity of witnessing the operation of the first
wood-moulding machine, and was much impressed by the speed of
the rotary cutters and the rapidity with which the work was
turned out. I wanted a motion of 40 inches a minute for the
stone table, which would make the output of the machine satis-
factory; 300 revolutions would give this motion, the table ad-
vancing .133 of an inch at each blow.
8 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
The machine contained six hammers, each 6 inches wide and
weighing about 200 pounds, which ran in a suspended frame. The
front member of this frame was a wrought-iron bar 6 inches square,
with a projection on the lower side, as shown. At the ends this
bar was first reduced to 5 inches square, the corners rounded to 1
inch radius, and mortised into cast-iron side-bars 4 inches thick,
one of which is shown in the sectional view. Beyond these side-
bars the wrought-iron bar was turned down to journals 3| inches
in diameter, which turned in the heads of large screws, one of
which is represented. Beyond these journals it was further re-
duced to 2 inches diameter, and the ends threaded. These pro-
jections extended through slots in the main framing, and nuts on
the outside provided with long handles enabled the whole to be
bound fast in its position, when that had been determined.
The hammers had two faces; the upper faces struck on this
6-inch square bar, the lower faces struck the backs of the heavy
tool-holders. These tool-holders were held in position in the
manner shown. At the extreme back end they rocked down-
ward upon a heavy cross-bar. At the front they rose against the
6-inch cross-bar. They were made with a heavy hook at the back,
which prevented them from coining forward further than the
projection at the bottom of this cross-bar permitted. A curved
spring held them up to the cross-bar when the weight of the ham-
mer was removed. Between the 6-inch cross-bar and the tool-
holders and the hammer faces I introduced a .sheet of heavy
leather belting, which deadened the force of the blow. A stone-
cutter uses a wooden mallet to drive the tooth-chisels and
droves, because the impact of iron on iron has a disintegrating
effect upon the stone, which the stone-cutters call "stunning the
stone." It produces a vibration in the body of the stone to a
depth of perhaps \ inch, and, however well the surface of the stone
may appear when it is finished, after a while the outside will flake
off to the depth to which these vibrations have extended. This
leather buffer served the purpose of the wooden mallet, completely
avoiding this difficulty. Incidentally also it made the building
habitable, by transforming the blow into a dull thud, which at
the rate of 1800 blows per minute from the six hammers was
itself quite important to be done.
INVENTION OF A STONE-DRESSING MACHINE 9
The large screws on each side of the machine at the front were
provided at the top with long nuts resting on a cross-bar and
combined with worm-wheels. A shaft carrying two worms en-
gaging with these wheels extended across the top of the machine,
so that the nuts were rotated identically, and the front of the
suspended frame was raised or lowered as the thickness of the
stone or depth of the cut required. The machine could cut stone
from the thinnest ashlar up to a thickness of about 3 feet. The
hammers ran on rollers as shown. At the back the frame and
hammers were carried on similar rollers on the same shaft. The
ends of this shaft also turned in square heads of screws, and by a
mechanism similar to that already described the back of the frame
could be elevated or depressed to the height required and be set
at any desired angle.
The six tool-holders were made in the following manner : I got
from England a bar of steel long enough to make them all. This
was planed into the form shown in the section, and the sockets for
the shanks of the tools were finished to an equal depth and per-
fectly in line. It was then parted, and the ends of each finished
in a slotting-machine.
The blows struck by the hammers were very effective. The
cams had a throw of 1 \ inches, but they threw the hammers back
against the springs 1^ inches further, making their fall 2\ inches.
This I ascertained by holding a piece of thin board edgeways
between the upper end of a hammer and the cross-bar at the back,
when the hammer crushed it up to this height.
We never ran over the stone with the points but once. They
made everything before them fly. On the other hand, the droves
merely dusted the surface, to take out the marks of the tooth-
chisels. All surplus force in the blow was received on the 6-inch
cross-bar. The tools stood motionless unless pushed back by the
stone, when they received a sufficient portion of the blow to drive
them forward to their position.
The feed motion was powerful, being imparted by a worm
engaging in a worm-wheel 24 inches in diameter, while the run
back was swift, quite 100 feet in a minute.
The sides of the steel tool-holders, rubbing against each other,
became after a while badly abraded. I was obliged to plane
10 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
them off and dovetail thin strips of hardened steel into them.
These prevented any further trouble. The sides of the end tool-
holders, however, which rubbed against the cast-iron side-bars, I
observed, were polished without sensible wear.
This was a very important observation. These surfaces all
rubbed together dry. The pressure was only the side thrust, which
was very trifling. Under these conditions the molecules of the
same material interlocked, while those of the different materials did
not. These two materials were, however, extremely different in
their constituent features. Perhaps this point of freedom of some
different materials from interlocking was still better illustrated by
the set-screws, where this difference of molecular structure did
not exist in the same degree. These were made of Ulster iron, a
superior quality of American iron then largely used in New York
City for bolts. They were |-inch screws, and were also used dry,
no oil being allowed anywhere over the stones. Each tool-holder
contained three of these set-screws. The outside ones were tight-
ened and loosened sixty times everyday. The middle ones, where
only the points were used, were tightened and loosened twenty
times every day and at other times stood loose in their threads.
The tool-holders being massive, and the blows of the hammers also
coming on the leather cushion, there was no vibration. At the
end of the two years' running the outer bolts were all perfect
fits. The middle ones were loose, but still held the tools per-
fectly.
The rollers on which the hammers ran were hardened and
turned on hardened shafts. The hammers themselves had chilled
faces, and their surfaces running on the rollers were also chilled.
The surfaces of the tool-holders and of the bar on which these
rocked were provided with hardened strips to the extent that they
came in contact with each other. The cams and rollers and their
pins were also hardened.
When built this machine was found to require only a single
alteration. I had welded the cams onto the shaft, the welds being
guaranteed by the smith to be perfectly sound. No appearance
of unsoundness could be detected when the shaft was finished,
but after running a week or two the cams became loose. This also
gave me a useful lesson. I was obliged to send to England for
INVENTION OF A STONE-DRESSING MACHINE 11
blocks of steel, which were bored, finished and keyed on the shaft
in the manner shown, and the working surfaces of the cams were
hardened. This required the substitution of new hammers, bo-
cause the cams could not be threaded through the old ones. The
hubs of these cams were 6 inches long, covering the shaft.
Our company, being satisfied from its design that the machine
when finished would prove a success, rented from Mr. Astor a large
lot on the south side of Fourteenth Street, west of Ninth Avenue,
extending through to Thirteenth Street, and erected and equipped
a building and established a stone-yard, where the machine ran
successfully for two seasons, principally employed in facing ashlar,
as the flat-faced stones of buildings are termed. It turned out
with ease 600 square feet of finished surface per day, which was
the work of thirty men, and it never broke a stone, however thin.
For facing in the machine the stones were set on bars 2 inches
thick and 4 inches high, cast on the surface of sliding tables.
These were both longitudinal and cross bars, and were provided
with holes f inch in diameter and about 3 inches apart. There
were two tables, each 16 feet in length.
Several pieces of ashlar were set upon each table and held by
dogs and wedges on these bars. They were wedged up very
easily by skilled workmen, so that they would finish at the same
level. At one side of the ways on which the tables moved, near
each end, was placed a swing-crane, which was double- and triple-
geared, so that by means of it any stone that the machine was
adapted to cut could be lifted by two men. The operations of cut-
ting the stones on one table and removing the stones and setting
others on the other table went on simultaneously, so that the
cutting was never interrupted, except to change the tools and the
tables. This last was done as follows: Each table, when the work
on it was completed, was run rapidly backward or forward to
attach it to the other table. It was then connected with this by a
couple of hooks, and, the motion being reversed, pulled it into
place under the tools, and in doing this took its own place under
a crane, so that the work of removing the finished stones and setting-
rough ones went on continuously at one end or the other of the
ways.
In addition to the machine I designed the building and the
12 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
whole plant and the plan of its operation, which moved like clock-
work. I made every drawing myself. The cranes I obtained
in Rochester, N. Y., of a pattern which the builders made for
railroads for handling heavy freight.
1 bought from a stone-dressing company that had failed a rub-
bing machine called the Jenny Lind rubber, from the fact that it
was started the same year in which that songstress was brought to
the United Stato by Mr. Barnum. This rubbing-machine was
quite a success. From a central vertical spindle a jointed arm
extended in three lengths, each about 12 feet long. The sections
of this arm were very deep, so that there was no sag at the end,
where the rubbing-plate was driven by belting and could be moved
from stone to stone around a circle of 36 feet radius. Half of
this circle was sufficient for our use. I made only one change in
this machine. The pulleys, two pairs on each joint, one at the top
and one at the bottom, about two feet in diameter by three inches
face, were of course horizontal. The makers were afraid the belts
would fall off; so they made these pulleys with two square grooves,
h inch wide by ' inch dee]), in their faces, and had correspond-
ing strips of leather sewn on the belts to run in these grooves.
I threw all these away and substituted ordinary pulleys with their
laces slightly crowning. Never had the least trouble. Indeed,
these pulleys did better than I expected. I supposed the belts
would need to be taken up occasionally, on account of becoming
stretched, but they did not. Perhaps they would have done so if
the strain on them had been greater. This nibbing machine
resembled the stone-dressing machine in one respect: everything
about it was arranged for continuous operation and the largest
output.
The business was carried on the first season under the
management of Mr. John McClave, a master stone-cutter, and
the second season under the management of the firm of Brown
A: Young, stone-cutters. Mr. Hugh Young, of this firm, has
since been prominent in the stone-cutting business in New
York.
The machine was found to possess a remarkable advantage
over hand work. The sun was called by stone-cutters " the great
revealer. " When its rays fell at a small angle on a surface fin-
OPERATION OF THE STONE-DRESSING MACHINE 13
ished by hand they showed very considerable irregularities. The
same test showed work in the machine to be true planes. It
won a high reputation; stone-cutters were anxious to get their
surfaces done in the machine, and we had more work offered us
than we could do.
The following incident illustrates the favorable impression
made by the machine upon everyone who witnessed its opera-
tion:
At a meeting of the Directors of the Company at which 1 was
present Mr. Daniel S. Miller, a gentleman somewhat prominent in
financial New York, was late. He made the following explana-
tion. "I thought that before the meeting I would visit the stone
yard and see how the work was going on. I stayed longer than
I had intended, and I want five thousand dollars more of the
stock of this company.' '
We were much elated over our success, and plans were made for
enlarging the business. I completed the drawings for an addi-
tional machine, wide enough to take in platforms, for which
provision had been math 1 by me in the plan of the building. The
only change suggested by our two years' experience was the use
of air-cushions behind the hammers in place of steel springs.
But the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men, the poet tells us,
" Gang aft a-gley;
And leave vis naught but grief and pain
For promised joy."
Our plans were suddenly ruined. A change in the method
of facing ashlar was introduced and soon became universally
adopted. Instead of being faced by hand, it began to be sawn out
of large blocks. I have since wondered why this had not been
done long before. Blocks of marble had been sawn into slabs by
gang-saws no one knows how long, and all that had to be done
was to apply the same system to blocks of building-stone. It was
found to cost no more to saw ashlar than it had done to split
it out at the quarry. All the cost of facing and much stone
were saved. Our stone-cutting machine became useless, and I
learned that disappointments were not confined to the legal
profession.
14 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
The speed of 300 revolutions per minute had proved to be ad-
mirably suited for the machine. Familiarity with this speed in
the running of the stone-dressing machine made me alive to the
value of high rotative speeds in all cases to which they are adapted.
In looking back over this period I see that the success of the
stone-dressing machine was due to the following causes:
First, I went about the work of facing stone by machinery in
the natural way.
Second, the machine was superabundantly strong and sub-
stantial in every part.
Third, it was made with absolute mechanical truth.
Fourth, the speed was splendid.
Fifth, the blow was peculiar. In the Hastings machine the
cutting-tool was driven into the stone. In mine it rested on the
stone and was moved back horizontally by the feed. This
chai ged slightly the angular position of the tool-holder, so that
the blow was received by it at the lower edge of its back. This
gave to the tool a motion forward and upward, so that the ver-
tical effect on the stone was trifling.
This was the vital feature of my improvement, and that in
a double sense; for it was only by convincing my associates
beforehand that a machine operating in this manner could not
break the stone that I was able to obtain their financial support.
Sixth, the two-faced hammer saved the stone from all unnec-
essary force of the blow.
The final cause of its success was the two-table system. The
two operations of setting and cutting occupied each about the
same time, and twenty tables each averaging thirty square feet
of surface, measured after being squared up, were easily finished
in a day of ten hours.
A description of some of the constructive methods employed
by me may be interesting:
The bar of steel which was to be made into six separate tool-
holders had to have eighteen sockets mortised in it. These were
1 inch square. I had made the tools wit a square shanks so as to
insure their proper position. These mortises must be absolutely
in line and of equal depth. These objects were accomplished as
follows: A cast-iron angle-liar with planed surfaces was first bolted
CONSTRUCTION OF A STONE-DRESSING MACHINE 15
on the table of the drilling-machine, and for drilling the holes the
bar of steel was kept in contact with this angle-bar. A uniform
depth was insured by employing a bottoming-drill with a collar
formed on the shank. The drilling was finished when this collar
rubbed on the steel bar.
I had this work done by Mr. Joseph Banks, whose shop was in
a large building at the corner of Second Avenue and Twenty-
second Street. Mr. A. S. Cameron, the inventor and manufacturer
of the celebrated Cameron steam-pumps, was then an apprentice
in that shop. Mr. Banks was an excellent mechanic, and I was
greatly indebted to him for the accuracy of the work that I pro-
cured. He devised an expanding-drill to cut a groove at the bottom
of these sockets, in which the chips from the slotting-tool made in
squaring the holes would come off. The finishing slotting-tool I
designed myself. I had noticed in all slotting-machines that
came under my observation at that time that the tool would spring
off a little at the commencement of the cut, so that a full square
angle was never obtained. To avoid this defect and to size the
slots equally I made a slotting-tool to cut on opposite sides. The
cutting edges were each about J inch long and the corners rounded.
The bar for the tool-holders had to be set three times on account of
its length. It was set in contact with the same angle-bar, which
was bolted on this table parallel with its transverse feed. This
finishing-tool being once set, the upper and lower faces of all the
sockets were thus readily finished in perfect line and with square
edges. The tool being then turned at right angles to its first
position, for which purpose its shank had been planed square,
finished the sides of the sockets. These were identical in every
respect, and any tool could go anywhere.
The springs behind the hammers were prepared with great
care. I had large bars of spring steel reduced under a tilt-hammer
to a section f inch square. These were coiled with only
| inch space between the coils, so that in case a spring broke
within the hammer it could not get out of place. These
s] >rings were exceptionally durable. We took off the back cross-bar
occasionally — perhaps once a month — to examine for broken
springs, and sometimes we found one, which was replaced with a
new one because we assumed that it was fatigued, but the hammers
16 ENGINEERING ItEMIXISCENCES
worked just as well with broken springs as they did with whole
ones. The springs, having considerable initial compression, did
not become loose.
It seems proper to add that, except the help from Mr. Banks.
I did not in designing the machine or organizing the work receive
assistance or suggestion from anyone.
With these details I bid a final good-by to you, my old
schoolmaster. I have a warm place in my heart for you. You
set me my first lessons in mechanics. Your life was short. You
were not ordained to cut much of a figure in the world. But you
were faithful. You always did your work and did it well.
CHAPTER II
The Evolution and Manufacture of the Central Counterpoise Governor
Introduction of Mr. Richards.
HEX the stone-dressing machine was started a difficulty
presented itself. The governor was in constant motion
a short distance up and down, causing the engine to
oscillate, running alternately too fast and too slow.
There was nothing that should have caused this action, so far
as I could observe. The load on the engine was constant.
However the work done on the stone may have varied, the
work of the engine was to lift the hammers, and these, being
lifted successively, presented a uniform resistance. The oscilla-
tion was not very great, as nearly as I can remember about 12 per
cent, of the speed; which would give to each hammer a variation
of thirty-six blows per minute. This, however, produced a waving
surface on the stone. The more rapid the blow, the stronger it
was and the deeper the cut. These waves were slight, only about
5V of an inch variation in depth, but yet it was not possible for
our rubbing-machine to grind them off without great loss of time.
So we had to employ three or four stone-cutters to chisel off these*
ridges, which were about 4 inches apart.
It was evident that this oscillation must be stopped. I tried
to remedy it by changing the pressure of the steam, and then by
changing the pulleys so as to run the engine faster, the speed of the
governor, however, necessarily remaining the same. But these
had no effect. Having exhausted my own stock of ignorance on
the subject, I applied to professional experts for more, and I got
it. Three persons, who I supposed ought to know, and who prob-
ably did know, all that was then known on the subject, gave me
the same advice. It was that I should get a larger engine and a
17
IS ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
great deal larger fly-wheel. This advice did not seem to me reason-
able. I knew that the engine was large enough, because while the
governor was in the lowest position, in which it did not open the
throttle entirely by any means, the machine ran too fast. They
then told me I must have a heavier fly-wheel at any rate, and they
explained to me that the fly-wheel performed two offices — one to
carry the crank over its dead centers with an approximately uni-
form motion, and the other to give the governor time to act.
1 replied that the engine passed its dead centers with absolute
uniformity then, as nearly as I could see, and as was shown by
the surface of the stone, and consequently for that purpose the
fly-wheel I had must be sufficient. The oscillations were regular,
occupying about 30 revolutions of the machine, or 6 seconds of
time, and had no connection with the dead centers, and I did not
see why the governor should require any time to act. They
told me that all governors required time to act, of course.
I then examined the governor more critically, and made up my
mind that its action was hindered by friction in the driving -joints
at the top of the spindle. These joints were about 4 inches apart,
on opposite sides of the spindle, and were of a character in which
the force transmitted through them to drive the balls produced a
pinch 1 >etween the broad faces of the joints. The governor could not
act until by change of its speed it had accumulated force enough
to overcome this pinch, and then it moved too far. Again I
applied to my authorities for some way of getting rid of this friction.
They told me that was easy enough. All I had to do was to put a
^oke on the governor spindle, through which the governor arms
were threaded and by which the driving pressure was applied close
to the balls. So for the first time I took their advice and had a
yoke put on the governor. I could not discover that this helped
the matter at all. The improvement was too trifling to be
noticed. I also saw clearly enough why this was so. The pres-
sure applied was lighter than that applied through the joints, but
it was also applied at a correspondingly increased distance from
the axis, so that the effect in retarding the action of the governor
was substantially the same.
1 saw that if I got any relief I must find a way to it myself.
So I began studying the subject of governors. My engineering
THE CENTRAL COUNTERPOISE GOVERNOR 1!)
library at that time consisted of Haswell' s Engineers' Pocket
Book. What little book -knowledge I had respecting mechanics I
had learned from Haswell. I turned to Haswell and read what he
had to say about governors. I learned that they were conical
pendulums and made half as many revolutions in a minute as the
vibrations of a pendulum whose length was equal to the height
of the cone, the base of which was the plane in which the center
of oscillation of the balls and arms revolved, and its apex the
point of intersection of the axes of the arms, if produced upward,
and that their revolutions varied inversely as the square root of
the height of this cone. I did not see that this got me out of my
difficulty at all. I then referred to the subject of centrifugal
force, with which I had made some acquaintance before, and I read
this champion mind-muddler: "All bodies moving around a center
or fixed point have a tendency to fly off in a straight line. This is
termed centrifugal force." This did not help me any more, nor
interest me much at that time.
But I read further that the centrifugal force of a body
revolving in any given circle varies as the square of the speed.
"Thus a body making 10 revolutions per minute will exert four
times as much centrifugal force as will be exerted by the same
body making 5 revolutions per minute." The governor on my
engine was making 50 revolutions per minute, and in thinking
the matter over it occurred to me that if the governor could
be run as fast as my machine, namely, at 300 revolutions per
minute, the centrifugal force of one pound would be as great as
that exerted by 36 pounds at 50 revolutions per minute. I
cried, "Eureka! I have found it." One-pound balls in place of
36-pound balls would be easily driven. I told my experts of the
great find that I had made, and they laughed at me. They told
me I ought to know that the momentum of the balls increased in
the same ratio with their centrifugal force, MV 2 being the expres-
sion common to both, so, in the same circle, while the centrifugal
force of the balls at 300 revolutions per minute would be 36 times
greater than at 50 revolutions, it would require also 36 times the
force to drive them, and that I would gain nothing by my proposed
change, but instead I would have to rotate also the weight that I
would need to use to hold the small balls down, and the last case
20 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
would be worse than the first. This staggered me, and I pondered
awhile what I should do.
I had a friend living near by on Fourteenth Street, west of
Seventh Avenue — a Mr. Thompson, a mathematician and the
author of a series of mathematical books then largely used. So
I called upon him and stated my trouble and asked his advice.
He illuminated the subject to me as follows: "You seem to be a
persevering young man; keep hard at it and you will solve the
difficulty by and by."
In my despair I just had before me this one thought: The
friction must be cured at any rate. After a time I thought that
if I made a long joint at the top embracing the center of gyration
of the counterpoise, so that the pressure required to drive the
balls and counterpoise would be applied at some distance from
the axis of the spindle and for that reason would be much lighter,
and also would be normal to the surface of the joint-pin instead of
being a pinch between opposite faces, the difficulty would be cured,
as the force to overcome the friction would be exerted at the ends
of levers 50 or 100 times the radius of the pin. I felt so sure of this
that I risked making a governor with a single joint at the apex of
the cone, as originally employed by Watt, thus making the gov-
ernor more sensitive, as the height of the cone would not be
changed at both ends, still fortunately holding to my little balls
and high speed, though I cannot tell why. The joint at the top I
made 6 inches in length.
When this governor was started, the trouble absolutely vanished.
The engine ran with perfect uniformity while the load was constant.
I use the adjective "perfect" advisedly, for the governor slide
was as motionless on the spindle as if it were screwed tight, and
the governor proved to be the most sensitive possible index of
the variations of speed. When the belt was thrown off to the
loose pulley the engine ran idle. The counterpoise then rose
promptly but gently to its fixed highest position, and stood there
motionless until the belt was thrown on and the hammers were
started, when it moved as gently but promptly down to its lower
position and stood there again motionless so long as the hammers
were running. We could not detect by the eye the variation in
speed that caused this action of the governor. The heaviest load
THE CENTRAL COUNTERPOISE GOVERNOR 21
on the engine, however, was dragging rapidly the two tables loaded
with stone. This caused the governor to settle still further, but
always the motion of the engine seemed to be the same so far as
I could detect. The surface produced on the stone left nothing
to be desired. The machine cut true planes, free from any wind-
age, and the surfaces were left so smooth that the rubbing-machine
The First Porter Governor.
had but little to do, and kept up with the cutting-machine very
easily. The governor fascinated everybody who witnessed its
operation.
I first made the drawing for the governor with the weight
hanging to the slide. Mr. John McLaren, a machinist who had done
22 EXGIXEERING REMINISCENCES
good work for me, when I showed it to him said, "Why don't you
turn your weight upside down and put it between the arms?" I
was not long in acting upon this suggestion, and that made the
Porter governor complete. I had it described and illustrated in
the Scientific American. They took a photograph of it as photo-
graphs were taken in those days — that is, they sent their artist up
to make a sketch of it, and this sketch (shown here) and descrip-
tion will be found in the Scientific American of October 9, 1858.
This governor has never been changed by me except in the shape
of the counterpoise.
I believed the mathematics of my advisers to be sound, and
that tin 1 perfect action of the governor was obtained entirely by
the long driving-joint, which I supposed would have enabled the
36-lb. balls at 50 revolutions per minute to do just as well as 1-lb.
balls at 300 revolutions, but I never tried the experiment.
In that belief I remained for 50 years. Now, at the age of
over 80 years, after long rest from business activities, in revising
these reminiscences for publication, the idea has first occurred to
me, and has grown into a conviction, that my advisers were
wrong here as they had been in every other respect. They over-
looked the fact that the angular velocity of the driving-joint
increased equally witli that of the balls, so that the ratio between
them would remain constant. The law that the driving force re-
quired increase's as the square of the speed imparted applies only
to the original source of power, as, to the force of the steam exerted
in the cylinder of an engine, the motion of the piston remaining
the same, and to the transmitting belts or gears whose speed also
remains the same. At all these points the force exerted must
increase as the square of the speed imparted; but this does not
apply to the pressure exerted in the governor joint. Its speed
docs not remain the same, but increases with that of the balls.
So, while the centrifugal force of the balls, changes in which pro-
duce the vertical movements of the counterpoise, varies as the
square of the speed, the force required to be exerted in this joint
to drive the balls, and which produces the friction to retard these
movements, does not increase at all, whatever the speed of revolu-
tion may be. This fact, unobserved by me or any one else so far
as I ever heard, has all the time been the secret, a pretty open
THE CENTRAL COUNTERPOISE GOVERNOR 23
secret when once seen, of the surprising combination of sensitive-
ness and stability in the action of this governor which has led to
its general use, and at which I myself have never ceased to wonder
because I was ignorant of its cause. This, however, was not the
only time that I builded better than I knew.
I can imagine some persons, after having read the above ex-
planation, to say, some of them perhaps flippantly, and some
possibly sneeringly, "To a properly educated engineer this is
obvious at a glance." I think it will be so hereafter, but has it
been so hitherto? If any one will produce the record of its ob-
servation I will cheerfully yield to him the priority and will con-
gratulate him upon it.
Some things, however, make me doubt if this observation has
ever been made. At the London Exhibition of 1862 this governor
attracted much attention from its novel appearance, rapid rotation
and remarkable action. Many engineers spoke to me about it.
In their conversation I observed two things: first, no one ever
asked me a question, but every one explained its action to me;
and second, while each had an explanation of his own to make,
they all agreed in a fundamental respect. Their minds ran in the
same groove. They considered the governor only in its theoretical
action. No one ever took notice of the incident of friction, which
was the controlling factor. An improved governor was in their
view one contrived in some way to free the governor from the
limitation to its action, which is imposed by the law of the conical
pendulum, and every one explained to me how my governor was
adapted to do this.
The following illustrates this universal view among English
engineers :
In the Appendix to the 10th edition of Rankine's "Manual of
the Steam-engine and other Prime Movers," published in 1882,
one reads as follows: "Isochronous governors. The ordinary
governor is not isochronous; for when, in order to adapt the
opening of the regulating-valve to different loads, it rotates with
its revolving pendulums at different angles to the vertical axis,
the altitude of the cone assumes different values, corresponding to
different speeds. The follotcing are expedients for diminishing or
removing this defect.
24 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
1. Loaded Governor (Porter's). — From the balls of the com-
mon governor, whose collective weight is (say) A, let there be
hung by a pair of links of lengths equal to the pendulum arms, a
load, B, capable of sliding up and down the spindle, and having its
center of gravity on the axis of rotation. Then the centrifugal
force is that due to A alone, and the effect of gravity that due
to .1 + 2/?; consequently the altitude for a given speed is increased
in the ratio A -\-2B\ A, as compared with that of a simple re-
volving pendulum; and a given absolute variation of altitude in
moving the regulating-valve produces a smaller proportionate
variation of speed than in the common governor."
That is the whole of it. Respecting this I have to say:
1st. The vertical motion of the counterpoise (variation of
altitude), if the links had also a single joint at the bottom, could
not be either more or less than twice that of the balls, which equal
lengths of the arms and links give also in the common governor,
so in this respect the governor is no improvement.
2d. No notice is taken of the small size of the balls or of the
speed of rotation.
3d. Professor Rankine is not responsible for this absurd piece
of reasoning.
4th. It only shows how far the English engineering mind has
been from considering the subject of hindrance to the governor
action from friction.
My governor works within the law of the conical pendulum.
I never dreamed of attempting in this form of governor to avoid
it. In fact it is this law which gives to the governor its action.
A change of speed is necessary to produce a motion of the counter-
poise. But as the governor was designed by me, this change
of speed is very small, probably no more than is required for
stability, and is not sensible in any way except in the motion of
the counterpoise itself, which is simultaneous with the most minute
changes of speed.
Quite a variety of modifications of this governor are being
made in this country, but I think not elsewhere. The makers
have been kind enough to invent the name "the central counter-
poise governor." For this I feel greatly obliged, as I should be
mortified to find my name attached to any of them. Their action
THE CENTRAL COUNTERPOISE GOVERNOR 25
is always more or less unsatisfactory, sometimes very much so.
But I do not think it likely that the secret of the remarkable
action of the Porter governor has been detected by any of these
people.
I am glad that this was not explained to me at first; if it had
been I might not have thought of the single long driving-joint,
which is a valuable feature.
When the stone-dressing machine proved to be valueless, as
already described, I found myself out of business ; but the governor
had attracted so much attention and had been so favorably re-
ceived that I thought I could establish a business of manufacturing
these governors, and I am proud to say that the gentlemen already
associated with me and who had lost their money in the abandon-
ment of the stone-dressing machine were so decidedly of the same
opinion, and I had won their confidence to such an extent, that
they furnished the money to enable me to establish this manu-
facture.
I rented a shop on the second floor of a triangular building on
Thirteenth Street, at the junction of Hudson Street and Ninth
Avenue, owned by Mr. Herring, the safe-manufacturer, the lower
part of which was occupied by him for his own business. This
was a large room and had light on three sides.
I proceeded to equip this shop with the necessary tools, some
of which I purchased of Mr. Freeland, then considered the best
toolmaker in the United States, and who had gone to England
and worked for some years as a journeyman in the celebrated
Whitworth Works, in Manchester, for the purpose of learning
everything that was known there. Those which Mr. Freeland
could not supply I obtained from Geo. S. Lincoln & Co., of Hart-
ford, Conn.
During the time these tools were building I was waited upon by
Mr. Chas. B. Richards, who was then removing from Hartford to
New York to establish himself as a designer of machinery, and
who brought me a letter from Geo. S. Lincoln & Co. I was at that
time engaged in scheming as well as I could a machine for drilling
the arms and balls and counterweight and spindle of my governor,
and immediately employed Mr. Richards to assist me in getting
out the drawings for this machine. This he did quite to my satis-
26 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
faction, and the machine was made by Geo. S. Lincoln & Co., Mr.
Pratt, for so many years head of the firm of Pratt & Whitney,
afterwards the Pratt & Whitney Company, being then their fore-
man; so that all my tools from that concern were made by Mr.
Pratt. He also cut for me superb iron patterns for the governor
gears.
This machine always interested me very much. It solved
every problem which was involved in the perfect and rapid per-
formance of these operations. It had two parallel spindles run-
ning horizontally in the same plane, one fixed and the other ad-
justable. Distance pieces laid between the spindle heads insured
the equal length of the arms of all governors of the same size.
The table was made 1 with a back to it, so that, a parallel block
being laid on tin' table behind the arms, these were always brought
in position parallel with its back. The arms were supported on
blocks of proper height. These provisions insured that the joint-
holes, which were drilled simultaneously, should intersect the axes
of the arms and of the balls and spindle at right angles. This
machine fitted up all the governors that I ever made. I gradually
built up an excellent business in their manufacture, on account of
the extreme pains taken to produce perfect work, so that the gov-
ernors always gave the highest satisfaction.
I think of only one instance to the contrary. I sold a gov-
ernor to Mr. Winslow, of Troy, afterwards of the firm of Corning
& Winslow, the first manufacturers of Bessemer steel rails in this
country under the inspiration of Mr. Alexander L. Holley. Soon
after this governor had been shipped I received a letter from Mr.
Winslow telling me that the governor would not answer at all, and
I should come and see about it. I found the governor had been
placed on a second-hand Burden engine, which was a well-known
type of horizontal engine at that time, made in Brooklyn. The
engine had been built to make 50 revolutions per minute, but being
a great deal too large for their use they had reduced the speed to
25 revolutions per minute, and the complaint was that every
time the crank passed its centers the governor dropped to its
seat. I told them what I thought the difficulty was; that any
one could see that the engine very nearly stopped as the crank
passed its centers, and the governor had to drop. To show them
Charles B. Richards
A.D. 1858
THE CENTRAL COUNTERPOISE GOVERNOR 27
this action, I disconnected the governor from the valve and throt-
tled the engine by hand, and showed them that the governor, when
not connected with the throttle-valve, rose and dropped on
every stroke, in the same way as when connected. They asked
me what I was going to do about it. I told them I should do froth-
ing about it; that I presumed they might possibly get a governor
somewhere that would stand that alternation of speed without
winking, but they had better send mine back, because it was not
made for any such service.
The following is an amusing illustration, doubtless an extreme
one, of the degree in which the lay mind may be incapable of
mechanical perception. My governors were usually set on the
engine bed of horizontal engines near the shaft, and were connected
with the throttle-valve over the cylinder by means of a bell-crank
lever and a long rod. One day a gentleman called to make a
personal examination of the governor and its manufacture, with
a view to investing in the business. I showed him a governor
in action on the testing platform, and a woodcut on my circular
which represented the governor in its position, as above described,
with a short piece of the connecting-rod attached to the lever.
He looked at this cut intently for some time, and then, putting
his finger on the broken-off end of the little rod, said, "Ah, I see;
the steam enters there." I made no reply, and he was so much
pleased with his own penetration that lie invested at once.
I know of only one case in which this governor needed the
help of a dash-pot or controlling vessel. In the great plate-mill
of the Otis Works, in Cleveland, when the enormous mass of steel
struck the rolls, the governor dropped sharply to its seat, and
jumped as sharply to the upper limit of its action when this mass
was shot out. Mr. Wellman, their general manager, suggested to
me an elegant arrangement of air-chambers at the top and bottom
of a cylinder, which permitted free motion to the governor through
its whole range of action, but cushioned it on confined air at the
ends.
For several years I made the counterpoise of the governor in
the form of a vase. The present form with hemispherical top
was suggested by Mr. Whitworth in 1866, and shown by me in
the Paris Exposition of 1867. It has three advantages. It is
28 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
more readily turned with a circular tool-rest, and it contains more
metal and looks more mechanical.
I exhibited the governor in operation at a fair of the American
Institute held on Fourteenth Street between Sixth and Seventh
avenues, New York City (where the armory of the Twelfth Regi-
ment now stands), making an arrangement with an exhibitor of
an engine for that purpose. I remember that Mr. George H.
Reynolds, then an engineer in the works of Mr. Delamater at the
foot of West Thirteenth Street, as he passed it with a friend a day
or two after it was started, remarked in my hearing, "It will take
a horse-power to drive that governor." It would not do to let
any such nonsense get around as the opinion of an engineer, so
the next morning the governor was driven by a belt f of an inch
wide, and continued to be so through the fair. I was sorry after-
wards that I did not use a half-inch belt, which would have driven
it just as well, and indeed I think even a narrower belt would
have done, as the foot of the spindle was of hardened steel, a
segment of a sphere, running in a puddle of oil in a hardened
step cupped to a larger radius.
The funniest application of the governor I ever made was
the following: The Civil War had just broken out, and every
Yankee was making some warlike invention. The most ridiculous
of all was a centrifugal gun. A company was formed for its manu-
facture. The shot, about an inch in diameter, was fed in at the
center of a swiftly revolving wheel and thrown out through a
barrel at the periphery, with a velocity that, it was estimated by
the inventor, would carry it about two miles. This velocity was to
be got up in about one second. The governor would not act
quickly enough, and the engine was stopped. The parties heard
of my governor, and ordered one, offering to pay for it in a tempting
amount of their stock. I preferred the cash and got it. The
governor filled the bill, the shot was delivered, the velocity of
revolution not falling sensibly, but we judged by the sharp fall of
the counterpoise that it required not less than twenty horse-powers
to do it.
The gun was tried on the bank of the Hudson, the Palisades
opposite being the target. The inventor declared that every shot
hit the mark, but some evil-minded persons insisted that they
THE CENTRAL COUNTERPOISE GOVERNOR 29
fell into the water within a quarter of a mile of the shore from
which they were fired.
About the same time the absurdity of sending into the field
a tank of water, a boiler, an engine and the gun, on separate wheels,
connected by pipes or belting, which would be ruined by the least
damage to anything, began to dawn on the enthusiasts, and the
thing was abandoned.
I furnished one of my first governors to Mr. James Horner to
regulate a rolling-mill near Boonton, N. J., a sale which is worth
recording. This mill was employed in rolling steel pretty high in
carbon into rods for making gimlets, and the three-high train had
not yet issued from the brain of Mr. Fritz. The rolling was slow
work. The resistance brought down the speed of the engine before
the governor could act, and they could have only one pass in the rolls
at a time. The workmen had to carry the end of the rod around
and insert it in the next groove after it had run out of the former
one. The rod would be black before it was finished, and often it
was difficult to get it finished at all. I do not know of any change
that so much impressed me at the time as did that which followed
the putting of my governor on this engine. The full speed was
kept up, the billets seemed to rush through the rolls, two and
even three passes could be in them at the same time, and the
rods were still at a dull red heat when finished.
This success induced me to make a raid on Pittsburg. I found
there very different conditions. They then rolled nothing but
iron, so far as I saw or heard. In the first mill I visited, after I
had discussed the subject with one of the proprietors, an old man
came up to mo and said, "Do you see that chair? I have sat in
that chair twenty-four years." The chair corroborated his story.
"I watch the rolls; when a bar enters them, I turn on more steam;
when it goes out I shut it off. If you put in a governor that will
do as well, I shall be discharged. I don't know how to do any-
thing else; I have a family dependent on me, and I don't know
what I should do." I did not hesitate long about what I should
do. I could not improve on the old man's action. He regulated
the speed perfectly. The only result of my success would be to
beggar him. Superseding hand labor by machinery I did not in
this particular case care to be responsible for. I concluded that
30 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
the Pittsburg way was good enough for them, and took the next
train for home.
The first governor I sold was to Mr. William Moller for
his sugar-refinery on Vandam Street. The engine to be reg-
ulated was an old-fashioned beam-engine. The governor was
to be set on a bracket that we had to bolt to the wall, and
a pulley some 3 feet or more in diameter had to be made
in halves and put on the shaft. To make sure that no mistake
would be made, I went down myself to make a gauge of that shaft.
I took a f-inch steel rod bent to span the shaft, and made of this
an outside gauge with great care. Now this was not what I wanted,
but I did not know it. I wanted an inside gauge, representing the
diameter of the shaft, and what I did make was useful only to
compare the two.
I returned highly satisfied with my work, leaving the real gauge
to be made in the shop, where it could not be compared with the
shaft. What might reasonably have been expected to happen
did happen. In some unaccountable way something happened
to my gauge, and when we went to install the governor we found
the pulley had been bored \ inch too small. We had to work
hard all night, and got through only just in time for the engine to
start at its usual hour in the morning. If I had sent a man who
knew his business to make this gauge I should have avoided a lot
of trouble, but I should not have learned anything.
In preparing for the establishment of the governor manufacture
I visited the works of Geo. S. Lincoln & Co., in Hartford, and saw
twist -drills in use, cutting chips instead of scraping. They at-
tracted my attention and I inquired about them, and was told
that they made them themselves. They kindly took me into
the smith-shop and had one made for me to witness the operation.
The smith heated a round bar of steel and swaged channels in it
on opposite sides. They had quite a set of top and bottom swages
for different-sized channels. He then took another heat on the
bar and twisted it by hand, giving a gradually increasing twist,
which at the end was quite rapid. An increasing twist was ob-
tained in this way. The drill was held in a vise, so that only the
projecting end of it could receive the amount of twist then being
imparted. The drill had to be moved in the vise of course a num-
GAUGES AND TWIST DRILLS 31
ber of times. The channels were smoothed out with files, and
when the drill was turned in the lathe sharp cutting edges were
developed, which needed only to be backed off by grinding. I
took one of these drills home with me to serve as a pattern and
equipped my shop with them. They were of the highest use to
me. The small ones drilled the holes for the governor joints, and
the large ones drilled the counterpoise and the column for the
governor spindle. I suppose the twist-drill had its origin in these
Hartford works.
I never saw any twist-drills in England except at Mr. Whit-
worth's, and these I thought were the funniest things I ever did
see. They were twisted by the blacksmith out of square bars
and with a uniform quick twist, were left rough, and did not fill
the hole, and the ends were flattened out in the form of the com-
mon drill to scrape, and not to cut.
When I returned from England in 1868 twist-drills were com-
ing into general use in this country. After 1876 the firm of Smith
<fe Coventry introduced them in England.
At that time almost everything in machine-shops was done in
the old-fashioned way, and accuracy depended entirely on the
skill of the workman. The tool work left much to be done by the
fitter. Interchangeability was unknown, even in screw-threads.
For example, when nuts were removed from a cylinder head, pains
had always to be taken that each nut was replaced on its own
bolt, as no two were exactly of a size. This condition developed
a class of .very skillful all-round workmen; but my earliest obser-
vation showed me that in manufacturing it was important that
so far as possible the personal factor should be eliminated. I
adopted the rule that in mechanical work there was only one
way to insure that anything should always be done right, and
that was to make it impossible that it should be done wrong. For
example, in my governor gears their true running required that
the bore should be absolutely correct, both in position and in
direction. I had seen many gears bored. They were held in the
jaws of a chuck and trued by marking their projecting side when
running with a piece of chalk. It was evident that absolute truth
could hardly ever be reached in this way, and the approximation
to it depended wholly on the skill and pains of the workman.
32 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
Besides, much time was lost in setting each wheel. These objec-
tions were much aggravated in the case of bevel-gears.
I met these difficulties in this way. In standardizing my
governors I found it necessary to make eight sizes, but managed
to use only three different pairs of gears. I made a separate chuck
for each of these six wheels, the faces of which were turned to fit
the top and inner ends of the teeth, the same surfaces to which I
had seen the chalk applied. When the castings were received
from the foundry the first operation on them was to bed them to
their chucks, which w T ere covered with a thin coating of red lead for
this purpose. The workman was careful to remove only project-
ing imperfections without touching the true surfaces of the teeth.
After this the gears, being held firmly to their chucks by means
of a yoke, were bored rapidly and always with absolute truth.
Result : their running was practically noiseless.
Mr. Freeland taught me the secret of producing true cylindrical
surfaces by grinding with a wheel. It was to let the swiftly revolv-
ing wheel traverse the surface as it rotated, touching only the high-
est points, and these very lightly. This avoided the danger of
errors from the springing of either the piece or the wheel, which
under strong pressure is sure to take place to some extent, even
in the best grinding-machines. I have found this delicacy of touch
to be a most difficult thing to teach the ordinary workmen. They
often manage to produce by grinding a surface more imperfect
than it was before.
I took extreme pains to insure that the axes of the joint pins
should intersect the axis of the governor spindle and those of
the governor balls, and should be equidistant from the center
of the counterpoise, these parts of the joints having been turned
to true spherical forms by means of a circular tool-rest. For this
purpose I employed a feeling-gauge, consisting of a cylindrical stem
fitting the hole as drilled, with a curved arm projecting from this
stem and terminating in a point that would rub on the external
surface of the balls. By this means we almost always detected
some slight inaccuracy, which was remedied by the use of a round
file. The joint holes were afterwards finished with long reamers,
the cutting portion of which was in the middle of their length.
The front end of the reamer fitted the drilled hole and extended
THE CENTRAL COUNTERPOISE GOVERNOR 33
quite through the joint, so guiding the cutting edges as they
entered, and the back end of the reamer filled the hole that had
been reamed.
I finally tested their alignment by bringing the last of the five
joints together after the others had been united, when the forked
link should swing freely to the ball without the least tendency
in either direction from its exact place. This it always did.
Some time afterwards I adopted the plan of dispensing with
heads and washers on the joint pins, reaming the holes in the
central portions of the joint slightly smaller than those in the
arms and making the pin a hard fit in the former. There was
never any tendency for a pin to get loose in the running 3f the
governor. I also at a later date cut the counterpoise in two a
short distance above the joints, so that the mass of its weight did
not need to be started and stopped when the speed of the governor
changed. I could not see, however, that this was of any advantage,
although when the governor balls were pulled around by hand no
motion was imparted to the mass of the counterpoise. The action
was apparently quite perfect before.
CHAPTER III
Invention and Application of my Marine Governor
jgjjl WAS anxious from the first to produce a governoi
capable of being used on marine engines — which the
governor already described could not be, as it needed
to stand in a vertical position — and also one that
should be free from the limitations of the conical pendulum. I
gave a great deal of study to the subject, and after worrying
about it — I am ashamed to say how long, for the principle when
once seen is found to be exceedingly simple, being merely main-
taining a constant ratio between the compression of the spring
and the radius of the circle of revolution of the balls — I finally
perfected my marine governor and tried it in my shop, running
it from a hand-driven pulley, and found it perfectly isochronous.
It was capable of being adjusted to lie as nearly isochronous as
we thought expedient consistent with stability of position.
This governor is represented in the cut that follows. The
motion imparted was small, from f to H inches in the different
sizes, but the governor was very strong. The balls are shown
half expanded. Before expansion their circle of revolution is 10
inches diameter; when fully expanded it is 15 inches diameter;
increase in diameter, and so in centrifugal force, 50 percent. The
spring has an initial compression given by the nut of 2 inches;
additional compression imparted by the expansion of the balls,
1 inch, giving an increase of 50 per cent, in the resistance. So in
every position of the balls the two forces are in equilibrium, at a
constant number of revolutions per minute.
My friend Mr. McLaren had the job of making repairs on the
vessels of the newly started North German Lloyd Line, and feel-
34
MARINE GOVERNOR 35
ing confident that my governor was what that line needed very
much, he obtained from the agents in New York an order for me
to put one on the steamer " New York " on a guarantee of perfect
performance. This was the first steamship of this line. The chief
engineer of the vessel, an Englishman, Mr. Sparks, told me in con-
versation that I could have no idea how anxious they were in the
engineering department for my governor to be a success, because
they had to throttle the ship by hand, and it seemed sometimes
as though their arms would drop off before the end of their watch;
but he was sorry to say that I could not do it, and he would tell me
why. "We know when the screw is coming out of the water by
the rising of the stern of the vessel, and we shut the steam off
beforehand, and so when the stern goes down we know that it
is going down into the sea and admit the steam to the engine
beforehand. Now, your governor cannot tell what is going to
happen. It cannot act until a change of motion has taken place
which will be too late, and so I am sorry to say that you cannot
succeed." But in spite of his want of faith I obtained authority
to attach the governor.
On returning from his first voyage with it, Mr. Sparks said to
me: "I have nothing to say, Mr. Porter, except that we have sat
quietly in our chairs all the voyage, which has been a very stormy
one, and watched the engine moving as regularly as a clock, while
the governor has been in a state of incessant activity."
The captain joined with him in giving me the following testi-
monials :
" Steamship ' New York,'
" Pier 30, North River.
u To Mr. Chas. T. Porter:
"Sir: It affords me sincere pleasure to acknowledge the per-
fect success of your patent marine governor, as applied to the
engines of the above ship.
"On our passage from Southampton we had an excellent
opportunity of testing its merits fully, and I can assure you it
had complete control over the engines at all times. Not the slight-
est racing occurred, nor any of those sudden shocks that happen
with the best hand-throttling. It closed the valve at the right
moment, and as freely opened it again, thus maintaining a uni-
form speed throughout.
" To the proprietors of steamships, or engineers having charge of
36 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
marine engines, I can confidently recommend this most valuable
invention, wishing it the success so perfect a governor deserves.
"I am
' Respectfully yours,
"H. Sparks,
"Chief Engineer.
" May 30, 1861."
"I cordially concur in the approbation of Mr. Porter's governor,
contained in the foregoing letter of the chief engineer. We had
several days of bad weather on the last passage, and the ship, being
very lightly laden, pitched excessively, so as to throw the screw
at times entirely out of the water.
"The motion of the engines and ship was at all times perfectly
steady; scarcely a jar was felt in the ship more than in calm
weather.
"I would strongly recommend to all masters and engineers of
screw steamships to use this governor.
" G. Wenke,
" Master of the S. S. 'New York.'
•• New York. June 1. 1861."
It may be supposed that with such an unqualified endorse-
ment we would have no difficulty in obtaining many orders. In
fact, so long as simple engines were used a good business was
done in the manufacture of these governors, but when compound-
ing came into use it was found that they regulated no more. The
intermediate receiver held steam enough when admitted to the
low-pressure cylinder to run the engine away when the screw
came out of the water, and the use of marine governors entirely
ceased, and the engines have ever since been allowed to race
without any attempt to control them.
This governor was not, however, to vanish like the stone-
dressing machine. About the time when the patent on it expired,
its principle came to be utilized in shaft governors. I do not
know by whom this application of it, which afterwards became
so extensive, was first made.
On the "New York" I made my first and only observation
■ on the subject of electrolysis. I was required to put in a special
valve to be operated by the governor. I put in a throttle valve
of steam metal in a cast-iron chamber. The spindle was of steel,
2 inches diameter, and the valve was secured on it by three steel
MARINE GOVERNOR
37
taper pins f inch diameter at one end and J inch at the other. For
some reason, what it was I have now no idea, on the return of the
The Porter Marine Governor.
ship I took this valve chamber out of the pipe, and found something
I was not looking for. The projecting ends of these pins, fully h
38 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
inch long, had been completely eaten away in one round trip. I
had to replace them with composition pins, which I always used
afterwards.
Directly after the success of my marine governor on the "New
York" I went West to attempt its introduction on propellers
running on the Great Lakes. This journey resulted in the same
financial success that I had achieved at Pittsburg; but some
incidents make it interesting to me.
On taking my seat in a car for Albany I found my companion
to be Mr. Hiram Sibley, afterwards the founder of Sibley College
of the Mechanic Arts in Cornell University. When I lived in
Rochester Mr. Sibley was sheriff of Monroe County, of which
Rochester is the capital or shire town, and as a lawyer I was
occasionally brought into some relations with him. We had not
met in eleven years, but we instantly recognized each other. He
was then enjoying the triumphant outcome of his amazing fore-
sight and boldness, and he loved to talk about his experience,
especially with an old Rochester man who had known his asso-
ciates there. In fact, he entertained me all the way to Albany.
On the first burst of enthusiasm over the invention of the
telegraph, companies had been incorporated in many of the States
for the establishment of lines. These companies, it was found
directly, could not even pay their running expenses, because their
operations were confined to their respective States. Mr. Sibley
was the man for the hour. He conceived the plan of buying up
the stock of all these companies, which could be got for very little,
and after this had been secured incorporating a company to
operate throughout the United States. It is difficult now to put
ourselves back to that time, when the vastness of such a scheme
would take men's breath away. Mr. Sibley succeeded in interest-
ing the financial men of Rochester in the enterprise, and the
Western Union Telegraph Company was formed. The story of
his struggles to hold his subscribers, resisting the appeals of some
of them for the sake of their families to be released from their
obligations, was very amusing. He was obdurate and enriched
them all.
A few years later Mr. Sibley conceived a plan for a telegraph
line to San Francisco, and at his request a meeting was held of
MARINE GOVERNOR 39
parties holding la''ge interests in the Western Union Telegraph
Company to consider the proposition. This was referred to a
committee, who in their report pronounced the scheme utterly
visionary, and indulged in considerable merriment over its ab-
surdity, and the proposal was unanimously rejected. Mr. Sibley
then got up and said, "Gentlemen, if I were not so old a man I
would build the line myself." This declaration was received
with peals of laughter. Then he got mad and shouted over the
din, " Damn it, gentlemen, I'll bar the years and do it "; and now
he had done it. "And this very day," said he, "I have been
solicited by merchants in New York to let them have shares in
California telegraph stock at the rate of five dollars for one, men
whom I had almost on my knees begged in vain for help to build
the line; but they could not get the stock." I asked him, "Don't
you have trouble from the Indians?" to which he replied: "The
Indians are the best friends we have got. They believe the Great
Spirit is in that wire; in fact, they know it, for they have seen him.
The linemen had shown them the electric sparks. The only
trouble we have had has been from the border ruffians of Missouri.
We are now building a line through Iowa, around the State of
Missouri."
On arriving at Buffalo I called first upon the firm of Shepard
& Company, who were the largest builders of engines for the lake
steamers. I did not succeed in persuading them that it would
be for their advantage to add to the cost of the engines they were
building, but they were very courteous and advised me to apply
to the companies owning the boats. I did not make much
progress with them, but the matter was left open for further con-
sideration on my return from Chicago. An official of one of the
transportation companies showed me over a new boat. I saw a
valve in the steam-pipe at some little distance from the engine,
and asked him what it was. He told me that was the cut-off. I
asked him, "Why not place it on the boiler?" He did not see the
humor of the question, but replied to me quite seriously, " Because
it is a part of the engine."
At the Shepard Works I said to the gentleman who conducted
me over the works, "I see you use the Corliss valve." "Corliss
valve, indeed!" said he. "Come with me." He then showed me
40 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
their own engine driving the shop, and fitted with the same valve,
cutting off, of course, at a fixed point . He said to me. " That engine
has been running in that very spot more than twenty years. Mr.
Corliss once visited these works, and I showed him around just
as I am showing you around. He was very much interested in
the valves we were making, and asked me a great many questions
about them. It was not very long afterwards that we began to
hear from Providence about the Corliss valve."
I went on to Chicago, arriving on a Saturday afternoon. I
went to the house of an uncle, the Rev. Jeremiah Porter, who was
a man of some local prominence, having been the first missionary
sent by the American Home Missionary Society to Fort Dearborn,
which stood where Chicago is before Chicago was. I expected to
set out Monday morning to look for customers, but I changed _my
mind, for that morning the telegraph brought the news of the
battle of Bull Run, which had been fought the day before, while
I was in church hearing my uncle preach. I did not think any one
would have much heart for business for some time to come, so
hurried back home as fast as steam could take me, not stopping in
Buffalo.
Some years afterwards I had an amusing experience in at-
tempting to introduce my governor into the British navy. I called
upon Mr. John Penn, to whom I had sold one of my stationary
governors for his own works and who had become very much
interested in the Richards indicator, and I thought he would
surely adopt my marine governor. He told me, however, that he
must set his face against it like a flint, and explained as follows:
"I do business entirely with governments, principally the English
government, and I come in contact with the official mind, and I
have to adapt myself to it. Should I put one of your governors
on an engine, my competitors would say: 'Mr. Penn is afraid to
send his engines to sea without a governor, they are made so
delicately. Our engines, gentlemen, do not require any governor,
and they would take all the orders."
Marine-engine builders generally did not seem to appreciate
this governor. While in Manchester I had an inquiry from Caird
& Co. of Greenock, the builders of the engines for the "New
York," and indeed of the entire ship. They asked the price of my
MARINE GOVERNOR 41
smallest marine governor. I inquired the size of the vessel for
which it was wanted. Their reply was brief. "None of your
business. We would like an answer to our question."
Some months after I received a letter from my foreman in New
York: "Mr. Porter, what in the name of common sense did you
put such a little governor on the 'America' for?" Caird & Co.
had performed their contract to supply a Porter governor, and
had left a suitable one to be ordered from my shop in New York.
Soon after the first arrival of the steamer " Kaiser Wilhelm der
Grosse," about 1900 (I forget the year), I obtained a letter of intro-
duction to the chief engineer of that vessel, and called upon him
for the purpose of asking him to favor me with indicator diagrams
from its engines. In the course of conversation I said to him:
"I have rather a partiality for this line, for I put my first marine
governor on its first vessel, the old 'New York,' in '61." He
replied to me: "I remember that very well, Mr. Porter; I was an
oiler on that ship." He had risen from that position to be chief
engineer of the line. At that time the Germans were commencing
to form a steam marine. They had not only to procure their
vessels abroad, but also engineers to run the machinery. They
set in earnest about this development, and took out of their poly-
technic schools the brightest young men to put them on foreign-
built vessels and in foreign shops to learn the business, with the
wonderful results we are now witnessing, and the chief engineer
was one of those lads. He said to me: "I have an acquaintance
in your town, Montclair — Mr. Clemens Herschel," a prominent
civil engineer. "He was an old friend and fellow student of mine
in the polytechnic." About the diagrams, he said he would take
a set for me on their next voyage. He kept his promise. I have
the diagrams now, and very instinctive ones they are.
CHAPTER IV
Engineering conditions in I860. I meet Mr. Allen. Mr. Allen's inventions.
Analysis of the Allen link.
EFORE resuming my narrative, it seems desirable to
present a brief sketch of steam engineering conditions
a Era) j3 i"i
JS aBa Tlie science of thermodynamics had been estab-
lished on the foundation laid in the experiments of Joule, deter-
mining with precision the rate at which, through the medium of
water, heat is converted into dynamical force. This science was,
however, as yet without practical results. The condensation of
steam in the cylinder from the conversion of its heat into mechan-
ical energy was unregarded. The same was true also respecting
the far greater loss from the changing temperatures of the
surfaces with which the steam comes in contact in alternately
entering and leaving the cylinder. The action of these surfaces
in transmitting heat from the entering to the exhaust steam
without its doing any work was imagined by very few.
In the United States economy of steam was sought only by me-
chanical means — by cutting off the admission of the steam at an
early point of the stroke in a single cylinder and permitting the
confined steam to complete the stroke by its expansion. By this
means a large saving of steam over that consumed in earlier prac-
tice was effected, and with this gain the universal disposition was
to rest content.
America was eminently the land of the cut-off system, an
early application of which was on steamboats. The earliest device
for this purpose was the elegant Stevens cut-off, which still keeps
its position on the class of boats to which it was first applied,
though commonly modified by the Sickles improvement. In this
42
ENGINEERING CONDITIONS IN 1S60 43
system the exhaust and the admission valves are operated by
separate eccentrics on opposite sides of the engine, and all the
valves have the amount and rapidity of their opening and clos-
ing movements increased by the intervention of wiper cams, those
for the admission valves being very long and giving a correspond-
ingly greater enlargement of opening. The valves were double
poppet valves, moving nearly in equilibrium in directions vertical
to their seats. This cut-off was found to be capable of improve-
ment in one important respect. The closing motion of the valve
grew slower as the valve approached its seat, and while the piston
was moving most rapidly much steam passed through the ports
at a lower pressure, and so a great part of its expansive value was
lost. This was technically termed "wire-drawing." To remedy
this defect Mr. Sickels invented his celebrated trip cut-off. The
valve, lifted by the Stevens wiper, was liberated by tripping the
mechanism, and fell quickly to its seat, which it was prevented
from striking forcibly, being caught by water in a dash-pot. The
steam was thus cut off sharply and the economy was much im-
proved. The pressure used in this system was only about 25
pounds, the vacuum being relied upon for the larger portion of
the power.
On the Great Lakes a pressure of 60 pounds was commonly
employed, and the valves were the four cylindrical rotating slide
valves afterwards adopted by Mr. Corliss. What was called the
cut-off was made by a separate valve located in the steam-pipe
somewhere between the engine and the boiler.
On the Mississippi and its tributaries, much higher pressures
were carried, condensers were not used, and the admission and
release of the steam were generally effected by four single poppet
valves, lifted by cams against the pressure of the steam.
On land engines Mr. Sickels' invention of the trip cut-off stimu-
lated inventors to a multitude of devices for working steam expan-
sively. Of these the one of enduring excellence proved to be
that of Mr. Corliss. He applied the trip cut-off to the rotating
slide valve, and arrested the motion of the liberated valve by an
air-cushion. This proved a satisfactory method, as the valve,
moving in directions parallel to its seat, did not need to be stopped
at a determinate point. Mr. Corliss applied the governor to vary
44 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
the point of liberation of the valve, and so produced a variable
cut-off, which effected a large saving of steam and regulated the
motion of the engine more closely than could bo done by a throttle
valve outside the steam-chest. This was by far the most promi-
nent of the numerous forms of automatic variable cut-offs, to all
of which it was supposed that the liberating feature was essential.
In England, when the steam was worked expansively, it was
cut off by a separately driven valve on the back of the main slide
valve, the point of cut-off being fixed; and the regulation was
effected by means of the throttle. This system was also largely
employed in this country.
The compound engine was unknown in the United States.
I once saw at some place in New York City, now forgotten, a Wolff
engine — a small beam-engine, which had been imported from
England. It was visited as a curiosity by several engineers, ami
I remember Mr. Horatio Allen, then president of the Novelty Iron
Works, remarking, "It is only a cut-off."
In the south of England the Wolff system was used to a limited
extent. I was much interested in the McNaught system, devised,
I think, by the same Scotchman who first applied a rotating paper
drum to the Watt indicator. The cotton and woolen mills, as
their business grew, felt the need of additional power, but dared
not employ higher steam pressures in their cylinders, because the
beam centers of their engines would not stand the additional
stress. McNaught provided an additional cylinder to carry a
higher pressure, and applied this pressure directly to the connecting-
rod end of the beam. The exhaust from this cylinder was taken
into the old cylinder at the old pressure. This latter cylinder then
exerted the same power it always had done. The stresses on the
beam centers were not increased, but the power of the engine was
doubled, and only a little more steam was used than before. This
method of compounding was known as McNaughting, and
became common in the manufacturing districts of England and
Scotland.
There was one feature which was common to all engines in
America and Europe, both ashore and afloat, and of whatever
make or name, except locomotives. That was the piston speed,
which varied only from 200 to 300 feet per minute. This last was
/ MEET MR. ALLEN 45
the maximum speed, to which every new engine, however novel in
other respects, was made to conform.
I come now to the turning-point in my career, and the reflec-
tion forces itself upon me, how often in the course of my life inci-
dents trivial in themselves have proved afterwards to have been
big with consequences; and how events, sometimes chains of
events, beyond my control, of which indeed I had no knowledge,
have determined my course. The same must be the case in the
lives of many persons, and the thoughtful mind cannot look back
on them without being impressed by the mysterious interrela-
tions of our being.
One morning in the winter of 1860-61, Mr. Henry A. Hurlbut,.
of the firm of Swift, Hurlbut & Co., wholesale dealers in hats at
No. 65 Broadway, and who was interested in my governor manu-
facture, called upon me to tell me that a friend of his, Mr. Henry A.
Burr, manufacturer of felt hat bodies at the corner of Frankfort
and Cliff streets in New York, had been having trouble with his
engine. He thought my governor was just what he needed, and
asked me to accompany him to Mr. Burr's office, where he would
give me the advantage of his personal introduction. In the inter-
view with Mr. Burr which followed, I did not have an opportunity
to say a word. After Mr. Hurlbut had explained the object of
our visit, Mr. Burr replied that he had had a great deal of trouble
with the regulation of his engine, and had thought seriously of
getting a Corliss engine in the place of it: but two or three weeks
before the builders of the engine had sent him a very skillful
engineer, and since he came there had been no further trouble,
so he should not need my governor. He invited us to see his
engine, in which — since it had been taught to behave itself — he
evidently took much pride. We found a pair of beam-engines of
5 feet stroke, running at 25 revolutions per minute, made by
Thurston & Gardiner of Providence. They had the usual poppet
valves and the Sickels cut-off. This was made adjustable, and
was regulated by the governor. At the time of our entrance, Mr.
Allen, the new engineer, was engaged on the scaffold. Mr. Burr
called him and he came down, and at Mr. Burr's request ex-
plained to us the variable liberating mechanism and what he had
done to make it work satisfactorily. The regulation did not appear
46 EXGIXEERING REMINISCENCES
to mo to bo very close, and I made a determined effort to induce
Mr. Burr to substitute one of my governors. I showed him a
cut of the governor, and pointed out its combination of power and
sensitiveness, but all in vain. He was satisfied with things as
they were, and I went away crestfallen, having lost not only the
sale of a governor, but also an opportunity for a triumph in a very
important place. But T did not know to whom I had in fact been
talking.
As we were leaving, Mr. Allen asked me if I would call some
time and sec him — he had something he thought I would be
interested in. I called soon after. He told me he had a plan
for a variable cut-off with positive movements, which he thought
would avoid defects in the liberating gear. He had had it in his
mind a good while, but did not think it could be used, because
the governor could not handle the block in his link so as to main-
tain uniform motion, and he had been inclined to abandon the
idea: but when he heard me describing my governor to Mr. Burr,
it occurred to him that that governor would do it, and he would
like to explain his plan to me. He had no drawing, not a line;
the design existed only in his mind. He put down his ideas, as
he fitly expressed it, with chalk on the engine-room floor, and
that rude sketch represented the perfect system.
When his plan came to be analyzed, it was found that every-
thing had been thought out and provided for, with a single ex-
ception afterwards provided by Mr. Allen, as will be described.
But the wonder did not stop there. Mr. Allen had remedied the
defect in the link motion of making a narrow opening for ad-
mission when cutting off early, by employing a four-opening
admission valve of unique design at each end of the cylinder, and
also by greatly enlarging the opening movements.
The four-opening valve required four seats in one plane, and
it was important that these should be as narrow as possible. For
this purpose Mr. Allen employed the Corliss wrist-plate movement
to reduce the lap of the valve, and, by an elegant improvement
on this movement, he made it available also to enlarge the open-
ings. This improvement consisted in the employment of two
rockers having a common axis and separate driving-arms, as well
as driven arms, for each valve. The driving-arms were made to
MR. ALLEN'S INVENTIONS 47
vibrate a long way towards their dead points, and the increased
opening movement in arc thus obtained was imparted directly to
the valve. This combination of an enlarged opening with a
reduced lap was perhaps the most surprising feature of Mr. Allen's
system.
The four-opening equilibrium valve, afterwards invented by
Mr. Allen and since 1S76 always employed, requires but two
scats in one plane. These could therefore be made wider. The
division of the driving-arm was then dispensed with, and the
enlarged openings were obtained by increasing the length of the
driven arms.
That this remarkable system of ports and movements should
have been elaborated in the mind of a man who had no knowledge
of mechanics except what he had absorbed in engine-rooms must
stand among the marvels of inventive power.
The accompanying diagram represents the lines put down by
Mr. Allen on his engine-room floor and since retained, except that
it is now adapted to the more simple movement, with a single
driving-arm on the rocker, as previously described.
The eccentric is formed on the shaft coincident with the crank
of the engine, so that the two arrive at their dead points simul-
taneously.
The angular vibration of the line connecting the center of the
eccentric with the trunnions of the link is the same as that of the
connecting-rod.
The connecting-rod of the length always used by me, namdy,
six cranks, makes the piston velocity at the head end of the
cylinder 40 per cent, greater than at the crank end. By this
construction the valve velocities were made to vary in the same
ratio.
A connecting-rod five cranks in length would increase this
difference in piston velocities to 50 per cent., and one four cranks
in length would increase it to 66 per cent.
After Mr. Allen had explained his plan to me, I expressed my
confidence that my governor would meet its requirements, and
observed that it would enable a variable cut-off engine to be run
as fast as a locomotive. Somewhat to my surprise, he replied that
he wanted his cut-off compared with the liberating cut-off turn
48
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
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John F. Allen
ANALYSIS OF THE ALLEN LINK 49
for turn; that it had an advantage which he thought would cause
it to be generally preferred at the same speed.
I was then ignorant of his state of mind on that subject, or of
what had produced it. I learned these afterwards, and will state
them here. In one of our interviews, in reply to my question
as to what had led him to make this invention, he told me it was
his experience when he was engineer of the propeller "Curlew,"
a freight-boat running on Long Island Sound, between New York
and Providence, which had a Corliss engine. He became im-
pressed with what he thought to be a serious defect in the liberat-
ing system. The governor did not control the point of cut-off,
but the point of release; this point being at the beginning of the
closing movement of the valve, while the cut-off took place near
the end of that movement. When the engine was worked up to
nearty its capacity, as was the case in a ship, the port was opened
wide, and quite an appreciable time elapsed between the release
and the cut-off. During this interval the piston advanced con-
siderably, and if the engine ran fast enough it might get to the
very end of the stroke before the cut-off took place. He said that
in smooth water they had no trouble, but in the open ocean,
going around Point Judith, it was always rough, and sometimes
in stormy weather the screw would be thrown quite out of the
water, and the engine, having no fly-wheel, would race most
furiously. The faster it ran the further the steam would follow,
and was pumped out of the boiler very rapidly. Springs were
employed to accelerate the closing movement of the valves, but
in these cases they seemed to be of little use, and were con-
tinually breaking. He saw that this difficulty could be avoided
only by a positive motion gear which would enable the gover-
nor to control the point of cut-off itself; and, accordingly, he
set himself to work to devise such a system. We know now that
Ibis judgment, formed from observations made under very excep-
tional conditions, was not well founded. The difficulty in ques-
tion does not practically exist in engines having fly-wheels and
the present improved liberating gear, and running at moderate
speeds; but the experience naturally made a deep impression
upon Mr. Allen's mind, and led to the invention of the positive
motion system.
50 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
This he did not tell me at the time, so that I was at a loss to
understand his reluctance to admit what was really the great
value of his invention. However, I told him I would be willing
to attempt its introduction, provided he would allow me to apply
it at once to a high-speed engine; that being a field into which
the liberating system could not enter. We had quite an argument
on this point . I told him his invention interested me only because it
would enable two or three times the power to be obtained from a
given engine without additional stress on any part, the fly-wheel
to be reduced in size, and the means for getting up the speed of
machinery to be largely dispensed with. I represented to him
also that a high-speed engine ought to be more economical and
to give a more nearly uniform motion.
He finally agreed to my condition, and I took him directly to
the office of Mr. Richards and engaged him to make an analysis
and drawing of Mr. Allen's system under his direction, and soon
afterwards gave him an order for the plans for an experimental
engine, 6x15 inches, to make 160 revolutions per minute.
As the diagram of the link motion was at first drawn, the center
of the trunnions vibrated in an arc which terminated at points
on the line connecting the center of the engine shaft with the ends
of the rocker arms, and which in the diagram on page 48 is named
"radius of link.''
I determined to work out this link motion myself on a large
scale. For this purpose I drew a diagram in which the throw of
the eccentric was 4 inches, and the distance from the center of
the shaft to that of the trunnions of the link in their mid-position
was 12 inches. I made a three-point beam compass. Two of
these points were secured permanently on the beam, 12 inches
apart. As one of these points traversed the path of the center of
the eccentric, the other could be made to traverse the arc of vibra-
tion of the trunnions of the link.
I divided the former into 40 equal divisions measured from
its dead points, making needle-holes in the circle, in which the
taper compass-points would center themselves accurately. The
paper was firm and the points of division were fixed with extreme
care; and they lasted through all my experiments. I then set
out 20 corresponding divisions in the arc of vibration of the center
ANALYSIS OF THE ALLEN LINK 51
of the trunnions. These showed distinctly the modification of the
motion at the opposite ends of this vibration as already described.
The third point was adjustable on a hinged beam which could
be secured in any position. I drew two arcs representing the lead
lines of the link, or the lines on which the link would stand when
the eccentric was on its dead points. The third point was now
secure! on its beam at any point on one of the lead lines, when
the other points stood, one on the dead point of the eccentric and
the other at the end of the trunnion vibration.
The apparatus was now ready for use, the corresponding points
on the circle and the arc being numbered alike. By setting the
first two points in any corresponding holes, the third point would
show the corresponding position of that point of the link at which
it was set. I thus set out the movements of six different points
of the link, the highest being 12 inches above the trunnions. These
represented the movements of the valves of the engine when
the block was at these points in the link. The apparatus being
firm, it worked with entire precision. To my surprise, it showed
much the larger valve opening at the crank end of the cylinder,
where the movement of the piston was slowest. That would not
do; we wanted just the reverse.
I called Mr. Allen in and showed him the defect. After con-
sidering it a few minutes, he said he thought it would be corrected
by lowering the trunnions, so that their arc of vibration would
coincide with the line of centers at its middle point, instead of
terminating on it. This was done, and the result was most success-
ful. The lead was now earlier and the opening wider at the back
end of the cylinder, as the greater velocity of the piston at that
point required, and the cut-offs on the opposite strokes more equal.
The link has always been set in this way, as shown in the diagram.
From this description of the link motion, it will be seen that the
correct vertical adjustment of the trunnions of the link was an
important matter. To enable this adjustment to be made with
precision, and to be corrected, if from wear of the shaft -bearings or
other cause this became necessary, I secured the pin on which
these trunnions were pivoted to the side of the engine bed in the
manner shown in the following figure. To hold the wedge securely,
the surface of the bed below was reduced, so that the wedge was
52
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
seized by the flange. The correct position of this pin was deter-
mined bv the motions given to the valves.
VERTICAL ADJUSTMENT
OF SUSTAINING PIN
FOR TRUNNIONS
OF THE ALLEN LINK
I now took a more prominent part myself in steam-engine
design. I had got an idea from Mr. Sparks that took full possession
of my mind. This was the exceedingly unmechanical nature of the
single or overhanging crank. The engines of the "New York,"
built by Caird & Co., of Greenock, were among the first of the
direct inverted-cylinder engines applied to screw propulsion. They
were then known as the steam-hammer engines, their leading fea-
ture being taken from Mr. Nasmyth's invention. I am not sure but
Caird & Co. were the first to make this application. The forward
engine had a single crank. The vital defect of this construction
became especially apparent in these vertical engines of large power.
The stress on the cap bolts during the upward strokes and the
deflection of the shaft alternately in opposite directions over the
pillow-block as a fulcrum were very serious. Mr. Sparks told me
that on his very first voyage he had a great deal of trouble with
this forward bearing, and it caused him continual anxiety. He got
into such a state of worry and apprehension that as soon as he
reached New York he wrote to the firm: "For God's sake, never
make another pair of engines without giving a double crank to the
forward engine." The reply he got was, to mind his own business:
they employed him to run their engines; they would attend to the
designing of them. He told me not long after that he had the satis-
faction of seeing every ship they built except his own disabled,
OVERHANGING CRANKS 53
either by a broken shaft or broken pillow-block bolts. He attrib-
uted the escape of the "New York" from a like disaster to his
own extreme care. They did, however, adopt his suggestion on all
future vessels, and, moreover, added a forward crank and pillow-
block to the engines already built. This they evidently found
themselves compelled to do. I saw this addition afterwards on
the "Bremen," sister ship to the "New York." The added pillow-
block was supported by a heavy casting bolted to the forward end
of the bedplate.
I went everywhere visiting engines at work and in process of
construction, to observe this particular feature of the overhanging
crank, which was universal in horizontal engines. In this class of
engines, running slowly, its defective nature was not productive of
serious consequences, because no stress was exerted on the cap
bolts and the shaft was made larger in proportion to the power of
the engine, as it had to carry the fly-wheel. But I was astonished
to see the extent to which the overhang of the single crank was
allowed. Builders seemed to be perfectly regardless of its unme-
chanical nature. First, the crank-pin was made with a length of
bearing surface equal to about twice its diameter; then a stout
collar was formed on the pin between its bearing surface and the
crank. The latter was made thick and a long hub was formed on
the back of it. I was told that the long hub was necessary in
order to give a proper depth of eye to receive the shaft. This being
turned down smaller than the journal, so that the crank might be
forced on up to a shoulder, the eye needed to be deep or the crank
would not be held securely. Finally, the journal boxes were made
with flanges on the ends, sometimes projecting a couple of inches.
Altogether, the transverse distance from the center line of the
engine to the solid support of the shaft in the pillow-block was
about twice what it needed to be. I also saw in some cases the
eccentric placed between the crank and the pillow-block. Fifteen
years later I saw a large engine sent from Belgium to our 1876
Exhibition which was made in this manner.
I determined at once that such a construction would not do
for high-speed engines, and proceeded to change every one of these
features. The single crank could not be avoided, but its overhang
could be much reduced.
54
EXG1NEERIXG REMINISCENCES
The following sketches show the changes which were then
made, and all of which have been retained. The inside collar
OLD AND NEW CRANKS
AND JOURNAL BOXES.
THE CRANKS ARE SHOWN IN
THE VERTICAL POSITION.
CRANKS AND TOP AND BOTTOM
BOXES ARE SHOWN IN SECTION.
on the crank-pin was dispensed with and the diameter of the
pin was made greater than its length, the projected area being
CONSTRUCTIVE DETAILS 55
generally increased. The shank of the pin was made larger and
shorter, and was riveted at the back. Instead of turning the shaft
down smaller than the journal to receive the crank, I made it with
a large head for this purpose. The keyway could then be planed
out and the key fitted above the surface of the journal, and the
joint was so much further from the axis that but little more than
one half the depth was required in the crank-eye.
Mr. Corliss had already discarded the flanged boxes. He also
first made this bearing in four parts. The wear in the horizontal
direction, the direction of the thrust, could then be taken up. For
this purpose he used two bolts behind the front side box only. I
modified his construction by making the side boxes wider and
taking up their wear by wedges behind both of them, thus pre-
serving the alignment. One wedge could also be placed close to
the crank. The dotted lines show the width of the side boxes and
the location of the wedges. The shaft was made with a collar to
hold the bearings in place, and was enlarged in its body. The sub-
stitution in place of the crank of the entire disk carrying a counter-
weight completed these changes. This was the fruit of my first
lesson in high-speed engine designing, which had unconsciously
been given to me by Mr. Sparks. The oil passage in the pin was
added later, as will be described.
I had another piece of good luck. I happened one day to see
in the Novelty Iron Works the hubs being bored for the paddle-
wheels of the new ship for the Collins line — the "Adriatic." These
were perhaps the largest castings ever made for such a purpose.
I observed that they were bored out only half-way around. The
opposite side of the hole had been cored to about half an inch
greater radius, and three key-seats were cored in it, which needed
only to be finished in the key-seating machine. The idea struck me
that this would be an excellent way to bore fly-wheels and pulleys.
As commonly bored, so that they could be put on the shaft com-
fortably they were bored too large, their contact with the shaft
could then be only on a line opposite the key, and the periphery
could not run perfectly true.
I adopted the plan of first boring to the exact size of the shaft
and then shifting the piece about an eighth of an inch, and boring
out a slender crescent, the opposite points of which extended a
;6
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
little more than half-way around. The key way was cut in the
middle of this enlargement. The wheel could then be readily put
on to the shaft, and when the key was driven up contact was made
over nearly one half the surface and the periphery ran dead true.
I remember seeing this feature much admired in London, and sev-
eral times heard the remark, "I should think the key would throw
it some."
To prevent fanning I made the fly-wheel and pulley with arms
of oval cross-section. These have always been used by me. They
have done even better than I expected. They are found to impart
no motion to the air, however rapidly they may be run.
Flanges on the Eccentric.
^ £
^
_
Flanges on the Strap.
As already stated, the Allen valve-gear required the position
of the eccentric to coincide with that of the crank, so that these
should pass their dead points simultaneously. To insure this and
to make it impossible for the engineer to advance his eccentric,
which he would be pretty sure to do if he could, I made the eccen-
tric solid on the shaft. This also enabled me to make it smaller,
the low side being brought down nearly to the surface of the shaft.
The construction, moreover, was substantial and saved some work.
All eccentrics that I had seen were flanged on each side to keep
the strap in place. I observed the oil to work out freely between
the flanges and the strap. This action wouL 1 of course be increased
CONSTRICTIVE DETAILS 57
in high-speed engines. So I reversed the design, as shown in the
above sections of these two bearings at the top of the eccentric,
putting the flanges on the strap instead of on the eccentric.
It will be seen that the more rapid the speed the more difficult
it becomes to keep the oil in the first bearing, and the more difficult
it becomes for it to get out of the second one. I ought to have
adopted the same construction for the main shaft journal, but in all
the years I was making engines it never occurred to me. I con-
tented myself with turning a groove in the hub of the crank, as
shown to prevent the oil from getting on the disk.
The problem of crank-pin lubrication at high speed at once
presented itself and had to be met. I finally solved it in the
manner partially shown on page 54. A wiper was bolted on the
back of the crank, and from it a tube entered the diagonal hole
in the pin. This always worked perfectly. This wiper and the oil
cup are shown on page 230. Other devices have been employed
by various makers of high-speed engines, but I always adhered to
this one. It has the advantage of being equally applicable to
double-crank engines. Aside from the above features, the design
for my exhibition engine was made by Mr. Richards.
CHAPTER V
Invention of the Richards Indicator. My Purchase of the Patent. Plan my
London Exhibition. Engine Design. Ship Engine Bed to London, and sail
myself.
nsssi
HE subject of an indicator directly presented itself.
Mr. Allen invited Mr. Richards and myself to his
engine-room, and took diagrams for us with a
McNaught indicator. This was the first indicator
that either of us had ever seen. Indicators were then but little
known in this country. The Novelty Iron Works made a very
few McNaught indicators, almost the only users of which were the
Navy Department and a few men like Mr. Ericsson, Mr. Stevens,
Mr. Sickels, and Mr. Corliss. I told Mr. Richards that we must
have a high-speed indicator and he was just the man to get it up
for us. He went to work at it, but soon became quite discouraged.
He twice gave it up. He could not see his way. I told him I was
not able to make any suggestion, but the indicator we must have,
and he had to produce it. After some months he handed me a
drawing of an indicator which has never been changed, except in a
few details. This important invention, which has made high-speed
engineering possible, came from the hands of Mr. Richards quite
complete. Its main features, as is well known, are a short piston
motion against a short, stiff spring; light multiplying levers, with
a Watt parallel motion, giving to the pencil very nearly a straight
line of movement; and a free rotative motion of the pencil con-
nections around the axis of the piston, which itself is capable of
only the slight rotation caused by the compression or elongation
of the spring. Elegant improvements have since been made,
adapting the indicator to still higher engine speeds; but these
58
IXVEXTIOX OF THE RICHARDS' INDICATOR
59
have consisted only in advancing further on the lines struck out
by Mr. Richards. In fact, this was all that could be done— giving
to the piston a little less motion, lightening still further the pencil
movement, and making the vertical line drawn by the pencil
more nearly a straight line.
I took Mr. Richards' drawing to the Novelty Iron Works and
had an indicator ready for use when the engine was completed.
The engine was made by the firm of McLaren & Anderson, on
Horatio Street, New York, for their own use. It was set up by
the side of their throttle-valve engine, and was substituted for
Diagram taken September 13, 1861,
from the first allen engine
by the. first richards indicator.
engine, 6 inches by 15 inches,
making 160 revolutions per minute.
this card was run over twenty times.
it to drive their machinery and that of a kindling-wood yard
adjoining for which they furnished the power. It ran perfectly
from the start, and saved fully one half of the fuel. In throttle-
valve engines in thosedays the ports and pipes were generally so
small that only a part of the boiler pressure was realized in the
cylinder, and that part it was hard to get out, and nobody knew
what either this pressure or the back pressure was. I have a dia-
gram taken from that engine, which is here reproduced.
The indicator was quickly in demand. One day when I was
in the shop of McLaren & Anderson, engaged in taking diagrams
60 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
from the engine, I had a call from the foreman of the Novelty Iron
Works. He had come to see if the indicator were working satis-
factorily, and if so to ask the loan of it for a few days. The
Novelty Iron Works had just completed the engines for three gun-
boats. These engines were to make 75 revolutions per minute,
and the contract required them to be run for 72 consecutive hours
at the dock. They were ready to commence this run, and were
anxious to indicate the engines with the new indicator.
I was glad to have it used, and he took it away. I got it back
after two or three weeks, with the warmest praise; but none of
us had the faintest idea of the importance of the invention.
I remember that I had to go to the Novelty Works for the
indicator, and was asked by Mr. Everett, then president of the
company, if we had patented it, for if we had they would be glad
to make them for us. The idea had not occurred to me, but I
answered him promptly that we had not, but intended to. I met
Mr. Allen at Mr. Richards' office, and told them Mr. Everett's
suggestion, and added, "The first question is, who is the inventor,
and all I know is that I am not." .Mr. Allen added, "I am not."
"Then," said Mr. Richards, "I suppose I shall have to be." "Will
you patent it?" said I. "No," he replied; "if I patent every-
thing I think of I shall soon be in the poorhouse." "What will
you sell it to me for if I will patent it?" I asked. "Will you
employ me to obtain the patent?" he replied. "Yes." "Well, I
will sell it to you for a hundred dollars." "I will take it, and if I
make anything out of it will pay you ten per cent, of what I get."
This I did, so long as the patent remained in my hands.
The success of the stationary and the marine governors and of
the engine and the indicator fired me, in the summer of 1861, with
the idea of taking them all to the London International Exhibition
the next year. The demonstration of the three latter seemed to
have come in the very nick of time. For this purpose I fixed upon
an engine 8 inches diameter of cylinder by 24 inches stroke, to
make 150 revolutions per minute, and at once set Mr. Richards at
work on the drawings for it. I thought some of speeding it at 200
revolutions per minute, but feared that speed would frighten
people. That this would have been a foolish step to take became
afterwards quite apparent.
Joseph E. Holmes
PLAN LONDON EXHIBITION 61
That summer I made application for space in the London
Exhibition of 1S62, and soon after was waited upon by the
Assistant United States Commissioner, Mr. Joseph E. Holmes.
So far as the engine to be exhibited was concerned, I had nothing
to show Mr. Holmes. The drawings were scarcely commenced.
I, however, took him to McLaren & Anderson's shop and showed
him the little engine at work there and took diagrams from it in
his presence, and expatiated on the revolution in steam-engineer-
ing that was there inaugurated, but which has not yet been realized
to the I extent then dreamed of. It was evident that Mr. Holmes
was much impressed with the assurance of the success of the new
system that the perfect running of this first little engine seemed
to give. I told him that the engine for the exhibition would
certainly be completed, and on that assurance he accepted my
entire proposed exhibit. I did not see him again until we met
the next spring in London, under the somewhat remarkable cir-
cumstances hereafter to be related.
In spite of all efforts it was found impossible to complete the
engine and have it tested before shipment as I had intended.
Indeed, as the time approached after which no further exhibits
would be received, two things grew more and more doubtful.
One was whether the engine could be got off at all, and the other
whether I could obtain the means to make the exhibit. Finally
I managed to get the engine bed finished and immediately shipped
it by a mail steamer.
A small, slow steamer chartered by the United States Com-
mission and loaded with exhibits had sailed previously, carrying
the assistant commissioner and a number- of exhibitors and their
representatives, who, until they reached their destination, remained
in blissful ignorance of what happened directly after their de-
parture.
Rut to return to my own movements. Mr. Hope one day said
to me: "I understand you shipped your engine bed last Saturday;
what did you do that for? You don't know yet whether you can
go yourself." I replied: "If I had not shipped it then, I should
lose my space and would have to abandon the exhibition altogether.
If I find that I can't go, the bed can come back." I redoubled
my exertions to get the remaining parts of the engine completed
62 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
and to raise the necessary funds. The next Saturday I shipped
everything that was ready. On the following Monday, by mak-
ing a large sacrifice, I realized a sum that could be made to answer,
and on Wednesday I sailed on the Cunard steamer "Africa,"
leaving to my reliable clerk, Alexander Gordon, long President of
the Niles Tool Works, and now Chairman of the Board of Di-
rectors of the Niles-Bement-Pond Company, the responsibility of
seeing that everything still wanting should follow as rapidly as
possible.
I left, not knowing an Englishman in the whole island, to have
the parts of an engine, the first one from the drawings and the
first engine I ever made, brought together for the first time by
I had no idea whom, and assembled and put in motion before the
eyes of the world. But I had no misgivings. The engine had
been built in my own shop, under my constant supervision, and
by workmen trained to the greatest accuracy. The crank-pin
I had hardened and ground by my friend Mr. Freeland. I knew
the parts would come together perfectly. The result justified
my confidence.
One incident of the voyage is worth recording. As we were
leaving port we passed the "China," the first screw steamer of
the Cunard fleet, coming in on her maiden voyage.
We had some rough weather, sometimes with a following sea.
I was much interested at such times in watching the racing of the
engines, when occasionally both paddle-wheels would be revolv-
ing in the air in the trough of the sea. The feature that especially
attracted my notice was that the faster the engines ran the more
smoothly they ran. It was certainly a fascinating sight to see
these ponderous masses of metal, the parts of great side-lever
engines, gliding with such velocity in absolute silence. The ques-
tion what caused them to do so it did not occur to me to ask.
Being anxious to reach London as quickly as possible, after a
tedious voyage of twelve days, I left the steamer at Cork, to go
through with the mail. The custom-house inspectors first inter-
ested me. On the little boat by which the mail is transferred
from the ship to the shore, two of the representatives of Queen
Victoria were anxious to know if I had any liquor or tobacco in
my trunk, these being the only dutiable articles. They were quite
Alexander Gordon
TRIP TO LONDOX 63
satisfied with my reply in the negative. A personal examination
they never thought of. Truthful themselves, I moralized, they do
not suspect untruth in others. Their next question was, "Have
you got the price of a glass of beer about you?" I made them
happy with a half crown, several times their modest request, and
they stamped me as an American free with his money. I pur-
chased a first-class ticket to London, and received the assurance
that I should go through with the mail. I was the only pas-
senger on the train of two coaches, besides the mail-van. It was
late at night. The regular passenger-train had gone some hours
before. Not being up in the English ways, I did not know how
I might make myself comfortable, but sat up all night, dozing as
I could. I did not sleep after two o'clock. In that high lati-
tude it was already light enough to see fairly well.
After that hour the railroad ran through a farming country
all the way to Dublin. I was amused with the queer shapes of
the fields. These were generally small, and running into sharp
corners, regardless of convenience in cultivation. They were
separated always by hedges and ditches. A ditch was dug some
two feet deep and three or four feet wide, the dirt was thrown
up into a bank to correspond on one side, and on this bank was
planted a hedge of hawthorn — " quick-set" they commonly called
it. These hedges were of all ages, from those young and well
kept to those in all stages of growth and dilapidation. I could
have passed everywhere from field to field through breaks in the
hedges, sometimes wide ones. I could not see of what use they
were except for hunters to jump over. Saw occasionally a labor-
er's cabin, sometimes a group of them. When an Irishman came
out to sun himself, he always stood higher than the eaves of his
thatched roof. Occasionally a more pretentious house would
appear. These were all alike, painted white, full of windows, very
thin from front to back, and looked like waffles set on edge. Never
• lid I see a tree or a bush about a house to relieve the appearance
of barrenness, but there were often small trees in the hedge-rows.
The railway station on one side of Dublin was about four
miles from the station on the opposite side, from which a short
railway ran to Kingston, a point a little distance south of Dublin,
from which the channel boats crossed to Holyhead. There being
64 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
no other means of conveyance, I rode through Dublin in an open
van sitting on the mail-bags. At the Kingston station an empty
train stood waiting for the mails. The regular passenger-train had
gone some time before, but the boat at Kingston was also waiting
for the mail. I got into a carriage, having ordered my trunk put
into the baggage- van, but was ordered out by the guard. I showed
him my ticket, and was told that I would have to see the super-
intendent. That official appeared, and told me this train was for
the mails. It had an empty passenger-coach. I showed him my
ticket and told him the assurance on which I had bought it, that
I should go through with the mails. He replied that the pas-
senger-train had gone, I should have been here to take it. Said
he was very sorry, but it was impossible. I got mad. My trunk
stood on the platform. As nobody would touch it, I took it up
and put it into the open door of the baggage-van myself. The
superintendent ordered two men to take it out, which they did.
I told him of my great anxiety to reach London that afternoon.
All the reply he made was to repeat that he was very sorry, but
it was impossible, and I was compelled to stand there and see that
train move off, and fool away the whole day in Dublin. Does
the reader want to know what the matter was? If he does not
know already, he is as green as I was. I had not given the super-
intendent two and sixpence. But I had more yet to learn about
England and the English, and much more serious.
CHAPTER VI
Arrival in London. Conditions I found there. Preparations and Start
~\ REACHED London very early next morning, and
drove directly to the lodgings of my friend, Mr.
Wellington Lee, the only American resident in
London whom I knew. These were on a short
•street extending from the Strand down to the river, a short
distance west of Temple Bar, the ancient city gate, which
was then standing. Who was Mr. Lee and what was he doing
in London? These were questions in which I had an interest
of which I was as yet entirely ignorant. The firm of Lee &
Larned were the first successful designers of steam fire-engines
in this country. More than seventy of these steamers had
been built from their plans and under their direction by the
Novelty Iron Works in New York, and the fire department of that
city was completely equipped with them. One of their engines
had been sold to the city of Havre, and Mr. Lee had gone over
with it to test it publicly on its guaranteed performance. Mr.
Amos, one of the senior members of the great London engineering
firm of Easton, Amos & Sons, went over to Havre to witness this
trial, with a view to the manufacture of these steam fire-engines
in London. He was so much pleased that he determined to make
the fire-engines, and engaged Mr. Lee to take the direction of
their manufacture. So it came to pass that at this particular
time Mr. Lee was in London superintending the first manufacture
of his steam fire-engines by this firm.
After our salutations Mr. Lee said: "First of all I have some-
thing to, tell you." Before relating this, I must mention some-
thing that I knew before I sailed. About the time when the cargo
65
C6 ENGIXEERIXG REMINISCENCES
of United States exhibits started, the well-known Mason and
Slidell incident occurred. These gentlemen, commissioners sent
by the Confederacy to represent their cause before European
governments, had sailed on a British vessel flying the British flag.
This vessel was overhauled on the high seas by one of our cruisers,
and the commissioners were taken off and brought prisoners to
New York. Mr. Lincoln made haste to disavow this illegal pro-
ceeding, so singularly inconsistent with our own principles of
international law, and to make all the reparation in his power.
But a bitter feeling towards England was then growing in the
Northern States, and in a moment of resentment Congress hastily
passed a resolution repealing the law creating the Exhibition Com-
mission and making an appropriation for its expenses, and Secre-
tary Seward issued a proclamation dissolving the commission.
The vessel carrying the exhibits had been gone scarcely more than
a day when this action of Congress and Mr. Seward surprised
the country.
I now take up Mr. Lee's narrative. The news of this action,
carried by a mail steamer, had reached London several days before
the arrival of the exhibits. Under the pressure of an urgent
demand the Royal Commission confiscated the space allotted to
the United States and parceled it out to British exhibitors. Mr.
Holmes on his arrival found not a spot in the Exhibition buildings
on which to set his foot. But he was a man of resources. He
went before the commission with an eminent Queen's counsel,
who made the point that they had received no official notifica-
tion of any such action by the United States Government, but had
proceeded on a mere newspaper rumor, which they had no right
to do; and there was the United States assistant commissioner
with his credentials and a shipload of exhibits, and they must
admit him.
The commissioners yielded most gracefully. They said : "Now,
Mr. Holmes, the American space is gone; we cannot restore that
to you, but there are unoccupied spots all over the Exhibition, and
you may take up any of these, and we will undertake that your
whole exhibit shall be well placed." Upon this Mr. Holmes had
gone to work and had been able to find locations for every exhibit,
except my engine.
Wellington Lee
ARRIVAL IN LONDON 67
"But only yesterday," said Mr. Lee, "Mr. Holmes learned
that an engine ordered by the commission to drive the British
exhibit of looms, of which there were thirty-three exhibitors, had
been condemned by the superintendent of machinery, Mr. Daniel
Kinnear Clark, and ordered out of the building." He added that
Mr. Holmes went directly to Mr. Clark and applied for the place
for my engine, the bedplate of which, thanks to my precipitate
action, had arrived and was then on a truck, in England called a
lurry, waiting to be unloaded. In answer to Mr. Clark's questions,
Mr. Holmes had given him his personal assurance that I would be
there, and the rest of the engine would be there in ample time,
and it would be all that he could possibly desire ; and on that as-
surance he had got the place for me.
I informed Mr. Lee that I also had something to tell him. I
then gave him the situation as already related. He looked very
grave. When I had finished he said: "Well, you are in a hole,
sure enough; but come, let us get some breakfast, and then we
will see what Easton & Amos can do for you." After eating my
first English mutton-chop in a chop-house on the Strand, I accom-
panied Mr. Lee to their works in the Borough, a long distance
away, on the south or Surrey side of the Thames, to reach which
we crossed the Southwark bridge.
None of the partners had yet reached the office. Very soon
Mr. James Easton arrived. He was a young man about my own
age. Mr. Lee introduced me and told my story. The instant he
finished Mr. Easton came across the room and grasped my hand
most cordially. "That's the kind of pluck I like," said he; "we
will see you through, Mr. Porter; we will build this engine for
you, whatever else may have to wait." Directly he added: "We
have a good deal of ' red tape ' here, but it won't do in this case.
There will be no time to lose. Come with me." He then took
me through the shops and introduced me to every foreman, telling
them what he had undertaken to do, and gave each of them the
same instruction, as follows: "Mr. Porter will come directly to you
with his orders. Whatever he wants done, you are to leave
everything else so far as may be necessary, and do his work as
rapidly as possible."
As I listened to these orders, I could hardly believe my senses
68 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
or keep back the tears. Coming on top of the devotion of Mr.
Holmes they nearly overcame me. The sudden relief from the
pressure of anxiety was almost too much. It seemed to me to
beat all the fairy stories I had ever heard. This whole-hearted
cordiality of the first Englishman I had met gave me a high idea
of the people as a whole, which, I am happy to say, a residence of
over six years in England served only to increase.
Returning to the office, we found Mr. Lee, who said, "Now,
Mr. Porter, I think Mr. Holmes would like to see you." Getting
the necessary directions, in due time I found myself in the Exhibi-
tion building on Cromwell Road and in the presence of Mr. Holmes,
who received me joyfully and led me at once to Mr. Clark's office.
As he opened the door, Mr. Clark looked up from his desk and
exclaimed, "Good morning, Mr. Holmes; where is that engine?"
"Well," replied Mr. Holmes, "here is Mr. Porter, and the engine
is here or on the way." Mr. Clark asked me a number of ques-
tions about the engine, and finally how many revolutions per
minute it was intended to make. I replied, "One hundred and
fifty." I thought it would take his breath away. With an
expression of the greatest amazement he exclaimed: "What! a
hundred and fifty! B — b — b — but, Mr. Porter, have you had
any experience with such a speed as that?" I told him my ex-
perience with the little engine, which did not seem to satisfy him
at all. Finally he closed the matter, or supposed he had done
so, by saying: "I cannot allow such a speed here; I consider it
dangerous." I decided instantly in my own mind not to throw
away all that I had come for; but I made no sign, but humbly
asked what speed I might employ. After a little consideration Mr.
Clark replied: "One hundred and twenty revolutions; that must
not be exceeded." This he considered a great concession, the
usual speed of stationary engines being from fifty to sixty revolu-
tions. I meekly acquiesced, then made my plans for one hundred
and fifty revolutions, and said nothing to anybody. I had no idea
of the gravity of my offence. It was the first time since I was
a child that I had been ordered to do or not to do anything, and
I had no conception of orders except as given by myself. If there
was any risk, I assumed it gaily, quite unconscious how such a
daredevil defiance of authority would appear to an Englishman.
Charles T. Porter
A.D. 1862
THE START 69
Mr. Clark showed me my location, and gave me an order for my
engine-bed to be brought in immediately, and also other parts of
the engine as soon as they arrived. Trucks generally, I was told,
had to wait in the crowd about ten days for their turn to be un-
loaded.
I hurry over the time of erection. Everything arrived promptly
and the whole came together without a hitch, as I knew it would.
The fly-wheel and pulley and cylinder lagging I had left to be made
in England. I was at the works of Easton, Amos & Sons every
morning at 6 o'clock, and laid out the work for the day. I made
the gauges for boring the fly-wheel and pulley, which I had now
learned how to do, and adjusted everything about the engine
myself, and knew it was right.
I had a talk with the foreman of the pattern-shop about the
best thickness of felt on the cylinder to be covered by the ma-
hogany lagging, in the course of which I remarked, "It is the air
that is the real non-conductor." "Yes," he replied, "and felt,
you know, is 'air."
I learned several things I did not know before, among
others how the English made a steam-pipe joint, using parallel
threads and a backing-up nut, packed with long hemp which
was filled with a putty made of red and white lead rubbed to-
gether dry.
I had great luck in the way of a driving-belt. An American
exhibitor of india-rubber belting asked the privilege of exhibiting a
belt in use on my engine, which I was glad enough to have him
do. Otherwise I hardly know what I should have done. The
widest English belts were 12 inches wide, double, and sewn together
from end to end with five rows of sheepskin lacing. The belt
ran on the knobs of this lacing. English machinists then knew
nothing of the hold of belts by excluding the air. The ends of all
belts were united by lapping them about two feet and sewing
them through and through with this same lacing. Fine pounding
these joints would have made on the pulleys. I got a governor
belt from him also. Both belts were united by butt-joints laced
in the American fashion. I did this job myself, and, indeed, I
put the whole engine together mostly with my own hands, al-
though Easton, Amos & Sons sent two of their best fitters to help
70 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
me. I learned afterwards that I should have had a sorry time
driving my governor by a belt laced in the English way.
In spite of all efforts and all our good luck, we were not ready
to start until a week after the opening day, May 1, and the exhib-
it m< were in despair, for none of them believed that this new-
fangled American trap would work when it did start at the fright-
ful speed of a hundred arid twenty revolutions per minute, which
they had learned from Mr. Clark it was to make. Finally one day
after our noon dinner I turned on the steam, and the governor
rose at the speed of one hundred and fifty revolutions precisely.
It was immediately surrounded by a dense crowd, every man of
whom looked as if he expected the engine to fly in pieces any
instant.
It was not more than two minutes after it started when I saw
Mr. Clark coming with his watch in his hand. Some one had
rushed to his ofriei and told him the Yankee engine was running
away. The crowd opened for him, and he came up to the engine
and watched it for some time, walking leisurely around it and
observing everything carefully from all points of view. He then
counted it through a full minute. At its close he turned to me
and exclaimed, "Ah, Porter — but," slapping me cordially on the
shoulder, "it's all right. If you will run as smoothly as this you
may run at any speed you like."
And so the high-speed engine was born, but neither Mr. Clark,
nor I, nor any human being then knew what it was that made it
run so smoothly.
I have since realized more and more what a grand man Mr.
(lark then showed himself to be. A small souled man might
have regarded the matter entirely from a personal point of view,
and been furious at my defiance of his authority. There are such
men. I will show one to the reader by and by. Officialism is
liable to produce them. I was quite unconscious of the risk in
this respect that I was running. I have always felt that I could
not be too thankful that at this critical point I fell into the hands
of so noble a man as Daniel Kinnear Clark.
Mr. Porter's Exhibit at the London International Exhibition, 1862
CHAPTER VII
My London Exhibit, its Success, but what was the matter? Remarkable
Sale of the Engine.
HUS, as the result of a remarkable combination of
circumstances, upon which I look back with feelings
more of awe than of wonder, the high-speed system
made its appearance in the London International
Exhibition of 1862, installed in the midst of the British machinery
exhibit, under conditions more advantageous than any which I
could have imagined.
But the engine had a weak feature: it was wanting in an essen-
tial respect, of which I was, and remained to the end, quite un-
conscious, as will presently appear. Before entering on this
subject I will give the reader an idea of what the exhibit was like
The accompanying half-tone from a photograph will, with the
help of a little explanation, make this quite real.
The location was in a narrow space between a side aisle and
the wall of the temporary wooden structure, 300 feet wide by
nearly 1000 feet long, which formed the machinery hall The
engine was crowded closely by looms on both sides Here were
shown together the first high-speed engine, the first high-speed
governor, and the first high-speed indicator. My marine governor
could not be accommodated there, and had to be shown elsewhere
I was so much afraid of deflection or vibration of the shaft that I
shortened up the length between the bearings and placed the
driving-pulley on the overhanging end of the shaft, which for the
light work to be done there answered sufficiently well I showed
also the largest and the smallest sizes of my stationary-engine
governors. These were belted from the shaft to revolve so as to
71
72 EXGINEERIXG REMINISCENCES
stand always in positions coincident with those of the governor
which regulated the engine.
On a table between the railing and the head of the engine I
showed mahogany sectional models of the valves at one end of the
cylinder in the engine exhibited, and of the now well-known Allen
slide valve, with double opening for admission made by a passage
over the exhaust-cup.
The Richards indicator is seen placed on the cylinder midway
of its length, and connected by pipes with the ends over the clear-
ances, so that in the familiar manner by means of a three-way cock
the opposite diagrams could be taken on the same sheet. After a
few days' use I mistrusted that the lead lines were not correctly
drawn, and I took away these pipes, placing the indicator on the
cylinder itself, at the opposite ends alternately. The diagrams
then taken showed that the error from transmission through these
pipes had been even greater than I had feared. I have, of course,
employed the close connection ever since.
This identifies the time when the photograph was taken. It
must have been within a few days after starting.
The center of the eccentric coinciding with the crank, as already
stated, and the center line of the link being in the same horizontal
plane with that of the engine, I was able to take the motion of the
paper drum from the sustaining arms of the link instead of from
the cross-head. This was very convenient.
During the first two or three weeks the steam pressure was
kept up to 75 pounds, as intended, and I was able to get diagrams
cutting off quite early, which were then erroneously supposed to
show superior economy. But when all the steam-eaters had got
in their work the pressure could not be maintained much above
40 pounds, and for that exhibition the day of fancy diagrams was
over. Gwynne & Co. showed a large centrifugal pump driven by a
pair of engines which always brought the pressure down at the
rate of a pound a minute. They were not allowed to run longer
than fifteen minutes at a time, but it took a long time after they
stopped before the pressure could be got up again even to 40 pounds.
Whenever I took a diagram somebody was always standing ready
to take it away, and so among my mementoes I have been able to
find none cutting off earlier than the one here represented. On
REMAKKAttLE SALE OF MY ENGINE 73
the wall at the back I hung the largest United States flag I could
find, with a portrait of President Lincoln. This seems all that
needs to be said about the photograph and the diagram.
But what was the matter? I will clear the way to answering
this question by relating the following incident: Six months later,
with a feeling of bitter disappointment, I contemplated my engine
standing alone where the place had been thronged with surging life.
All the other exhibits had been removed. This was left in stillness
and desolation, and I was making up my mind to the necessity of
shipping it home again, its exhibtion to all appearance absolutely
fruitless — a failure, which I was utterly at a loss to comprehend,
when I had a call from Mr. James Easton, the same man who had
first welcomed me in England. His firm had perhaps the largest
exhibit in the Machinery Hall, of a waterfall supplied by a centri-
INTERN'ATIONAL EXHIBITION, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT
1862 DIAGRAM TAKEN FROM 1862
THE ALLEN ENGINE BY THE RICHARDS INDICATOR.
ENGINE, 8 INCHES BY 24 INCHES, REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE, 150.
SCALE, 40 LBS. TO THE INCH.
fugal pump, and they had been frequent observers of the running
of my engine, which was quite near them. Mr. Easton bluntly
asked me if I thought my engine could be run 50 per cent, faster
or at 225 revolutions per minute, because they had concluded that
it could be, and if I agreed with them they had a use for it them-
selves. Under the circumstances I did not hesitate long about
agreeing with them in respect to both ability and price, and the sale
was quickly concluded. I noted an entire absence of any disposi-
tion to take an undue advantage. Mr. Easton then told me that
they were troubled with lack of power every afternoon when the
foundry blower was on, and had long wanted to drive this blower
independently. It needed to make 2025 revolutions per minute
to give the blast they required, and they had planned to drive it
by a frictional gearing, nine to one, if my engine could run at the
74 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
necessary speed. So this most peculiar and exceptional oppor-
tunity for its application, absolutely the only chance for its sale
that had appeared, and that at the very last moment, prevented
iin- returning home in disappointment. It is hardly necessary to
add that the engine proved completely successful. I shall refer to
it again.
The point of the incident is this: It established the fact, the
statement of which otherwise no one from the result would credit
for an instant, that, from the afternoon when the black and averted
looks of my loom exhibitors were changed to smiling congratula-
tions down to the close of the exhibition, the engine never once
had a warm bearing or was interrupted for a single moment. It
was visited by every engineer in England, and by a multitude of
engine users, was admired by every one, and won the entire confi-
dence of all observers in its speed, its regulation, and the perfection
of its diagrams; and yet in all that six months not a builder ever
said a word about building it, nor a user said a word about using
it; and, as week after week and month after month passed with-
out a sign, I became almost stupefied with astonishment and
distress.
The explanation of this phenomenon was entirely simple, but
I did not know it, and there was no one to even hint it to me. I
was among a people whose fundamental ideas respecting steam-
engines were entirely different from those to which I had been
accustomed, and I knew nothing about them, and so could not
address myself to them. In the view of every Englishman a non-
condensing engine was rubbish. Those which were made were
small, cheap affairs, mostly for export. Neither a builder nor
a user could regard a non-condensing engine with the slightest
interest.
Now I do not think that in my limited sphere of observation
at home I had ever seen a condensing stationary engine, except the
engine which pumped out the dry-dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
In my mind condensing engines were associated with ships and
steamboats. At this exhibition also there were shown only non-
condensing engines. I did not think of the reason for this, that in
this part of London, far away from the Thames, no water could be
had for condensing purposes. I took it all as a matter of course,
.1/)' LONDON EXHIBIT lb
though I was astonished at the queer lot of engines in the company
of which I found myself.
I was, of course, familiar with the development of the stationary
engine in England from the original type, in which the pressure
of steam below that of the atmosphere, and sometimes the pressure
of the atmosphere itself furnished the larger proportion of the
power exerted; but after all I carried with me my American ideas.
which were limited to non-condensing engines, and had no concep-
tion of the gulf that separated my thoughts from those of the men
about me.
My visitors always wound up with the same question, "How do
you drive your air-pump? " And in my innocence I uniformly
replied, "The engine is a non-condensing engine; it has no air-
pump "; all unconscious that every time I said that I was con-
signing the engine to the rubbish heap. This reply was taken
necessarily as a frank admission that the high-speed engine was
not adapted for condensing. Of course, then, it had no interest for
them. No doubt many wondered why I should have troubled
myself to show it there at all. If I had thought more deeply I
must have been struck by the unvarying form of this question,
always assuming the air-pump to be a part of the engine, but which,
of course, could not be used there, and only inquiring how I worked
it ; and also by the fact that after getting my answer the questioner
soon departed, and I scarcely ever saw the same visitor again. But
I did not think deeply. Perhaps the conditions of excitement
were not favorable to reflection. All I thought was that this same
everlasting question, which at home I would never have heard, was
getting awfully monotonous. After a while this annoying question
came to be asked less and less frequently, and also the engine
attracted less and less attention. The engine had failed in a vital
respect, and I did not know it. That the fact of the engine being
non-condensing should have been an objection to it never once
entered my mind.
But I doubt if I could have bettered the matter, however alive
to this difficulty I might have been. I showed all I had yet accom-
plished. In the minds of my visitors it no doubt appeared impos-
sible to run an air-pump successfully at such a speed ; the water am I
air would be churned into foam, and the valves would not close
76 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
in time. This objection I was not prepared to meet, for I had not
thought on the subject at all. Moreover, it could not have been
met in any way except by a practical demonstration. For that
demonstration I had yet to wait five years.
There were many things connected with this season which were
well worth remembering. One of these was the visit of the jury.
It was the only time I ever met Professor Rankine. There were
two or three Frenchmen on the jury, and they engaged in an ani-
mated discussion of the question whether the steam could follow
the piston at so great a speed. 1 well remember the sharp exclama-
tion with which Professor Rankine put an end to this nonsense,
when he had got tired of it. "There is no limit to the speed at
which steam will follow a piston."
One day I had a call from Mr. John Pcnn, Mr. William Fair-
bairn, and Mr. Robert Napier, who came together on a visit of
ccicmony, and presented me their cards. In return I presented
to them the cards of the engine. But their visit, like most others,
closed with the same inevitable question.
It was a delightful hour that Mr. F. W. Webb spent with me.
He was then assistant engineer of the London & Northwestern Rail-
way under Mr. Ramsbottom, afterwards Mr. Ramsbottom's succes-
sor, and the pioneer builder of compound-cylinder locomotives.
He told me about the new form of traveling -crane invented by Mr.
Ramsbottom for the shops at Crewe, which was driven by a flying-
rope, a f-inch cotton cord, and also of other inventions of Mr.
Ramsbottom — among these the automatic cylinder lubricator, in
which the condensation of the steam was so rapid, from the locomo-
tive rushing through the atmosphere, that only the water formed
on the conical end of a bolt was permitted to drop into the oil,
other condensation running into a circular trough and back through
an external gooseneck pipe to the steam-chest; and of their experi-
ments to observe the rate of this condensation. For this purpose
they used soda-water bottles, which they found capable of resisting
a pressure of 200 pounds on the square inch, and in which they
could see the rapidity with which the condensed water displaced
the oil. thus leading to the above device for limiting this action;
also about the Ramsbottom piston rings, which came to be, and
still are, so largely used. These consist, as is well known, of square
MY LOXDOX EXHIBIT 77
wrought-iron rods, say \ inch square, two for each piston, sprung
into grooves. What is not so generally known is the way in which
these rings were originated, which Mr. Webb then described to me.
As sold, these are not circular rings, but when compressed in the
cylinder they become truly circular and exert the same pressure
at every point. The original form was found for each size in this
way: A circular iron table was prepared, provided with a large
number of pulleys located radially and equidistant around its edge.
A ring having the section of the proposed rings, turned to the size
of the cylinder, and cut on one side, was laid on this table, and
cords were attached to it at equal distances passing over these
pulleys. Equal weights were hung on these cords, sufficient to
expand this ring to the extent desired. The form of the expanded
ring was then marked on the table, and to the lines thus obtained
the rings were then rolled. He told me also of the trough and
scoop invented by Mr. Ramsbottom, and now used the world over,
for refilling locomotive tanks while running at full speed. Being a
locomotive man, Mr. Webb did not ask about the way I drove my
air-pump.
Mr. Clark formed a scheme to indicate all the engines in the
exhibition, twenty-four in number, all English except mine, so far
as I remember, and employed my indicator for the purpose, the
diagrams being taken by myself. Only two exhibitors declined to
have their engines indicated. As I afterwards learned, most of
the engines were bought for use there, as exhibitors would not
exhibit non-condensing engines.
One of those who refused permission were Gwynne & Co., the
principal partner a nephew of my centrifugal-force friend of earlier
days. They exhibited a centrifugal pump supplying a' waterfall.
They employed Mr. Zerah Colburn, then editor of The Engineer, to
investigate their pair of non-condensing engines and find out why
they used so much steam. He borrowed my indicator to make a
private test. Of course, I never saw the diagrams, but Mr. Colburn
informed me that by making some changes he had reduced the
back pressure to 7 pounds above the atmosphere. whLh he claimed
to be as good as could be expected. No material improvement in
the engines was to be observed, however.
Some of the diagrams taken on these tests exhibited almost
78 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
incredible faults. The only really good ones were from a pair of
engines made by Easton, Amos & Sons, also to drive a large centri-
fugal pump, built for drainage purposes in Demerara, and sustain-
ing another waterfall. These showed the steam cut off sharply
at one third of the stroke by separately driven valves on the back
of the main slides. A mortifying feature of this work for myself was
that on testing the indicator Mr. Clark found that the area of the
piston, which was represented to be one quarter of a square inch,
was really considerably less than this, showing lamentable inac-
curacy on the part of the makers, as well as my own neglect to
discover it. This rendered the instrument valueless for measuring
power, but it showed the character of the diagrams all right.
The finest mechanical drawing I ever saw — or any one else, I
think — was shown in this exhibition. It was a drawing of the
steamship "Persia," then the pride of the Cunard fleet, and was
the only mechanical drawing ever admitted to the walls of the
National Gallery, where it had appeared the year before. It repre-
sented side and end elevations and plan, as well as longitudinal
and cross-sections, was painted and shaded in water-colors, and
involved an almost incredible amount of work. It was made by
Mr. Kirkaldy, then a draftsman in the employ of the Napiers, of
Glasgow, the builders of the vessel. I am tempted to refer to this,
as it forms a prominent datum point from which to measure the
development o ( steam navigation in the brief space of forty years.
The vessel did not possess a single feature, large or small, that now
exists. It was of only about 3000 tons burden. It was an iron
ship built in the days of the rapid transition from wood to steel.
It was propelled by paddle-wheels. These were driven by a pair
of side-lever engines. The engines had each a single cylinder.
The steam pressure carried was nominally 25 pounds above the
atmoshpere, but practically only from 15 to 20 pounds. Full
pressure was not pretended to be maintained. They had jet con-
densers. All forged work was of iron. The vessel was steered by
hand. The rigging, standing as well as running, was of hemp.
It was full bark-rigged.
There I first met Mr. Frederick E. Sickels, the inventor of the
trip cut-off; that immortal man who conceived the idea of tripping
the valve mechanism of a steam-engine at any point in its opening
Frederick E. Sickels
THE LONDON EXHIBITION 79
movement, thus releasing the valve and permitting it to be sud-
denly closed. He had come over to exhibit his steam steering
gear, which is now used throughout the world. It was astonishing
how little attention it attracted. He had it connected and showed
it in operation. While he turned the wheel precisely as the steers-
man did, the steam did all the work of moving the rudder and hold-
ing it in any position. Nobody seemed to take the slightest interest
in it. I attributed this largely to his mistake in showing a very
rough affair, the very thing which he thought would add to its
effect. He had an apparatus that had been used on a coasting
steamer which was captured by the Confederates and employed by
them as a blockade-runner, and afterwards captured by our
cruisers, taken into New York and condemned. He bought this
gear out of it at auction and sent it to the exhibition just as it was.
He believed that the more evidences of neglect and rough usage it
showed, the greater admiration its perfect action would inspire.
He learned better. Polished iron and brass and mahogany would
have led people to believe that he himself thought it was worth
showing properly.
The picture gallery in the second story of the main building of
this exhibition was really wonderful. Its most prominent feature
was a collection of paintings representing the progress of British
art from the days of Hogarth. All Europe was represented. I
was told that the entire wall surface was seven eighths of a mile long.
We also had a gallery of American art, consisting of a number
of remarkable large photographs of the Yosemite Valley, California,
and one painting. Mr. J. F. Cropsey, an American landscape
artist of considerable celebrity at home, had formed a scheme for
establishing himself in London. He took with him a number of
his works. His piece de resistance was "Autumn on the Hudson,"
which was greatly admired and for which he was offered a large
price, but he preferred to show it in London. He had sent it to
the National Gallery, and, to his consternation, it was refused, the
committee declaring that there were no such colors in nature. It
also offended the English taste, by which our autumnal tints are
regarded as "very gaudy," so he hung it in Mr. Holmes' office at
the exhibition. He and I had each a lot to learn about the way
things look to our cousins.
CHAPTER VIII
Sale of Governors. Visit from Mr. Allen. Operation of the Engine Sold to
Easton, Amos & Sons. Manufacture of the Indicator. Application on
Locomotives
fr&B^g^
^
S3.
m
HE governor seemed to please every one. In anticipa-
tion of a demand for them, I had shipped a number
to London, which met a ready sale. The most appre-
ciative persons as a class were the linen-manufac-
turers of Belfast. One of them early took a license to sell them
there. The first one 1 sold in London was to my friends Easton,
Amos & Sons. As soon as they saw it in operation it struck
them as the very thing they needed. In connection with their
engineering works they carried on the manufacture of lead pipe
by hydraulic pressure. The engine which drove a large section
of their machine tools also drove the hydraulic pumps for this
manufacture. It was a very trying service. The resistance was
very heavy and came on and off the engine instantly. The action
of the common governor was not prompt enough to control it, and
they had to employ a man handling a disk valve with a very short
motion. He had to keep his eye fixed on a column of mercury.
When this rose he must open the valve, and when it dropped he
must shut it. It had been found that this was a poor reliance for
the instantaneous action required. They got a governor from me
at once. I received a message from them the next day. The gov-
ernor would not answer at all; would I come down and see about
it? I happened first to meet an old man, foreman of the turners.
"What is the matter?" "Matter! The governor won't work,
that's what's the matter." I was rather an impulsive young man
and replied, "It will work, or I'll eat it." He sharply responded,
so
SALE OF GOVERNORS 81
"If it does work I'll eat it, and I haven't a tooth in my head."
Foolish old man! he was more rash than I. I saw at a glance
that the governor went through but half its action. There was
evidently some resistance in the valve, a common fly-throttle.
After they shut clown at night I had the valve pulled out, and
found that the chamber was larger than the pipe and that the
wings of the valve were long and their points caught on the ends
of the pipe. The wings of the valve were soon shortened and
rebedded in the chamber, and when started again the governor
controlled the motion of the engine perfectly, to the great grati-
fication of everybody, and the delight of the boys, who had heard
the old man promise to eat it. The valve had been put in for
my governor to work, and the fitters had put up a job on me.
Tin- old man was not in the secret. So the laugh was on him
instead of on me.
Directly after this triumph I received an order from Mr. John
Penn for a governor to regulate the engine driving his marine-
engine works at Greenwich. This was the first and only engine I
ever saw of the grasshopper class, quite common, I learned, in
earlier days. The superintendent of his works afterwards told me,
laughingly, that he had a large account against me for loss of time;
that he had become so fascinated with the governor action that he
had stood watching it sometimes for twenty minutes. He knew by
the position of the governor every large tool that was running and
what it was doing, if light or heavy work, and especially every
time a planer was reversed.
One day a gentleman asked me if I thought the governor could
regulate his engine. He was a manufacturer of the metal thread
used in making gold lace. A bar of silver, 2 inches in diameter and
2 or 3 feet long, was covered with three or four thicknesses of den-
tists' gold leaf, and then drawn down to exceedingly fine threads,
and the gold surface was never broken. I have often wondered
how thick that gold covering finally was. The heavy drawing of
the cold bars required a great deal of power, and when they shot
out the engine would run away and the fine threads would be
broken. No governor nor heavy fly-wheel would help the matter,
and they had to do their heavy drawing in the night. My governor
maintained the motion absolutely. Not only were the finest
82 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
threads not broken by the sudden changes in the heavy drawing,
but the occasional breakages that they had been accustomed to
nearly ceased.
In this connection I cannot refrain from telling a good story on
Mr. Ramsbottom and Mr. Webb, although the incident happened
the next year. I received an order for a governor for the engine
driving the shops of the London & Northwestern Railway at
Crewe. Soon after its shipment there came a line from the office
there that the governor was behaving badly and I would have to
go and see about it. I found that the engine consisted of a pair of
locomotive cylinders set upright on the floor and directly connected
above, the cranks at right angles with each other, to the line-shaft,
a plan which I have always admired, as a capital way of avoiding
belts or gearing. They were running at 120 revolutions per minute,
and were connected in the middle of the shaft, which was about
400 feet kmg. The governor was flying up and down quite wildly.
I had never seen such an action before, and was at a loss what to
make of it. I saw no fly-wheel, but it did not seem that its absence
could account for this irregularity. Indeed, with coupled engines
running at this speed, and only trifling changes of load, and a
governor requiring no time to act, a fly-wheel seemed superfluous.
Pretty soon it came out that the want of fly-wheel could not cause
the trouble, for they had two. Where were they? There was one
at each end of the shaft, close to the end walls of the building,
where wall boxes afforded excellent supports. Fly-wheels at the
ends of 2-inch shafts and 200 feet from the engine! I fairly shouted
with laughter, told them to take off their fly-wheels, and came
home. The fly-wheels were taken off, and there was no further
trouble. Well, what should railway engineers, absorbed in loco-
motive designs and everything pertaining to railroading, be ex-
pected to know about fly-wheel inertia and shaft torsion?
About midsummer I had the pleasant surprise of a visit from
Mr. Allen, whose gratification at the show I had made was un-
bounded. We saw much of the exhibition together. Perhaps the
most interesting exhibits in the machinery department, to us both,
were the working models shown by the marine-engine builders.
There were a large number of these, generally not much over one
foot in any dimension, but complete to every bolt and nut, superbly
VISIT FROM MR. ALLEN 83
finished, and shown in motion. They had evidently been made
regardless of cost. In the progress of engineering science, every-
thing represented by these elegant toys has long since vanished.
We were much impressed by a cylinder casting, 120 inches in
diameter, shown by Mr. Penn, one of a pair made for a horizontal
engine for a British warship, to work steam at 25 pounds pressure.
Everything there shown pertaining to steam engineering, except
our own engine, was about to disappear forever. How long before
that also shall foHow?
Soon after Mr. Allen's return he sent me a drawing of his four-
opening equilibrium valve with adjustable pressure-plate. I real-
ized the great value of this most original invention, now so well
known, but its adoption required a rescheming of the valve-gear,
and that had to be postponed for some years.
In setting up the engine in the works of Easton, Amos & Sons,
I had a curious example of English pertinacity. Old Mr. Amos
said to me, "Porter, where is your pump? " "The engine has no
pump." "No pump!" "No, sir; we consider a feed-pump as
an adjunct to the boiler, never put it on the engine, and generally
employ independent feed-pumps which can be adjusted to the
proper speed. Besides, a feed-pump could not be run satisfactorily
at the speed of this engine." He heard me through, and then,
with a look of utter disgust, exclaimed: "If a man should sell me
a musket and tell me it had no stock, lock, or barrel, these were
all extra, I should think it just about as sensible." Nothing would
do but that this engine must have a pump. I had intended to cut
off the projecting end of the shaft, but Mr. Amos ordered this to
be left, and had an eccentric fitted on it, and set a vertical pump
on the floor to be driven by this eccentric, at 225 double strokes
per minute. Also the feed-pipe had to be over 50 feet long, with
three elbows.
Of course, as the boys say, we had a circus. A mechanic had a
daily job, mornings, when the engine was not running, securing
that pump on its foundation. The trembling and pounding in the
feed-pipe were fearful. I suggested an air-chamber. They sent
word to me that they had put on an air-chamber, but it did no good.
I went to look at it, and found a very small air-chamber in the
middle of the length of the pipe, where it seemed to me more likely
84 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
to do harm. At my suggestion they got one of suitable size and
attached it to the pump outlet, when the noise and trembling mostly
disappeared, as well as the disposition of the pump to break loose.
It did fairly well after that, and they made it answer, although I
do not suppose it ever one quarter filled.
Mr. Amos was the consulting engineer of the Royal Agri-
cultural Society. At this exhibition Amercan reapers made
an invasion of England. Mr. Amos set his face against
them, and in reply to my question, what objection he made
to them, he said, "We prefer to get our grain into the barn,
instead of strewing it over the field." And yet this man, the
engineering head of this firm, was the only man in England, so
far as I knew, advanced enough to take up the Wolff system of
compounding, and who had bought my engine to run at 225 revolu-
tions per minute, which it continued to do with complete satisfac-
tion until some years later, when these works were removed to a
location on the Thames, east of London, when I lost sight of
them.
During the latter part of the exhibition I learned that the
McNaught and the Hopkinson indicators were in common use in
England ; that one or both of these were to be found in the engine-
rooms of most mills and manufacturing establishments, and that
if the Richards indicator were properly put on the market there
would probably be some demand for it, although at existing engine
speeds the indicators in use appeared to be satisfactory. A special
field for its employment would doubtless be found, however, in
indicating locomotives. I felt sufficiently encouraged to set
about the task of standardizing the indicator, and during the
winter of 1862-3 made a contract with the firm of Elliott Brothers,
the well-known manufacturers of philosophical apparatus and
engineering and drawing instruments, to manufacture them ac-
cor ling to my plans.
This was my first attempt to organize the manufacture of an
instrument of any kind, and I set about it under a deep sense of
responsibility for the production of an indicator that should com-
mand the confidence of engineers in its invariable truth. I found
that the opportunity I had enjoyed for studying the subject had
been most important. The daily use of the indicator which I had
MANUFACTURE OF THE INDICATOR 83
brought to the exhibition was an invaluable preparation for this
work.
I decided, first, to increase the multiplication of the piston
motion, by means of the lever, from three times to four times,
thus reducing by one quarter the movement of the piston required
to give the same vertical movement to the pencil, and, second, to
increase the cylinder area from one quarter to one half of a square
inch. The latter was necessary in order to afford sufficient room
for springs of proper size, and correct reliable strength in their con-
nections.
The first problem that presented itself was how to produce cylin-
ders of the exact diameter required, .7979 of an inch, and to make
an error in this dimension impossible. This problem I solved in
the following manner: At my vequest Elliott Brothers obtained
from the Whitworth Company a hardened steel mandrel about
20 inches in length, ground parallel to this exact size and certi-
fied by them. Brass tubes of slightly larger size and carefully
cleaned were drawn down on this mandrel. These when pressed
off presented a perfect surface and needed only to be sawed up
in lengths of about 2 inches for each cylinder. Through the whole
history of the manufacture that removed all trouble or concern
on this account.
The pistons were made as light as possible, and were turned
to a gauge that permitted them to leak a little. The windage was
not sufficient to affect their accuracy; a thickness of silk paper on
one side would hold the pistons tight; but they had a frictionless
action, and the cover of the spring case having two holes opening
to the atmosphere, there could be no pressure above the piston
except that of the atmosphere.
The second problem was to insure the accuracy of the springs.
This was more serious than the first one. The brass heads of the
springs were provided with three wings instead of two, which mine
had. The spring, after being coaled and tempered, was brazed
into the grooves in the first two wings, and the third wing was
hammered firmly to it. This prevented the stress on the spring
from reaching the brazed joints, and these heads never worked
loose. One head was made fast at once; the other was left free
to be screwed backward or forward until the proper length of the
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
MANUFACTURE OF THE INDICATOR 87
spring was found. To insure freedom from friction, I determined
to adjust and test the springs in the open air, quite apart from
the instrument. For this purpose I had a stout cast-iron plate
made, with a bracket cast on it, in which the slides were held in a
vertical groove, and bolted this plate on the bench, where it
was carefully leveled. The surface of the plate had been planed,
a small hole drilled through it at the proper point, and a corre-
sponding hole was bored through the bench. A seating for the
scales also was planed in the bracket, normal to the surface of the
block. The spring to be tested, in its heads as above described,
was set on the block, and a rod which was a sliding fit in the hole
was put up through the bench, block, and spring. This rod had a
head at the lower end, and was threaded at the upper end. Under
the bench a sealed weight, equal to one half the extreme pressure
on the square inch to be indicated by the spring, was placed on
the rod.
Between the spring and the scale I employed a lever, represent-
ing that used in the indicator, but differing from it in two respects.
It was of twice its length, for greater convenience of observation,
and it was a lever of the first order, so that the weight acting down-
ward should represent the steam pressure in the indicator acting
upward .
The weight was carried by a steel nut screwed on the end of
the rod and resting on the upper head of the spring to be tested.
This nut carried above it a hardened stirrup, with a sharp inner
edge, which intersected the axis of the rod, produced. A delicate
steel lever was pivoted to turn about a point at one fifth of the
distance from the axis of the rod to the farther side of the scale
seat. The upper edge of this lever was a straight line intersecting
the axis of its trunnions. The short arm of the lever passed
through the stirrup, in which it slid as the spring was compressed,
while the long arm swung upward in front of the scale. The latter
was graduated on its farther side, and the reading was taken at the
point of intersection of the upper edge of the lever with this edge
of the scale.
The free head on the spring was turned until the reading showed
it to be a trifle too strong. It was then secured, and afterwards
brought to the exact strength required by running it rapidly in a
88 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
lathe and rubbing its surface over its entire length with fine emery
cloth. This reduced the strength of each coil equally. This was
a delicate operation, requiring great care to reduce the strength
enough and not too much. A great many springs had to be made,
several being generally required, often a full set of ten, with each
indicator. This testing apparatus was convenient and reliable,
and the workmen became very expert in its use.
The spring when in use was always exposed to steam of atmos-
pheric pressure. At this temperature of 212° we found by careful
experiment that all the springs were weakened equally, namely,
one pound in forty pounds. So the springs were made to show,
when cold, 39 pounds instead of 40 pounds, and in this ratio for
all strengths.
This system of manufacture and testing was examined in opera-
tion by every engimer who ordered an indicator, the shop on
St. Martin's Lane being very convenient. They generally required
that the indicator should be tested by the mercurial column. The
Elliotts, being large makers of barometers, had plenty of pure
mercury, so this requir ment was readily complied with, and the
springs were invariably found to be absolutely correct. We never
used the mercurial column in manufacturing, but were glad to
apply it for the satisfaction of customers.
I employed the following test for friction. The indicator
when finished was set on a firm bracket in the shop. The spring
was pressed down as far as it could be, and then allowed to return
to its position of rest very slowly, the motion at the end becoming
almost insensible. Then a fine line was drawn with a sharp-pointed
brass wire on metallic paper placed on the drum. The spring was
then pulled up as far as possible and allowed to return to its posi-
tion of rest in the same careful manner. The point must then
absolutely retrace this line. No indicator was allowed to go out
without satisfying this test. The workmanship was so excellent
that they always did so as a matter of course.
Mr. Henry R. Worthington once told me, long after, that on
the test of an installation of his pump in Philadelphia, after he
had indicated it at both steam and water ends, the examining
board asked him to permit them to make a test with their own
indicator, which they did the next day. They brought another
MANUFACTURE OF THE INDICATOR
89
indicator, of Elliott's make like his own, but the number showed
it to have been made some years later. "Would you believe it "
said he, "the diagrams were every one of them absolutely identical
with my own!" I rep'ied that the system of manufacture was
sueh that this could not have been otherwise.
I wish to acknowledge my obligation to Elliott Brothers for
90 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
their cordial co-operation, their excellent system of manufacture,
and the intelligent skill of their workmen, by one of whom the
swiveling connection of the levers with the piston-rod was
devised.
The indicator was improved in other important respects, but
I here confine myself to the above, which most directly affected
its accuracy. This soon became established in the public confi-
dence. During my stay in England, about five years longer, the
sale of indicators averaged some three hundred a year, with but
little variation. The Elliotts then told me that they considered
the market to have been about supplied, and looked for a con-
siderable falling off in the demand, and had already reduced their
orders for material. Eight years after my return I ordered from
them two indicators for use in indicating engines exhibited at
our Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. The indicators had
from the first been numbered in the order of their manufacture.
These came numbered over 10,000.
The indicators were put on the market in the spring of 1863,
and I sought opportunity to apply them on locomotives. In this
I had the efficient co-operation of Zerah Colburn, then editor of
The Engineer. The first application of them was on a locomotive
of the London and Southwestern Railway, and our trips, two in
number, were from London to Southampton and return. The
revelations made by the indicator were far from agreeable to Mr.
Beattie, the chief engineer of the line. Mr. Beattie had filled his
boilers with tubes | of an inch in diameter. The diagrams showed
the pressure of blast necessary to draw the gases through these
tubes to average about ten pounds above the atmosphere, the re-
duction of the nozzles producing this amount of back pressure
throughout the stroke. Another revelation was equally disagree-
able. The steam showed very wet. We learned that Mr. Beattie
surrounded his cylinders with a jacket. This was a large corru-
gated casting in which the cylinder was inserted as a liner. To
keep the cylinder hot the exhaust was passed through this jacket.
Mr. Colburn made both of these features the subjects of editorials
in The Engineer, written in his usual trenchant style. The last
one was entitled "Mr. Beattie's Refrigerators," and produced a
decided sensation.
APPLICATION ON LOCOMOTIVES
91
Our next trips were made on the Great Eastern Road, one
from London to Norwich and one from London to Great Yarmouth.
On these trips we were accompanied by Mr. W. H. Maw, then head
draftsman of the Great Eastern Locomotive Drawing Office, under
Mr. Sinclair, the chief engineer, and by Mr. Pendred. These gentle-
men were afterwards, respectively, the editors of Engineering and
The Engineer.
The diagrams from the Great Eastern engines were, on the
whole, the best which were taken by us. On one of these trips I
Diagrams from English Locomtlvoes taken with Richards Indicator.
was able to get the accompanying most interesting pair of diagrams,
which were published by me in the appendix to my treatise on
the Indicator. One of them was taken at the speed of 50 revolu-
tions per minute, and the other at the speed of 260 revolutions per
minute, running in the same notch with wide-open throttle. The
steam pressure was higher at the rapid speed. They afford many
subjects of study, and show the perfect action of the indicator
as at first turned out, at this great speed. I learned afterwards
that the almost entire freedom from vibration at the most rapid
speed was due to the gradual manner in which the pressure fell
92 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
from the beginning of the stroke. This fall of pressure before the
cut-off I fancy was caused largely by a small steam-pipe.
Our last diagrams were taken from a locomotive on the London
and Northwestern, by the same four operators as on the Great
Eastern trips. We ran from London to Manchester. On our
return trip Mr. Webb joined us at Crewe, and accompanied us to
London. I am sorry to say that in one respect the revelation of
the indicator here was almost inconceivably bad. Mr. Rams-
bottom did not protect his cylinders, but painted these and the
steam-chests black, and in this condition sent them rushing through
the moist air of England. If the steam cooled by "Mr. Beattie's
refrigerators" was wet. that in Mr. Ramsbottom's cylinders seemed
to be ail water. A jet of hot water was always sent up from each
of the holes in the cover of the spring case to a height of between
one and two feet. We had much trouble to protect ourselves
from it, and it nearly always drenched the diagram. I never saw
this phenomenon before or since. I have seen the steam blow
from the indicator cocks white with waiter when the indicators
were removed. But I never saw water spurt through the spring-
case cover, except in this instance. Truly, we said to each other,
Mr. Ramsbottom has abundant use for his trough and scoop to
keep water in his tanks. It was on this trip that I observed how
enormously the motion of a black surface increased the power
of the surrounding air to abstract heat from it. While we were
running at speed I many times laid my hand on the smoke-box
door without experiencing any sensation of warmth. I wondered
at this, for I knew that a torrent of fire issuing from the tubes was
impinging against the opposite surface of this quarter-inch iron
plate. In approaching Rugby Junction I observed that the speed
had not slackened very much when I could not touch this door,
and when we stopped, although the draft had mostly ceased, I
could not come near it for the heat. At the full velocity with
which the air blew against this door the capacity of the air to
absorb heat evidently exceeded the conducting power of the
metal.
W. H. Maw
CHAPTER IX
Designs of Horizontal Engine Beds. Engine Details. Presentation of the
Indicator at the Newcastle Meeting of the British Association for the
Ad\ancement of Science.
UCH of my time was now devoted to working out
improvements in the design of the engine, some of
which had occurred to me during the exhibition, and
which I was anxious to have completed before
bringing the engine to the notice of builders. The first point
which claimed my attention was the bed. The horizontal
engine bed had already passed through three stages of develop-
ment. The old form, in common use in the United States, was a
long and narrow box, open at top and bottom. The sides and
ends of this box were all alike, and their section resembled the letter
H laid on its side, thus x. This on some accounts was a very
convenient form. The surface of the bed was planed, and every-
thing was easily lined from this surface. The cylinder was made
with two flanges on each side, which rested on the opposite sur-
faces of the bed, permitting the cylinder to sink between them as
desired. The pillow-block rested on one or the other of these
surfaces, according as the engine was to be right or left hand.
The guide-bars were bolted on these opposite surfaces.
The first break in this monotony was made by Mr. Corliss,
and was remarkable for the number and the radical nature of its
new ideas. The cylinder was provided with broad feet near its
ends, and was planted on the foundation. The pillow-block was
provided with similar supports and was also secured to the founda-
tion. The bed, so called, was a tie-beam uniting the cylinder and
pillow-block, and not otherwise supported. It was of T sec-
tion. The horizontal member was behind the center line of the
93
94 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
engine, and was made very deep in the middle of its length to
prevent deflection. The vertical member extended equally above
and below the former and carried the guides, which were top and
bottom V-grooves, between which the cross-head ran and the
connecting-rod vibrated. The cross-head was provided with shoes
fitting these V's, and was adjustable vertically between them.
The connection with the cylinders was made by a circular head
supported by curved brackets. This connection was firm on
one side only. The bed was reversible to suit right- or left-hand
engines by merely turning it over.
In the bed for my engine, Mr. Richards struck out another
design, which avoided some objections to the Corliss bed. The
guides were supported from the foundation, and the connection
with the cylinder was more substantial, but the reversible feature
had to be sacrificed.
Mr. Richards' bed, shown in the illustration facing page 70.
was designed in the box form, the superior rigidity of which
had been established by Mr. Whitworth. It was a box closed at
the to}> and Hanged internally at the bottom. It rested on the
foundation through its entire length. The main pillow-block was
formed in the bed, :is were also the lower guide-bars. The cylinder
was secured on its surface in the old-fashioned way.
It occurred to me that the best features of the Corliss and the
Richards designs might be combined to advantage. This idea
1 worked out in the bed shown in the accompanying illustration,
taken from a circular issued by Ormerod, Grierson & Co.,
of Manchester, and which was made from a photograph of an
engine sent by that firm to the Oporto International Exhibition
in 1865. It will he seen that this is Mr. Richards' bed with the
cylinder bolted to the end after Mr. Corliss' plan. The great
strength of the bed enabled the supports under the cylinder to he
dispensed with. This left the cylinder free to expand by heat,
and made it convenient to attach the steam or exhaust connec-
tions or both underneath. This bed has remained without change,
except in one important respect. I math 1 the first cylinders with
a bracket which was keyed up from the base of the bed. In the
illustration a corner of this bracket appears. At the Paris Exposi-
tion in 1867 Mr. Beyer of the firm of Beyer & Peacock, the Man-
DESIGNS OF HORIZONTAL ENGINE BEDS
95
m
Si
Q
«
W
96
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
Chester locomotive-builders, when he saw it, told me I did not need
that bracket. I then left it off, but found the cylinder to wink
a little on every stroke when the heavy piston was at the back
end. To find the weak place, I tried the following experiment
on an engine built for the India Mills in Manchester. I filed two
notches in the edges of the brackets on the bed, opposite each
other and about ten inches forward of the head, and fitted a piece
of wire between them. This wire buckled very decidedly on every
revolution of the engine, when the piston was at the back end of
its stroke. I then united these brackets into a hood, and length-
ened the connection with the surface of the bed, as it is now made.
i i
1 1
1 1
i
1 1 k
/
r •
',7T-,*Yt>,t.,/VtYMylYt*,<>
I'll 1 ."' ii'iiu
r
' i
1 i
i
i
\ ' '
1 |
1 ,
L TT J t:
i 1 1
Cross-head Designed by Mr. Porter.
This affords a perfect support for the cylinder. Experiments
tried at the Cambria Iron Works on a cylinder of 40-inch bore
and 48-inch stroke, with a piston weighing 3600 pounds and
running at 100 double strokes per minute, showed the back end
of the cylinder standing absolutely motionless. This experiment
will he described hereafter.
The cross-head which I designed at this time has always
interested me, not only on account of its success, but also
for the important lesson which it teaches. I abolished all means
of adjustment. The cross-head was a solid block, running on
the lower guide-bars if the engine were running forward, as was
ENGINE DETAIL* 97
almost always the case, and these guide-bars were formed on
the bed. The pin was of steel, with the surface hardened and
ground truly cylindrical, set in the middle of the cross-head, and
formed with square ends larger than the cylindrical portion.
These were mortised parallel into the cross-head, and a central
pin was forced through the whole. The flats on the pin I after-
wards copied from a print. These prevent the formation of shoul-
ders at the ends of the vibration of the boxes. I would like to
know to whom we are indebted for this valuable feature. Every
surface was scraped to absolute truth. The lubrication was inter-
nal, as shown. There are many of these cross-heads which have
been running at rapid speeds in clean engine-rooms from twenty
to thirty years, where the scraping marks on the lower bars are
still to be seen.
The lesson is a most important one for the future of steam
engineering. It is this Two flat cast-iron surfaces, perfectly
true and incapable of deflection, with the pressure equally dis-
tributed over a sufficient area, protected from dirt and properly
lubricated, will never have the clean film of oil between them
broken or even varied in thickness, and will run together without
wear perpetually and at any speed whatever. The conclusion
is also abundantly warranted that a tendency to heat need not
exist anywhere in even the least degree, in engines running at
the greatest speeds. This can always be prevented by truth of
design and construction, and the selection of suitable material.
This fact is abundantly established by varied experience with
cylindrical as well as with flat surfaces, and for other materials,
though not for all, as well as for cast iron.
The solid end connecting-rod appears in this engine. This
was shown to me by Mr. James Gulland, a Scotch draftsman at
Ormerod, Grierson & Co.'s. He did not claim to have originated
it, but only told me that it was designed in Scotland. I saw at
once its peculiar value for high-speed engines. Every locomotive
designer knows the pains that must be taken to prevent- the straps
on the crank-pins from spreading at high speeds, under the pres-
sure exerted by the transverse fling of the connecting-rod. This
solid end renders the connecting-rod safe in this respect, even at
thousands of revolutions per minute. For single-crank engines,
98 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
on which only it can be applied, it is invaluable. This solid rod-
end possesses also another advantage. The wear of the crank-pin
boxes and that of the cross-head-pin boxes are both taken up in
the same direction, so the position of the piston in the cylinder
will be varied only by the difference, if any, between the two.
With a strap on both ends, the connecting-rod is always shortened
by the sum of the wear in the two boxes. The solid rod-end
enabled me to reduce the clearance in the cylinder to one eighth
of an inch with entire safety. The piston never touched the head.
As this construction was shown to me, the wedge was tapered
on both sides. It seemed that this would be difficult to fit up
truly, and it also involved the necessity of elongating the bolt-
holes in the rod, so that the wedge might slide along in taking
up the wear. I changed it by putting all the taper of the wedge
on the side next to the brass, making the other side parallel with
the bolt-holes. This enabled the opening in the rod-end to be
slotted out in a rectangular form, and made it easy for the wedge-
block to be truly fitted.
While on this subject I may as well dispose of the connecting-
rod, although the other changes were made subsequently, and I
do not recollect exactly when. The following shows the rod and
strap as they have been made for a long time. The taper of the
rod, giving to it a great strength at the crank-pin neck to resist the
transverse fling, was, I presume, copied by me from a locomotive
rod. The rounded end of the strap originated in this way. I had
often heard of the tendency of the cross-head-pin straps to spread.
This was in the old days, when these pins were not hardened,
indeed were always part of the iron casting. The brasses,
always used without babbitt lining, would wear these pins on the
opposite acting sides only. Brass, I learned afterwards, will
wear away any pin, even hardened steel, and not be worn itself.
When this wear would be taken up, the brasses would bind at
the ends of their vibration, coming in contact there with the
unworn sides of the pin. To relieve this binding it was common
for engineers to file these sides away. All I knew at that time
was that the straps would yield and spread. It occurred to me
to observe this deflection in a spring brass wire bent to the form
of a strap. The pressure being applied on the line of the pin cen-
PRESENTATION OF THE INDICATOR
99
ter, the deflection appeared to take place mostly at the back, and
so I stiffened it. Since the introduction of the flats on the pin,
which prevent the exertion of any force to spread the strap, this
form seems to he rather ornamental than useful.
To this strap I added a wiper for lubricating the cross-head
pin automatically. The drop of oil hung from the center of a
convex surface provided above the wiper. The latter was in-
clined forward, and its edge partook of the vibration of the con-
necting-rod. On the backward stroke this edge cleared the drop.
At the commencement of the forward stroke it rose to take it off.
A note of the change then made by me in stop-valves will
conclude the record of these changes. The valve and its seat had
Connecting-rod and Strap.
always been made of brass. The latter was fitted in a cast-iron
chamber, and, expanding more than the iron, was apt to work
loose. I disused brass entirely, employing a cast-iron valve in
the cast-iron seat. These always remained perfectly tight, show-
ing the additional cost and trouble of brass to be unnecessary.
At the meeting of the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science in 1863, held in Newcastle, I read before the
Mechanical Section a paper on the Richards indicator, illustrated
by one of the instruments and diagrams taken by it from loco-
motives. The paper was very favorably received. The descrip-
tion of the action of the arms, in preventing by their elasticity in
combination with a stop any more than a light pressure being
applied to the paper, called out especial applause. The president
100 ENGLXEERING REMINISCENCES
of the Mechanical Section that year was Professor Willis, of Cam-
bridge, the designer of the odontograph form of tooth, which
enables gear-wheels of the same pitch to run together equally
well, whatever may be the difference in their diameters. I felt
very deeply impressed at standing before a large assembly of the
leading mechanical engineers of Great Britain, and where so many
important things had first been presented to the world, where Sir
William Armstrong had described his accumulator, by which
enormous power is supplied occasionally from small pumps run-
ning continuously, and where Joule had explained his practical
demonstration of the mechanical equivalent of heat.
( )n my journeys to Newcastle and back to London I met two
strangers, each of whom gave me something to think about. It
happened that each time we were the only occupants of the com-
partment. Englishmen, I observed, were always ready to converse
with Americans. Soon after leaving London, my fellow-passenger,
a young gentleman, said to me, "Did you observe that young
fellow and young woman who bade me good-by at the carriage
door? He is my brother, and they are engaged. He is first mate
on a ship, and sails to-morrow for Calcutta. He hopes on his
next voyage to have command of a ship himself, and then they
expect to be married." I did not learn who he was, but he said
they were making large preparations to welcome the scientists,
and added that he owned about six hundred houses in Newcastle.
Evidently he was the eldest son.
On my return my companion was an elderly gentleman, a
typical Tory. He waxed eloquent on the inhumanity of educa-
ting the laboring classes, saying that its only effect must be to
make them discontented with the position wdiich they must always
occupy.
I told him I had thought of a motto for the Social Science
Congress, which was just then in session. It was a parody on
Nelson's celebrated order, "England expects every man to do his
duty." My proposed motto was, "England expects every man
to know his place." He did not .see the humor, but took me
seriously, and thought it excellent.
CHAPTER X
Contract with Ormerod, Grierson & Co. Engine for Evan Leigh, Son & Co.
Engine for the Oporto Exhibition. Getting Home from Portugal
COULD do nothing with the engine in England unless
it was put on the market as a condensing engine.
This fact was finally revealed to me, and I applied
myself to meet the requirement. The question as
it addressed itself to me was, not "How do you work your air-
pump?" but "How ore you going to work your air-pump?" My
friends Easton, Amos & Sons told me frankly that in their judg-
ment I could not do it at all. Their opinion was expressed very
decidedly, that as a condensing engine the high-speed engine was
not to be thought of. This was not surprising, seeing that the
beam Wolff engines made by them ran at only 25 revolutions
per minute, which was the speed of beam-engines generally, and
all stationary engines were beam-engines; but it was discourag-
ing. I made up my mind that .they did not know everything,
and I would show them a thing or two as soon as I got a chance.
This I found easier to get than I expected, when I had matured
a satisfactory system of condensation. My first plan was to use
an independent air-pump running at the usual slow speed and
driven by a belt, the speed being reduced by intermediate gearing.
1 was able very readily to make an agreement on this basis
with the firm of Ormerod, Grierson & Co., of Manchester, for the
manufacture of the engines and governors, and we started on our
first order on the first day of January, 1864.
The ground occupied by these works bordered on the Duke
of Bridgewater's canal from Liverpool to Manchester, where I
one day saw a cow and a woman towing a boat, a man steering.
101
102 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
A railway ran through these works, parallel with the canal,
at about 300 feet distance, but it was not at all in the way. It was
built on brick arches, and the construction was such that the
passing of trains was scarcely heard. The arches were utilized
for the millwright shop, pattern shop, gear-cutting shop, and
the storage of lumber and gear-wheel patterns, the number and
size of which latter astonished me.
On a previous visit Mr. Grierson had shown me several things
of much interest. The one most worthy of being related was a
multiple drill, capable of drilling ninety holes, f inch diameter,
simultaneously. This had been designed and made by them-
selves for use in building a lattice-girder bridge, for erection over
the river Jumna, near Delhi, to carry a roadway below and a
railway above. The English engineers then made all bridge
constructions on this system, having no faith in the American
truss. One length of this bridge still stood in their yard, where
it had been completely riveted up for testing, after which all the
rivets would have to be cut out. The other lengths had been
shipped in pieces. The advantage of this multiple drill was
twofold — the ability to drill many holes simultaneously and the
necessary accuracy of their pitch.
I was especially interested in the massivenses of this tool and
impressed with the importance of this feature. The drills rotated
in place, and the table carrying the work was fed upward by two
hydraulic presses. The superintendent told me that they never
broke a drill, and that to exhibit its safety in this respect they
had successfully drilled a single hole j^ of an inch in diameter
through one inch of steel. He attributed this success partly to
the steady feed, but chiefly to absolute freedom from vibration.
He said a toolmaker had had an order for a similar drill, and on visit-
ing this one pronounced its great weight to be absurd. He made
one weighing about half as much, which proved a failure, from
the liability of the drills to break. This gave me one of the most
valuable lessons that I ever received.
We soon had our first engine running successfully, in spite of
some annoyances. I insisted on having the joints on the steam-
chest and cylinder heads made scraped joints, but the foreman
put them together with the white and red lead putty just the
ENGINE FOR EVAN LEIGH, SON & CO. 103
same, so that work was thrown away, and when we wanted to
open a joint we had to resort to the familiar wedges. The pipes
were of cast iron, with square holes in the flanges. The ends were
left rough. They were put together with the same putty. The
joints were encircled by clips, which prevented the putty from
being forced outward to any great extent in screwing the flanges
together. What went inside had to work its way through as it
was broken off by the rush of steam and hot water. When the
engine was started we could not get much vacuum. On taking
the pipes apart to find what the matter was, we discovered that
the workmen had left a wooden plug in the condenser-nozzle,
where it had been put to prevent anything from getting in during
its transportation. The proper mode of protection would of
course have been to bolt a board on the flange.
The worst trouble was from a blunder of my own. My ex-
hibition engine hail cast-iron valves running on cast-iron seats,
and the friction between these surfaces under the steam pressure
was so little that it did not injure the governor action appreciably.
But I could not let well enough alone. Mr. Lee had told me that
in the steam fire-engines they used gun-metal valves on steel seats,
which I thought must have some wonderful advantages, so at con-
siderable additional expense I fitted up my first engine in the
same way. The governor worked very badly. I had the pleasure
of demonstrating the fact that brass on steel is the very best
combination possible for producing friction. I went back to
cast-iron valves, when the trouble disappeared.
We had an order for an engine to drive the works of Evan
Leigh, Son & Co. Mr. Leigh was quite a famous man, the in-
ventor of Leigh's top roller, used universally in drawing-machines.
I was told he was the only man then living who had invented an
essential feature in spinning machinery. I struck out a new
design, which proved quite successful. They wished to give 100
revolutions per minute to their main line of shafting running over-
head through the center of their shop. I planned a vertical engine,
standing on a bed-plate, which carried also an A frame.
The engine-room was located at the end of the shop. The
line of shaft passed through a wall-box and then 3 feet further
to its main bearing at the top of this upright frame. The latter
104 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
was stayed from the wall by two ample cast-iron stays. The
fly-wheel was outside this frame and carried the crank-pin. The
shaft was continued quite stiff through the wall-box, with long
bearings. By this plan I got rid of gears. Belts for taking
power from a prime mover were then unknown in England. The
fly-wheel was only 10 feet in diameter, with rim 8 X 10 inches,
and was of course cast in one piece. It proved to be ample. The
engine was the largest I had yet made, 22 inches diameter of
cylinder by 36 inches stroke, making 100 revolutions. I was still
tied to 600 feet piston travel per minute. I did not venture to
suggest any greater speed than that ; could not have sold an engine
in Lancashire if I had.
I introduced in this engine a feature which I afterwards sin-
cerely wished I had not done, though not on my own account.
This was a surface condenser. It worked well, always maintain-
ing a good vacuum. I shall have more to say respecting this
engine later, which will explain my regret about the condenser.
I had about this time the pleasure of a visit from two American
engineers, Robert Briggs and Henry R. Towne, who were travel-
ing together in England, and were at the trouble to look me up.
I took them to see this engine, and I am sorry to say they were
not so much carried away with the novel design as I was. But
if I had the same to do again I do not think I could do better.
The last time I saw that engine I found no one in the engine-
room. I inquired of some one where the engineer was, and was told
I would find him in the pipe-shop. I found him there at work.
He told me he had not been staying in the engine-room for a long
time, he had "nowt to do," and so they gave him a job there.
When I went with Ormerod, Grierson & Co., they were deep
in the execution of a large order known as the Oporto Crystal
Palace. Portugal was behind every other country in Europe in
its arts and manufactures. In fact, it had none at all. At Oporto
there was a large colony of English merchants, by whom all the
trade of the port was carried on. These had conceived the idea
of holding at Oporto an international exposition, which idea was
put into execution. Our firm had secured the contract for all the
iron-work for a pretty large iron and glass building, and for the
power and shafting for the Machinery Hall.
EXGINE FOR THE OPORTO EXHIBITION 105
I was soon called on for the plans for an Allen engine to be
shown there. This was to be a non-condensing- engine, L4X24, to
make 150 revolutions per minute, and which accordingly was made
and sent, with two Lancashire boilers. I went on to attend the
opening of the exposition on the first of May, 1865, and see that
the engine was started in good shape.
I sailed from London on a trading-steamer for Oporto, and
on the voyage learned various things that I did not know before.
One of these was how to make port wine. I asked the captain
what his cargo consisted of. He replied: "Nine hundred pipes
of brandy." "What are you taking brandy to Portugal for?"
"To make wine." "But what kind of brandy is it that you take
from England?" "British brandy." "What is it made from?"
"Corn." By this word he meant wheat. In England Indian
corn is called maize. I do not know whether "corn" included
barley and rye or not.
We had the pleasure in Oporto of meeting a Portuguese in-
ventor. In England there then existed the rude method of an-
nouncing at each principal seaport the instant of noon by firing
a cannon by an electric current from the Greenwich Observatory.
The more accurate method now in use substitutes sight for sound.
This inventor proposed planting a cannon for this purpose in
an opening in a church tower, of which there were plenty. The
hammer, by the fall of which a pill of fulminate was to be ex-
ploded and the cannon fired, was to be held up by a string. The
rays of the sun were focused by a burning-glass on a point, which
at the instant that the sun reached the meridian would reach
this string. The string would be burned off, and the cannon
would go off. In the rare case for Oporto of a cloudy day, or if
for any reason the automatic action failed, it would be the duty
of a priest, after waiting a few minutes to be sure of the failure,
to go up and fire the gun. The enthusiastic inventor urged it on
the English. It was thought, however, that the more feeble power
of the sun's rays in the higher latitude of England would not
warrant the application of this ingenious invention there, and
besides neither perforated church towers nor idle priests were
available for the purpose.
In order to get the full point of the following story it must
106 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
be remembered that at that time there was not a stationary
steam-engine in Portugal. English enterprise and capital had
recently built a line of railway between Lisbon and Oporto, and the
locomotives on that line furnished the only exhibition of steam
] tower in the country. To the educated classes of the Portuguese,
therefore, the steam-engine to be shown at the Oporto Crystal
Palace was the object of supreme interest.
In one respect they used to have on the Continent a way of
managing these things which was better than ours. The ex-
hibitions were completely ready on the opening day. For ex-
ample, in the French Exposition of 1867, which was the last one
I attended, the jurors commenced their work of examination
on the day after the opening, and completed it in three weeks.
The only exception, I think, was in the class of agricultural ma-
chinery, the examination of which had to wait for the grain to
grow. No imperial decree could hasten that. So the Oporto
Exposition was to be complete in all its departments when the
King of Portugal should declare it to be open.
I arrived in Oporto a week before the day fixed for the open-
ing, and found a funny state of affairs existing in the engineering
department. A very capable and efficient young man had been
placed by our firm in charge of their exhibit. I found his work
finished. The engine and shafting were in running order. Only
the boilers were not ready, in explanation of which I heard this
statement: Some time previously an Englishman had presented
'himself, bearing a commission, duly signed by the executive
officials, constituting him "Chief Engineer of the Oporto Exposi-
tion," and demanded charge of our engine and boilers, which were
all there was for him to be chief engineer of. Our man very prop-
erly refused to recognize him, telling him that he had been placed
in charge of this exhibit by its owners, and he should surrender
it to nobody. But the new man had a pull. The managers were
furious at this defiance of their authority. On the other hand,
the guardian of our interests was firm. Finally, after much alter-
cation and correspondence with Manchester, a compromise had
been arranged, by which our representative retained charge of
the engine and shafting, and the boilers were handed over to the
"chief engineer."
ENGINE FOR THE OPORTO EXHIBITION
107
I was introduced to this functionary, and received his assur-
ance that the boilers would be "in readiness to-morrow." This
promise was repeated every day. Finally the morning of the
opening day arrived. The city put on its gala attire. Flags and
Icmuers waved everywhere. The people were awakened to a
holiday by the booming of cannon and the noise of rockets, which
the Portuguese sent up by daylight to explode in the air. The
King and Queen and court came up from Lisbon, and there was a
grand opening ceremonial, after which a royal procession made
the circuit of the building.
At the hour fixed for the opening the "chief engineer" was just
having a fire started under the boilers for the first time. I was,
of course, pretty nervous, but our man said to me: "You go and
witness the opening ceremonies. They will last fully two hours,
Attaching a Steam-drum to a Lancashire Boiler.
and we shall doubtless be running when you get back." When
at their conclusion 1 hurried through the crowds back to Machinery
Hall, there stood the engine motionless. The door to the boiler-
room was shut as tightly as possible, but steam was coming
through every crevice. I could not speak, but looked at our
man for an explanation. "The fool," said he, "did not know
enough to pack the heads of his drum-bolts; he can get only
two pounds of steam, and it blows out around all the bolts, so as
to drive the firemen out of the boiler-room." There was no help
for it. The boilers had to be emptied and cooled before a man
could go inside and pack those bolt-heads.
I must stop here and explain how a steam-drum is attached
to a Lancashire boiler, or, at least, how it was in those days. The
accompanying section will enable the reader to understand the
description. The "drum" was of cast iron. The upper part, not
shown, was provided with three raised faces on its sides, to two
108 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
of which branch pipes were bolted, each carrying a safety-valve,
while the steam-pipe was connected to the third. The manhole
was in the top. A cast-iron saddle was riveted on the boiler, and
was provided at the top with a broad flange turning inward.
This flange and the flange at the base of the drum had their sur-
faces planed, and a steam-joint was made between them with the
putty. Square bolt-holes were cored in the flange of the saddle, and
corresponding round holes were bored in the flange of the drum.
The bolts were forged square for a short distance under the heads,
so that they would be held from turning in the square holes.
These bolts were inserted from the inside of the saddle, and were
packed by winding them, under the heads, with long hemp well
filled with this putty. As the nut on the outside was tightened
the putty was squeezed into the square hole around the bolt,
and soon became hard. This packing was what the "chief engi-
neer" had omitted. The reader is now prepared to appreciate
the situation.
It was not long before the royal procession appeared at the
extreme end of the hall, the King and Queen in advance, and
a long line of the dignitaries of state and church, with a sprinkling
of ladies, following at a respectful distance. Slowly, but in-
evitably, the procession advanced, between the rows of silent
machinery and mad exhibitors, until, arriving near us, the King
stopped. An official immediately appeared, of whom the King
inquired who was present to represent the engine, or at least
I suppose he did, for in reply I was pointed out to him. He
stepped briskly over to me, and what do you think he said? I
defy any living Yankee to guess. With a manner of the utmost
cordiality, and speaking in English as if it we-re his native tongue,
he said: "I am extremely sorry that the neglect of some one has
caused you to be disappointed to-day." Me disappointed! It
almost took my breath away. Without waiting for me to frame
a reply (I think he would have had to wait some time), His
Majesty continued cheerily: "No doubt the defect will be reme-
died directly, and your engine will be enabled to run to-morrow."
Then, looking the engine over quite leisurely, he observed: "It
certainly presents a fine appearance. I expect to visit the ex-
position again after a few days, when I shall have more leisure,
GETTING HOME FROM PORTUGAL L09
and will then ask you to explain its operation to me." He then
turned and rejoined the Queen, and the procession moved on,
leaving me with food for reflection for many a day. I had met a
gentleman, a man who under the most sudden and extreme test
had acted with a courtesy which showed that in his heart he had
only kind feelings towards every one. An outside imitation must
have been thrown off its guard by such a provocation as that.
In reflecting on the incident, I saw clearly that in stopping and
speaking to me the King had only one thought, and that was to
say what he could to relieve my feelings of disappointment and
mortification. He had evidently been informed that I could not
get any steam, and took pains and went out of his way to do this;
showing a kindly and sympathetic feeling that must express
itself in act and conduct even towards a stranger. I left the
next day for England with some new ideas about the " effete
monarchies," and with regret that I should see His Majesty no
more.
One or two observations on the Portuguese peasantry may be
interesting. They did not impress me so favorably as did their
King. On my first arrival I wished to have the engine turned
over, that I might see if the valve motions were all right. The
engineer ordered some men standing around to do this. Six of
them laid hold of the flywheel, three on each side, and tugged
away apparently in earnest. It did not move. I looked at the
engineer in surprise. He said, "I will show you what is the mat-
ter," ordered them all away, and himself pulled the wheel around
with one hand. Then he explained: "I only wanted you to see
for yourself what they are good for. We have had to bring every
laborer from England. These men are on the pay-roll, and spend
their time in lounging about, but no Portuguese man will work.
Women do all the work in this country."
The exposition buildings were located on a level spot on a hill-
top overlooking the river Douro, at an elevation, I judged, of about
200 feet. They wished to surround them with a greensward.
Between thejieat arid the light soil, the grass could be made to
grow only by continual watering, and this is the way they did it.
About 400 women and children brought up water from the river in
vessels on their heads. All day long this procession was moving
110 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
up and down the hill, pouring the water on the ground, performing
the work of a steam-pump and a 2-inch pipe.
I went to Portugal without a passport. Our financial partner
told me it would be quite unnecessary. He himself had just re-
turned from Oporto, where he went without a passport, and found
that half a crown given the custom-house inspector on his arrival
and departure was all he needed. I understood the intimation
that if I got a passport, the fee of, I believe, a guinea would not
be allowed me. So, although I went from London and could very
conveniently have obtained a passport at the United States lega-
tion, 1 omitted to do it.
On landing at Oporto the two-and-sixpenny piece opened the
kingdom of Portugal to me (mite readily. Getting out, the proc-
ess was different. I found that the steamer on which I had come
from London would not return for a week or more after the opening
of the exposition, and I was impatient to get back. A line between
Liverpool and Buenos Ayres made Lisbon a port of call, and a
steamer was expected en route to Liverpool in the course of three
or four days after the opening; so I determined to come by that.
The morning after the opening I was awakened early by a tele-
gram informing me that the steamer had arrived at Lisbon during
the preceding night, having made an unexpectedly quick run across
the South Atlantic, and would sail for Liverpool that evening. The
railroad ran only two trains a day, and my only way to get to
Lisbon in time was to take the nine-o'clock train from Oporto.
The station was on a hill on the opposite side of the Douro. There
was only one bridge across the river, and that was half a mile up
the stream from the hotel and from the station. Oporto boasted
no public conveyance. So I hired a couple of boys to take my
trunk down to the river, row me and it across, and carry it up the
hill to the station. I got off with two minutes to spare.
On applying at the steamship office in Lisbon for a passage
ticket, I was informed by the very gentlemanly English clerk that
they were forbidden to sell a ticket to any one without a passport.
" However," he added, " this will cause you no inconvenience. The
United States legation is on the second block below here. I will
direct you to it, and you can obtain a passport without any trouble."
By the way, how did he recognize me as an American, and how was
GETTING HOME FROM PORTUGAL 111
it that I was always recognized as an American? I never could
explain that puzzle.
On knocking at the door of the legation, it was opened by a
colored man, who informed me that this was a fete day, and that
the minister was attending a reception at the palace (this was the
first time I ever heard of a royal reception in the forenoon), but if I
would call again at three o'clock the passport would be ready for
me. So, leaving with him my address, I left, to amuse myself as
best I could till three o'clock.
On presenting myself at that hour I was informed by the same
darkey that the minister would not give me a passport; that he
had bidden him tell me he knew nothing about me; I might he an
American or I might not: at any rate, he was not going to certify
that I was. I had got into the country without a passport, and
I would have to get out without one for all him. I inquired if the
minister were at home. "Yes, sir," replied the darkey, "he is at
home, but he will not see you; he told me to tell you so," and
with that he bowed me out and shut the door.
I went back to the steamship office and reported my failure to
my friend the clerk. He drew a long whistle. "Not see you!
What's he here for? He must be drunk; that's it, he's drunk."
After a minute's reflection he added: "We must see the Secretary
of State; I am well acquainted with him, and he will get you out
of this mess directly. If you will kindly wait till I have finished
my correspondence, which will occupy me for about half an hour, I
will take you to his office. You can amuse yourself with this copy
of the Times" handing it to me.
When we reached the office of the Secretary of State we found
the door locked. "Oh," said he, "I had forgotten, this is a saint's
day, and the public offices are closed. We must go to his house."
We found the Secretary at home. I was introduced, and the Eng-
lishman told my case, of course in Portuguese. As he proceeded
I saw the official brow darken. I woke up to the enormity of my
offense. Little kingdom, big dignity. I had defied their laws and
corrupted their official. The case looked serious. The Secretary,
in fact, found it so serious that he did not feel like taking the sole
responsibility of its decision, but sent out for two others of His
Majesty's advisers to consult with him. The assembling of tnis
112 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
court caused a delay of half an hour, during which I had time to
conjure up all sorts of visions, including an indefinite immurement
in a castle and a diplomatic correspondence, while the deuce would
be to pay with my business at home.
Finally the officials sent for arrived. The instant they entered
the room I was recognized by one of them. He had accompanied
the King to the opening of the exposition the day before, which the
pressure of public business or some game or other had prevented
the Secretary of State from doing. In fact, he had headed the pro-
cession behind their Majesties and so had seen the graciousness of
the King's favor to me.
He spoke a few words to the Secretary of State, when, presto,
everything was changed. The court did not convene, but instead
cordial handshaking with the man on whom the beams of royal
favor had shone.
I left my smiling friends with a passport or something just as
good, added my twelve pounds sterling to the account of the
ship, and had time before it sailed to eat a sumptuous dinner at
J he hotel. I was in the land of olives, and ate freely of the unac-
customed delicacy, in consequence of which I lost my dinner
before the ship was well out of the Tagus and have never cared
much for olives since.
I was full of wrath against the United States minister, and
determined to send a protest to the State Department as soon
as I reached Manchester. But there I found something else to
attend to and dropped the matter. I read, however, with satis-
faction, a few months after, that the item of the salary of the
minister to Portugal had been cut out of the appropriation bill by
the House of Representatives.
CHAPTER XI
Trouble with the Evan Leigli Engine. Gear Patterns from the Whitworth
Works. First Order for a Governor. Introduction of the Governor into
Cotton Mills. Invention of my Condenser. Failure of Ormerod, Grierson
& Co.
HE Evan Leigh engine was not quite ready to be started
when I left England. On my return I found an
unexpected trouble and quite an excitement. The
engine had been started during my absence, and ran
all right, but it was found almost impossible to supply the boilers
with water. Two injectors were required, and two men feeding
the furnaces, and everybody was agreed that the fault lay with
the engine. The boilers were a pair of Harrison boilers, from
which great results had been expected. These were formed of
cast-iron globes, 8 inches internal diameter, with 3-inch necks,
held together by bolts miming through a string of these globes.
They were an American invention, and naturally Mr. Luders (who
was introducing them in England) and I fraternized. I felt greatly
disappointed. I did not then see Mr. Leigh, but had the pleasure
of an interview with his son. This young gentleman denounced
me in good Saxon terms as a fraud and an impostor, and assured
me that he would see to it that I never sold another engine in
England. He knew that the boilers were all right. His friend
Mr. Hetherington, an extensive manufacturer of spinning and
weaving machinery, and who had taken the agency to sell those
boilers, had had one working for a long time in company with a
Lancashire boiler, and there was no difference in their performance.
He finished by informing me that the engine would be put out
as quickly as they could get another.
113
114
EXGIXEERIXG REMIXISCEXCES
I put an indicator on the engine, and show here the diagrams
it took. I could not sec that much fault was to he found with those
diagrams. Old Mr. Leigh, after looking at them, said nothing,
but he did something. He went to an old boiler-yard and bought
a second-hand Lancashire boiler, had it carted into his yard and
set under an improvised shed alongside his boiler-house, and in
two or three days it was supplying the steam for my engine, and
all difficulties had vanished. The consumption of steam and
coal fell to just what it had been calculated that it should be, and
everybody felt happy, except my friend Mr. Luders, who, not-
Diagrams from Engine of Evan Leigh, Son & Co. Sixteen Pounds to the Inch
withstanding his grievous disappointment, had never gone back
on me, and young Mr. Leigh, who owed me an apology which he
was not manly enough to render. Repeated efforts were tried
to make the Harrison boilers answer, but the result was always
the same, and they were abandoned.
And, after all, the fault was largely mine. I did not think
of it till long afterwards, and it did not occur to anybody else, not
even to those most deeply interested in the boiler. My surface
condenser was the cause of all the trouble, and that was why I
have to this day deeply regretted having put it in. The oil used
TROUBLE WITH THE EVAN LEIGH ENGINE 115
in the cylinder was all sent into the boilers, and accumulated there.
It saponified and formed a foam which filled the whole boiler and
caused the water to be worked over with the steam as fast as it
could be fed in. I have always wondered why the engine, being
vertical, should not have exhibited any sign of the water working
through it at the upper end of the cylinder. The explanation
after all appears simple. The water on entering the steam chest
mostly fell to the bottom and little passed through the upper
ports. The trouble from oil was not felt at all in the Lancashire
boiler. This, I suppose, was due to three causes. The latter held
a far greater body of water, had a much larger extent of evap-
orating surface, and far greater steam capacity. I was always
sorry that I did not give the Harrison boiler the better chance
it would have had with a jet condenser.
In this pair of diagrams, which are copied from the catalog e of
Ormerod, Grierson & Co., the low steam pressure, 29 pounds above
the atmosphere, will be observed. This was about the pressure
commonly carried. The pressure in the exhibition boilers, 75
pounds, was exhibited by Mr. John Hick, of Bolton, as a marked
advance on the existing practice.
In preparing for the governor manufacture I had my first
revelation of the utter emptiness of the Whitworth Works. Iron
gear patterns were required, duplicates of those which had been
cut for me at home by Mr. Pratt. The blanks for these gears
were turned as soon as possible after I reached Manchester, and
sent to the Whitworth Works to be cut. It seemed as though we
should never get them. Finally, after repeated urging, the pat-
terns came. I was sent for to come into the shop and see them.
They were in the hands of the best fitter we had, who, by the
way, was a Swedenborgian preacher and preached every Sunday.
The foreman told me he had given them to this man to see if it was
possible to do anything with them, and he thought I ought to see
them before he set about it. I could hardly believe my eyes.
There was no truth about them. The spaces and the teeth dif-
fered so much that the same tooth would be too small for some
spaces and could not be wedged into others; some would be too
thick or too thin at one end. They were all alike bad, and pre-
sented all kinds of badness. It was finally concluded to make
11G ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
the best of them, and this careful man worked on them more
than two days to make them passable.
The first governor order that was booked was the only case
that ever beat me. I went to see the engine. It was a condensing
beam-engine of good size, made by Ormerod, Grierson & Co. to
maintain the vacuum in a tube connecting two telegraph offices
in Manchester, and had been built to the plans and specifications
of the telegraph company's engineer. The engine had literally
nothing to do. A little steam air-pump that two men could have
lifted and set on a bench would have been just suitable for the
work. They could not carry low enough pressure nor run slowly
enough. On inspection I reported that we should have nothing
to do witli it.
The custom of making whatever customers order and taking
no responsibility was first illustrated to me in this curious way.
I saw a queer-looking boiler being finished in the boiler-shop.
In reply to my question the foreman told me they were making
it for a cotton-spinner, according to a plan of his own. It con-
sisted of two boilers, one within the other. The owner's purpose
was to carry the ordinary steam pressure in the outer boiler, and a
pressure twice as great in the inner one, when the inner boiler
would have to suffer the stress of only one half the pressure it was
carrying.
I asked the superintendent afterwards why they did not tell
that man that he could not maintain steam at two different tem-
peratures on the opposite sides of the same sheets. He replied:
"Because we do not find it profitable to quarrel with our cus-
tomers. That is his idea. If we had told him there was nothing
in it, he would not have believed us, but would have got his boiler
made somewhere else."
Perhaps the most curious experience I ever had was that of
getting the governor into cotton-mills. There was a vast field
all around us, and we looked for plenty of orders. This was the
reception I met with every time. After listening to the winning
story I had to tell, the cotton lord would wind up with this ques-
tion : "Well, sir, have you got a governor in a large cotton-mill?''
After my answer in the negative I was bowed out. I early got
.an order from Titus Salt & Son, of Saltaire, for two large governors
FIRST ORDER FOR A GOVERNOR 117
but these did not weigh at all with a cotton-spinner; they made
alpaca goods.
The way the governor was finally got into cotton-mills, where
afterwards its use became general, was the most curious part. A
mill in the city of Manchester was troubled by having its governor
fly in pieces once in a while. After one of these experiences the
owners thought that they might cure the difficulty by getting one
of my governors. That flew in pieces in a week. I went to see
the engine. The cause of all the trouble appeared at a glance.
The fly-wheel was on the second-motion shaft which ran at twice
the speed of the main shaft, and the gearing between them was
roaring away enough to deafen one. The governor w r as driven
by gearing. The vibrations transmitted to the governor soon
tired the arms out. I saw the son of the principal owner, and
explained the cause of the failure of every governor they had
tried, and told him the only remedy, which would be a complete
one, would be to drive the governor by a belt. That, he replied,
was not to be thought of for an instant. I told him he knew
himself that a governor could not endure if driven in any other
way, and that I had hundreds of governors driven by belts, which
were entirely reliable in all cases. "But," said he, "supposing
the belt runs off the pulley." "The consequence," I replied,
"cannot be worse than when the governor flies in pieces." After
wasting considerable time in talk, he said, "Well, leave it till my
father comes home; he is absent for a few days." "No," said I,
"if I can't convince a young man, I shall not try to convince an
old man." Finally, with every possible stipulation to make it
impossible for the belt to come off, he yielded his assent, and I
had the governor on in short order, lacing the belt myself, to
make sure that it was butt-jointed and laced in the American
fashion.
More than three years afterwards, two days before I was to
sail for home, I met this man on High Street, in Manchester. It
was during the Whitsuntide holidays, and the street was almost
deserted. He came up to me, holding out both hands and grasp-
ing mine most cordially. "Do you know," said he, "that we have
increased our product 10 per cent., and don't have half as many
broken threads as we had before, and it's all that belt."
118
ENGIXEERIXG REMINISCENCES
The tendency towards the horizontal type of engine, in place
of the beam-engine, began to be quite marked in England about
that time. This was favorable to the use of the Allen engine.
The only thing that seemed wanting to its success was a directly
Condenser and Air-pump designed by Mr. Porter. (Cross-section)
connected jet condenser. No one believed that an air-pump
could be made to run successfully at the speed of 150 double
strokes per minute. Yet this had to be done, or I could not look
for any considerable adoption of the high-speed engine. This
INVENTION OF MY CONDENSER 119
subject occupied my mind continually. When I returned from
( Iporto, I had thought out the plan of this condenser, and at once
set about the drawings for it. No alteration was ever made from
the first design of the condenser, which I intended to show with
the engine at the coming Paris Exposition in 1867, and which I
finally did succeed in showing there, but under very different
and unexpected relations.
The philosophy of this condenser is sufficiently shown in the
accompanying vertical cross-section. A hollow ram, only equal
in weight to the water which it displaced, ran through a stuffing-
box at the front end of the chamber, and was connected with an
extension of the piston-rod of the engine. So the center line of
the engine extended through this single-acting ram, which had
the full motion of the piston. It ran through the middle of a body
of water, the surface of which fell as the ram was withdrawn,
and rose as it returned. A quiet movement of the water was
assured b}^ three means: First, the motion of the ram was con-
trolled by the crank of the engine, and so began and ceased in-
sensibly. Second, the motion of the ram, of two feet, produced
a rise or fall of the surface of the water of only about one inch.
Third, the end of the ram was pointed, a construction which does
not appear in this sectional view, permitting it to enter and leave
the water at every point gradually. Both the condenser and the
hot-well were located above the chamber in which the ram
worked.
The problem was to obtain complete displacement by means
of solid water without any admixture of free air, the expansion
of which as the plunger was withdrawn would reduce the effi-
ciency of the air-pump. To effect this object the air must be
prevented from mingling with the water, and must be delivered
into the hot-well first. This was accomplished by two means:
First, placing the condenser as well as the hot-well above the
air-pump chamber, as already stated, and secondly, inclining the
bottom of the condenser, so that the water would pass through
the inlet valves at the side farthest from, and the air at the side
nearest to, the hot-well. Thus the air remained above the water,
and as the latter rose it sent the air before it quite to the delivery
valves. Pains were taken to avoid any place where air could be
120 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
trapped, so it was certain that on every stroke the air would be
sent through the delivery valves first, mingled air and water, if
there were any, next, and the solid water last, insuring perfect
displacement.
I have a friend who has often asked me, with a manner show-
ing his conviction that the question could not be answered, "How
can you know that anything will work until you have tried it?"
In this case I did know that this condenser would work at rapid
speed before I tried it. The event proved it, and any engineer
could have seen that it must have worked. The only question
in my mind was as to the necessity of the springs behind the
delivery valves. Experiment was needed to settle that question,
which it did in short order. At the speed at which the engine
ran, the light springs improved the vacuum a full pound, showing
that without them these valves did not close promptly.
The following important detail must not be overlooked. The
rubber disk valves were backed by cast-iron plates, which effectually
preserved them from being cut or even marked by the brass
gratings. These plates were made with tubes standing in the
middle of them, as shown. These tubes afforded long guides on
the stems, and a projection of them on the under side held the
valves in place without any wear. They also determined the
rise of the valves. The chambers, being long and narrow, accom-
modated three inlet and three outlet valves. The jet of water
struck the opposite wall with sufficient force to fill the chamber
with spray.
When the plans for this condenser were completed, and the
Evan Leigh engine had been vindicated, I felt that the success
of the high-speed system was assured, and looked forward to a
rapidly growing demand for the engines. We got out an illus-
trated catalogue of sizes, in which I would have put the con-
denser, but the firm decided that it would be better to wait for that
until it should be on the same footing with the engine, as an
accomplished fact.
Suddenly, like thunder from a clear sky, I received notice that
Ormerod, Grierson & Co. were in difficulties, had stopped payment,
placed their books in the hands of a firm of accountants, and
called a meeting of their creditors, and the works were closed.
FAILURE OF ORMEROD, GRIERSOX & CO. 121
Some of their enormous contracts had proved losing ones. I had
made such provision in my contract with them that on their
failure my license to them became void. Otherwise it would have
been classed among their assets.
CHAPTER XII
Introduction to the Whitworth Works. Sketch of Mr. Whitworth. Experi-
ence in the Whitworth Works. Our Agreement which was never Exe-
cuted. First Engine in England Transmitting Power by a Belt.
WAS still debating with myself what course to take,
when I received a note from Mr. W. J. Hoyle, secre-
tary of the Whitworth Company, inquiring if I were
free from any entanglement with the affairs of
Ormerod, Grierson & Co., to which I was able to make a satis-
factory reply. Mr. Hoyle was then a stranger to me. It ap-
peared that he was an accomplished steam engineer, and had
been employed as an expert to test one of my engines in opera-
tion, an engine which we had made for a mill-owner in Bradford.
He had been very favorably impressed by the engine, so much
so as to form this scheme. He had been with the Whitworth
Company only a short time, and was struck with the small
amount of work they were doing in their tool department; and
after his observation of the engine at Bradford, learning of the
stoppage^ of Ormerod, Grierson & Co., it occurred to him that it
would be a good thing for his company to undertake the manu-
facture of these engines. After receiving my answer to his pre-
liminary inquiry, having Mr. Whitworth, as he afterwards told
me, where he could not get away, on a trip from London to Man-
chester, he laid the plan before him and talked him into it. I
directly after received an invitation to meet Mr. Whitworth at
his office, and here commenced what T verily believed was one of
the most remarkable experiences that any man ever had.
In the course of our pretty long interview, which terminated
with the conclusion of a verbal agreement, Mr. Whitworth talked
with me quite freely, anil told me several things that surprised
122
William J. Hoyle
SKETCH OF MR. WH1TW0RTH 123
me. One was the frank statement that he divided all other tool-
makers in the world into two classes, one class who copied him
without giving him any credit, and the other class who had the
presumption to imagine that they could improve on him. His
feelings towards both these classes evidently did not tend to
make him happy. Another thing, which I heard without any sign
of my amazement, was that he had long entertained the purpose
of giving to the world the perfect steam-engine. "That is," he
explained, "an engine embodying all those essential principles
to which steam-engine builders must sooner or later come."
This, he stated, had been necessarily postponed while he was
engaged in developing his system of artillery, but he was nearing
the completion of that work and should then be able to devote
himself to it.
I cannot perhaps do better than stop here and give my im-
pressions of Mr. Whitworth. He was in all respects a phenome-
nal man. As an engineer, or rather a toolmaker, he addressed
himself to all fundamental constructive requirements and prob-
lems, and comprehended everything in his range and grasp of
thought, continually seeking new fields to conquer. Long after
the period here referred to he closed his long and wonderful
career by giving to the world the hollow engine shaft and the sys-
tem of hydraulic forging. At that time he was confidently antici-
pating the adoption by all nations of his system of artillery. He
had made an immense advance, from spherical shot, incapable
of accurate aim and having a high trajectory, to elongated shot,
swiftly rotating in its Might and having a comparatively flat
trajectory, and which could hit the mark and penetrate with
destructive effect at distances of several miles. These funda-
mental features of modern artillery thus originated with Mr.
Whitworth. All his other features have been superseded, but his
elongated pointed rotating projectile will remain until nations
shall learn war no more; a time which in the gradual development
of humanity cannot be far away. Before I left England, how-
ever, he had abandoned his artillery plans in most bitter disap-
pointment. He had met the English official mind. By the
authorities of the war and navy departments it had been unani-
mously decided that what England wanted was, not accuracy of
124 EXGIXEERING REMINISCENCES
aim and penetration at long range, but smashing effects at close
quarters. The record of that is to be found in the proceedings of
the House of Commons in 1868, only thirty-nine years ago.
Think of that!
Mr. Whitworth was not only the most original engineering
genius that ever lived. He was also a monumental egotist. His
fundamental idea was always prominent, that he had taught
the world not only all that it knew mechanically, but all it ever
could know. His fury against tool-builders who improved on his
plans was most ludicrous. He drew no distinction between
principles and details. He must not be departed from even in a
single line. No one in his works dared to think. This disposition
had a striking illustration only a short time — less than a year
—before I went there. He had no children. His nearest relatives
were two nephews, W. W. and J. E. Hulse. The latter was a
tool-manufacturer in Salford. W. W. Hulse was Mr. Whitworth's
superintendent, and had been associated with him for twenty-
four years, for a long time as his partner, the firm being
Joseph Whitworth & Company. Lately the business had been
taken over by a corporation formed under the style of the
Whitworth Company, and Mr. Hulse became the general super-
intendent.
Mr. Whitworth was taken sick, and for a while was not ex-
pected to live, and no one thought, even if he did get better, that
he would ever be able to visit his works again. Mr. Hulse had
been chafing under his restraint, and during Mr. Whitworth's
absence proceeded to make a few obvious improvements in their
tools, such, for example, as supporting the table of their shaper,
so that it would not yield under the cut. To the surprise of every
one, Mr. Whitworth got well, and after more than six months'
absence, he appeared again at the works. Walking through, he
noted the changes that had been made, sent for Mr. Hulse, dis-
charged him on the spot, and ordered everything restored to
its original form.
To return now to my own experience. Since Mr Whitworth
had been absorbed in his artillery development he had given only
a cursory oversight to the tool manufacture. Mr. Hulse had been
succeeded as superintendent by a man named Widdowson, whose
Sir Joseph Whitworth
EXPERIENCE IN THE WHITWORTH WORKS 125
only qualification for his position was entire subserviency to Mr.
Whitworth.
My drawings and patterns were purchased by the Whitworth
Company, and I was installed with one draftsman in a separate
office, and prepared to put the work in hand at once for a 12 X 24-
inch engine for the Paris Exposition, where Ormerod, Grierson
& Co. had secured the space, and the drawings for which I had
completed. If I remember rightly, the patterns were finished
also. While I was getting things in order, Mr. Widdowson came
into my office, and in a very important manner said to me: "You
must understand, sir, that we work here to the decimal system
and all drawings must be conformed to it." I received this order
meekly, and we went to work to make our drawings all over, for
the single purpose of changing their dimensions from binary to
decimal divisions of the inch. There was of course quite a body
of detail drawings, and to make these over, with the pains required
to make these changes to an unaccustomed system, and make and
mount the tracings, took us nearly three weeks. When finished
I took the roll of tracings to Mr. Widdowson's office. He was not
in, and I left them for him. An hour or so later he came purring
and blowing into my office with the drawings. He was a heavy
man, and climbing upstairs exhausted him. When he got his
breath, he broke out : " We can't do anything with these. Haven't
got a decimal gauge in the shop." "You gave me express orders
to make my drawings to the decimal system." " Damn it, I meant
in halves and quarters and all that, and write them decimals.'
So all that work and time were thrown away, and we had to make
a new set of tracings from the drawings I had brought, in order
to figure the dimensions in decimals. He told me afterwards
that when Mr. Whitworth commenced the manufacture of cylin-
drical gauges he made them to the decimal divisions of the inch,
imagining that was a better mode of division than that by con-
tinual bisection, and supposing that he had influence enough to
effect the change. But nobody would buy his gauges. He had to
call them in and make what people wanted. "And now," said
Mr. Widdowson, "there is not a decimal gauge in the world." He
knew, too, for up to that time they made them all. So Mr.
Whitworth could make a mistake, and I found that this was not
the worst one that he had made.
126 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
"While time was being wasted in this manner, the subject of
manufacturing the governors came up. Mr. "Whitworth concluded
that he would first try one on his own shop engine, so one was
bought from Ormerod, Grierson & Co. I had a message from Mr.
Widdowson to come to the shop and see my governor. It was
acting in a manner that I had seen before, the counterpoise rising
and dropping to its seat twice every time the belt lap came around.
"Total failure, you see," said Mr. Widdowson, "and I got a new
belt for it, too." T saw a chance to make an interesting observa-
tion, and asked him if he would get an old belt and try that. This
he did, lapping the ends as before about IS inches, according to
the universal English custom, which I had long before found it
necessary carefully to avoid. As I knew would be the case, the
action was not improved at all. I then cut off the lap, butted the
ends of the belt, and laced them in the American style, and lo!
the trouble vanished. The governor stood motionless, only float-
ing up and down slightly with the more important changes of
load. Mr. Whitworth was greatly pleased, and at once set about
their manufacture, in a full line of sizes.
He made the change, to which I have referred already, from
the urn shape to the semi-spherical form of the counterpoise. In
this connection he laid the law down to me in this dogmatic fashion :
"Let no man show me a mechanical form for which he cannot give
me a mechanical reason." But Jove sometimes nods. They were
to exhibit in Paris a large slotting-machine. The form of the up-
right did not suit Mr. "Whitworth exactly. He had the pattern
set up in the erec ting-shop, and a board tacked on the side, cut
to an outline that he directed. He came to look at it every day
for a week, and ordered some change or other. Finally it was
gotten to his mind, the pattern was altered accordingly, and a new
casting made. This was set up in the shop, and I happened to be
present when he came to see it. "Looks like a horse that has
been taught to hold his head up," said he. "Mechanical reason,"
thought I, fresh from my lesson. When finished the slotting-
machine was tried in the shop, and found to yield in the back.
The tool sprang away from its work and rounded the corner.
Mr. Whitworth had whittled the pattern away and ruined it.
Instead of being sent to Paris, it was broken up.
EXPERIENCE IN THE WHITWORTII WORKS 127
My experiment with the governor proved the defect in the
English system of lacing belts. Every machine in the land, of
whatever kind, tool or loom or spinning or drawing frame, or
whatever it was, driven by a belt, halted in its motion every time
the lap in the belt passed over a pulley, sufficiently to drop my
governor, when the same motion was given to it, and no one had
ever observed this irregularity.
I thought they would never be ready to set about work on
the engine. First, Mr. Widdowson ordered that every casting
and forging, large and small, must be in the shop before one of
them was put in hand. After this was done I found a number of
men at work making sheet-iron templets of everything. I saw
one man filing the threads in the edges of a templet for a |-inch
bolt. When these were all finished and stamped, an operation that
took quite a week, a great fuss was made about commencing work
on everything simultaneously.
I went into the shop to see what was going on. The first thing
to attract my attention was the steam-chest, then made separate
from the cylinder. A workman — their best fitter, as I afterwards
learned — was engaged in planing out the cavities in which the
exhaust valves worked. I saw no center line, and asked him
where it was. He had never heard of such a thing. "What do
you measure from?" "From the side of the casting." I called
his attention to the center line on the drawing, from which all
the measurements were taken, and told him all about it. He
seemed very intelligent, and under my direction set the chest up
on a plane table and made a center line around it and another
across it, and set out everything from these lines, and I left him
going on finely. An hour later I looked in again. He was about
his job in the old way. To my question he explained that his
foreman had come around and told him I had no business in the
shop, that he gave him his directions, and he must finish his job
just as he began it.
I made no reply but went to Mr. Hoyle's office, and asked him
if he knew what they were doing in the shop. He smiled and said,
"I suppose they are finally making an engine for you." "No,
they are not." "What are they doing?" "Making scrap iron."
""What do you mean?" I told him the situation. He took his
hat and went out, saying, "I must see this myself."
128 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
A couple of hours later he sent for me, and told me this. "I
have been all around the works and seen all that is doing. It is
all of the same piece. I have had a long interview with Mr. Wid-
dowson, and am sorry to tell you that we can't make your engine;
we don't know how. It seems to be entirely out of our line.
The intelligence does not exist in these works to make a steam-
engine. Nobody knows how to set about anything. I have
stopped the work, and want to know what you think had better
be done about it?" I asked him to let me think the matter
over till the next morning. I then went to him and suggested
to him to let me find a skilled locomotive-erecter who was also
a t ruined draftsman, and to organize a separate department for the
engine and governor manufacture, and put this man at the head
of it, to direct it without interference. This was gladly agreed
to. I found a young man, Mr. John Watts, who proved to be
the very man for the place. In a week we were running under
Mr. Watts' direction, and the engine was saved. But what a
time the poor man had ! Everything seemed to be done wrong.
It is hardly to be believed. He could not get a rod turned round,
or a hole bored round.
In their toolmaking they relied entirely on grinding with
"Turkey dust." I once saw a gang of a dozen laborers working a
long grinding-bar, in the bore, 10 inches diameter by 8 feet long,
in the tailstock of an enormous lathe. I peered through this hole
when the bar was withdrawn. It looked like a ploughed field.
Scattered over it here and there were projections which had been
ground off by these laborers. On the other hand, the planing done
in these works was magnificent. I never saw anything to equal
it. But circular work beat them entirely. I found that the
lathe hands never thought of such a thing as getting any truth
by the sliding cut. After that they went for the surface with
coarse files, and relied for such approximate truth as they did
get upon grinding with the everlasting Turkey dust.
Mr. Whitworth invented the duplex lathe tool, but I observed
that they never used it. I asked Mr. Widdowson why this was.
"Because," said he, "the duplex tool will not turn round." After
a while I found out why. When our engine was finished, Mr.
Widdowson set it upon two lathe beds and ran it. Lucky that
EXPERIENCE IN THE WHITWORTH WORKS 129
he did. The bottom of the engine bed was planed, and it could
be leveled nicely on the flat surfaces of their lathe beds. The
fly-wheel ran nearly a quarter of an inch out of truth. He set up
some tool-boxes on one of the lathe beds, and turned the rim off
in place, both sides and face being out. That, of course, made
it run perfectly true. I asked the lathe hand how he could turn
out such a job. He replied, "Come and see my lathe." I found
the spindle quite an eighth of an inch loose in the main bearing,
the wear of twenty or thirty years. He told me all of the lathes
in the works were in a similar condition. That explained many
things. The mystery of those gear patterns was solved. Every
spindle in the gear-cutting machine was wabbling loose in its
holes. I can't call them bearings. Now it appeared why they
could not use the duplex tools. With a tool cutting on one side,
they relied on the pressure of the cut to keep the lathe spindle in
contact with the opposite side of its main bearing, and a poor
reliance that was, but with a tool cutting on cadi side, fancy the
situation. Then boring a true hole was obviously impossible.
The workmen became indifferent; they had no reamers, relied
entirely on grinding. I asked, Why do you not renew these worn-
out bushings? but could never get an answer to the question.
Some power evidently forbade it, and the fact is that no man
about the place dared to think of such a thing as intimating to
Mr. Whitworth that one of his lathe bearings required any fixing
up, or that it was or could be anything short of perfect. He (Mr.
Whitworth) had designed it as a perfect thing; ergo, it was perfect,
and no man dared say otherwise.
Our engine work was finally, as a last resort, done by Mr. Watts
on new lathes, made for customers and used for a month or two
before they were sent out. Not only in England, but on the
Continent and in America, the Whitworth Works were regarded
as the perfect machine-shop. I remember a visit I had at the Paris
Exposition from Mr. Elwell, of the firm of Varrell, Elwell & Poulot,
proprietors of the largest mechanical establishment in Paris. After
expressing his unbounded admiration of the running of the engine,
he said, "I warrant your fly-wheel runs true." After observing
it critically, he exclaimed, "All, they do those things at Whit-
worth's!"
130 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
The fact was Mr. Whitworth had cursed the British nation
with the solid conical lathe-spindle bearing, a perfect bearing for
ordinary-sized lathes and a most captivating thing — when new.
These hardened steel cones, in hardened steel seats, ran in the
most charming manner. But they wore more loose in the main
bearing every day they ran, and there were no means for taking
up the wear. It came mi insensibly, and no one paid any atten-
tion to it. The cream of the joke was that people were so fasci-
nated with this bearing that at that time no other could be sold in
England, except for very large lathes. All toolmakers had to
make it. I remember afterwards that Mr. Freeland, our best
American toolmaker, who, as I have already mentioned, went to
England and worked for some years as a journeyman in the Whit-
worth Works for the purpose of learning everything there that he
could, did not bring back to America the conical bearing.
The firm of Smith & Coventry were the first to fit their lathes
with the means for taking up this wear, which took place only
in the main bearing, where both the force of the cut and the weight
of the piece were received. They made the conical seat for the
back end of the spindle adjustable in the headstock and secured it
by a thin nut on each end. This then could be moved backward
sufficiently to let the forward cone up to its seat. This made it
possible to use the solid bearing, but it involved this error, that
after this adjustment the axis of the spindle did not coincide with
the line connecting the lathe centers; but the two lines formed
an angle with each other, which grew more decided every time the
w T ear w r as taken up. This, however, was infinitely better than
not to take up the wear at all.
At that time the Whitworth Works were divided into four
departments. These were screwing machinery, gauges, guns and
machine tools. The first three of these were locked. I never
entered either of them. The latter also, like most works in Eng-
land, was closed to outsiders. No customer could see his work in
progress. This department was without a head or a drawing-
office. It seemed to be running it on its traditions. I once
said to Mr. Hoyle, "There must at some time have been here
mechanical intelligence of the highest order, but where is it?"
They had occasionally an order for something out of their ancient
OUR AGREEMENT SEVER EXECUTED 131
styles, and their attempts to fill such orders were always ruinous.
The following is a fair illustration. They had an order for a
radial drill to be back-geared and strong enough to bore an 8-inch
hole. Mr. Widdowson had the pattern for the upright fitted
with the necessary brackets, and thought it was such a good thing
that he would make two. The first one finished was tried in the
shop, and all the gears in the arm were stripped. He woke up
to the fact that he had forgotten to strengthen the transmitting
parts, and moreover that the construction would not admit any-
thing stronger. There was nothing to be done but to decline the
order, chip off the brackets, and make these into single-speed
drills. This I saw being done.
Mr. Widdowson told me the following amusing story. The
London Times had heard of the wonderful performance of Mr.
Hoe's multiple-cylinder press, and concluded to have one of them
of the largest size, ten cylinders. But, of course, Mr. Hoe did not
know how to make his own presses. His work would do well
enough for ignorant Americans, but not for an English Journal.
The press must be made in England in the world-renowned Whit-
worth Works.
Mr. Hoe sent over one of his experts to give them the informa-
tion they might need, but they would not let him in the shop.
Mr. Hulse told him they had the drawings and specifications and
that was all they needed. When the press was finished they set
it up in the shop and attempted to run it. The instant it started
every tape ran off its pulleys, and an investigation showed that
not a spindle or shaft was parallel with any other. They had no
idea of the method that must be employed to ensure this uni-
versal alignment. After enormous labor they got these so that
they were encouraged to make another trial, when after a few
revolutions every spindle stuck fast in its bearings.
Mr. Whitworth, absorbed in his artillery and spending most
of his time in London, of course had no knowledge of how things
were going on in his shop, of the utter want of ordinary intelligence.
I formed a scheme for an application of Mr. Whitworth's system
of end measurement to the production of an ideally perfect divid-
ing-wheel. In this system Mr. Whitworth employed what he
termed "the gravity piece." This was a small steel plate about
132 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
I of an inch in thickness, the opposite sides of which were parallel
and had the most perfectly true and smooth surfaces that could
be produced by scraping. The ends of the piece to be tested
were perfectly squared, by a method which I will not stop here to
describe, and were finished in the same manner. The gravity
piece was held fast between two such surfaces. None of the pieces
were permitted to be touched by hand while an observation was
being made. If now one of these pieces were loosened the mil-
lionth of an inch, the gravity piece would slide slowly down. If
loosened two millionths of an inch, the gravity piece would
descend twice as fast, and so on. I made a design for the applica-
tion of this system to the correction of the dividing-wheel, so that
a difference of pitch of one millionth of an inch could be shown
and removed, the gravity piece being made to descend at the same
rate of motion to whatever tooth it might be applied. I thought
Mr. Whitworth would be interested in this novel and important
application of his method, and I showed it to him. This was
the encouraging and patronizing reply I received : "You had better
inform yourself, sir, about what already exists. You will find a
perfect dividing-wheel in my shop. What do you want better than
that?" This wheel had divided my governor gear patterns, but spin-
dles wabbling loose in their holes accounted for most of their defects.
The above recital is sufficient to show the conditions by which
I found myself surrounded and the kind of man I had to deal with.
It may be supposed that when my agreement with Mr. Whit-
worth was concluded, the disappointment I had experienced on
the stoppage of Ormerod, Grierson & Co. was quite relieved.
But that does not express it. In fact, my revulsion of feeling
could hardly be described. I believed that I had met a piece of
good fortune that was unparalleled. I had got into the most
famous machine-shop in the world, a shop in which in years gone
by had been originated almost everything then regarded as most
essential in machine construction. No one had ever before intro-
duced anything into that shop. Its business, in its various depart-
ments, was confined to the manufacture of Mr. Whitworth's own
creations. I should never have dreamed of such a thing as getting
into it. That I was there, and had been received so cordially,
bewildered me. I could scarcely believe it.
OUR AGREEMENT NEVER EXECUTED 133
I knew also that Mr. Whitworth's name was a tower of strength.
His influence with the public at large respecting everything
mechanical seemed really that of a magician. I felt that the fact
that the manufacture of my engine and governor had been
taken up by Mr. Whitworth placed them on an eminence at once.
I was conscious also that I was quite prepared to improve this
opportunity, grand as it seemed to be. The engine had been
abundantly proved. The success of the condenser I felt sure of,
a confidence that was found to have been fully justified. Every-
thing on my part was in readiness. The drawings and patterns
for several sizes of the engines were complete. I was certainly
excusable for anticipating that I should enter at once upon a
rapidly growing and prosperous business.
With my rude awakening from this "dream of bliss" the reader
has already been made acquainted. The causes which had brought
these works, so far as their machine-tool department was con-
cerned, down from .such a height of excellence as they must for
a long time have occupied, to such a depth of ignorance and help-
lessness as existed on my entrance into them, I never fully knew.
I heard that sonic years before there had been an extensive strike
in the works, and that Mr. Whitworth had discharged a large
body of skilled workmen and had filled their places with laborers.
They had a pretty large drawing-office — empty. I was told that
until a short time before my coming they had kept one draftsman
employed, but no one paid any attention to his drawings. Mr.
Widdowson regarded them merely as suggestions, and he and the
foreman pattern-maker altered them as they liked, and finally the
farce of having drawings made at all was abandoned. It was
not found difficult to run these closely shut works for a long
time on their reputation.
The state of affairs was distressing enough. The few engines
that we could manage to finish we could only build, in many
of their parts, on new lathes, which were used by them as long
as they dared to, before sending them to their owners. But I
kept up a brave heart. At any rate the personal influence of
Mr. Whitworth remained. Indeed I already saw its value in
many ways. Then die pattern-shop, foundry and smith-shop
were equal to our requirements, and I felt confident that Mi. Hoyle
134 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
could induce Mr. Whitworth to have the improvements and
changes made, especially in the lathes and boring-machines,
which would make it possible for us to do the work. Mr. Hoyle
had become famous in the shop as the only man who had ever
been able to influence Mr. Whitworth. He had lately given a
striking example of his power. Mr. Whitworth was, years before,
the designer of the box frame, which gave to many machine tools
a rigidity incomparably superior to that which could be got by
any method of ribbing. This box system was then established
in universal use, both in England and on the Continent. Not
long before my coming Mr. Whitworth had been looking into the
cost of the cores that these box forms required, and concluded
that he could not allow such an expense any longer, and ordered
a return to the method of ribbing. The superintendent and fore-
men, to whom this order was communicated, were amazed at so
ruinous and indeed insane a step. No one else dared to open his
mouth; but Mr. Hoyle undertook the task of dissuading him
from it, and after a long struggle finally succeeded in inducing
him to rescind his order. So I confidently looked to him for the
salvation of the engine.
Then suddenly a new trouble arose. After a delay of some
months, the agreement between Mr. Whitworth and myself, re-
duced to writing by his solicitor, was put into my hands for signa-
ture. I found that it corresponded with our verbal agreement,
except that Mr. Whitworth reserved to himself the right to make
alterations in the engine, in any respect whatever, in his dis-
cretion. To say that I hesitated about signing such an aban-
donment would not be true; I never thought of such a thing as
signing it. Mr. Whitworth was probably the only man in the
world who would have thought of making such a demand, and
was certainly the last man in the world to whom it should be
granted.
The first thing he would probably have done would have been
to make the crank and cross-head pins run in solid bearings. I
had regarded his talk about "the perfect steam-engine" at our
first interview as idle words; but here was the provision for giving
the.se words effect. Indeed, he now assured me that the opening
to his scheme afforded by my engine formed his inducement for
OUR AGREEMENT NEVER EXECUTED 135
taking it up, and that he expected nie to understand that from
what he then said. Here was a situation! I knew that in the
multifarious excursions of his restless mind the steam-engine had
never been included. These excursions seemed to have led in all
directions except that. About the steam-engine and its "funda-
mental principles," except those constructive principles that it
had in common with all machines, I was sure he had not the
least idea. The scheme was childish. I could only think of the
little boy who wanted a penny to go down-town. "What are
you going to buy?" said his amused father. "I don't know;
shall see something I want when I get there." This seemed
to me, and correctly as I afterwards became satisfied, to repre-
sent Mr. Whitworth's " open-mindedness " on this subject.
Now, Mr. Whitworth was the most dangerous man possible
to be entrusted with such a power. He could not work with
anybody else. His disposition Was despotic. He looked only for
servile obedience to his orders. Besides this, he had no conception
of the law of growth. In his own mind he had anchored both tool
construction and gunnery where they were to remain forever,
and he purposed to do the same thing with the steam-engine, as
soon as he should have time to attend to it.
So our agreement never was executed. I confidently expected
him to yield on this point, which I was settled that I would never
do, and I found in the end that he as confidently expected me to
yield, which he was settled that he would never do. Meanwhile
we got along on a modus vivendi plan, which could only last
through an emergency, and during which, of course, nothing could
be done towards settling the business on a substantial foundation.
The emergency in this case was getting through the Paris Exposi-
tion. Before coming to that, however, I have something else to
relate.
We received an order from Pooley & Son, proprietors of the
India Mills, Manchester, for a horizontal condensing engine to
drive the machinery of their blowing-room, that in which the cotton
is opened and cleaned and receives its first carding operations.
The growth of their business had made it necessary for them to
increase their power, which they planned to do by driving this
portion of their machinery separately. This engine was interest-
136 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
ing for two reasons. It was the first engine ordered in England to
which my horizontal condenser was applied, and it was the first
mill engine in England from which the power was transmitted
by a belt.
My business was transacted entirely with the younger Mr.
Pooley, who seemed to be the practical head of the concern. Our
first meeting has remained vivid in my recollection, as illustrating
the English brusqueness of manner.
Calling at his office in response to an invitation by post, I was
met on opening the door after the call "come in" by the abrupt
question, "What do you want?" I was not wholly unused to
this kind of greeting and so told him who I was and what I wanted,
when of course his maimer changed at once. We became very
good friends, and should he be living and this meet his eye, I
send him my salutation.
We had quite a discussion on the question of a belt. I urged
it, and he would not listen to it. My statement that belts were
used exclusively in cotton-mills in America had no influence.
I discovered thai it makes all the difference in the world
who tells a thing. After he had, as we both supposed, made his
final decision to follow the universal custom and employ gearing,
he happened to meet his friend Mr. Hetherington, the same man
already mentioned in connection with the Harrison boiler. Mr.
Hetherington had just returned from a trip to "the States," and
had visited the Lowell and Lawrence cotton-mills, and this was
part of their conversation :
"Did you see anywhere power taken from a prime mover by
a belt?"
"I did not see anything else."
"Is that so? This is just what Porter told me, but I could
not credit it. Did they seem to give satisfaction?"
"That is what every one assured me. They would not use
anything else."
And so I received an order for a belt, 24 inches wide, to be
imported from America, with the clamps, rivets, and cement
needed to put it on endless, an operation of which no workman
in England had any idea, so I had to do it myself. I sent the
order to Mr. Allen to be placed, and received quite promptly a
FIRST ENGINE TRANSMITTING POWER BY A BELT 137
carefully selected belt, of hides of uniform thickness, which gave
the highest satisfaction.
The following is a copy of the bill for the first American belt
ever sent to England. I included an order for a side of lace
leather, to enable them to try the American style of lacing belts.
This leather is horse hide, their sheep-skin lacing would not be-
strong enough.
New York, December 15, 1866.
Mr. Chas. Pooley.
Bought of STEPHEN BALLARD,
(Successor to Stearns & Ballard),
Manufacturer of Every Description of Leather Belting,
Also, Dealer in Vulcanized Rubber Belting, Hose and Packing, Belt Rivets,
Belt Hooks, etc.,
Extra Quality Lacing Leather,
No. 333 Pearl Street, Franklin Square (Harpers' Building).
51 ft. 24-inch Donb Belt
692
352.91
2 lbs. Rivets
80
1.60
1 •■ Cement
1.00
1 Side Lacing
5.00
Cartage
.50
1 Cask
1.25
Insurance
4.15
366 . 52
Collection 24%
9.16
375.68
I put this belt on quite loose. The bottom side was the tight
one, and the upper side hung in a loop nearly three feet deep.
This exhibited the uniform running of the engine in a striking
manner. As is well known, variations of speed produce waves
in such a loop, the height of which waves indicates the amount
of these variations. This belt hung motionless. The most careful
observations on the loop did not indicate that it was running at
all. The engine had no fly-wheel; the belt drum, 10 feet in
diameter, served this purpose also. This showed the value in this
respect of high speed, 150 turns per minute. This absolute uni-
formity of motion surprised me, I knew nothing about the
equalizing action of the reciprocating parts of the engine, to
which this remarkable result was largely due. I was then ab-
13S
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
sorbed in balancing, which was as far as I had advanced, and in
this case, as previously in the governor, I "had builded better
than I knew."
The accompanying diagrams are from a duplicate of the Pooley
engine built at the same time for a Mr. Adams, a paper-maker in
the north of England. This engine was directly connected to
the line of shaft. 1 was called home from Paris to go to Mr.
Adams' mill and start that engine. Mr. Adams' mill was not
yet connected, and I was obliged to return to Paris after taking
friction diagrams, of which the following are examples.
ATMOSPHERE
Diagrams from Engine Built for Mr. Adams.
CHAPTER XIII
The French Exposition of 1S67. Final Break with Mr. Whitworth
XHSESC
1
HE French Exposition of 1867 was the second in the
series of expositions held in Paris at intervals of
eleven years, from the first in 1856 to the last,
thus far, in 1900. In this exposition the Emperor
Napoleon planned to celebrate his entrance uninvited into the
select circle of crowned heads bv bringing all his new cousins
to visit him in his capital. He succeeded pretty well. Asia
was represented by the Sultan of Turkey and the Shah of
Persia. All the sovereigns of Europe were there (but not all at
the same time) with the exceptions of Victor Emmanuel, who said
he was too poor to go, and Queen Victoria, who could not be in-
duced to leave her retirement. The sovereign people of the United
States were also pretty well represented. One other "emperor"
was not there. With the zeal of a new convert, Louis Napoleon
had attempted to take advantage of the circumstance that the
United States had business enough of their own to attend to, and
improve the opportunity to plant monarchical institutions on this
continent. Maximilian, a brother of the Emperor of Austria, the
first and last Emperor of Mexico, was installed under the protection
of French bayonets. Affairs in the United States did not take
the turn that Napoleon had hoped for, and in compliance with a
courteous request from the President that he would withdraw his
troops from Mexico and save him the disagreeable necessity of
driving them out, the French withdrew, leaving the unfortunate
Maximilian a prisoner in the hands of the Mexicans.
On a day in the summer of 1867, a grand function was cele-
brated in the Palais de lTndustrie, the building on the Avenue
139
140 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
des Champs Elysees in which the exposition of 1856 had been
held, for the distribution of gold medals to the successful ex-
hibitors in this exposition of 1S67. The Emperor presided, sur-
rounded by sovereigns and their suites, and an assembly of
20,000 invited guests and holders of season tickets. In the
midst of the ceremonies, an official entered and handed to the
Emperor an envelope. After reading its contents he crossed over
to the seat of the Austrian ambassador and placed it in his hands.
After reading it the ambassador withdrew with his suite, and the
proceedings were continued to their close. That evening the
public learned what this envelope contained. It was a cable-
gram announcing the execution of the quondam emperor, Maxi-
millian, by the Mexican government. From this point the fall
of Napoleon proceeded steadily until he became "the man of
Sedan." This dramatic scene, marking the culminating point in
his career, has, I believe, escaped the notice of historians.
The main building of the exposition of 1867, the first one held
on the Champ de Mars, was designed on a plan that has not been
repeated. It was a long building with semicircular ends, built
around a narrow open court, the length of which was equal to that
of its parallel sides. It was divided among the nations as a Yan-
kee would divide a pie if baked in a dish of similar form, while the
various classes of exhibits occupied, in the several nations, spaces
equally distant from the central court. Thus, as assumed in the
plan, the visitor passing through any radial avenue would see all
the exhibits from one country, and passing through an avenue
laid out around the central court would see all the exhibits of one
class. The fine arts were at the center, much of the statuary in
the open court, then decorative art, and so on, class after class,
until that of machinery which surrounded the whole, except that
outside of this were the restaurants of all nations.
The plan was practically on many accounts a failure, first,
from the exceedingly unequal lengths of floor spaces allotted to
the different departments, the mean length of the machinery court,
for example, being between two and three times that devoted to
the fine arts, and, second, that it was utterly inadequate to accom-
modate the exhibits in many departments. There was no adapt-
ability in the system. The consequence was the erection, in the
THE FRENCH EXPOSITION OF 1867 141
ample outside area of the Champ de Mars, of an enormous number
of separate buildings, by all nations, for particular classes of ex-
hibits, some of which buildings were quite large.
Although I exhibited in the British section, I sympathized
deeply with the American exhibitors, who were having lots of
trouble. Mr. Seward had appointed as the United States com-
missioner an American gentleman who had lived in France for
twenty years, who was ignorant of America and Americans in a
phenomenal degree, and was indifferent and despotic in his treat-
ment of the helpless exhibitors, until their exasperation reached
such a pitch that I heard it said every one of them would be glad
to pull on a rope to hang him. I will give two illustrations.
Mr. Corliss had been persuaded by Mr. Pickering to send over an
engine to drive the United States machinery exhibit. When the
engine arrived, it was found that the commissioner, although he
had been advised of this arrangement, had paid no attention to
it, but had purchased a French engine and installed it already for
this purpose. The Corliss engine was set by the side of this one,
and ran idle through the exhibition; never had a belt on. To
make the matter worse, the French engine was run every Sunday,
although the entire United States exhibit was covered up, and,
as it could not run longer than a week without stopping for repairs,
it was idle for this purpose every Monday, and this arrangement
was sustained by the commissioner.
As other nations were putting up separate buildings for the
overflow of their exhibits, the commissioner thought the United
States should do the same. So in the winter previous he had got
a special appropriation for this purpose through Congress, and
erected his building. When finished he found it was all a blunder :
he had absolutely nothing to put in it. The United States exhibi-
tors were fully accommodated in the main building. What does
he do but order enough of them in'o the side building to fill it,
leaving unoccupied spaces in the main building. A number of
our most eminent firms were driven there, being refused space
in the main building. In the machinery court an enormous
empty space was rented by the commissioner to* a concern manu-
facturing collars and cuffs.
So far as space was concerned, the machinery department
142
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
seemed to have the place of honor. It surrounded all the other
classes of exhibits, and was much wider and higher than any other.
It had a central gallery which I was told was seven eighths of a
mill' around. This gallery carried the shafting. The exterior
location of this department was necessary, in order to have proper
connection with the boilers and systems of piping for both steam
and water. Except the American section, which was only one
half occupied, it was crowded with exhibits. The engines ex-
hibited in motion in the main building, of which there were a
large number, were all condensing engines, water from the Seine
being quite convenient.
I took to this exposition five engines. One of them was 12x24
inches, making 200 revolutions per minute. I advanced the speed
from 600 feet to 800 feet per minute, to show what both the engine
and the condenser could do. After all, however, I did not show
one half of what with proper port areas the high-speed system
was capable of. The ports were insufficient, having been adapted
to a speed of 150 revolutions per minute. I took great satisfac-
tion in showing the condenser to my old friends, Easton, Amos
& Sons, who were all there, at one time or another, during the
exposition. Before the exposition opened we had on hand at the
works four condensers, one for an engine the Whitworth Company
were building for themselves, two for the parties already men-
tioned, and the one for the exposition engine. As this was the
THE FRENCH EXPOSITION OF 1867 143
first one required to be running, I had to make the first test of
the condenser in this public way, which I immensely enjoyed
doing.
Through the influence of Mr. Whitworth, we received an order
from Trinity House, which is the British lighthouse board, for
two engines to drive the machinery of an electric light. The
English and the French governments each made an exhibit of such
a light, at the summit of a high tower. The current was produced
by rapidly revolving magnets, a large number of which were set
in a wheel.
Everything in this English exhibit was in duplicate. The re-
quirement was that cither engine should drive either or both
electric machines. This involved the use of four clutches and a
lot of gearing. I measured the power required by one machine,
at the works in London v here t ey were made, indicating their
shop engine with the light on and with the light off. To make
sure I repeated this three times. I found that one of my engines,
6x12 inches, non-condensing, at 300 revolutions per minute,
would drive the two machines, with the steam pressure we were
to have, I think 70 pounds, and cut off at one quarter of the
strc ke, while it was capable of following five eighths of the stroke.
So two of these engines were furnished. The exposition was well
advanced before this machinery was ready for its trial. A large
crowd had assembled to witness it. With both machines on, the
engines could only crawl along. The superintendent of the
British mechanical section ordered one machine taken off. There
was very little improvement. Then this royal engineer, de-
tailed from the army, and whose qualifications for his position
consisted in absolute ignorance of anything mechanical, de-
clared the trial finished, and strutted off with the remark, "There
has been a great blunder made here in providing the power."
The men in charge of the machinery looked at me quite speechless.
I asked them to throw off the other machine also. This was done,
when it appeared that both engines, with steam following five
eighths of the stroke— for I had indicators on both of them to
show it— could not drive the gearing, except at a snail's pace.
They were then driven to examine the gearing for resistances, and
found the teeth wedged in the spaces throughout, This gearing
144 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
was removed and proper running gears substituted for it, and
after ten days' delay away went the engines at full speed. On
this second trial one engine could drive both machines, cutting off
at one-quarter stroke, precisely as my measurement of the power
had shown. They then ran perfectly through the exposition and
were accepted by Trinity House. Did the superintendent apolo-
gize to me for his hasty judgment or congratulate me on my
success? He never made the slightest allusion to it.
My fourth engine, of the same size, had been spoiled for prac-
tical use by having the upper half of the cylinder and steam-
chest planed off, to show the cylinder and valves in section. It
was belted from the large engine to run very slowly, and thus
exhibited the valves and gear in motion to the end of the expo-
sition. Mr. Whitworth wanted his friend Mr. Owen to purchase
this model for the South Kensington Museum, but it appeared
to Mr. Owen that Mr. Whitworth ought to present it to the museum.
This I learned from Mr. Hoyle. What was finally done with it
I have forgotten, if, indeed, I ever knew.
My fifth engine, of the same size, 6X12 inches, I got up to
show what the capabilities of high speed really were, so far as
smooth and safe running were concerned. The reciprocating parts,
which weighed altogether only 40 pounds, were exactly balanced.
I did this by rolling the crank-disk on a boring-table, with 40
pounds hung on the crank-pin, and cutting out the lead from the
hollow disk opposite the pin, where I had purposely put it in
somewhat in excess, until the pin came down to the horizontal
position. This brought the inertia of the reciprocating parts of
the engine, at every point in the revolution, into equilibrium
with the horizontal component of the centrifugal force of the
revolving counterweight. The vertical component of this force,
or rather its upward stress, for downward it would be resisted
by the whole mass of the earth, remained to be dealt with. To
prevent the whole engine from being lifted at the crank end by this
stress at every revolution might have been accomplished by
putting on a heavy fly-wheel; but for my use I wanted a very
small one. The fly-wheel I put on the shaft was a solid disk,
18 inches in diameter and \ inch thick, with a rim 1 inch square.
The bed of the engine I filled with lead, and set it on a block of
THE FRENCH EXPOSITION OF 18(17 145
Caen stone 3 feet thick and wide and 5 feet long. To this stone
it was firmly bolted, and I was ready for business. The governor
was speeded to hold the engine at 500 turns per minute. As it
might be difficult for some persons to count this speed, I put a
little pinion on the end of the shaft, engaging with a larger wheel,
one to ten. Fifty revolutions per minute could be accurately
counted, and the speed was put beyond dispute. I was guilty
of one oversight: I did not protect this gear. A French gentle-
man had the skirt of his frock-coat caught in it, and I thought
it never would be got out. The engine had been running only
two or three days, but the speed being then well established, I
took off the gear. I ought to have protected it instead, and have
had it to substantiate the big story I am going to tell, but it never
occurred to me.
The engine running idle, I commenced very soon the exhibi ion
for which I had made all this preparation. That was to hold the
governor down by pulling the end of the lever up and letting the
engine fly; which it did without a jar or a sound, only phantoms
of the cross-head and connecting-rod being visible. That was
my daily amusement and must have been repeated many hundred
times in the course of the exposition, and of course always attracted
a crowd.
We had no means of counting the speed, but I judged it to be
more than 2000 turns per minute. When I released the governor
and the speed fell gradually to 500 turns, it appeared to every one
as if the engine were going to stop. But the governor never
reacted, and soon the eye became accustomed to the slower speed.
This presented quite a curious phenomenon. The connecting-
rod was especially adapted to this enormous speed, by being
made of the form already shown, and which I afterwards adopted
for all my engines. This engine never gave any trouble, and
was sold, I think to Ducommen & Co., the purchasers of the
large engine. The electric light with its engines was installed at
the South Foreland Lighthouse, on the Shakespeare Cliff, east of
Dover, if I remember rightly. We brought nothing back to
England with us.
I went to Paris a few days before the opening of the exposi-
tion, and found my main engine already in running order, installed
146 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
next to the Whitworth exhibit of tools, and selected by the im-
perial commission as one of the engines employed to give motion
to the machinery exhibited.
By an imperial decree, the opening ceremonial of the exhibition
was to take place on Monday, April 2, at 2 p.m., and everything was
to be absolutely completed before that hour. The engines were to
have been tested the previous Saturday. Every engine in the build-
ing was ready,but the imperial commission itself was behind. There
was no steam. The first interview I had with the superintendent
of the British machinery department was on this Saturday, when
he came around to notify the several English engine exhibitors
to be in readiness to run their engines the next day, Sunday,
in order to make sure that there should be no hitch on Monday,
I told him I should not run my engine on Sunday. "Very well,"
said he, "we will run it for you," and stalked off. Before going
away I took out the pin at the end of the governor lever connect-
ing the governor with the valve motion and put it in my pocket.
Never heard any reproof, put the pin back on Monday, and when
they gave us steam the engine started off as if it had always
been running, and continued to do so until the signal for shutting
down at 5 o'clock. I had my hand on the wheel of the stop-
valve to close it, when suddenly all the valve-rods of the engine
bent and tangled up, and the exclamation was heard on all sides,
"The high-speed engine has come to grief the very first day."
On examination it was found that the cast-iron stuffing-box
gland on one of the valve-stems had fired, and was fast on the
stem. One of our troubles at the Whitworth works was the
habit of the workmen, which may have been common to all
toolmakers, of making close fits. We had no standard reamers
nor any system whatever, and Mr. Watts, finding on his inspection
everything too tight to run, had to have holes enlarged and stems
reduced by grinding with Turkey dust. Sometimes this had
to be done over and over. He was very thorough, but this once
he missed it, with the above result. The case looked pretty
bad, but luckily nothing was broken, and when the exposition
opened at 9 o'clock the next morning every trace of the accident
had disappeared and the engine ran as if nothing had happened,
and continued to do so for several months, till the close of the
THE FRENCH EXPOSITION OF 1867 147
exposition. We took pains that night, while we were about it, to
make sure against any repetitioxi of that performance.
I had nearly forgotten to mention a little surprise that I had:
The day after my arrival a friend who had preceded me a few
days said to me, "Come with me; I want to show you some-
thing." He led me through the entire circuit of the machinery
hall, and showed me engines with my central counterweight gover-
nor brought to that exposition from every country in Europe.
I learned afterwards in conversation that, following its exhibition
in London, five years before, the use of this governor on the-
Continent had become quite general.
The day after the opening I asked the superintendent when I
ought to expect a visit from the jury of award. I told him it
was necessary that I should return to Manchester to bring over
my family, and I was anxious not to miss the jury. "I would
advise you," said he, "to go at once. The jury will not be or-
ganized for a week or more." I left that night, leaving the engine
in charge of a young Frenchman to run it, and was back in five days.
The first thing this man had to tell me was: "The jury were here
yesterday. They did not stay but a few minutes. All their
remarks that I heard were in French, so I think they must all
have been Frenchmen. I heard them say, 'An engine running
at that speed (200 revolutions per minute) will knock itself to pieces
before the exposition is over." This although it was running in
absolute silence before their eyes. "They did not ask me any
questions." "What did they say about the condenser?" (The
Bourdon gauge showed more than 28 inches vacuum all the time.)
"They laughed at that; said no engine ever maintained such a
vacuum," which was quite true. I hurriedly sought out the
superintendent. In answer to my complaint he said flippantly,
"Oh, that visit was only preliminary. They will be around again
in a few days." I have waited for that visit ever since. Never
saw or heard of the jury any more, but when the list of gold medal
awards was published my name was not on it.
I learned afterwards that the order to all the juries was to
commence their labors the morning after the opening of the ex-
position, and have their reports in within three weeks. The super-
intendent must have been officially informed of this order, and
148 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
he deliberately misled me. I have always wondered if this was his
revenge on me for not having run on Sunday as he ordered.
So far as concerns their judgment on the engine, "before the
exposition was over" it had won the admiration of every engineer
in Europe. Mr. John Hick of Bolton, then the leading builder
of stationary engines in England, and afterwards the head of
the great engineering firm of Hick, Hargreaves & Co., made a
visit to the engine every afternoon during his stay, sometimes
watching it for a long time. It had a fascination for him. He
told me that no amount of testimony would have made him
believe that an engine could have been made to run so smoothly
and silently at such a speed, or to maintain such a vacuum. He
said that if my engine shown in London had made anything like
so favorable an impression on his mind, he would have made me
a proposition for its manufacture; but it did not. The reason
for this I had learned long before, the reason why it did not impress
any one favorably, it was non-condensing. He added that he
had since made other arrangements which made such proposition
now impossible. I knew what those arrangements were. He
had two years before taken up the manufacture of the Corliss
engine, under the management of Mr. William Inglis, a Canadian
engineer, by whom this engine had been successfully introduced
into England. I knew Mr. Inglis well, and rejoiced in his success,
as every one who knew him must have done. As for any rivalry
between us such a thing was never thought of, there was room
for both of us ten times over.
I was very courteously waited upon by a French engineer,
who asked me if I were acquainted with the Deluel vacuum-gauge.
I told him that I was not. He said that he was happy to intro-
duce it to my notice. The vacuum shown by the Bourdon gauge on
my condenser was so remarkable, especially with an air-pump
running so swiftly, that it could not be accepted with confidence
by engineers, unless actually shown by the mercurial column.
The Deluel gauge was the only one in which this was employed.
With many apologies for what was indeed the greatest kindness
to me, he ventured to suggest that the Deluel gauge be placed on
the condenser. He kindly gave me the address of the firm in
Paris. A sharp Yankee will probably recognize him as an accom-
THE FRENCH EXPOSITION OF 18G7 149
plished drummer for the house. This did not occur to me, but
I am under obligation to him all the same.
I lost no time in getting a Deluel gauge, and the same night
had the condenser drilled to put it on. To my disgust no tap
could be found to fit its thread. So I had to drive a wooden
plug in the hole. The next day I called again at their store,
nearly three miles from the Champ de Mars, and told them of
my predicament. With a profusion of regrets for the incon-
venience I had been put to, which he must have known that T
would be, the gentleman produced a set of taps, and kindly loaned
them to me, observing with evident pride that this was "a thread
peculiar to their house." The Deluel gauge was put on that night,
and next morning I had the great satisfaction of seeing that its
reading agreed with that of the Bourdon gauge precisely.
I neglected to patent this condenser, so there was nothing to
connect me with it, and the next year coming home, where I had no
occasion for it, I quite lost sight of it. But at our Centennial
Exhibition, nine years after, I saw a large horizontal engine sent
from Belgium with the old familiar box behind the cylinder, and
about twenty years after that I had the pleasure of having the
condenser described to me, as if I were a stranger to it, by
Mr. F. M. Wheeler, who mentioned particularly the inclined bot-
tom of the condensing chamber, the feature by which the air
was prevented from mingling with the water. He informed me
that it was a condenser then commonly used in Europe, and was
seen in all illustrations of horizontal condensing engines. I have
forgotten whether or not I told him what I knew about the origin
of this condenser.
At this exposition only the English had a building devoted to
the show of artillery. The principal features that I remember
were the Whitworth and the Armstrong systems, which were elab-
orately represented. I used to say that the British lion here
invited the other beasts to examine his teeth.
The French and the English had each a large building on the
bank of the Seine devoted to naval exhibits. In the former I
happened to be present at a reception held by the young Prince
Imperial, at which he received the congratulations of, among
others, many prominent Englishmen, some of whom I recognized.
150 EXGIXEERIXG REMIXISCEXCES
How bright, then, seemed his prospects! How sad his end! But
how grand for France, her return to a free republic; long may it
live!
In the English naval exhibit three men made an exhibition of
their childish extravagance. Models were shown of a fleet of
eight vessels, each quite 10 feet long, completely and superbly fin-
ished inside and out, and entitled "England's Fleet of the Future."
The vessels, full rigged, were built by Robert Napier. They were
provided with engines made by John Penn, and carried broadsides
of Whitworth guns. Recalled in the light of to-day, this costly
show appears supremely ridiculous. It did not present a single
feature that has not long since vanished and become almost for-
gotten. Both the prince and the toys furnish a lesson to the
moralist. How swiftly, as by a cyclone, has all that each repre-
sented been swept away forever! What is there, in governments
or in mechanism, that shall endure?
It was my good fortune one day in the latter building to meet
Admiral Farragut. I heard him say, respecting this proud fleet,
"When it is built, some Yankee will come with a torpedo and blow
it out of the water." One other terse reply of the old hero which
I then heard is worthy to be recorded. He was asked his opinion
of the monitor. "A machine to drown a man in like a rat, sir,"
was his answer.
About midsummer I received an application from the firm of
Ducommen et Cie. of Mulhouse, a city in the southern part of
Alsace, and an important manufacturing center, whose people
also had no foreboding of what was so soon to befall them, for a
concession to manufacture my engines in France. They had a
large exhibit at the exposition, and impressed me quite favorably.
I consulted with Mr. Hoyle and replied, deferring action until a
later period of ihe exposition. Some time in September, not having
received any other application, I accepted this one. There I
made a mistake. Just before the close of the exposition I received
a very flattering letter from the firm of Farcot et Cie., the most
eminent stationary engine-builders in France, and who showed the
largest engine at the exposition. Their works were near Paris, and
on their invitation, in company with Mr. Hoyle, I had visited them.
They stated that, having observed closely the performance of the
FINAL BREAK WITH MR. WHITWORTH 151
engine through all these months, they had become convinced of
its excellent and durable qualities, and solicited the right to manu-
facture the engine in France. I had to pay the penalty for my
premature action in explaining to them with deep regret that this
right was already disposed of. My regret was deepened when, in
the course of the following winter, I received in Manchester copies
of drawings according to which Ducommen et Cie. proposed to
construct the engines. The changes they had made, all in the direc-
tion of complication, amazed me. It seemed to have rained bolts
and nuts. Every constructive requirement of a successful high-
speed engine was ignorantly sacrificed. After full consultation Mr.
Hoyle and I agreed that the case was hopeless, that they would
never do anything; and they never did. I have no photographs of
the Paris Exposition. It was a very singular thing that none were
taken there, so far as I ever heard.
Near the close of the exposition I had another visit from Mr.
Allen. He had been sent over by our associates to see for himself
and to report to them what I had really accomplished. He stayed
with me a little while after our return to Manchester. Mr. Whit-
worth treated us with the greatest civility. On his invitation we
rode out to his country home and spent the day with him. This
visit is worth recording. His estate lay in Derbyshire, adjacent
to Chatsworth, the well-known seat of the Duke of Devonshire.
It occupied a rather broad valley, extending to the sky-line of
high ranges of hills on each side, and comprised three thousand
acres. He told me that three adjoining estates fell into the market,
one after another, and he succeeded in getting the whole of them.
In the middle of this valley was a lower isolated hill, containing
stone quarries that had been worked from time immemorial, and
which, when he bought, were surrounded by unsightly heaps of
debris. Mr. Whitworth had closed the quarries, covered these
heaps with earth on which trees were then growing, and trans-
formed the whole into most picturesque ornamental grounds.
After lunch Mr. Whitworth took his cane and, with a step as
sprightly as a schoolboy's, led us a tramp over this region. In the
quarries he had formed galleries at different elevations. Finally,
at the top of the hill, commanding views of his whole estate, he
had leveled a space about 100 by 200 feet and surrounded it with
152 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
a rustic battlement of rocks. Here a grassy sward smooth and
level as a billiard table was used as a croquet ground, this being
at that time a universal outdoor game in England. He had a
democratic park. It had no wall, and wire fences were as yet
unknown, so he could not keep deer. But on his fields we saw
many cattle grazing. He told us he was raising blooded stock,
and expected the next year to commence annual sales. We ob-
served the very pleasant house beautifully located in the valley,
but he told us he was planning to remove it and build a baronial
hall in its place. I learned afterwards from Mr. Hoyle that he
had for some time kept two London architects employed on de-
signs for this hall, which designs he then employed another drafts-
man to combine into a plan to suit himself, but had not as yet
determined on anything. As he was an old man, and had no
one in the world to leave this estate to, I could account for his
devotion to it only by his restless temperament, that must always
find some new outlet for his energy.
I, however, did not want him to expend any of this energy in
getting a steam-engine to suit him, and so the passing months
brought us no nearer to an agreement. My experience with Du-
commen et Cie. confirmed me in my decision not to let the mechani-
cal control of the engine in England pass out of my hands, and Mr.
Hoyle told me that he could not advise me to do so. Mr. Whit-
worth was at that time in the death agonies of his artillery system,
and I did not meet him, but I learned through Mr. Hoyle that he
was highly indignant at me for presuming to take the position I
had done, and was immovably fixed in his own.
CHAPTER XIV
Study of the Action of Reciprocating Parts. Important Help from Mr.
Frederick J. Slade. Paper before Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Appreciation of Zerah Colburn. The Steam Fire Engine in England
FTER the close of the Paris Exposition I devoted
myself in earnest to the study of the action of the
reciprocating parts of the engine, and will here give
a sketch of its development. In the high-speed
steam-engine the reciprocating parts were found to be a most
essential feature. Besides transmitting the pressure of the steam
to the crank the)'' perform quite another office. It is their
inertia, relieving the crank from shocks on the dead centers, and
equalizing the distribution of the pressure on it through the stroke,
that makes the high-speed engine possible. I employed this
inertia before I knew anything about it. I had been occupied
with the subject of balancing. I had demonstrated practically
that the centrifugal force of a weight equal to that of the reciprocat-
ing parts, opposite the crank and at the same distance from the
center as the crank-pin, perfectly balanced a horizontal engine,
and had shown this fact conclusively at this exposition.
The problem before me was, "What is it that makes my
engine run so smoothly? " I am not a mathematician, and so
could not use his methods. I got along by graphic methods and
study of the motion of the piston controlled by the crank. My
recollection of the several steps of my progress is quite indistinct.
One thing I do remember distinctly, and that is the help that I
got from my friend Frederick J. Slade, who was younger than I,
but who died several years ago. Mr. Slade was a mathematical
genius. The firm of Cooper, Hewitt & Co were at a later date
the pioneer makers in the United States of wrought-iron beams
153
154 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
and other structural shapes; and all their designs and compu-
tations were the work of Mr. Slade. I had formed his acquaintance
in London in '63. I met him again in Paris in '67. He was then
in France in the employ of Abram S. Hewitt, investigating the
Seimens-Martin process of steel manufacture. He took much in-
terest in the engine. One day he brought to me a diagram repre-
senting the two now famous triangles, and a demonstration of them
which he had made, showing that the ordinates, representing the
acceleration or retardation of the piston motion at every point, if
erected on the center line of the engine, terminate in a diagonal
line, which, with a connecting-rod of infinite length, would cross
this center line at its middle point.
This exhibited at once the equalizing action of the reciprocat-
ing parts in a cut-off engine, absorbing the excessive force of the
steam at the commencement and imparting it to the crank at
the end of the stroke. I feel myself more indebted to Mr. Slade
than to any one else, and would here record the tribute of my
grateful acknowledgment.
On January 30, 1868, I had the honor of reading a paper on
the Allen engine before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
The discussion of the paper was postponed until the next meeting,
April 30, and the paper was ordered meantime to be printed and
sent to the members. The result was that on the latter date we
had a very interesting discussion. I may mention two things
which occurred at the first meeting, but do not appear in the report
of the transactions. When the secretary reached the statement that
the acceleration of the piston was greatest at the commencement
of the stroke, the president of the meeting, Sampson Lloyd, Esq.,
one of the vice-presidents of the Institution, stopped the reading
and said to me, "You do not mean, Mr. Porter, that this is on the
commencement of the stroke, but at a point near its commence-
ment." I was obliged to answer him that I intended to say that
precisely on the dead center, at the point where motion in one
direction had ceased and that in the opposite direction had not
yet commenced, at that precise point the stress on the crank was
at its maximum, the crank having brought the reciprocating parts
to rest, and then by a continuance of the same effort putting them
in motion in the reverse direction.
Frederick J. Slade
APPRECIATIOX OF ZERAII COLBURN 155
After the reading was concluded, Mr. E. A. Cowper took the
floor, and stated that I was entirely mistaken in my explanation
of this action, that this had been investigated by a gentleman whose
name he gave but which I have forgotten, and who had demon-
strated that this retarding and accelerating action was represented
by a curve, which approximately he drew on the blackboard, but
which he excused himself from demonstrating there, as it would
require the use of the calculus and would take considerable time.
For this reason the discussion was postponed. At the next meet-
ing Mr. Cowper did not present this demonstration, and long after-
wards he wrote a letter to the editors of Engineering, stating that
on full investigation he had found the retardation and acceleration
of the piston to be represented by triangles and not by a curve.
At the discussion of the paper my view was supported by all the
speakers who addressed themselves to this point, except Mr.
Cowper. An especially careful and valuable exposition of the
action of the reciprocating parts was given Mr. Edwin Reynolds,
then of the Don Steel Works, Sheffield.
Zerah Colburn, the editor of Engineering, had always taken a
warm interest in my engine, and in the winter following the Paris
Exposition he invited me to furnish him the drawings and material
for its description in his paper. This I did, and from these he pre-
pared a series of articles written in his usual clear and trenchant
style. These will be found in Volume V of Engineering, the cuts
following page 92, and the articles on pages 119, 143, 158, 184,
and 200.
Mr. Colburn's articles in Engineering are so interesting in them-
selves that I think I need make no apology for quoting from them
his remarks on this subject of the inertia of the reciprocating parts,
and those in which is depicted the revolutionary nature of the high-
speed engine, as viewed at that time.
After a prelude, with most of which the reader is already ac-
quainted, Mr. Colburn says:
"When a steam-engine is brought from abroad to the very
spot where the steam-engine originated, and where it has received,
so far at least as numbers are concerned, its greatest development,
and is claimed to be superior to those produced here, and to be
able to run advantageously at a speed hitherto deemed impracti-
156 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
cable, its promoters must not expect to have much attention paid
to its claims until such attention has been actually compelled, and
then they must be prepared for an ordeal of severest criticism. . . .
"In employing a high grade of expansion, especially with the
considerable pressure of steam now usually carried in stationary
boilers, two serious practical difficulties are met with. The first
arises from the injurious effect of the sudden application of so great
a force on the centers, which the beam-engine, indeed, cannot be
made to endure, and the second is found in the extreme difference
between the pressures at the opposite ends of the stroke, which is
such that the crank, instead of being acted upon by a tolerably
uniform force, is rotated by a succession of violent punches, and
these applied when it is in its most unfavorable position. . . .
"In the Allen engine the action of high speed causes all the
practical difficulties which lie in the way of the successful employ-
ment of high grades of expansion combined with high pressure of
steam completely to disappear. The crank receives as little pres-
sure on the centers as we please; none at all if we like; the force is
applied to it as it advances, in a manner more gradual than the
advocates of graduated openings and late admission ever dreamed
of, and a fair approximation is made to a uniform rotative force
through the stroke. So that, in a properly constructed engine,
the higher the speed the smoother and more uniform and more
silent the running will be."
After a page or more devoted to a demonstration of this action,
Mr. Colburn sums up the advantage of high speed in the following
illustration :
"Let us suppose that, in an engine making 75 revolutions per
minute, the reciprocating parts are of such a weight that the force
required at the commencement of the stroke to put them in motion
is equal to a pressure of 20 pounds on the square inch of piston.
This will not modify the diagram of pressure sufficiently to produce
much practical effect. But let the number of revolutions be in-
creased to 150 per minute, the centrifugal force of these p?rts as
the crank passes the centers is "now equal to 80 pounds on the
square inch of piston, and any pressure of steam below this amount
acts only as a relieving force, taking the strain of these parts partly
off from the crank. It makes no matter how suddenly it is ad-
APPRECIATION OF ZERAII COL BURN 157
mitted to the cylinder, not an ounce can reach the crank; but as
the latter advances, and the acceleration of the reciprocating
parts becomes less, the excess of force not required to produce
this becomes, in the most gradual manner, effective on the crank.
"It will be observed how completely the designer has this
action of the reciprocating parts under control. He can propor-
tion their speed and weight to the pressure of steam in such a
manner as to relieve the crank from the blow on the center to
whatever extent he may wish. The notion that the reciprocat-
ing parts of high-speed engines should be very light is therefore
entirely wrong. They should be as heavy as they can be made,
and the heavier the better.
"The advantages of more rapid rotation are largely felt in the
transmission of power. Engineers understand very well that,
theoretically, the prime mover should overrim the resistance.
Motion should be not multiplied but reduced in transmission.
This can seldom be attained in practice, but high speed gives the
great advantage of an approximation to this theoretical excel-
lence. On the other hand, slow-speed engines work against every
disadvantage. Coupled engines and enormous fly-wheels have to
be employed to give a tolerably uniform motion; often great
irregularities are endured, or the abominable expedient is resorted
to of placing the fly-wheel on the second-motion shaft. Then
comes the task of getting up the speed, with the ponderous gearing
and the enormous strains. Slow motion also prevents the use of
the belt, immeasurably the preferable means of communicating
power from a prime mover.
"But how about the wear and tear? The question comes from
friends and foes alike. The only difference is in the expression of
countenance, sympathetic or triumphant. The thought of high
speed brings before every eye visions of hot and torn bearings,
cylinders and pistons cut up, thumps and breakdowns, and
engines shaking themselves to pieces. It is really difficult to
understand how so much ignorance and prejudice on this subject
can exist in this day of general intelligence. The fact is, high
speed is the great searcher and revealer of everything that is bad
in design and construction. The injurious effect of all unbalanced
action, of all overhanging strains, of all weakness of parts, of all
15S ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
untruth in form or construction, of all insufficiency of surface,
increases as the square of the speed. Put an engine to speed and
its faults bristle all over. The shaking drum cries, 'Balance me,
balance me!' the writhing shaft and quivering frame cry, 'See
how weak we are!' the blazing bearing screams, 'Make me round! '
and the maker says, 'Ah, sir, you see high speed will never do!"'
"Now, nothing is more certain than that we can make engines,
and that with all ease, in which there shall be no unbalanced action,
no overhanging strains, no weakness of parts, no untruth of form
or construction, no insufficiency of surface; in which, in short,
there shall be no defect to increase as the square of the speed, and
then we may employ whatever speed we like. 'But that,' inter-
poses a friend, 'requires perfection, which you know is unattain-
able.' No, we reply, nothing unattainable, nothing even difficult,
is required, but only freedom from palpable defects, which, if we
only confess their existence, and are disposed to get rid of, may
be easily avoided. It is necessary to throw all concent about our
own work to the dogs, to lay down the axiom that whatever goes
wrong, it is not high speed, but ourselves who are to blame, and
to go to high speed as to our schoolmaster.
"Among the many objections to high speed, we are often told
that the beam-engine will not bear it, and the beam-engine, sir,
was designed by Watt. In reverence for that great name, we
yield to no one. The beam-engine, in its adaptation to the con-
ditions under which it was designed to work — namely, a piston
speed of 220 feet per minute and a pressure of one or two atmos-
pheres — was as nearly perfect as any work of human skill ever
was or will be; but we wonder why the outraged ghost does not
haunt the men who cling to the material form they have inherited,
when the conditions which it was designed to meet have been all
outgrown, who have used up his factor of safety, and now stand
among their trembling and breaking structures, deprecating every-
thing which these will not endure.
"A journal and its bearings ought not only never to become
warm, but never even to wear, and, if properly made, never will
do so with ordinary care to any appreciable extent, no matter
how great speed is employ ed. It is well known that there exists
a very wide difference in bearings in this respect, some outlasting
THE STEAM FIRE ENGINE IN ENGLAND 159
dozens of others. Now, there need be no mystery about this:
the conditions of perfect action are so few and simple that it
seems almost idle to state them. The first is rigidity of a shaft
or spindle between its bearings; but everybody knows that if
this is flexible, just in the degree in which it springs, the journals
must be cast in their bearings, though in actual practice this
perfect rigidity is not once in a thousand times even approximated
to. The point of excellence in the celebrated Sellers bearing for
shafting is that it turns universally to accommodate itself to this
flexure of the shaft, and the result is a durability almost perfect.
"The second requirement, when we have a shaft capable of
maintaining perfect rigidity under all the strains it may be sub-
jected to, is abundant extent of bearing surface both in length and
circumference, a requirement, it will be seen, entirely consistent
with the first. It is a mistake to use journals of small diameter
with the idea that their enlargement will occasion loss of power
on account of the increased surface velocity, as, in fact, the co-
efficient of friction will diminish in a greater ratio than that in
which the velocity is increased. In the Allen engine it is intended
to make all shafts and journals too large.
"But all is of little use unless the journal is round. High
speed under heavy pressure has a peculiar way of making it known
when a journal is not round, which, we suppose, is one of its faults.
Now the difference between a true cylindrical form and such an
approximation to it as a good lathe will produce in turning ordi-
narily homogeneous metal is simply amazing; but when we com-
pare with this the forms of journals as commonly finished, the
wonder is how many of them run at all at any speed. When
ground with a traversing wheel in dead centers, which have them-
selves been ground to true cones, the only known method by which
a parallel cylindrical form can be produced, their inequalities
stand disclosed, and these are usually found to be greater, often
many times greater, than the thickness of the film of oil that can
be maintained in running. Then under pressure this film is
readily broken, the metal surfaces come into contact and abrasion
begins. But a true cylindrical journal swims in an oil-bath,
separated from its bearing at every point by a film of oil of uni-
form thickness, and sustaining a uniform pressure, which cannot
160
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
be anywhere broken, and which has very little inclination to work
out; and if it revolves without deflection and the pressure per
square inch of surface is not sufficient to press out the lubricant,
the speed is absolutely immaterial and wear is impossible, except
that due to the attrition of the oil itself, which on hardened sur-
faces has no appreciable effect."
From the illustrations contained in these articles, I copy only
the following pair of diagrams with the accompanying note.
The winter of 1867 8 was devoted by me partly to watching
the dissolving view of my engineering prospects in England. It
grew more and more evident that through my difference with
Pair of Diagrams from 18 X 30 Allen Engine at South Tyne Paper Mill, 10S Rev-
olutions, Vacuum 28 Inches Only Half Intended Load on Engine.
Mr. Whitworth all my efforts and successes there would come to
naught, as they did.
But my friend, Mr. Lee, had even worse luck than I had. It
will be some relief from the monotony of my reverses if I go back
a little and tell of a reverse that befell another man. Curiously
enough, Mr. Lee's reverse came from the overwhelming character
of his success. The English engineers had their breath quite taken
away and lost their heads, with the result that Mr. Lee lost his
position. He was ambitious to show his steam fire-engine doing
its utmost. If he had been wiser and had realized the limit of
what his judges could stand, he would have shown about one half
its capacity and all parties would have been happy.
To understand how naturally this most unexpected denoue-
ment came about, we must recall what the English people had
THE STEAM FIRE ENGINE IN ENGLAND 161
been accustomed to. In London fires were rare and trifling,
Buildings were low, built of brick with tile roofs. Open grates
afforded the means of cooking and of warming sufficiently for
their climate. Every tenant of a building who called in the fire
department was fined five pounds, which encouraged careful
habits. The apparatus itself was something quite ridiculous. It
consisted of little hand-engines, worked by about a dozen men.
On the side of a corner building occasionally one saw painted a
distance in feet and inches. This meant that by ineasurin this
distance from this corner out into the street and digging a little
into the macadam pavement, a connection would be found with
the water-main. From this the water was permitted to flow
gently into an india-rubber saucer some 6 feet in diameter spread
on the ground. Out of this saucer the engine drew its water for
a feeble little stream.
Mr. Lee's engine, with Worthington duplex pump, was, on its
completion, exhibited before a large company of invited guests,
principally officials of the fire department and prominent engineers.
The engine maintained a vertical column of water, delivered from
a much larger nozzle than had ever before been used in England,
and considerably over 100 feet high. There was also a corres-
ponding column of sparks from the chimney of the steam-pump.
The exhibition was made late in the afternoon of a short winter
day, and before it was over the coming darkness showed the col-
umn of incandescent cinders to the best advantage. The few
Americans there enjoyed this miniature Vesuvius hugely. The
Englishmen were frightened out of their wits. Their unanimous
verdict was that the engine would evidently put out a fire, half a
dozen of them for that matter, but it would kindle twenty. And
this where the engine had been pushed to its utmost, and had not
kindled one fire. Easton, Amos & Sons instantly decided that
they could never sell a steam fire-engine under Mr. Lee's manage-
ment, and they discharged him the next morning.
During the following season we had quite a steam-fire-engine
excitement. Some one, I have forgotten who, but think it was the
Duke of Sutherland, made a public offer of a thousand pounds
sterling for the best steam fire-engine, competition to be open to
all the world, the engines to be tested for six days in the park of
162 ENGIXEERING REMINISCENCES
the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, in the month of July following.
There were a number of amusing incidents connected with that
exhibition. One was the following: The common council of New
York City determined that the city must have that prize, so they
sent over engine No. 7, a favorite engine, one of Mr. Lee's make,
and which had been three or four years in service. A junket com-
mittee of the city fathers accompanied it. The London Fire De-
partment received this delegation with great enthusiasm, and
devoted itself to making them happy. They took entire charge of
their machine and exhibited it in London to admiring crowds. A
few days before the time fixed for the opening of the trial they
took the engine to Sydenham, where on the way to its station it
accidentally rolled down a hillside and was pretty well broken up.
Mr. Lee being in London was hurriedly sent for to see if it could
be repaired in time for the trial. He found that the injuries were
of so serious a nature that the repairs could not be completed in
less than three weeks. So that competitor was out of the way.
Their sympathizing friends were full of condolence, and assumed
all the cost of the repairs. They also proposed that when the
engine was put in proper order they should have an excursion
down the Thames to Greenwich and have there an exhibition of
its powers. So a steamboat was chartered and a large party
accompanied the machine to Greenwich. On arrival there it was
found that the two nozzles, a large one and a smaller one for long-
distance streams, which had been taken especial charge of by the
members of a fire company, had been accidentally dropped into the
Thames. The New York delegation were glad to get their engine
back to New York without further accident.
Easton, Amos & Sons also concluded that they would like that
prize. After they had taken the engine into their own hands,
they found a number of features which seemed to them to need
amendment, so they made some quite important changes. On the
second day of the trial this engine broke down and had to be
withdrawn.
I have forgotten how many competitors remained in the field,
but the prize was awarded to a London firm, builders of hand fire-
engines, who had only lately taken up this new branch of manufac-
ture. This successful firm applied to the government for an order
THE STEAM FIRE ENGINE IN ENGLAND 163
to supply steam fire-engines for the protection of the public build-
ings. This application was referred to Easton, Amos & Sons, the
consulting engineers of the government. This firm concluded if
possible to have this order given to themselves, and applied to Mr.
Lee to recommend the changes in his engine necessary to put it in
proper working order. Mr. Lee replied that it was only necessary
to put the engine back in the precise condition in which he left it.
They finally agreed to do this, and employed Mr. Lee to direct the
work. When completed the engine was tried in the gardens of
Buckingham Palace, in competition with the prize winner, before
a large body of government officials. The Easton, Amos & Sons
engine proved its superiority on every point so completely that the
government immediately purchased it.
Some time before this, however, Mr. Lee had associated him-
self with, a capitalist for the manufacture of steam fire-engines in
England, and was then engaged on plans for them. His financial
associate was Judge Winter, by which title only he was known to
us. He was an American, and before the war was the proprietor
of the Winter Iron Works in Georgia (the precise location I have
forgotten), the most prominent engineering establishment in the
Southern States, in which business he had become wealthy. He
will be remembered by some gray heads as having been an exhibi-
tor in the New York Crystal Palace in 1853. He sent to it a steam-
engine bearing the name of "The Southern Belle." This stood in
the machinery department, close to a Corliss engine, the two being
the only engines of any size which were exhibited there. This
engine was beautifully finished, polished pretty much all over, but
its working features were of the most ordinary character. Me-
chanically it was valueless.
Judge Winter was a determined opponent of secession, and on
the adoption of that ordinance by the State of Georgia, was com-
pelled to fly from the country. He then took up his residence in
London, to which he had transferred such portion of his wealth as
he was able to convert into money.
He took a deep interest in the new steam fire-engine, and spent
part of nearly every day in the office where Mr. Lee and Mr. Taylor,
an American engineer whom Mr. Lee had associated with himself,
were engaged on their plans.
164 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
The point of interest to myself in this story lies here. The old
judge had no sound mechanical education, but was very fertile
minded. He came almost every morning with a new idea that he
wanted embodied. It was always absurd. He generally protested
vigorously against being overruled. When he was furnishing all
the money he could not see why he should not be allowed to have
something to say about it. I happened to be present in their office
one morning when he got particularly excited over their opposition.
He was a stout party, and on this occasion I had the fun of joining
in the shout of laughter that greeted him, when, after pacing the
floor in silence for a few minutes, he exclaimed, with his hand on
the fabled seat of his sympathies, "I thank my God that if there
is one thing I am free from, it is pride of opinion."
My recollection of the above action of Easton, Amos & Sons
and of Judge Winter contributed materially to form my imagina-
tion of the predicament in which I would certainly find myself,
should I yield to Mr. Whitworth the power to make whatever
changes might occur to him in my engine.
CHAPTER XV
Preparations for Returning to America. Bright Prospects
AVING but little practical work to occupy me that
winter, I devoted myself to getting out for Elliott
Bros, a second edition of my instruction book to
accompany the Richards indicator, and my paper for
the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the illustrations and
material for Mr. Colburn's articles on the Allen engine published
in Engineering.
I found in the library of the Manchester Philosophical Society
a copy of the twentieth volume of the "Memoirs of the French
Academy of Sciences," containing the report of the experiments of
M. Regnault to determine the properties of steam, with the leaves
uncut, of which I was then able to make some use. I was anxious
to obtain a copy of this volume for myself, and also of Volume 21,
containing other memoirs by M. Regnault. This object I suc-
ceeded in accomplishing when in Paris that winter through the kind
interest of M. Tresca, the well-known Sous-Directeur of the Ecole
des Arts et Metiers. This was a matter of so much difficulty, that
a letter from M. Tresca to the publisher was found not to be suffi-
cient. It was necessary that M. Tresca should personally identify
me as the " savant " to whom he had given the letter. I was then
able to obtain both the volumes, which I brought home with me
on my return to America.
Now was the winter of my discontent made glorious summer,
and all the clouds that lowered about my enterprise in the deep
bosom of the ocean buried, by the receipt of a letter from Mr.
Hope, telling me that Mr. Allen's report after his visit of inspec-
tion was of so entirely satisfactory a character that, after full
165
166 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
consideration, it had been concluded to write me to leave every-
thing in England in whatever condition I might be obliged to,
and return home and join with Mr. Allen in the manufacture of
the engines, for which ample capital would be furnished. So in
my ecstasy I went about quoting to myself Shakespeare's lines and
applying them to my reviving fortunes. Mr. Hoyle congratulated
me warmly on this favorable turn in my affairs, seeing clearly that
I would never do anything with Mr. 'Whitworth, unless on his own
inadmissible terms.
After I had sobered down from my excitement, I began to con-
sider the matter carefully, and to determine upon the preparations
that ought to be made as a foundation for what, by judicious
management, should grow to be a great and profitable business.
I fully realized the responsibility that was devolved upon me, and
determined that both in foresight and prudence I would prove
myself equal to its requirements.
I wrote a glad acceptance of the proposition and expatiated on
the advantage we should enjoy from what I had learned in Eng-
land. I told them that the selection of a suitable location was of
the first importance, and suggested that a plot of twenty or thirty
acres should be purchased in the environs of a large manufacturing
town, affording a good labor market and having good railway
facilities, and where the land could be got at farm prices. I would
plan shops on a scale large enough for a great business and of a
form adapted for enlargement from time to time, and build at
first a small part, which as the business grew could be added to
without alteration. I asked them to look about for the best place,
but do nothing further until I got home, when I would have care-
fully studied plans, embodying the most recent improvements in
building and tools to lay before them.
I then entered with enthusiasm into the preparation of my
plans. The model shop, now in common use, had then lately been
designed by the firm of Smith & Coventry, tool makers of Salford,
which is a suburb of Manchester, separated from it only by a nar-
row stream, the river Irwell, and their plan had been at once fol-
lowed by the firm of Craven Brothers of Manchester, also tool
makers. It was, of course, still unknown in the United States.
The general idea of this shop was taken from the nave and side
PREPARATIONS FOR RETURNING TO AMERICA 167
aisles of Gothic cathedrals. The central and wider portion, which
we may call the nave, was one story in height and was commanded
by the travelers, and its floor was occupied by the largest tools
only, and for erection. The side aisles were two stories in height.
The smallest work, of course, was on the upper story, and tools
and work of medium size on the floors below, the latter being
transported by carriages suspended from the floor above. No
rails were laid or gangways kept open on any floor. All trans-
portaton of heavy objects was through the air. The great value
of this improvement, made by this firm in shop design, and
which has brought this design into general use, lay in its natural
classification of the work. Travelers were already quite common
in England, but under them large and small tools, often very small
ones, were found mingled quite promiscuously. Their shop had an
entire glass roof, made on the ridge and furrow plan, first used in
the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park for the International Exhibition
of 1851. That roof would not answer, however, in this climate, on
account of our snow in winter, so I had to plan a different one.
But in every other respect their plan was perfect. The columns, of
course, at that time were of cast iron. These were cast in pairs
connected by a web, the longer columns in each pair supporting the
roof, the short ones the rails for the travelers.
In Smith & Coventry's shop the traveler was operated from the
floor by means of a loop hanging from a wheel on the crab. The
arrangement was exceedingly convenient in every respect.
I obtained full detail drawings of Smith & Coventry's shop.
The accompanying outline presents a cross-section of this shop,
and is figured to the dimensions I proposed to adopt. I proposed
to build a length of only 75 feet, which by successive additions
could be extended to 500 feet if required. Moreover, at first the
office, drawing-office, pattern shop, and storeroom, besides the
machine shop, in short everything, except only the engine and
boiler, smith shop and foundry, were to be accommodated in
this one building. I was greatly pleased with my plan, and felt
sure that it would commend itself to my associates, as no shop
possessing these conveniences then existed in the United States.
I, however, introduced one modification of the English shops, or
rather one addition. I had observed that reliance on the trav-
168
EXGIXEERING REM IXISCENCES
eler for local work involved a serious loss of time. I had seen in
various shops men standing idle, sometimes from fifteen to thirty
minutes, waiting for the traveler to be at liberty to come and give
them a lift. It appeared evident to me that the province of the
traveler was to fetch and carry; not to perform local work, un-
less of the heaviest class. So for the latter purpose I provided
swing cranes, which could be operated by the workman himself
without assistnace. This also enabled one traveler to cover a
much longer extent of floor.
Cross-section of Machine Shop Proposed by Mr. Porter in 1868, after
the Design of Smith & Coventry.
Smith & Coventry had made numerous improvements on Mr.
Whitworth's tools. I have already mentioned their arrangement
which made is possible to take up the wear of the lathe spindle
bearings. In the radial drill, an invention of Mr. AVhitworth's,
as made by him, in order to bring the drill to the right position
longitudinally, the workman was obliged to go to the end of the
arm and turn the screw. From this point he could not see his
work, and had to guess at the proper adjustment. I have seen
him in the Whitworth works go back and forth for this purpose
three or four times, and have always doubted if he got it exactly
right after all. Smith & Coventry introduced an elegant device
by which the workman was able to make this adjustment without
moving from his place. They also first made the arm of the
radial drill adjustable vertically by power. By simply reversing
BRIGHT PROSPECTS 169
the curve of the brackets under Mr. Whitworth's shaper tables,
they made these unyielding under the pressure of the cut. This
firm also first employed small cutting tools set in an arm which
was secured in the tool-post, and put an end to tool-dressing by
the blacksmith, which had caused a fearful waste of time, and
also encouraged idle habits among the workmen. This improve-
ment has since come into common use. Their system of grindng
these small tools interested me very much. The workman never
left his machine. He was provided with a number of tools, set in
compartments in a box. When a tool became dull he took it out,
set it in the box upside down, and substituted another. A boy
went regularly through the shop, took up all the upside-down
tools, ground them, and brought them back. The grindstones
were provided with tool-holders and a compound screw feed, by
which the tools were always presented to the stone at the same
desired angle, and were prevented from wearing out the stone by
running into grooves or following soft spots. The whole surface
of the stone was used uniformly and kept in perfect condition.
I picked up in that shop the solid wrench made with the elegant
improvement of inclining the handle at the angle of 15 degrees
from the line of the jaws; enabling it, by turning the wrench
over, to be worked within a radial angle of 30 degrees. This
adapted it for use in tight places. I brought the idea home with
me and always supplied my engines with wrenches made in that
way. I offered the plan to Billings & Spencer for nothing, but
they did not think it worth making the dies for. Mr. Williams
was more appreciative. I believe it is now in quite common use.
At that time toolmaking in this country, which has since
become so magnificently developed, was in many important
respects in a primitive condition, and I proposed to introduce
into my shop every best tool and method, adapted to my
requirements, that I could find in England. For this purpose I
visited and carefully studied all the tool works of good standing,
and my final conclusion was that the best tools for design,
strength, solidity, facility of operation and truth of work were
those made by Smith & Coventry. This may be guessed from
the few examples I have given of their fertile mindedness and
advanced ideas. So I prepared a careful list of tools that I pro-
170 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
posed to order from them in time to be ready for use as soon as
my shop should be completed. I found also the remarkable fact
that I could obtain these tools, duty and freight paid, decidedly
cheaper than corresponding inferior tools could then be got from
American makers.
Before bidding good-by to England, I must tell the luck I had
in endeavoring to introduce Mr. Allen's double-opening slide
valve, shown in the general view of my London exhibit, now in
common use the world over. No locomotive engineer would
even look at it. Finally I got an order from Mr. Thomas Avelng
for one of these valves with single eccentric valve-gear, to be
tried on one of his road locomotives or traction engines. Mr.
Aveling is known to fame as the inventor of the road locomo-
tive and steam road roller. He once told me how he came to
make this invention. He was a maker of portable engines in
Rochester, which was the center of a wheat-growing district.
These engines were employed universally to drive threshing ma-
chines. Horses were used to draw both the machine and the
engine from farm to farm. The idea occurred to him that this was
almost as foolish as was the practice of the Spanish muleteers, in
putting the goods they transported on one side of the animal and
employing a bag of stones on the other side to balance them.
Why not make the engine capable of moving itself and drawing
the threshing machine, and dispense with the horses altogether?
So he applied himself to the job and did it. Then it was found
that the self-propelling threshing-machine engines could draw a
great many other things besides threshing machines, and the
business grew to large proportions.
Mr. Aveling made an engine with valve and valve-gear from
my drawings, and I took a ride with him on it from Rochester to
London, the engine drawing two trucks loaded with the two halves
of a fly-wheel. The performance was entirely satisfactory. He
said the engine was handled more easily than any other he ever
made, and it maintained its speed in going up hill in a manner to
astonish him, which was accounted for by the double valve opening.
The little engine ran very rapidly, about 300 revolutions per min-
ute, being geared down to a slow motion of the machine, about 4
miles travel per hour. With a single opening for admission it had
BRIGHT PROSPECTS 171
admitted only a partial pressure of the steam, but the double
opening valve admitted very nearly the whole pressure and made
a sharp cut-off, all which I showed by the indicator. He told me
that he was then filling a large order for traction engines for Aus-
tralia, and this valve and valve-gear were the very thing for them.
I went back to Manchester happy in the satisfaction of having
accomplished one thing in the engine line at any rate.
A few weeks after, being in London, I went to Rochester to
see how the new valve-gear was progressing. The first thing I
saw was my valve and valve-gear hanging up in the storeroom.
Mr. Aveling explained to me that he had been advised by engineers,
whose advice by his contract with his financial partner he was
obliged to follow, that the narrow faces on my valve would wear
away faster than the wider faces, and the valve would come to
leak, and if he put it on his engine it would ruin his business.
He did not believe it; it seemed to him absurd, but he was
powerless.
This was the nearest approach I ever made myself towards
the introduction of this valve. In 1875 I seemed to have a
promising opening. I received a note from Mr. M. N. Forney,
then editor of the Railway Gazette, calling my attention to this
valve and its description in his "Catechism of the Locomotive,"
just published, and stating that this was the only patented in-
vention in the book.
He added that he had had conferences with Mr. Buchanan,
foreman of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad
repair shops in New York City, about trying this valve on their
locomotives, and Mr. Buchanan would like to see me.
On my calling, Mr. Buchanan asked me what arrangement I
was willing to make. I replied that they might put the valve on
six locomotives free of royalty. If these valves worked well I
would give them a license on liberal terms. He said he had an
express locomotive then in the shop for which he was making new
cylinders; these were already bored and the valve seats planed,
but not yet trimmed, and in this state there was room to put in
these valves, which he would do; they would be ready in about
a fortnight, when he would send me word, and would be glad to
have me go up to Albany and back on the locomotive and incli-
172 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
cate the engines. I have been waiting for that "word" ever
since.
A few days after I met in the street an acquaintance, who
asked me if Mr. Buchanan had agreed to put the Allen valve on
an engine. I replied that he had. Why, said he, Buchanan will
no more dare put that valve on unless Commodore Vanderbilt
orders him to, than he would to cut his head off. He will never
persuade the old man to give that order, and you will never hear
of it again; and I never did.
The recollection of another experience with Mr. Aveling has
often amused me. He had an order from the Chatham Dock
Yard for a stationary engine of perhaps 100 horse-power. It was
to be inspected in operation before its acceptance by the gov-
ernment. He wrote me to come down and bring my indicator
and assist him in exhibiting it running under a friction brake in
his shop.
At the hour appointed the inspector appeared, accompanied
by half-a-dozen young officers. He spoke to no one, observed the
engine in operation, took the diagrams from my hand, asked no
question, but proceeded to discourse to his followers on the engine.
I could hardly believe my senses as I listened to the absurdities
that he gravely got off; not a sentence was intelligible. I can see
Mr. Aveling now quietly winking at me, as we stood with respect-
ful gravity till he had finished, when he turned and marched off
without noticing anybody. This was my only personal encounter
with the English official mind.
CHAPTER XVI
Return to America Disappointment. My Shop. The Colt Armory Engine
designed by Mr. Richards. Appearance of Mr. Goodfellow. My Surface
Plate Work. Formation of a Company
N June, 1868, having completed my preparations, I
bade what has proven to be a long good-by to Eng-
land, and buoyant with anticipations turned my face
homeward. During the voyage mymind dwelt con-
stantly on the bright career for which it clearly appeared that
my experience in England was the fit preparation, and on my
projected work, every detail of which I revolved over and over
in imagination.
The first thing after I got home I made an important discovery,
one of that kind which generally men have to make for them-
selves. My discovery was this: Put not your trust in riches,
especially when they belong to another man. Mr. Hope had
made the blunder of relying on a single capitalist. I had expected
to find at least half-a-dozen subscribers to a capital of not less
than $100,000. His single financial associate and reliance was
a gentleman of wealth, retired from active business, and whom I
introduce to the reader as Mr. Smith. Under his direction Mr.
Hope had written to me the invitation and promise to which I
have already referred. The wealth and the ideas of Mr. Smith
seemed to be in inverse proportion to each other. The greatness
of the former was represented by the smallness of the latter. He
entered with earnestness and energy into our work — according
to his own plans. He paid no regard to my suggestions, and
instead of heeding my request to postpone definite action until
my return he hurried his scheme to completion so that I would
find everything settled beyond the possibility of my interference.
173
174 ENGIXEERIXG REMINISCEXCES
In Harlem, then a somewhat remote and quite dead suburb
of New York, on Fourth Avenue between 130th and 131st streets,
within a block or two of the termination of the avenue on the
Harlem River, he found a little abandoned foundry, about 40
feet square, with a lean-to in the rear, used for cleaning castings.
It had been dismantled and idle for several years, never, of course,
had a floor, and the windows were broken. This he hailed as the
very place he wanted, and at once leased it for five years at a
small rent, with the ground belonging to it, extending from
130th to 131st Street, 200 feet front by 100 feet deep, and vacant,
except this building and a little office, 10X15 feet, on the upper
corner.
He then turned his attention to providing the "ample capital."
My governor shop on West Thirteenth Street had during my long
absence been run quite successfully by my faithful foreman, Nelson
Aldrich. Mr. Smith planned to remove this shop to Harlem, and
to furnish Mr. Allen money enough to enable him to enter into an
equal partnership with me, adding the engine business to my
governor manufacture. Everything in my shop was appraised
at the round sum of $10,000, and this magnificent amount, as he
regarded it, he advanced to Mr. Allen as a loan. Mr. Allen had put
his savings of several years into a little home in Tremont, a village
on the line of the railroad, some three or four miles above the
Harlem River. This place had cost him $2500. Mr. Smith told
Mr. Allen that he must secure him the repayment of this loan, so
far as he could do so, by the mortgage of his house and lot. This
demand caused Mr. Allen great distress and half killed his wife.
Mr. Smith was inexorable — no mortgage, no money. Mi . Allen
thought of a scheme for outwitting him, and the mortgage was
executed and the money paid over. He applied this first to mak-
ing the premises habitable, laying a floor and putting a floor above,
which would give a story under the roof, and the beams of which
would carry the shafting for driving the tools. He repaired the
broken windows and put windows in the front gable to light the
new upper story, put on a new roof, installed a portable engine
and boiler, and equipped a little smith shop in the lean-to. My
tools, etc., were then moved into their new quarters. These tools
were all small. In order to make engines some larger ones would
RETURN TO AMERICA DISAPPOINTMENT 175
be needed. Mr. Allen procured from the firm of Hewes & Phillips,
Newark, N. J., a very good planer, large enough to pass work
4 feet wide and high, and a 20-inch lathe. When this installa-
tion was completed, Mr. Allen had expended $7500. Then he
st ipped making purchases and said nothing. The work of my
governor manufacture was resumed, and nothing more attempted.
This was the state of affairs that stared me in the face on my
return. The shop had been running about a fortnight. Mr.
Smith told me had had supplied all the money he expected to.
Mr. Allen said he had not obliged himself to put all the money
loaned him into the business, and the amount for which he had
mortgaged his house was in a safe place, where it could be got
when wanted to pay off that mortgage.
I was stupefied. As I began to realize my utter helplessness, I
broke down entirely. What rational motive could any man have
had in getting me home and leaving me powerless to do anything?
Had I imagined the character of his plans I should have remained
in England, signed anything that Mr. Whitworth wanted me to, and
trusted Providence and Mr. Hoyle for the result. The absurdity of
the case presented itself to me sometimes in its humiliating and
sometimes in its ludicrous aspect, according to my mood. After a
while I saw that I must reconcile myself to the situation, and see
what could be done under the circumstances. We could only do
a little business in making small non-condensing engines. Not
more than from 15 to 20 men could work in the shop. As for
facilities for handling machinery, there were none. We yet needed
several expensive tools. We had to make patterns; we must
have money to run the place until returns came in. I laid the
matter before Mr. Smith. First of all, that mortgage must be
discharged; I would not stir till that was done. He had over-
reached himself. I rejoiced that Mr. Allen had got the better of
him. It would be idle to set about the business without at least
$10,000 additional capital; this I finally got, and, with the
advance to Mr. Allen, made free from interest, by assigning the
entire indicator patents to Mr. Smith and Mr. Hope. As it turned
out, we bought that money at an enormous price; but we did not
know this at the time. We must have money and this was the
only way to get it. We congratulated ourselves that by any sac-
176 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
rifice we had secured the sum of $20,000 and without the burden
of interest.
Now I took heart and set at work in earnest, feeling sure that
I could soon bring the engine into a position that would command
the means required to do it justice. I ordered from Smith &
Coventry a stationary drilling machine, a 6-inch slotting machine,
a bolt-threading machine, and a set of cylindrical gauges, and had
them all in place by the time we were ready to use them. This
bolt-threading machine was a wonder, and has not been surpassed
since. The rod was fed through a hollow spindle, seized in the
jaws of a self-centering chuck, and the projecting end finished.
The threading dies were backed by eccentric wedges in a solid
ring, which was turned out of the way during the sliding opera-
tion. Tliisc were closed or opened by a lever which carried a stud
moving in a circular slot. This stud was brought up to a stop,
which could be set to cut threads of any depth. The threads
were finished in a single motion. For standing bolts, we
threaded one end, so that it screwed hard into its seat, and by
movintr the stop a trifle the threads on the other end were cut
deeper, so that the nuts turned on it more easily. The rapidity,
uniformity and precision with which this was done could not be
surpassed.
Smith A: Coventry had lately commenced the manufacture of
cylindrical gauges, of which up to that time Mr. Whitworth had
had the monopoly. Flat gauges did not then exist. The above
tools were almost incredibly superior to these then made in this
country. 1 was anxious for one of their radial drills, but had no
place to set it. I adopted the Franklin Institute screw-thread,
and obtained a set of hobs from William Sellers t \r Co. I equipped
our little office to accommodate one draftsman besides myself,
and soon had a good man at work, engaged mostly in preparing
drawings from the tracings T had brought from England. The
story over the shop, in the middle half of which a man could
stand upright, was made a pattern shop, and two patternmakers
were soon at work there. They found the shop very hot. The
roof was covered with paper and tar. I could not bear my hand
on the under side of the roof boards. I whitewashed the roof,
making the whitewash rainproof, and this heat entirely disappeared.
MY SHOP 177
I have borne in mind this interesting result, the complete
prevention of heat absorption by changing the color of the sur-
face to one absolutely white; and am now proposing a similar
change in brick boiler settings and chimneys, using white enameled
tiles, which also prevent percolation of the external air.
I will improve the time while we are waiting for this preparatory
work to be finished by telling of two Allen engines already running
and made in the United States. The first one had been made by
my old friend Mr. Richards, the inventor of the indicator. He
was at that time the engineer of the Colt Armory in Hartford.
They built a new shop four stories in height and 500 feet long.
Mr. Richards designed and arranged the power in this shop and
its transmission. He adopted the Allen engine, with which he
alone in this country was familiar. I have written to Professor
Richards for a description of these engines and received the fol-
lowing reply:
" 227 Edwards St ., New Haven, Ct.
'' October 9, 1903.
" Dear Mr. Porter:
"In a sort of way you rather stole a march on me, by writing
me before I had written to you, for it had been my intention for
a number of weeks to write, thanking you for the frequent men-
tion of my name in your 'Reminiscences' and for the kindly way
in which you have spoken of me. Your papers have interested
me greatly and bring back recollections of times which were for
me very happy, when I first made your acquaintance and after-
wards enjoyed the intimacy which grew up.
" My neglect to write came from my almost unsurmountable
repugnance to letter writing, which, if anything, grows yearly.
"I am as nervous as usual, but in excellent strength, and by
putting sulphur in my boots (and wearing the boots) am apparently
pretty much cured of rheumatism. My students and I get along
together very well ; there are, however, so many of them now that
I feel quite overwhelmed at times. About fifty men come to my
classes, and in my department there are in all about one hundred
and forty.
"Now for the Colt's Armory engines. There are two pairs in
line with each other, vertical engines, Porter-Allen type, in the
second story and in the middle of the building, which is 500 feet
long. The line shaft, stretching 250 feet each way from the ,
engines, forms an extension of the engine crank-shaft. Between
178 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
the engines are pulleys driving the first-story line shaft beneath
them and the third-story line above. All 500 feet long. Cylinder
bore, 12^ inches; stroke, 24 inches; speed, 130 revolutions per
minute.
" The dimensions and general form of the running gear were
made from drawings sent to me by you. The valve-gear differs
only in divorcing the exhaust valves from the steam valves by
placing them on the opposite side of the cylinder and driving them
from a separate eccentric on that side, and not from the link.
" The framing for each engine of a pair is like a Porter bed stand-
ing on end with two posts forming what would be the lower part
of the bed if it were lying down. There are therefore eight posts
in the two pairs of engines, which form the second-story columns of
Card from Allen Engine in Colt's Armory.
the framing of the building, and the whole framing of the engines
makes an integral part of the building construction, being rigidly
connected with the beams of the fireproof flooring of all three
floors. The building is four stories high.
"The engines were started in 1867. They have been in con-
tinuous service ever since. Ten or twelve years ago I had an
opportunity to measure the thickness of the crowns of the crank-
pin boxes. They did not differ perceptibly from the thickness
marked on the drawing from which they were made. Knowing
the accuracy with which the work was made to correspond with the
drawings (gun-shop work), I am confident that the wear of the
box after twenty-six years of service had not amounted to five
one-thousandths of an inch. All the parts give evidence of an
almost indefinite durability.
All the work except that on the governors was done in the
shops of the Colt company. The beds were cast in the foundry
of one of the distinguished old engine-builders of Hartford, who
Professor Charles B. Richards
THE COLT ARMORY ENGINE 179
felt it his duty to call on General Franklin, the general manager
of the company, to warn him that if Richards were permitted to
put a number of 75 horse-power engines running at 100 revolu-
tions per minute, in the second story of a great building like the
armory, disaster was certain. The building would be shaken so
terribly. The fact is that any one standing on the third floor
directly over the cranks would not know, from the movement of
the floor or from sound, that the engines were running. The
usual steam pressure carried when I was in the armory was from
50 to 60 pounds. The boilers then were large, of the drop-flue
type.
"Enclosed is a card taken in 1878 with the 'pantographic '
indicator, for which a silver medal was awarded me at Paris in that
year. The particular indicator with which this card was taken
is in the Museum of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers.
"Very sincerely yours,
"C. B. Richards."
This bold and successful piece of engineering would have made
easy the introduction of these engines in New England.
The second engine had been built by a prominent iron works
in New York, from Mr. Allen's drawings, for a paint mill in South
Brooklyn. Both names I have forgotten. Mr. Allen took me to see
this engine soon after I came home. It had then been running for
a year or more, and had given high satisfaction. Its local influence
was found quite valuable to us. This engine is memorable for the
following reason : Ten years afterwards, while building engines in
Newark, I received from Mr. Mathieson, manager of the National
Tube Works in McKeesport, Pa., a letter containing an invitation
to make him a tender for two large Allen engines, the largest I had
yet attempted, and which resulted in my building these engines for
him. After they were successfully running, Mr. Mathieson told me
how he came to write me. He said he was the superintendent of
the iron works in New York in which Mr. Allen had this engine
built, and was very much impressed by its advantages, especially
after he saw it in operation ; and in planning this mill these engines
seemed to be just what he wanted.
In preparing for the engine manufacture one of my first aims
was the production of true surface plates for finishing my guide-
bars, cross-heads, valves, and seats, and cylinder and steam-chest
ISO
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
Sectional and Front Elevations of One of the Two Pairs of Porter- Allen Engines
in the Colt Armory, Hartford, Conn.
THE COLT ARMORY
181
Sectional and Side Elevations of One of the Two Pairs of Porter- Allen Engines in
the Colt Armory, Hartford, Conn,
182
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
joints, all of which I made steam-tight scraped joints requiring no
packing. This was a new departure in steam-engine work in this
country. I fancied myself an expert in the art, but found out that
there was one degree at least that I had not taken. I designed
several sizes of surface plates, intended primarily to fit the guide-
bars of the engines, and also straight edges 6 feet in length by 2\
inches wide. These are represented in the accompanying cuts.
I found still working in my governor shop a man named Meyers.
He was the best fitter I ever had; had fitted every governor made
SECTION ON THE LiNE A-B
SURFACE PLATE
SIDE VIEW
Surface Plates Designed by Mr. Porter.
fipran
in my shop, the little engine or the parts of it that I took to
England, and long before had fitted my stone-cutting machine in
Mr. Banks' shop. This man I taught all I knew about the art of
producing true planes by the system of scraping, and he produced
surface plates and straight edges that seemed to me quite perfect.
The following incident illustrates the general intelligence on
this subject at that time among skilled workmen in this country.
As I was inspecting Mr. Meyers' first work in scraping, my foreman
came along, and after observing it quite a while remarked, "It is
my opinion you will never make a proper job of that, till you put
it on the planer and take a light cut over it."
One day, not long after we started, George Goodfellow walked
into my shop. He had come from the Whitworth works, had been
APPEARANCE OF MR. GOODFELLOW 1§ 3
foreman there of the upstairs room in which most of the fine scrap-
ing on their tools was clone. I had a slight acquaintance with him,
but could not remember having been in his room but once, and
then only for a minute or two. He had become disgusted with
Mr. Widdowson and the way things were going on under his man-
agement, and had resigned his position and emigrated to the United
States; found out where I was hiding, I never learned how, and
applied to me for a job, which I was glad to give him. I cannot
imagine any greater contrast than between Mr. Goodfellow and
every other man I met in the Whitworth shops.
I had then on hand two orders for standard surface plates and
straight edges, one from the Colt Armory and one from Pratt &
Whitney. Mr. Meyers had just finished work on these when Mr.
Goodfellow appeared. He had not been at work in the shop but a
day or two when he asked me if I had got the cross-wind out of
those straight edges.
I made him the ignorant answer that they were so narrow the
matter of cross-wind had not occurred to me as important, as our
planer did very true work. He said nothing, but pulled a hair out
of his head and laid it across a straight edge at its middle point.
He then inverted another straight edge on it and swung this on the
hair as a pivot. It swung in one direction freely, but in the other
direction the corners caught and it was revealed that the surfaces
were spirals. I gave hiin the job of taking out this twist. He
was occupied about two days in making the three interchangeable
straight edges quite true. When finished I tried them with great
satisfaction, the test showing also their absolute freedom from
flexure. The first swing on the hair pivot was in each direction
as if the upper straight edge were hanging in the air. As this was
repeated back and forth, I felt the surfaces gradually approaching
each other, the same increasing resistance being felt in each direc-
tion of the swing, and finally they were in complete contact. What
became of the hair I could not find out. This refinement of truth,
so easily attained and demonstrated when we know how, was of
course a necessity. I made the engines at that time with the
steam-chest separate from the cylinder; so two long steam joints
had to be made between cylinder, chest, and cover.
I fitted up these standards, both surface plates and straight
184 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
edges, with their edges scraped also to true planes and all their
angles absolute right angles. For this and other purposes I made
two angle plates, each face 8 inches square, with diagonal ribs.
These were scraped so that when the two were set on a surface
plate, either surface of one would come in complete contact with
either surface of the other, and also when one or the other was set
on its edges. This angle plate also is shown.
For our screw-thread work I made a pair of steel 60-degree
standards, the truth of which was demonstrated as follows: The
outside gauge being set up on a surface plate, the inside triangular
block set on the surface plate passed through the former in exact
contact, whichever angle was up and whichever side was presented.
From the cylindrical gauges of Smith & Coventry I made flat inside
and outside gauges of steel with faces hardened, reserving the former
for reference only. I had wondered why this was not done in
England. Presume they have learned the importance of it long
ago.
"We could not advertise — the fact is I was ashamed to; but
we had as many orders as we could take with our very limited
means of production. Indeed, we had frequent applications which
called for engines too large for us to consider them. We had some
applications from parties who were short of power, and on measur-
ing their engines with the indicator always found that we could
supply their requirements by putting in smaller engines. In one
case I remember we put in an engine of just one half the size, and
requiring but one quarter the weight of fly-wheel, of the one taken
out, and gave them all the additional power they wanted, and
more uniform motion. This would seem an extravagant state-
ment were not its reasonableness proved by the experience of
makers of high-speed engines generally. Sometimes the indi-
cator showed ludicrous losses of pressure between boiler and
engine.
On account of his familiarity with the requirements of more
exact construction, I made Mr. Goodfellow my foreman after he
had been with me a short time, and he proved to be the very man
for the position. He made all my engines in Harlem and after-
wards in Newark, and I was largely indebted to him for my
success.
FORMATION OF A COMPANY 185
Before the close of our first year Mr. Smith proposed that our
business be transferred to a company, to which he would pay in a
little additional money, in consideration of which, and of his pre-
vious advances to the business, he demanded a controlling interest
in the stock. I did not like the idea, but Mr. Hope and Mr. Allen
favored it, and I consented. So the company was incorporated.
Mr. Smith was made its president, and one of his sons was made sec-
retary and treasurer. He transferred to this son and also to another
one qualifying shares of his stock, and both were added to the
board of directors, that making six of us. The admirable way in
which this machinery worked will appear by and by.
Mr. Smith proceeded at once to get out a catalogue and build on
the vacant lot a new business office, of quite respectable size and
two stories high, finishing the second story for Mr. Goodfellow with
his family to live in. When this building was ready Mr. Smith
installed himself in the office and busied himself in meddling and
dictating about the business, impressing me with the great advan-
tage of having a thorough business man at the head of it. If I
ventured any word on this subject, I always received the sneering
reply, "What do you know about business? " The following inci-
dent in this connection may amuse the reader as much as it did me.
I may mention in the first place that when, as already stated, he
with Mr. Hope acquired the entire indicator patents, of which he
assumed the individual management and so I always supposed
had secured the larger part, the first thing he did was to repudiate
my agreement with Mr. Richards to pay to him 10 per cent,
of the receipts from the patents, this being a verbal agreement (as
all the transaction was), and so Mr. Richards never received
another penny.
One morning Mr. Smith came into my office and said, "Do you
know that the license to Elliott Brothers to manufacture the indi-
cators has expired? " I had licensed them only for seven years,
not knowing whether or not they would prove satisfactory licensees.
"Well," said I, "suppose it has? " "Would you let them go on
without a license?" he demanded; "that shows how much you
know about business." "If it were my affair," I replied, "I should
not stir it up. I see every reason for letting it alone. It is the
business of the licensee, if he feels unsafe, to apply for the exten-
186 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
sion of his license." With a contemptuous sneer Mr. Smith left
me and immediately wrote Elliott Brothers, reminding them that
their license had expired and requesting an answer by return mail
to say if they wanted to renew it.
He received the answer that I knew he would, for what good
business man ever lets such an opening go by him? They said
they were just on the point of writing him that they did not wish
to renew unless on very different terms. By the contract they
made with me they paid a royalty of £2 on each indicator sold at
retail, and £1 10 shillings on each one sold at wholesale. The
selling price was £8 10 shillings. They made a large profit on
extra springs, of which they sold a great number at 10 shillings
each, and which cost them about 2 shillings. They wrote at
length on the difficulty of holding the market against the com-
petition of cheap indicators selling at £4 (which was just the
competition against which the indicator was at first introduced
but which had long before ceased to be serious) and closed by
saying that if Mr. Smith would agree to accept one half the former
royalty, they would themselves make a corresponding reduction in
their profits and would be able to put the indicators at a price
that would probably make the business satisfactory. Otherwise
they would find themselves compelled to discontinue the manufac-
ture altogether, which they should do unless they received an
affirmative reply at once. Of course they got the affirmative
reply. Mr. Smith had no alternative. They never reduced the
selling price one penny. They had no competition during the
life time of the patent, and their sales were enormous. The
amount of royalties lost during the remaining seven years of the
patent was certainly not less than $35,000.
The following is a story with a moral. The moral is, working
to gauges is an excellent plan, providing the gauges are mixed
with brains. No manufacturing system is perfect that is not fool-
proof. If a mistake is possible it is generally made.
A company of English capitalists were spending a good deal of
money on the west coast of South America in building railroads into
and over the Andes. One of these roads was intended to reach a
famous silver mine, from which the Spaniards, two or three hun-
dred years before, had taken large quantities of the precious metal,
WORKING TO GAUGES 187
but which had long ago been drowned out and abandoned. The
railroad was to take up pumping machinery by which the mine
could be cleared of water and to bring down the ore in car-load
lots. For some purpose or other they wanted a stationary engine
in those high altitudes, and their agent in this country ordered one
from me. I was having my fly-wheels and belt drums cast by Mr.
Ferguson, whose foundry was on 13th Street, west of Ninth Avenue,
some seven miles distant from my shop in Harlem. He had a
wheel-lathe in which I could have them turned and bored, and
they were bored to gauges and shipped direct to their destinations.
This time I had two wheels to be finished, so I sent the gauges with
a tag attached to each describing the wheel it was for, but neglected
to go and make a personal inspection of the work. Some months
after I received a bitter letter from South America, complaining
that they found the wheel had been bored half an inch smaller
than the shaft, and that they had to chip off a quarter of an inch
all around the hole where the barometer stood at 17 inches, and
physical exertion was something to be avoided. The case was
somewhat relieved by the fact that I always cored out a larger
chamber in the middle of the hub for the purpose of getting rid of
a mass of metal which would cause the hub to cool too slowly, fin-
ishing only a length of two inches at each end of the hub, which
was 10 or 12 inches long. As the engine had been paid for on ship-
ment and ran well when put together, there was no great harm
done, but I was sorry for the poor fellows who had to do the work.
Except the one already mentioned in my first governor pulley, ten
or twelve years before, this was the only misfit I can recall in my
whole experience.
Mr. Ferguson told me the best piece-work story I ever heard.
He said he had a contract for making a large number of the bases
for the columns of the elevated railroad; these castings were
quite large and complicated. He gave the job to his best molder,
but the man could turn out only one a day. He thought it was
slow work and spoke to him about it, but he protested that was
all he could make. Mr. Ferguson found he could never complete
his contract at that rate, and as he was paying the man three
dollars a day, he told him he would pay him three dollars for each
perfect casting and asked him to do his best and see how many
188 ENGIXEER1NG REMINISCENCES
he could turn out. The man employed a boy to help him, and by
systematizing his work he turned out six perfect castings every
day and drew his eighteen dollars with supreme indifference. This
is a big story to swallow, but the incident was then recent. I had
the story from Mr. Ferguson himself, and he was a sterling, reliable
man, so that there could be no doubt as to its absolute truth.
CHAPTER XVJI
Mr. Allen's Invention of his Boiler. Exhibition at the Fair of the American
Institute in 1870
T that time the "Field boiler tubes" were attracting
considerable attention in London. These were de-
signed to prevent the water from being lifted from
the closed bottom of vertical tubes over the fire,
which would cause them to be burned out. The Field tubes were
smaller internal tubes, provided at the upper end with three
wings which centered them in the middle of the external tubes,
in which they reached nearly to the bottom. They were made
slightly bell-mouthed at the top. The circulation was down the
internal tube and upwards, through the annular space. The bell
mouth prevented these currents from interfering with each other.
One morning Mr. Allen said to me that he had an idea that
by inclining the tubes at a small angle from the vertical a better
circulation would be got than in the Field tubes. He thought
the steam as fast as formed would all go to the upper side of
the inclined tubes, and would rush up along that surface with-
out driving the water before it, and so the water would always
be at the bottom of the tube, no matter how hard the boiler was
fired. I was struck with the idea and determined to test it. I got
the largest test-tube I could find, 1\ inches in diameter ami 15
inches long, and set it in an adjustable support, and applied the
flame of four Bunsen burners, bunched together, at the bottom.
In a vertical position the water was instantly thrown clean out
of the tube. At about the angle of 20 degrees Mr. Allen's idea was
completely realized. The bubbles of steam united in a continuous
stream on the upper side and rushed up with no water before them.
189
190 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
With the most rapid generation of steam the water remained solid
at the bottom of the tube. The sight was a very interesting one.
T reasoned that it' this satisfactory result was got under a short
column of water, and only the pressure of the atmosphere and in
a small tube, it could certainly be relied upon under a column of
water several times longer, under a pressure of several atmospheres
and in a much larger tube. The greater the pressure the smaller
tin 1 bubbles o( steam would be. Those formed under one atmos-
phere were about as large as kidney beans.
Mr. Smith was anxious to have us exhibit the engine at the
Fair of the American Institute in New York in the fall of 1870.
This Institute was then at the height of its usefulness, and its
annual fairs were crowded with exhibits and attracted wide atten-
tion. Mr. Allen and 1 consulted about it, and on account of the
liability of getting more hot water than steam from the queer
boilers that might be exhibited, we agreed that, as the engine
would have to be tested for economy, it would not be safe to exhibit
unless we could make a boiler according to Mr. Allen's plan to
supply the steam. With this boiler we could certainly get dry
sham, and felt confident of getting it superheated.
Our recommendation to that effect was adopted, and we pre-
pared to exhibit (wo engines, one of them 10 inches diameter of
cylinder by 30 inches stroke to make L50 revolutions per minute,
and the other 6 inches in diameter by 12 inches stroke to make 300
revolutions per minute, and a boiler. We also made (o drive our
own shop, to take 1 the place of the portable engine and boiler, an
engine of the smaller size above named, except that the cylinder
was, by thickening its walls, made 5 inches in diameter only. This
was because this size would be ample for the power we required,
and I would be able to show the effect of inertia of the heavy
reciprocating parts in producing smooth and silent running, much
better than with a 0-inch cylinder, which would have about 50 per
cent, larger area with no greater weight in the reciprocating parts,
except only in the piston. This exhibition, as we shall see. became
of great importance. We made also an Allen boiler for ourselves,
of four sections; really, as it proved, three or four times as large
as we needed, but we could not well make it smaller.
This exhibition at the American Institute was in every respect
MB. ALLEN'S INVENTION OF HIS BOILER 191
a great success, not a drawback of any kind about it. The little
engine was used by Merrill & Sons to drive their exhibit of forging
machinery, hammers and drops. The large engine gave motion
to a miscellaneous exhibit of machinery in motion. The exhibi-
tion of machinery in motion closed each day for an hour from 12
to 1, and again from 6 to 7, but I ran these engines continuously
from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., to show that high speed asked no favors.
There were five boilers, including our own, from the start. The
other four were smaller than ours. Another boiler, the largest of
all except ours, was started later, as will be told. Ours had a
brick flue and chimney, but only 30 feet high. Those of the
others were iron. There were a number of other engines and
pumps and pulsometers, all steam eaters.
It was found impossible to keep up steam. It fell to half
pressure every day before stopping time came.
One morning, about a week after the opening, on my arrival
my friend Mr. Lee, who was superintendent of the machinery
department, came to me and said, "Do you know what they are
all saying about here?" "No," I replied. "Well," said he,
"you ought to know. It is that your engines use all the steam,
and your boiler does not make any, and that is where all the trouble
is." I replied: "I am ready for them. You see that valve up
there. I put it in expressly to meet whatever questions might
arise. By closing it I can shut my system off from the general
steam connections and run my two engines from my own boiler,
and will try to get on without their assistance." So a ladder was
brought and I went up and shut the valve. Directly my pressure
rose to 70 pounds, the pressure allowed; my automatic damper
closed as nearly as it was permitted to do, and the steam began
to blow off. To prevent this, the fireman had to set his door a
little way open, and in this condition we ran all day. In the rest
of the show the steam ran down until at noon there was barely 15
pounds pressure, but the wrath of the exhibitors of machinery
driven by other engines was blowing off. After the noon hour
the additional boiler was started and helped them a good deal,
so that, starting with 70 pounds at 1 o'clock, at 5 o'clock they
still had 25 pounds pressure.
Mr. Lee asked me several times during the day to open the
192 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
valve and I refused to do it. Finally, at about 5 o'clock, he said
to me, "If you don't open that valve, I shall." "Well," said I,
"there will be a number of the managers of the Institute here at
this hour, I presume, and if you will send for them and have them
come here and see the state of the case for themselves then I will
open the valve." So this was done. Half a dozen of these gentle-
men came and made an inspection of the boilers and said to me:
"We are quite satisfied. It is evident that you have been supply-
ing most of the steam and using very little." So I opened the
valve and there was no further trouble. The assistance of the large
boiler added that day prevented any serious fall of pressure
afterwards.
A few days after the above incident a committee of the man-
agers waited on me and said: "We have heretofore had a good
deal of trouble with our steam supply, and would like next year
to have a boiler that we can rely upon. What will you ask to
leave this boiler here for our use next season? " I agreed with
them for three hundred dollars, and so the boiler remained for the
next exhibition, when there will be something more to be said
about it and views of it will be shown. That winter Barnum win-
tered his animals in that building, and paid me three hundred
dollars more for the use of the boiler to warm it. In my ignorance
of business these items of good luck came in very handy. Mr.
Allen said he never heard of a new thing so successful from the
start.
The remark respecting my exhibit of engines and boiler at the
fair of the American Institute n 1870, that there was not a draw-
back of any kind about it, must, however, be qualified in one re-
spect. I was not able to run my 16X30 engine at the speed of
150 revolutions per minute, as I had intended.
A blunder had been made in the size of the driven pulley on
the line of shafting. It was smaller than specified, because the
contractor for the shafting put on a pulley he had, and this was
not observed till we were running, when it was too late to change
it. The exhibitors of machinery in motion all complained that
their machines were running too fast, and after two or three days
the directors ordered me to reduce the speed of my engine to 125
revolutions per minute, at which speed it was run through the
MR. ALLEN'S INVENTION OF RIS BOILER 193
rest of the fair. I was much disappointed, but consoled myself
with thinking that perhaps this speed would please the general
public better than the higher one, the engine even then being three
or four times too large for its work.
The boiler gave me at the engine steam superheated 23 degrees
all the time. This I proved by transposing the thermometers.
I had two thermometers, duplicates, one on the steam-chest and
the other on the first boiler drum, in which the steam was not
superheated. The former indicated 23 degrees higher tempera-
ture. When these were exchanged the same difference continued
to be shown.
I was greatly interested in observing in my own and other en-
gines the relative amounts of initial cylinder condensation, as this
was shown in the steam blown from the indicator stop-cocks. I
had one of these on my steam-chest, and the steam blown from this
was not visible until three or four inches above it. That blown
from the stop-cocks on my cylinder had a very little tinge of white,
showing the superheating to have been lost and a slight initial
condensation to take place. As the piston advanced, the blowing
steam became invisible, showing re-evaporation, through the falling
of the boiling-point on the expansion.
On other engines, of which several were exhibited, the observa-
tion showed large amounts of initial condensation. From one of
them I remember the blowing steam looked like a white painted
stick.
I observed that the steam only lost three degrees of its super-
heat in passing through 25 feet of 6-inch pipe from the boiler to
the engine. For this comparison I placed a thermometer on the
second steam drum, in which the steam was superheated, where
it showed about 26 degrees of superheat. This measured the rate
at which the heat was lost through the felt covering of the pipe,
and suggested an excellent method of comparing the protective
value of different coverings under absolutely the same condi-
tions.
The superheating of the steam for our own engine was not
affected by the connection of our steam-pipe with those of the
other engines. The explanation of this phenomenon seemed to
be that as our boiler generated far more steam than our own
194
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
engines required, the current was always from our pipe into the
connected pipes.
I was here first made alive to the enormous waste of steam in
the feed-pumps, a separate one for every boiler, including our own.
In these the steam has to follow full stroke, at a pressure sufficient,
on the larger area of the steam piston, to overcome the pressure
in the boiler. Moreover, the extreme heat interval between the
temperatures of the entering and the exhaust steam and the slow
Diagram from Allen Engin ■■, back end of cylinder, at Fair of
American Institute, 1870.
motion, permitting the walls of cylinder, heads and piston to be
cooled very deeply by the exhaust, produces the condensation of
probably from five to ten times as much steam as is usefully em-
ployed, differing according to the rate of piston motion. I began
to rather admire the practice of the English, who knew nothing
about boiler feed-pumps, except those on the engine, and I cer-
tainly wonder that the genius did not arise long before he did,
who first thought of exhausting the feed-pump into the feed-water
THE FAIR OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE IN 1870 195
under atmospheric pressure only, so returning to the boiler all
the heat received in the pump that is not converted into the work
of overcoming the boiler pressure and the atmospheric resistance
or lost in external radiation.
The above diagram represents the performance of this engine
in its regular work. It shows distinctly the compression curve,
the points of cut-off and release, and the back pressure required to
expel the exhaust. It will be seen that the expansion fell to 5
pounds below the atmosphere. I have added to it a line repre-
senting the waste room in ports and clearance, and the theoretical
expansion curve plotted according to the law of Mariotte, showing
the expansion terminating 2.5 pounds above this curve, from the
re-evaporation already noted and the heat abandoned by the
steam as the pressure fell.
After the close of the fair this engine was run on several days,
under a variety of loads applied by a Prony brake, in the presence
of a number of engineers and others who had been invited to wit-
ness the trials. Of the diagrams taken on these trials, I find that
I have preserved only the two here shown, namely, a single friction
diagram from the back end of the cylinder, on a scale of 20 pounds
to the inch, and a diagram showing large power, taken from the
front or crank end, on a scale of 24 pounds to the inch. The
former shows the trifling loss from friction in this engine. I have
measured this card, and find the mean effective pressure, or
difference between the areas showing the excess of the forward
over the back pressure, to be 1.1 pounds on the square inch,
which, assuming the opposite card to be equal with it, was the
friction of the engine. The exhaust line shows the power required
to reverse the direction of motion of the exhaust, which at the
end of the stroke was rushing back into the cylinder.
The latter is especially interesting as showing the identity of
the expansion curve with the theoretical, three points on which
are marked by the crosses. The sharp reaction of the indicator
while the crank was passing the dead center will also be observed.
After this trial I made a careful comparison of the diagrams
taken under the different loads with the friction diagrams, and
found the uniform results to be that the friction diagrams sub-
tracted from the diagrams taken under the load left in each
196 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
case, of six different loads, exactly the same effective work done
that was shown by the brake.
Scale 20
Friction Diagram from Allen Engine at Fair of American
Institute, 1870.
Diagram from Allen Engine, Fair of American Institute, 1870,
cutting off at I stroke.
From this I concluded that in these engines the use of the
friction brake is unnecessary; the friction is sensibly the same
under all loads, and the friction diagram only needs to be sub-
THE FAIR OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE IN 1870 197
tracted to learn from the diagram the amount of effective work
done.
The verdict of the judges, President Barnard of Columbia
College, Thomas J. Sloane, the proposer of the gimlet-pointed
wood screw, now in universal use, in place of the flat-ended screws
formerly used, and inventor of the special machinery required for
their manufacture, and Robert Weir, engineer in the Croton
Aqueduct department, may be summed up in the single expres-
sion from their report, "The performance of this engine is without
precedent." For its success I was largely indebted, first, to the
remarkable circulation and steam-generating power of the boiler,
and, second, to the superheating of the steam in the second drum.
CHAPTER XVIII
Demonstration to the Judges of Action of Reciprocating Parts. Explanation
of this Action. Mr. Williams' Instrument for Exhibiting this Action
MgAS.
waam
Bss.
HE subject of the equalizing action of the reciproca-
ting parts of the engine was not considered in the
report of the judges. Indeed, the speed of that
engine, 125 revolutions per minute, was not suffi-
cient to develop this action to any important extent. But there
was another reason behind that. I invited the judges directly
after the close of the fair, but before making their report, to
witness a demonstration of this action in my little shop engine,
which invitation was accepted by them, and the following ex-
hibition was made, but this was not alluded to in their report,
the reason of which will be given on a later page.
The engine had a 5-inch cylinder by 12 inches stroke, and
its regular speed was 300 revolutions per minute. I kept Satur-
day afternoon holiday, one of the good things I had brought from
England, and so on Saturday afternoon I had a clear field for
this exhibition.
I had previously prepared two governor pulleys to speed the
engine up to the increased speeds required, which speeds had
been ascertained by calculation. I was so certain of the correct-
ness of this calculation that I did not make any preliminary
trial, did not think of such a thing.
After running the engine for a short time at its usual speed,
I changed the governor pulley for the smaller one of the two
I had prepared, by which the speed would be increased to about
400 revolutions per minute, and loosened the crank-pin brasses
so that they were slack fully a thirty-second of an inch. On
198
President F. A. P. Baknard
EXPLANATION OF THIS ACTION 199
starting the engine in this condition, of course, it pounded vio-
lently on the crank-pin. As the speed was gradually permitted
to increase the knock softened, and just before the governor rose
it disappeared entirely, and at the calculated speed the engine
ran in entire silence.
After running in this manner for a while I prepared for the
second part of my show. I put the crank-pin brasses back to
their usual running adjustment, loosened the brasses of the cross-
head pin fully a thirty-second of an inch, and put on a larger
governor pulley, which, if I remember rightly, ran the engine at
ab iut 550 revolutions per minute. Under these conditions we
utilized only the inertia of piston, rod and crosshead, without
that of the connecting-rod.
On starting, the engine of course pounded heavily on the
cross-head pin. As the speed increased the same decrease in the
noise was observed as on the first trial, only later in the course
of the acceleration, and again just before the governor rose the
pounding had completely died away, and at the calculated speed
the engine ran again in entire silence.
Like everything else, this action seems mysterious until it comes
to be understood, when it is seen to be quite simple, as the follow-
ing explanation will show.
EXPLANATION OF THE ACTION OF THE RECIPROCATING PARTS OF
A HORIZONTAL STEAM ENGINE
Let us take a horizontal engine of 2 feet stroke, making 200
revolutions per minute, so having a piston travel or average
velocity of 800 feet per minute, which was my engine in the Paris
Exposition of 1867.
We will suppose the piston to be driven through the crank,
by which its motion is controlled, the power being got from some
other motor, and that the cylinder heads have been removed so
that the piston meets no resistance. We will also disregard the
effect of the angular vibration of the connecting-rod, and assume
the motion of the piston to be the same at each end of the cylinder.
On each stroke the crank does two things: First, it increases
the motion of the piston from a state of rest to a velocity equal
to the uniform velocity of the crank-pin in its circular path: and.
200
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
second, it brings the piston to rest again, ready to have the same
operation repeated in the reverse direction during the return
stroke.
At the mid-stroke the crank is at right angles with the line
of centers, and the velocity of the piston is 800X^=1256.64 feet
per minute, or 20.944 feet per second, and no pressure is being
exerted on the piston either to accelerate or retard its motion.
The pressure of the crank during a stroke, first to impart motion
to the piston and second to arrest this motion, is represented by two
opposite and equal triangles. Let the line AB, in the above figuie,
be the center line of a cylinder and its length represent the
length of the stroke. Let the line AC, normal to the line AB,
represent the force required to start the piston from a state of
rest. Then the triangle AOC will represent the accelerating
force that must be exerted on the piston at every point in the
half stroke to bring up its velocity, until at O this equals that
of the crank-pin in its circle of revolution, and the accelerating
force, diminishing uniformly, has ceased. The opposite equal
triangle BOD shows the resistance of the crank required to bring
the piston to rest again.
How do we know this?
I will answer this question by the graphical method, the only
one I know, and which I think will be understood by readers
generally.
First, we observe that the distance the piston must move
from the commencement to any point in the first half of its
stroke, in order that it ,:hall keep up with the crank, is the versed
sine of the angle which the crank then forms with the line of
EXPLANATION OF THIS ACTION 201
centers. So the table of versed sines tells us where the piston is
when the crank is at any point in its revolution, from to 90°.
For example, let the quadrant AB in the following figure repre-
sent the path of the crank, and the line AO that of the piston.
Let OF be the position reached by the crank. AOF is the angle
formed by the crank with line of centers, and
supposed to be 60°. FE normal to AO is
the sine of this angle, and AE the versed
sine. The latter is the distance traveled by
the piston from the point A, and is .5, the
length of the crank being 1.
Secondly, we ascertain how far the piston
must advance for every degree or minute
or second of the revolution of the crank in its quadrant by
merely subtracting from its versed sine that of the preceding
one. Thus the versed sine of 60° being .5, and that of 59° being
.4849619251, the difference .0150380749 is the motion of the
piston, or its mean velocity while the crank is traversing the
60th degree of its revolution.
Thirdly, we want to know the rate at which the motion of the
piston is accelerated during any interval.
This acceleration is found by subtracting from the motion
during each interval that during the preceding one. For example,
the motion of the piston during the 60th degree being, as al-
ready seen, .0150380749, and that during the 59th degree being
.0148811893, the difference between them, .0001568856, is the
acceleration or amount of motion added during the 60th degree.
By this simple process we find the acceleration of the piston
during the first degree of the revolution of the crank to be
.0003046096, and that during the 90th degree to be .0000053161.
But this latter is the amount by which the acceleration was
reduced during the preceding degree. Therefore at the end of
this degree the acceleration has ceased entirely.
Now, ( by erecting on the center line AC, at the end of each
degree, ordinates which are extensions of the sine of the angle,
and the lengths of which represent the acceleration during that
degree we find that these all terminate on the diagonal line CO.
Thus, when the crank has reached the 60th degree, and the piston
202 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
has advanced half the distance to the mid-stroke or to E, Fig. 32,
the acceleration during the 60th degree has been .0001523049,
or one half of that during the first degree.
But how do we know the amount of the accelerating force
exerted by the crank at the beginning of the stroke? This ques-
tion is answered as follows :
We find that for the first three degrees the accelerating force
is, for the purpose of our computations, constant, the diminution
not appearing until we have passed the sixth place of decimals.
Let us now suppose the crank 1 foot in length to make 1 revo-
lution per minute, so moving through 6° of arc in 1 second. At
this uniform rate of acceleration the piston would be moved in 1
second the versed sine of 1° .0001523048 X 6 2 = .0054829728 of a
foot.
A falling body uniformly accelerated by a force equal to its own
v. < ight moves in 1 second 16.083 feet. Therefore this uniform stress
on the crank is ' — 1g noo = .000341, which is the well-established
16.083
coefficient of centrifugal force — the centrifugal force of one pound
making one revolution per minute in a circle of one foot radius.
So we find that the height AC of this triangle represents the
centrifugal force of the reciprocating parts which, in any case,
we can ascertain by the formula
WRr 2 C,
W being the weight of the body;
R being the length of the crank;
r being the number of revolutions per minute, and
C being the coefficient .000341.
This accounts for the fact that the reciprocating parts are per-
fectly balanced by an equal weight revolving opposite the crank.
In my treatise on the Richards Indicator and the Develop-
ment and Application of Force in the Steam-engine, I have given
a full exposition of this action here briefly outlined, and to that
the reader is referred.
I have only to add that this computation is for horizontal
engines. In vertical engines the effect of gravity must be con-
sidered, adding on the upward stroke and deducting on the down-
EXPLANATION OF THIS ACTION 203
ward stroke. Also the counterbalance in the crank-disk of vertical
engines must be limited to the horizontal fling of the crank end of
the connecting-rod, and all balancing must be as nearly as possible
in the same plane.
In this respect double-crank engines have this advantage,
that one half of the counterweight can be put on each side of the
center line.
It is evident that the heavier the reciprocating parts and the
more rapid the speed the greater the security for smooth and
silent running. However loose the brasses and however sudden
the impact of the steam on the piston, and however early or late
the admission, there can be no sound or jar, if the inertia of the
reciprocating parts is sufficient to equal the force of the entering
steam, and if this is in excess it can do no harm. It is also evi-
dent that under these conditions at any point in the stroke the
change of pressure to the opposite side of the crank-pin is made
insensibly.
Some two or three weeks after this exhibition I received a note
from President Barnard asking me to call upon him. On my
responding to this invitation, he said to me that he had listened
to my exposition of this action before the Polytechnic Club of the
Institute, but he did not understand it; he had witnessed the
experiments with my shop engine, but while he could not ques-
tion the action in silencing all knock on the centers, still he did
not understand it, and not until he investigated the problem in
his own way by the method of the calculus did it become plain
to him, and he could not see how I had ever been able to arrive
at the exposition of the action without employing that method.
This explains why the subject had not been considered in the
report of the judges. President Barnard afterward kindly gave
me a copy of his demonstration, to insert in my book on the
Richards Indicator.
It seems appropriate to insert here the following letter received
long after from a very prominent engineer of that day.
"Long Branch, N. J., Aug. 7th, 1S72.
"Mr. Chas. T. Porter:
"My dear Sir: Since I had the pleasure of reading the paper
which you read before the Polytechnic Club last winter, I have
204 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
regarded your demonstration as not less original than subversive.
It is, for the first time I believe, apprehended and asserted, not
merely that the vis inertia of the reciprocating masses is not
primarily an adverse element in the economy of the crank-engine,
but that a certain amount of weight in the piston and its con-
nections, and in high-speed engines a very considerable amount,
is an absolute theoretical necessity.
"As this will be deemed rank heresy by folks who have been
making skeleton pistons of wrought iron, it is well perhaps that
you are entrenched at the outset behind the experimentum cruris
of loose brasses. " Very truly yours,
"Joseph Nason."
The following figures represent an elegant invention of Mr.
Edwin F. Williams, which exhibits graphically the acceleration
and retardation of the reciprocating parts of an engine.
In these views, A is the cross-head in its mid-position; B is
the lath by which the paper drum of an indicator is actuated
through the cord n. The lower end of this lath is fixed in its
position on the cross-head by the stud /, on which it turns freely.
y is the end of a vibrating arm, which permits the point of suspen-
sion of the lath B to fall below the position shown, as required
in the motion of the cross-head on account of the lower end of the
lath being so fixed, d is a cylindrical box, partly open, which is
secured on the side of the cross-head, in a position parallel with
motion, by the arm P. The end of this arm is on the stud j, inside
the lath B. It is prevented from turning on this stud by the set-
screw K, and its fixed position is further assured by the stud r.
In the box d is the cylindrical weight h, running freely on
rollers, not shown, and bored to receive a spring e, of known
strength. This spring is secured in two heads, one of which is
screwed into the box and the other into the weight. The force
required to move the weight h is thus applied to it through the
spring.
The operation of this instrument is as follows: The cross-head
being at its mid-stroke, as represented, has acquired its full velocity.
At this point no force is being exerted, either to impart or to
arrest its motion. The same is the case with the free weight h.
No pressure is here being exerted, either to compress or to elongate
the spring e.
Joseph Nason
EXPLANATION OF THIS ACTION
205
Apparatus for Graphically Showing the Acceleration and Retardation of the
Reciprocating Parts of an Engine.
206 ENGINEERIXG REMINISCENCES
Let the motion be in the direction from the crank. The crank
now begins insensibly, by pulling through the spring e, to arrest
the motion of the weight h. This pull will increase in intensity
to the end of the stroke, when the weight is brought to rest, and
the spring will become correspondingly elongated. Then, by a
continuance of the same pull, the crank puts the cross-head and
this free weight in motion in the reverse direction. This pull
gradually relaxes, until at the mid-stroke it has ceased. The
weight h has acquired its full velocity again; all stress is off the
spring, and the spring and weight are back in the positions in the
box d from which they started. This action is repeated during
the opposite half of the revolution, but in the reverse direction,
the pull being changed to a push, and the spring being compressed
instead of elongated. Thus at every point the position of this
free weight shows the amount of the accelerating or retarding
force that is being exerted upon it at that point, elongating or
compressing the spring.
This varying accelerating or retarding force is recorded as
follows: A paper b, Fig. 2, is stretched on the surface //. This
surface is the arc of a circle described about the center j, and is
secured on the lath B, so that as this lath vibrates by the motion
of the cross-head the different points in the length of the paper
pass successively under the pencil. This is set in the end of the
long arm a of the right-angled lever-arms 4 to 1 seen in Fig. 2,
which is actuated by the rod e passing centrally through the
spring and secured in the head c. This pencil has thus imparted
to it a transverse motion four times as great as the longitudinal
motion of the weight h in the box d. The pencil is kept lifted
from the paper (as permitted by the elasticity of the arm a) by
the cord m. By letting the pencil down and turning the engine
by hand, the neutral line x, Fig. 2, is drawn. Then when the
engine is running, on letting the pencil come in contact with the
paper, the diagonal lines are drawn as shown on Fig. 2.
If the rotation of the shaft were uniform and there were no
lost motion in the shaft or connecting-rod, this diagonal line
would repeat itself precisely, and would be a straight line modified
by the angular vibration of the connecting-rod. On the other
hand, these lost motions and the variations in the rotative speed
Edwin F. Williams
MR. WILLIAMS' INSTRUMENT FOR THIS ACTION 207
must be exactly recorded, the latter being exhibited with a degree
of accuracy not attainable by computation and plotting, and
their correctness would be self-demonstrated. For this purpose
this instrument must be found highly valuable, if it is really de-
sired to have these variations revealed rather than concealed.
Fig. 5 represents the inertia diagram drawn by this instrument
applied to a Porter- Allen engine running in the Boston Post Office
at the speed of 265 revolutions per minute. Fig. 4 shows the
same diagram with the transverse motion of the pencil enlarged
to correspond with the scale of the indicator, so exhibiting the
force actually exerted on the crank-pin at every point, which is
represented by the shaded area, and from which the rotative
effect on the crank can be computed. The steam pressure ab-
sorbed at the commencement of the stroke by the inertia of these
parts is represented by the blank area above the atmospheric line
xx. This is not all imparted to the crank at the end on account of
the compression.
I have myself had no experience in the use of this instru-
ment, but I do not see why it might not be so made that
the diagonal line or lines in Fig. 4 would be drawn at once.
The variations of motion would thus be shown much more
accurately than they can be by the enlargement of these small
indications. This would require the spring e to bear the same
relation to the inertia of the weight h that the spring of the
indicator bears to the steam pressure on its piston area. The
steam diagram and the inertia diagram would then be drawn
to the same scale. A separate instrument would be required
for each scale. It would seem desirable that this instrument,
which is not expensive, should be brought before the public in
this practical shape.
The 16"X30" engine exhibited at this fair of the American
Institute was sold from the exhibition to the Arlington Mills,
at Lawrence, Mass. For a reason that will appear later, I have
always regarded this sale as the most important one that I ever
made.
CHAPTER XIX
Boiler Tests in Exhibition of 1871. We Lose Mr. Allen. Importance of
Having a Business Man as President. Devotion of Mr. Hope
K5EKZS
K
%L
1
HE next year we were not exhibitors at the Institute
fair, but our boiler remained in its place and was run
by the Institute. This boiler and its setting are
shown correctly in the accompanying reproduction of
a drawing made about that time, except that it consisted of
nine sections instead of six. At the close of the exhibition a
boiler test was made by the Institute, through a committee of
which Professor Thurston, at that time Professor of Mechanical
Engineering in the Stevens Institute, afterwards until his death
Director of the Sibley College of Mechanic Arts, in Cornell Uni-
versity, was the chairman. Five boilers, including the Allen
boiler, were tested, one on each day, in a continuous run of
twelve hours. The four besides our own were all different from
the boilers exhibited the year before.
A week was spent in preparation for this test. A large wooden
tank was constructed, in which was built a surface condenser,
consisting of a pile of sections of the Root boiler, laid horizontally,
having a total of 1100 square feet of cooling surface. The steam
was exhausted into the pipes which were surrounded by the cool-
ing w T ater, thus reversing the construction of surface condensers.
Each boiler was tested by setting its damper and its steam-
valve wide open, so burning all the coal that could be burned by
it under its draft, and delivering freely all the steam that it made.
This latter entered the condenser at the top, and the water formed
by condensation was drawn off at the bottom, while the con-
densing water entered the tank at the bottom and was drawn off
208
Professor Robert H. Thurston
ALLEK BOILER.
OF
BO IIORSL POWERS.
BOILER TESTS IN EXHIBITION 209
at the top, the currents of steam and water being thus opposite
to each other, which was an ideal construction. The condensing
water at a temperature of 45.5 degrees flowed in under the
pressure in the city main and was measured in a Worthington
meter, and the temperature of the overflow taken. The con-
densed steam was drawn off into a barrel and weighed, 300 pounds
at a time, and its temperature taken. This method was an excel-
lent one.
Not having high chimneys, no boiler had a strong draft, as
shown by the coal burned per square foot of grate. Our draft
was the strongest of all. Only the Allen boiler and the Root
boiler gave superheated steam, and the competition between them
was very close. The valve being wide open, giving a free current
into the condenser, the superheat of our steam fell to 13.23 degrees
Fahrenheit. Root's superheat was 16.08 degrees.
Root's boiler, the trial of which occupied the first day, blew
steam from the open try-cock, from water at 46 degrees Fahrenheit,
in sixteen minutes from lighting the fire. Next morning our
boiler blew steam from water at the same temperature, in twelve
minutes, and Mr. Root holding his watch could not resist the
ejaculation, "Wonderful boiler!" The Allen boiler, burning
13.88 pounds of coal per square foot of grate per hour, evaporated
one cubic foot of water per hour from each 17.41 square feet of
heating surface. Root's boiler, burning 11.73 pounds of coal
per square foot of grate per hour, required 23.59 square feet
of heating surface to evaporate one cubic foot of water per
hour.
Our stronger draft, 13.88 against 11.73, accounted for 3.2
pounds of the above superior evaporative efficiency, leaving 3
pounds to be accounted for by the more rapid circulation in the
Allen boiler. The great value of the inclination of the tubes
was thus established. The report contains this sentence: "The
Committee desire to express their appreciation of the excellent
general arrangement and proportions which gave to the Allen
boiler its remarkably high steaming capacity."
The reader will observe in the plan of this boiler the pains
taken to maintain as far as possible parallel currents of the
heated gases through the boiler, and taking the flues off at the
210
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
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WE LOSE MR. ALLEN 211
bottom, thus bringing all the heating surfaces at the same distance
from the furnace into approximately equal efficiency.
The boiler had one defect, seen in the front view, cross-section.
A straight passage 2 inches wide was given to the gases between
each pair of tubes.
The boilers having all had a preliminary trial during the first
week, I observed the vapor arising from the exposed surface of
the water in the tank, and that this unmeasured loss of heat
differed considerably in the different boilers, and was enormously
greatest on the trial of the Allen boiler. I said nothing, but went
down early on next Monday morning and on my way bought a
common tin cup about 3 inches deep and 4 inches in diameter,
and secured it in one corner of the tank, immersed to a quarter
of an inch below its rim, and filled even full of water. This was
completed before the arrival of the Committee, and was at once
approved by them. I made it my business every day to note
the fall of the water level by evaporation from this cup. On the
trial of the Allen boiler only the water in the cup was all evaporated,
and I had to fill it again. The temperature of the water in the
cup was always 8 degrees below that of the surrounding water.
It was thus obvious that the evaporation from the tank was greater
than the fall of the level in the cup would indicate. The Com-
mittee considered that this should be increased as the tension of
the vapors. The result was that the report contained the follow-
ing item: Units of heat carried away by evaporation at the
surface of the tank:
Root boiler 721,390.8 units
Allen boiler 1,178,404.5 "
Phleger boiler 378,371 "
Lowe boiler 692,055
Blanchard boiler 268,707
(<
The same Bulkley pyrometer was used in all the furnaces to
indicate the temperature of the escaping gases. On Tuesday
morning, when my boiler was to be tried, I saw that before my
arrival the pyrometer had been set in the brick chimney, where
the readings could be conveniently taken by a person standing
212 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
on the brick surface of the boiler chamber. Its readings averaged
260 degrees Fahrenheit. I did not believe this to be true. At
about half-past two o'clock, when seven readings had been taken,
one each half hour, having got ready some bricks and mortar and
tools, I pulled the pyrometer out and filled up the hole. I then
knocked a hole in the side of the brickwork at the bottom, in front
of the flue, and set the pyrometer there. The reading rose to 405
degrees, which was the temperature at which the gases then entered
the flue, and averaged about 385 degrees during the remainder of the
sixteen readings. Root's average was 416 degrees, and Phleger's
(also tubular) averaged 508. Obviously the readings taken before
the pyrometer was moved should have been rejected; but the
1 n iys who did this kind of work added them all together, and our
average temperature is printed 345.87 degrees, giving the boiler
more credit than it was entitled to by about 40 degrees. I lost
a little by this operation. While I was bricking up the hole the
fireman came around and told me I was spoiling his fire. When
I got the figures of water evaporated and coal burned, I found
that in that half hour I had only 900 pounds (three barrels)
credited to the boiler, instead of 1800 pounds (six barrels) during
every other half hour, being a loss of about .023 in water weighed
in the barrel, 38,400 pounds, instead of 39,300 pounds, while, curi-
ously enough, the coal burned was rather increased.
The point of interest in this incident was the fact that the
gases had lost 125 degrees of heat in traversing a distance in flues
and chimney of less than 20 feet. This seems difficult to believe,
but they did. There was no leakage as the excellent draft clearly
proved, nor any other way of accounting for the discrepancy.
The length of the pyrometer tube exposed to the heated gases
was the same in both positions. The heat had been lost by
radiation through the brickwork. I have been waiting ever since
for a chance to turn this knowledge to useful account, but it has
not come yet. I will content myself with suggesting to somebody
else the idea of facing the boiler setting, flues and chimney, not
only outside but inside also after leaving the furnace, with white
encaustic tiles, which will neither absorb nor radiate heat appre-
ciably. This will pay in maintaining the temperature in a large
degree to the top of the chimney, so increasing, perhaps doubling,
WE LOSE MR. ALLEN 213
the strength of the draft. An enormous amount of heat must
be lost through the extended surface of the brick boiler setting.
It is always observed that the hotter a boiler-room is kept the
greater the efficiency of the boiler becomes. This is a slight indi-
cation of the great gain which might be effected by the plan I
propose.
Before this boiler trial we had lost Mr. Allen. He had con-
ceived the idea of the pneumatic riveter and the high-speed
air-compressor to furnish this riveter with power. In the latter
he utilized the inertia of the reciprocating parts, including two
pistons, the steam and the air piston. This he did with my
cordial consent, and indeed there was nothing patentable about
that feature anyway. Mr. Allen thus became the originator of
the important system of pneumatic riveting, in its two methods,
by percussion and by pressure. Mr. Allen sold out his stock in
the engine company to Mr. Hope and Mr. Smith, and built a shop
in Mott Haven for the manufacture of the riveters and compressors.
He took the boiler in the fair in part payment, and sold it directly
to a party who had erected a wood-working shop at some point
on the Harlem River.
The Croton water which had been fed to the boiler contained
no lime, but some sediment. Mr. Allen had the boiler taken down
and brought to our shop for inspection and cleaning. I determined
to improve the opportimity to observe the effect of the circu-
lation on the deposit of sediment, and the result of the examination
proved most interesting. Each inclined tube had been provided
at the end with a brass plug, by removing which it could be
cleaned by the running out of the water which it contained. This
had not yet been done.
I took out the tubes on one side of one section, ten in all, five
over the furnace and five behind the bridge wall, and planed them
in two longitudinally, and had the following revelation : The tubes
over the the furnace were entirely empty. In those back of the
bridge wall a deposit of sediment appeared, only about an inch
deep in the first one, and increasing regularly to a depth of 18
inches in the last one, which was not the tube receiving the feed-
water. So the water fed into the last tube of each section
deposited its sediment most largely in the first tube it reached,
214 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
in which the circulation was least active, and had deposited it
all before reaching the tubes over the furnace. The remaining
long tubes were then cleaned, the tubes cut in two were replaced
by new ones, and the boiler delivered to Mr. Allen. The next
stage in its history was very funny. The purchaser, to save the
cost of Croton water, fed his boiler from the Harlem River, and
within a month it was found to be filled solid with salt. What
was done about it I never heard.
I thought I could sell the boilers where, as in New York City,
they could be fed with water free from lime, and I made a few
such sales, but the inspiration which led me to employ the second
drum for superheating the steam had deserted me.
I came to the conclusion that by making the first drum a large
one, and not extending the nipples into the drum to trap a puddle
of water, as I had done, I could superheat the steam in one drum.
That was a blunder. I had underestimated the furious circu-
lation, which carried a large amount of spray into the drum. I
was misled by the quiet position of the water-level, as always
shown in the glass gauge. Instead of superheated steam, I found
the boiler to give very wet steam. That fault, of course, I could
have remedied by returning to my first design. But I was dis-
couraged by other things. The first, of course, was the im-
possibility of removing scale by any mechanical means. The most
serious discouragement was a cracked header. The inclined tubes,
on any plan for their use that I could then design, made cast-iron
headers necessary. I had taken great pains to obtain perfect
castings, making them of the best iron in baked molds in iron
flasks, of uniform thickness, f in., and f in. where threaded,
with cores held perfectly central and remarkably well vented,
and felt that I could rely on their soundness; but this defect
showed that I could not. So reluctantly I abandoned the manu-
facture of the boiler.
I believe, however, that there is yet a future for the inclined
boiler tube, with independent circulation in each tube, the whole
made entirely from forged steel; and that better results will be
obtained from it than any other form of boiler has as yet given.
I have been told by Chief Engineer Melville that all water ad-
mitted to the boilers in the United States Navy is made pure
IMPORTANCE OF BUSINESS MAN AS PRESIDENT 215
enough for pharmaceutical purposes. If this can be done in the
navy, where sea water and the mud of harbors have to be used,
it can be done anywhere. Cooling towers make it practicable
to return all water to the boiler even from non-condensing engines.
Then only the waste needs to be made good, and any water can
be purified for this purpose. Oil or grease with the feed-water
is readily avoided. Only electrolysis remains to be provided
against, which can be done by avoiding the use of any alloy of
copper in contact with the water. We may then have boilers
of the most durable character and safe to carry any desired
pressure.
The following incident near the close of my experience in Harlem
would be too ridiculous to print except for its consequence. One day
Mr. Smith sent me word that he would like to see me in his office.
When I entered he asked me, "What do you pay for the castings
of your governor arms and balls?" Of course he knew perfectly
well, as he had the bills and the books, but that was his way
of introducing the subject. I replied, "Forty cents a pound."
He held up both hands in affected amazement, and exclaimed,
"Forty cents a pound! Well, sir, I can assure you of one thing,
no more of this company's money is going to be squandered in
that way." I overlooked his insulting language and manner,
and said quietly, "Are you sure, Mr. Smith, that you have all
the information you need to form a correct judgment in this
matter?" "I am sure," he replied, "what the market price
is of copper and tin, and that I can get castings made from our
own metal at a price that will bring the cost to not more than
25 cents a pound."
"This, then, I presume, is all you know about the subject,"
I said, "and you ought to know a great deal more, which I will
tell you. It is necessary that I can rely upon getting a pure copper
and tin alloy, in the proportion known as gun-metal, on account
of its strength, its rigidity, and its wearing qualities. The latter
is of especial importance, because the governor joints are in
continual motion under the weight of the heavy counterpoise.
Experience shows that this purity cannot be relied upon where
it is possible that any inferior metal can become mixed with
this alloy in even the smallest proportion. This for us, not
216 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
making our own castings, must be wholly a matter of con-
fidence.
"Another risk must be avoided, that is, of getting bad cast-
ings. The castings must not have the least imperfection. The
time lost, through finding defects that make it necessary to reject
arms after more or less work has been put on them, would soon
wipe out all the little gain you look for; as these castings, at
40 cents a pound, only cost about five dollars a set, as an average
of all the sizes.
"I made a careful study of this subject when I commenced
the governor manufacture about fifteen years ago, and found
David Francis, who had a small gun-metal foundry on Vestry
Street, to be just the man I wanted. No inferior metal ever
goes into his place. He enjoyed the entire confidence of manu-
facturers. He has made my governor arms and balls ever since.
I have never had a bad casting from him, and always got the pure
metal, and have paid him the same price that everybody pays
him for small castings. I consider the security that I have had
respecting this metal to have been fundamental to the great
success of my governors, and that I would be crazy to make any
such change as you propose."
He made no reply, and I left him, supposing my statement to
have been perfectly satisfactory. What was my amazement when,
a few days after, he informed me that he had made a contract with
a brass molder on Rose Street for casting our governor arms,
"subject to your approval, sir," and he asked me to visit the
place and see what its facilities were.
I told him I would go, but that my position on the subject was
already well known to him. I found the place on a little lane,
and that the business done in it was making brass castings for
plumbers. The proprietor told me he had never made gun-metal
castings, but he could make any kind of composition, and I could
rely on getting them of just the metal I furnished him.
I reported to Mr. Smith that such an arrangement would be
ruinous, that his plan of furnishing the metal was most unbusiness-
like. "What do you know about business?" he shouted with a
sneer. "I know," said I, "that if you should propose this plan
to any well-informed, practical man, he would laugh in your
DEVOTION TO MR. HOPE 217
face, and tell you if you wanted to ruin your business this would
be as good a way as any to do it." He replied, "That is not the
question, sir; the only question is, will you, or will you not,
approve the contract I have made?" "I will not," I replied, and
walked out of his office.
A few days after I received a note from Mr. Hope, asking me
to call on him. I called next day, and he told me that Mr. Smith
had been to see him, with a bitter complaint of my insubordi-
nation and defiance of his authority, which he would not endure,
and he asked me to tell him what the trouble was about. I told
him substantially as above related. "Is that all?" said he.
I assured him that it was all the trouble that I knew of. Mr.
Hope replied, "I cannot express my amazement at his inter-
ference with your management. That must be absolutely en-
trusted to you, and he ought to see it. He is a rational man and
I can easily show him his error, and that you must take the stand
you have done. I don't think you will have any more trouble."
I did not hear again from Mr. Hope for a fortnight, during which
time I had no occasion to meet Mr. Smith. Finally a letter came
from him, telling me that I must prepare for the worst; he had
exhausted all his efforts on Mr. Smith, and found him abso-
lutely immovable, declaring that I must go, I was of no use, there,
anyway. Mr. Hope said he told him his conduct was outrageous
and suicidal. If I went, that I would be the end of the business.
He snapped his fingers at that, saying, "Mr. Goodfellow can make
the engines, and I can sell them; what more do you want?" He
declared that no business could succeed unless the will of the presi-
dent was law. They had several very disagreeable conferences,
which Mr. Smith always closed by saying, "Repay me my invest-
ment in this company," which he figured at $24,000, "and I'll
give you my stock." He had announced to Mr. Hope his deter-
mination to call a meeting of the directors to discharge me, and
as he had a majority of votes, having some time before given to
each of his two sons qualifying shares and had them elected mem-
bers of the board of directors, he held the power in his hands
to do it.
Directly after, I received a copy of a notice of a regular meeting
of the board, convened strictly according to law. I could see no
218 ENGINEERLXG REMINISCENCES
ray of light. The night before the meeting I walked the Third
Avenue bridge half the night. The meeting was called to order
by Mr. Smith at the appointed hour. Mr. Hope was absent. Mr.
Smith said Mr. Hope had sent word to him the day before that
he might be detained, but if so would come up on the next boat,
which ran hourly, and asked Mr. Smith to wait that time for him.
So the meeting was adjourned for an hour, when Mr. Hope
arrived.
Mr. Smith prefaced the resolutions discharging me from my
position as superintendent and electing Mr. Goodfellow in my place,
by quite an oration, setting forth the solemn sense of his Christian
duty which left him no alternative, and the necessity of proper
subordination in any business, if it was to be successful, and the
especially aggravated character of my offense, and the demoral-
izing nature of my example.
He was about to put the question on the adoption of the reso-
lutions, when Mr. Hope said, "Before you put this question to
vote, Mr. Smith, I would like to say a word. I have concluded
to accept your offer. Here is my certified check for $24,000 to
your order, and I demand from you the transfer to me of the stock
in this company standing in your name and the names of your
sons."
When the Smiths were gone (they left by the next boat) Mr.
Hope and I sat down to confer on the business of the company.
When these matters were concluded, I said to him, "Mr. Hope,
if you had determined to make this grand proof of your confidence
in the engine and in myself, why did you not tell me sooner, and
save my wife and myself a great deal of distress?"
"My dear fellow," he replied, "I did not know till this morn-
ing that I should be able to do it. That is why I was late."
CHAPTER XX
Close of the Engine Manufacture in Harlem. My Occupation During a Three
Years' Suspension
N the autumn of 72, following the above incident, we
had a proof of the sagacity of Mr. Smith in rejecting
my plan for the establishment of works for the manu-
facture of the engines, and taking a five years' lease
of an abandoned shanty. The property had changed hands, and
we received a note from the new owner, saying that he had pur-
chased the property with a view to its improvement. He should
therefore be unable to renew our lease, and he gave us six months'
notice, that we might have time in which to make other arrange-
ments before its expiration.
Here was a situation. To move and establish the business in
a new locality would require a large expenditure, and we had no
money. The natural thing to do would be to enlarge our capital.
On consultation with several parties, Mr. Hope found the financial
situation at that time would not warrant this attempt. The
Civil War had ended between seven and eight years before. Hard
times had been generally anticipated after its close, but to the
surprise of capitalists these did not come. The country continued
to be apparently prosperous. The best observers were, however,
convinced that a financial reaction was inevitable, and the longer
it was delayed the more serious it was likely to be; an anticipa-
tion that was more than realized in Black Friday in September,
1873, and the collapse of values and years of absolute stagnation
that followed.
For some time before that eventful day capitalists had felt
anxious and there had been a growing timidity and indisposition
219
220 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
to invest in any enterprise, however substantial it might be, so
there was nothing for us to do but to wind up our business and
wait for more propitious times, when we might attempt its revival.
In the winter of 72-3 I had a call from my friend, J. C. Hoadley,
accompanied by Mr. Charles H. Waters, manager of the Clinton
Wire Cloth Company. Mr. Waters wished to obtain one of our
engines. I told him I was very sorry, but we should not be able
to make one for him. I then explained our situation. Our lease
would expire in a month or two, and could not be renewed, and
we had made arrangements then to close our business, had sold
all our tools deliverable before that date, were rushing two engines
to completion, but absolutely could not undertake another order.
"Never mind," said he, "one of your engines I must have."
He then told me that he was about to introduce a new feature in
weaving wire cloth. This was then woven in various narrow
widths, according to customers' orders, having a selvage on each
side. He had satisfied himself that this latter was unnecessary.
The wire, being bent in weaving, had no tendency to ravel, and he
had planned a loom to weave the cloth seven feet in width, and
slit it up into narrow widths as required. In this loom the shuttle
alone would weigh a hundred and fifty pounds, besides the great
weight of wire it would carry; it had to be thrown nearly twelve
feet, and he wanted to make as many picks per minute as any
narrow loom could do. In order to make these throws uniformly,
he required absolutely uniform motion. From a careful study of
slow-moving variable cut-off engines, he had satisfied himself
that none of them could give him the uniformity of motion he
needed. They were driven by a succession of violent punches,
these excessive amounts of force at the commencement of each
stroke were absorbed by the fly-wheel, the velocity of which had
to be increased to do it, and at the end of the stroke its velocity
had to be reduced in the same degree, to supply the total failure
of the force of the steam. This involved a variation of speed
which in ordinary business would not be regarded, but which
would ruin the action of this new loom. In the high speed of my
engine, and the action of the reciprocating fly-wheel, which com-
pensated the inequalities of the steam pressure without affecting
the uniformity of the speed, he found just what he needed, and
J. C. HOADLEY
ENGINE FOR CLINTON WIRE CLOTH MILL 221
that engine he must have. I was astonished at the man's pene-
tration.
I was able to get from our landlord and purchasers of our tools
the necessary extension of time, and made the engine for him.
It and the loom were each a complete success. Mr. Waters told
me long after that he never observed a single variation from
exact uniformity of motion, without which his loom would have
had to be abandoned.
I had one day the pleasure of meeting there the president of
the Lancaster mills, the only other great industry of Clinton, who
had come over expressly to examine the running of our engine.
Before he left he said to me that the engine certainly presented
a remarkable advance in steam engineering.
I saw there one thing that interested me greatly. That was,
the method of painting wire cloth. This was carried on in a large
tower high enough to enable a twenty-yard length of the "cloth"
to be suspended in it. This was taken through a tub of paint,
and drawn slowly upward between three successive pairs of rollers,
the last pair of india-rubber, held firmly together. By these the
paint was squeezed into every corner, both sides were thoroughly
painted, and the surplus paint removed, so that every mesh was
clear, a uniform perfection unattainable by hand painting, and
two boys would paint in ten minutes as much as a painter could
paint in a day. I think this was an invention by Mr. Waters.
With the completion of the engine for the Clinton Wire Cloth
Company, the manufacture of the high-speed engine was closed
for three years, from the spring of 1873 to the spring of 1876.
This long rest proved to be most valuable. Looking back
upon it, I have always been impressed with its importance at that
very time to the development of the high-speed system.
The design of the engine needed to be revised, and this revision
involv d study, to which time and leisure were essential.
I had also an order from Elliott Brothers of London, to pre-
pare a new and enlarged edition of the pamphlet descriptive of
the Richards Indicator. I determined to make this a compre-
hensive book, embracing new information required by the steam
engineer, so far as I knew it. This was published simultaneously
in London and New York in the summer of 1874.
222 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
I was enabled also to turn to account the report of the experi-
ments of M. Regnault, which I had been at so much trouble to
get, and with the help of English authorities to prepare and
embody in this book Tables of the Properties of Saturated
Steam, which the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
honored me by adopting as its standard.
I felt warranted in giving to this edition an amended title, as
follows: "A treatise on the Richards Steam Engine Indicator,
and the Development and Application of Force in the Steam
Engine."
This also was a job requiring much time and undivided appli-
cation. It is needless to say that without this long and entire
rest from business neither of these tasks could have been under-
taken.
I found in the Astor Library a remarkable old book, entitled
"Canon triangulorum, " published at Frankfurt in 1612, contain-
ing a Table of Natural Trigonometrical Functions, computed for
every minute of arc, and extended to the fifteenth place of decimals.
The column of versed sines enabled me to prepare tables exhibiting
the rates of acceleration and retardation of the motion of a piston
controlled by a crank, neglecting the effect of the angular vibra-
tion of the connecting-rod. This effect was afterwards shown
separately. For my treatment of this subject, I must refer the
reader to the book itself.
A little incident in connection with this work, which made a
deep impression on my mind, and has since afforded me some
food for reflection, seems worth relating. The printing was done
in London, and I did not see the proof, so I had to take especial
pains with the copy, having no opportunity to revise it. I was
living in Harlem, and at one time having no suitable envelope
for mailing, and none being obtainable there, I took a Third
Avenue horse-car for an eight-mile ride down to the New York
post office, intending to get some envelopes at a stationery store
on Beekman Street, and mail the portion of the copy which I then
had ready at the general post office. I had hardly taken my
seat when Mr. Allen got into the car. He was living in Mott
Haven, and I had not seen him for a long time. Besides our-
selves the car was nearly if not quite empty. He came and
REVISION OF THE ENGINE DESIGN
223
224
EXGLXEERING REMINISCENCES
REVISION OF THE ENGINE DESIGN
225
sat down by me, and I opened my copy and read to him some-
thing in which I knew he would be interested. He said to me,
in his gentle way, "You would not express it exactly that way,
would you?" On the instant it flashed on my mind that I had
made a stupid blunder, and I replied, "I guess I wouldn't," and,
thanking him for calling my attention to it, I left the car, and
returned home and corrected it. I have quite forgotten what the
point was, and if I remembered it, I would not tell. But I have
often asked myself who sent Mr. Allen there, saving me from
Longitudinal Section of Cylinder and Valves.
publishing a mortifying blunder. I expect some sweet spirit will
tell me before long.
As soon as this book was off my hands, I devoted myself to the
revision and standardizing of the engine.
As made up to that time, it was not reversible, and the valves
could not be handled. It could not therefore be used in rolling-
mills, the field to which I felt already that it was especially adapted.
Moreover, every engine should be capable of being backed in
starting, as otherwise whenever it had stopped with the piston
at a point later than the latest point of cut-off, or say in the last
226
ENGINEERIXG REMINISCENCES
half of the stroke, which it would do half the time, it would need
to he pulled around by hand to a position in which one of the
Cross-section of Cylinder and Valves.
admission ports would be open. This in a large engine, or one
connected with extensive lines of shafting, would be a serious
Elevation and Plan of Valve Connections.
matter, so much so that in some engines little starting cylinders
are required.
REVISION OF THE ENGINE DESIGN 227
I had a!so determined to use the equilibrium admission valves
with adjustable pressure plates, according to the drawings sent
to me by Mr. Allen in 1863, and to abandon the separate steam
chest, and put the exhaust valves on the opposite side of the
cylinder.
Then the engine needed to be standardized, so as to cover
the field with the fewest number of sizes, symmetrically distributed.
The existing practice with all makers of engines had been to let
the purchaser dictate the size and speed of the engine he wanted,
a practice which resulted in a lot of patterns and drawings not
adapted to other people's requirements, and not properly dis-
tributed. For an organized manufacturing business, this habit
must be entirely broken up.
Mr. Allen had in his shop in Mott Haven an unoccupied
second story, in which I had stored our patterns and drawings and
drawing implements. Here I established my quarters, and spent
my working hours until this second job was finished.
The two perspective views of opposite sides of the engine,
show these changes as they appear externally, and the remaining
views show some constructive details.
These latter show the exhaust valves transferred to the front
side of the engine, and located so as to drain the cylinder, and
the admission valves set at different elevations, to accommodate
the differential connection, the abandonment of the separate
steam-chest, and this chest with the exhaust chambers cast with
the cylinder, with openings over the valves; the levers by which
the differential movements are given to the admission valves;
and the single-link rod, and the gab by which this rod is unhooked,
with the method of moving the admission valves by hand.
In place of the levers on the steam rock shaft, I at that time
drew cast-iron disks, which being polished and vibrating in place
I thought very handsome. They gave me lots of trouble, till I
learned enough to get rid of them, the story of which I will tell
by and by. The front view shows the admission valve stems
balanced by being extended through at the back end, a feature
which helped the governor action when high steam pressures were
employed, but which was abandoned as unnecessary after I
abandoned the disks on the rocker shaft.
228
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
REVISION OF THE ENGINE DESIGN 229
The first two figures show the valves in section and the adjust-
able pressure plate and mode of its adjustment. The closeness of
the piston to the head may be observed. I never allowed more
than one-eighth inch clearance, and never had a piston touch
the head. This was because the connecting-rod maintained a
constant length, the wear of the boxes being taken up in the
same direction.
These illustrations show the exhaust valves after alteration
made several years later in Philadelphia. As first designed by
me, these are shown in the foregoing sectional views. As will be
seen, the exhaust valves lay with their backs towards the
cylinder, worked under the pressure of the steam in the cyl-
inder, made four openings for release and exhausted through
the cover.
I consented to the change in Philadelphia because this ar-
rangement involved too much waste room, but the change was
not satisfactory after all. I had become possessed with the idea
that the engine running at high speed needed 50 per cent, more
room for exhausting than for admission. This was not the case.
I have always regretted that I did not retain this design, and
content myself with reducing the exhaust area.
The lightness of the piston in this view will be observed. This
was a special design for adapting the engine to be run at 200
revolutions, giving 1200 feet piston travel per minute. The
stuffing-box was a freak which was abandoned.
The next figures show the valve-stem guides, rocking-levers,
coupling-rods and gab, which latter when thrown over unhooks
the link-rod, as is done on steamboat engines.
The following figures show the construction of the main bearing
with adjustments on opposite sides, by which the shaft is kept in
exact line, and shows also the solid support of the shaft quite out
to the hub of the crank. This view contains one error. The cap
is not made a binder. I relied on the strength of the thick con-
tinuous web of the bed under the boxes in addition to the depth
of the bed. But we once had a bed break right here under
enormous strain, and since then the caps have been made binders.
It will be observed that the wedges are drawn upward to tighten
the boxes. It is not necessary to explain why.
Main Bearing.
Eccentric and Crosshead
Pin Lubricator.
Crank-pin Lubricator.
230
REVISION OF THE ENGINE DESIGN
231
The above left-hand cut shows the automatic lubricator of the
eccentric and the cross-head pin. The stud A, on the eccentric
strap and on the strap of the connecting-rod, carries a curved blade,
a, which at the beginning of each forward stroke rises to take the
drop of oil from the stem of the sight-feed lubricator. This is set
on an arm fixed on the cap of the main-bearing and on a bridge
between the upper guide-bars. The drop is made sure to come
to this central point by a wire B filling the brass tube, grooved on
opposite sides and terminating in a point.
The automatic lubrication of the crank-pin presented a still
more serious problem. It was solved by the construction shown,
in the right hand view, which will be understood without fur-
ther description. It will be seen that here the oil tube is in-
clined, and the drop follows it to a point on its lower side.
Both these lubricators proved absolutely reliable. The last one is
equally applicable on double-crank engines.
Dimensions of
Cylinders.
"5,
Indicated Powers.'
Made
Fly-wheels.
when Practicable to
Driving Belts.
S <*3
©Off)
(tt ft
Travel
Piston
•Feet p
Minuti
Serve also as Belt-Drums.
Bore.
Stroke.
Without
Con-
densation.
With Con-
densation.
Diameter.
Weight of
Rim.
Velocity.
Widtlj.
Inches.
Inches.
Horse Powers.
Borse Powers.
Feet.
Inches.
Lbs.
Feet per minute
luches.
6 '
12
350
700
25
3
350
3300
9 siagle.
7
12
350
700
35
3
6
400
3850
10 ••'
'8
16
280
746
45
60
4
650
3520
12 double.
9
16
280
746
60
75
4
6
700
3960
12 '
10
20 .
230
766
75
100
5
1300
3610
14 '
11.5
20
230
766
100
125
6
6
1450
3970
14 '
13
24
200
800
130
160
6
6
2100
4084
18 '
14.6
24
200
800
160-
200
7
2350
4400
20 '
16
30
165
825
200
260
8
4000
4150
26 *
18
30
165
825
250
330
9
4000
4670
30 '
20
36
140
840
320
400
10
6000
4400
38 *
22
36
140
840
400
500
11
6000
4840
42 *
21
42
125
875
480
620
12
26
42
125
875
560
730
13
28
48
112.5
900
670
870
16
32
48
112.5
900
870
1140
36
48
112.5
900
1100
1430
40
48
112.5
900
1360
1750
44
48
112.5
900
1600
2100
The powers are those given by an initial pressure of 85 lbs. on the square inch, cut off at about
one quarter of the stroke. For the best economy steam should not be cut off earlier than this,
unless a higher pressure is carried. At the latest point of cut off, the powers developed are double
those given in the above Table. The engines can be worked under. locomotive pressures, with cor-
responding increase of power.
After considerable study I finally adopted the above table of
standard sizes and speeds, covering the ground from 25 horse-
power up with nineteen sizes.
As the bed could not be reversed, I needed both a right-hand
and a left-hand bed for each size. I avoided half of this expense
232 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
in patterns by planning two diameters of cylinders with the same
stroke, and making one bed answer for both.
Until I found something else to do, I employed myself in pre-
paring complete drawings for three or four smaller sizes of engines;
a work which afterwards proved exceedingly useful.
CHAPTER XXI
Production of an Original Surface Plate
WILT, introduce here a description of the method of
producing an original surface plate.
The production of mechanically true planes by
the method of scraping was first suggested by Mr.
Whitworth, and was brought to perfection in his works. Having
had and having improved the opportunity there to study this
system, and having employed it largely in the manufacture of
high-speed engines, it seems to me that an accoimt of it should
find a place in these reminiscences, especially as the importance
of mechanical truth is coming to be more and more realized in
this country. I will therefore describe the process of producing
an original standard surface plate.
The first point, of course, is the design. The square form, 30
inches square, has been found most suitable. I could not, how-
ever, use this form myself, a long surface plate being required for
the guide-bars and steam-chest joints of my engine.
The plate must be incapable of deflection. To insure this it
is ribbed on the under side with ribs seven inches deep, and is
supported at three points, equidistant from each other and from
the center, so that its equal support cannot vary, whatever may
be the surface on which it stands. It is provided on two oppo-
site sides with handles, by which it can be lifted and rotated.
The arrangement of the ribs and feet is here shown.
It must be cast of hard and close-grained iron, which will possess
the most durable qualities, in a baked mold without a cope, so
that the gas shall escape most freely. As cast, the plate should be
one inch thick. About three eighths of an inch is planed off,
233
234
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
removing all dirt, and leaving a perfectly sound surface, with a
thickness of about five eighths of an inch. Three of these plates
are made. After these have been planed, their edges squared and
steel handles put in they are delivered to the fitter.
to
Surface Plate for Producing a True Plane.
I will first describe the tool used in scraping. Originally this
was a hooked tool, and the scraping was done by a drawing motion.
Two of these tools were employed, one for the roughing work, in
PRODUCTION OF ORIGINAL SURFACE PLATE 235
which the hook projected downward about three quarters of an
inch, and the other for fine scraping. In the latter the hook pro-
jected downward only about one quarter of an inch, and absolute
freedom from vibration was aimed at. These tools were used for a
number of years, but afterwards a radical change was made. The
modern method is to employ a single straight tool, like a carpen-
ter's chisel, about an inch and a quarter wide and an eight of an
inch thick, with a square end. This end is slightly curved, and
its corners are rounded to avoid scratching the plate. The scrap-
ing is done by a pushing motion.
This tool has been found preferable on all accounts. Projec-
tions needing to be removed are in front of the tool, instead of
being covered by it. The tool is perfectly rigid, and can be inclined
to the surface at any desired angle. The cutting edge is a square
angle, and being well supported keeps sharp for a considerably
longer time than when it is an acute angle, and when ground or
honed two edges are formed. Moreover, the pushing motion is
preferred.
Two of the plates only are first brought together. For disclos-
ing the high points, one of these is covered with a raddle made of
finely sifted red lead and oil. This is made quite stiff, and all of
it that can be removed by the palm of the hand is rubbed off,
leaving only a very thin uniform film on the surface. Any dust
having been carefully removed from both surfaces by a soft brush,
one of these plates is inverted on the other, and at one corner
each plate is marked in the edge with a prick-punch. The upper
plate is then rubbed about on the lower one for, say, half a minute.
When lifted off, the high portions of the surfaces are shown on
one plate by the raddle put on, and on the other by that rubbed
off. The workman then gives to these parts of the surfaces a
general scraping, giving to his tool a long sweep, say from four
to six inches. This is repeated two or three times, the stroke
being shortened each time, and the upper plate being placed in a
position at right angles with its last one, which can be determined
by the prick-punch marks. This change of position is necessary to
avoid a cross-wind or spiral form. The scraping should now ex-
tend over the entire surfaces, and these should have a general
uniform bearing on each other, with the points of contact uni-
236 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
formly distributed and equally distinct. The work should be
continued in the same way until all these requirements are fulfilled.
Now appears the use of the third plate. The two surfaces thus
formed are sure to be, one of them convex and the other concave,
in some corresponding degree. The workman now numbers the
plates, by numbers stamped in the edges, these being marked
Nos. 1 and 2, and the third plate No. 3. No. 2 is now set aside,
and No. 3 is scraped to fit No. 1. It is thus made a duplicate of
No. 2. Next, No. 1 is set aside and Nos. 2 and 3 are brought to-
gether. Supposing these to be convex, they will bear together at the
middle point, on which the upper plate will rock, and the degree of
their convex^will thus be shown. The workman then in the same
manner scrapes these plates equally to the best of his judgment,
until their entire surfaces are brought together, with equal dis-
tribution of the points of contact. These two surfaces will now
again be, one convex and the other concave, though in a much
less degree. The next step is to apply No. 1, which is concave,
to either No. 2 or No. 3, and scrape it to fit. It is then applied to
the other, of which it has now been made a duplicate, and the
same process is repeated, until the three plates can be interchanged
in any way, and will have a uniform general bearing on each other,
with equal distribution and distinctness of the points of contact.
We have thus, in a general way, produced three demonstrated
true planes, but the surfaces are yet far from the desired approxi-
mation to absolute truth.
Now follows the fine scraping, which is not attempted unti]
general truth has thus been established. The object of this is to
multiply the points of contact and perfect their equal distribu-
tion and prominence. For this operation no raddle is used, but
the surfaces are rubbed together dry. When the plates are sep-
arated, the points of contact shine like stars. Here skill and care
are pre-eminently required. The scraping takes off only a dust.
If too strong depressions may be made deeper than before, and
requiring the reduction of the entire surface. The superiority
of the modern tool is now especially shown. By lowering the
angle of the tool, the workman presents the slightly curved edge
to the surface in a position as nearly parallel with it as he desires.
Interchanges similar to the former ones are now repeated, until
PRODUCTION OF ORIGINAL SURFACE PLATE 237
the bright points are brought as close together as is desired, with
uniform distribution and distinctness. The tedious operation is
now finished, and these bright points remain as witnesses.
The three plates were necessary to the production of one.
They have also a permanent use. They are indispensable to the
preservation of the true plane, which it has cost so much patient
labor to produce. The date of their completion is stamped on
their edges. Then plates 1 and 2 are put away in the store-room,
their surfaces carefully protected from rust or injury, which last
is best avoided by inverting one on the other, and No. 3 is put into
use. A prominent use is for the production of smaller plates or
straight-edges adapted to special purposes. After a while, per-
haps in a little while, this plate loses its truth by unequal wear.
Indeed, speaking with absolute truth, it may be said that the
first time this plate is used it is ruined. But by taking pains to
use different parts of its surface as equally as possible, it may be
kept in fair condition for some time. It can at any time be restored
to its original condition by scraping it to No. 2, taking the same
pains to turn it one quarter way around at every rub. In the
course of time No. 2 will itself become worn unequally, when its
truth can be restored by rubbing it on No. 1. Finally the three
plates can all be restored to their original condition by rubbing
them together interchangeably as at first. Thus the true plane
can be absolutely perpetuated.
The importance of this work can only be realized when we
consider that the true plane affords the only means by which
true cylindrical work also can be either produced or verified.
It is thus seen to be fundamental to all mechanical truth.
CHAPTER XXII
Efforts to Resume the Manufacture. I Exhibit the Engine to Mr. Holley.
Contract with Mr. Phillips. Sale of Engine to Mr. Peters
N the years 74 and '75 I was filled with eagerness to
get the engine on its legs again, and tried a dumber
of schemes in vain. One morning I read in the
paper that Alexander L. Holley had just returned
from Europe, where he had been making a tour of the steel-
making establishments, studying both the Bessemer and the open
hearth or Siemens-Martin processes, on a scheme of interchanging
improvements in manufacture between American and foreign
licensees under both these systems.
It occurred to me that Mr. Holley might be the very man I
wanted. If he could be got to recommend the engine to the steel-
makers, they might take it up for their own use. I had not applied
the engine in rolling-mill work, but felt sure that it would prove
espesially adapted to that service. So I called on Mr. Holley at
his home in Brooklyn. I had never before met him, but I found
that he knew something about the engine from its exhibition in
Paris, and from his brother-in-law, Frederick J. Slade, then an
officer of the New Jersey Steel Company, and who was one of the
engine's warm admirers. I have already mentioned Mr. Slade and
the help he gave me while in Paris in solving the problem of piston
acceleration.
So I found no difficulty in arranging with Mr. Holley to take
a trip with me, and visit some of my engines in operation, for the
purpose of forming a judgment as to its suitability for the use of
his clients. This he agreed to do as soon as he had finished the
report of his trip, on which he was then engaged. Our inspection
23S
Alexander Lyman Holley
CONTRACT WITH MR. PHILLIPS 239
took in the engines running in New York and Brooklyn and vicin-
ity and in New England, finishing with the engine at the Aldington
Mills in Lawrence. They were all found to be on their best be-
havior, but Mr. Holley told me that the engine at Lawrence, which
was running there at its intended speed of 150 revolutions per
minute, impressed him more than all the rest put together; not
that it was doing any better, for they all ran equally well, but
solely because it was larger. It made him awake to the great
possibilities of the engine.
On his return Mr. Holley prepared a report on the performance
of the engine, and cordially endorsed it as sure of ultimate general
adoption. But he found capitalists to be absolutely dead. Not
even his great influence could awaken in them the least interest.
The time for the promoter had not yet come. And still my suc-
cess in winning Mr. Holley's support proved to be vital to my
subsequent progress.
As a last possible resort I finally thought of Mr. Phillips of
Newark. The firm of Hewes & Phillips had become dissolved by
the death of Mr. Hewes, and so, by purchase of Mr. Hewes' interest
from his heirs, Mr. Phillips was the sole proprietor of the largest
engineering works in New Jersey. That concern had some time
before the death of Mr. Hewes given up the manufacture of steam-
engines, a style made by them having proved unsuccessful, and
confined themselves to making machine tools. In this line their
business was exceedingly dull, being disastrously affected by the
depressed and stagnant condition of the times.
I found Mr. Phillips ready to listen to me. He said that what
he knew about the engine was favorable, although he had not heard
of it for the last two or three years, but he was willing to consider
a proposition to take up its manufacture. I told him frankly
that I had no proposition of that kind to make. I wished to get
the manufacture of the engine revived, but to retain the busi-
ness in my own hands, to carry it on myself in my own name, with
the view of gaining for the engine a reputation that would enable
me to command the capital necessary to establish its manufacture
in works that I had long before planned for that purpose, and in
which I could devote myself to the development and building up of
the business; that I hoped to be able to reach this point in the
240 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
course of two or throe years, when probably the anticipated financial
revival would till his works with business in his own line of tool-
making.
He said that my proposal was entirely inadmissible, that he
could not permit any independent business to be carried on in his
establishment, and stated firmly the impossibility of any arrange-
ment of the kind I suggested, which would be something quite
unheard of. 1 stood firmly on my own position, but was obliged
to leave him without any sign of yielding on his part. The negotia-
tion was, however, renewed, exactly how I cannot now recall, but
it ended in my carrying my point. We finally concluded a bar-
gain, in which T held onto the business, but, of course, had to
insure to him pretty much all the profits. This I did not mind,
my object was to obtain a position, wlii.'h it will be seen I fully
accomplished, but did not know what to do with it. 1 was con-
scious that T could never have made this arrangement but for the
extreme stagnation of the times: but was not aware of* an addi-
tional reason which impelled Mr. Phillips to agree to my terms,
when he found he could not do any better. What this reason
was will appear pretty soon.
The arrangement was to go into effect as soon as T got an order.
This was my next job. I learned that Mr. Peters, a manufacturer
of high-grade knit fabrics in Newark, all which, by the way. were
sold by him to importers in New York, was carrying on also a
manufacture of light oilcloths in Newark in temporary quarters,
and was building a large structure for this purpose in East Newark,
the building now and for many years past occupied by the Edison
lamp manufactory, and was in the market for an engine. T called
on Mr. Peters, and got from him the privilige of submitting an
estimate for this engine. For this purpose I went to his then
present works, and measured the amount of power he was
using, and found that one of my 8X 16 engines would give
him that power with the additional amount he wished to provide
for.
On calling with my estimate early one morning, I found Mr.
Peters ready to bow me out. He told me that he had been informed
that the high-speed engines had proved a failure, and the manufac-
ture of them had been abandoned three or four years ago. I said
SALE OF ENGINE TO MR. PETERS 241
to him, "Mr. Peters, I would like to make you a proposition." He
replied that he would hear it.
I then said, "Your engineer, Mr. Green, I suppose never saw
a high-speed engine, but he strikes me as a fair-minded, cool-
headed man. I have three engines made by me in Harlem, and
which have been running from four to six years, two in New York
and one at the J. L. Mott Iron Works at Mott Haven. These can
all be visited in one trip. I propose that you send Mr. Green to
see them in operation, and talk with the engineers and owners
and learn all about them, and that you suspend your decision until
you get his report." "That is a fair offer," said he. "I will send
him to-day." I called again the next day, and found Mr. Peters
ready to throw the order into my hands. Mr. Green told me after-
wards what his impressions were. In the most cool manner,
entirely free from any excitement, he said: "My only wonder is
that everybody does not use this engine and that all builders don't
make it. I got the same report everywhere. Would not have
anything else. Costs less money, occupies less space, burns less
coal, needs less attention, never cost a cent for repairs, never
anything the matter, never varies its speed."
And so I began business in Mr. Phillips' shop, where I con-
tinued for four years, tin 1 most delightful period in my active life.
I had Mr. Goodfellow in his old place as my foreman, and three or
four of my best men back again at the work they loved. Every-
thing went smoothly and harmoniously, and the business grew
steadily until the orders thrust upon me became larger than I could
have filled if I had had the whole works to myself. In re-introduc-
ing the engine to the public, I determined to change its name. I
had been asked occasionally what I had to do with the Allen
engine. It struck me that I had a good deal to do with it.
Starting from Mr. Allen's single eccentric link motion, and four-
opening equilibrium valve and my own governor, I had, with the
help •which I have been happy to acknowledge, created the high-
speed engine, had solved every problem, theoretical and practical,
which it involved, and designed every part of it. So I felt it to
to be proper that it should thereafter be known as the Porter-
Allen engine.
The following incident illustrates the ease with which every-
242 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
thing down to the smallest detail may unconsciously be prepared
to insure a disaster at some time.
Mr. Peters' engine-room was a long, narrow room on one side of
the boiler-room, from which was the only entrance to it directly
opposite the guide-bars of the engine. The door opened inward,
and the latch was not very secure. They burned soft coal, which
was wheeled in on an elevated plank and dumped into a heap in
front of the furnace.
One day, about a year after the engine was put in, there was a
great wind blowing. A gust of unusual force blew the engine-room
door open at the instant when a barrowful of coal was being
dumped, and carried a cloud of its dust over the guide-bars. The
engine was soon brought to a standstill. All the faces of cross-
head and guide-bars were deeply scored. It was found, however,
that when these were cleaned up and scraped over to remove all
projections that they ran as well as ever, the grooves proving good
oil distributors, but they were not so pretty to look at.
One day, two or three weeks after we commenced work on this
engine, Mr. Phillips' bookkeeper came to me and said: "Mr. Peters'
engine is contracted to be running on the first of May, is it not?"
"Yes." "Do you think it will be ready?" I replied that the
work was in a good state of forwardness, and I thought most likely
it would be running before that time. I should say that was a
size for which I had made the revised drawings already, and the
old cylinder pattern had been readily altered to the new style.
"Well," said he, "Mr. Phillips is a little short to-day, and he
would be much obliged if you would give him your note for a thou-
sand dollars to come due, say, the fifteenth of May." So I gave
him the note, the engine was ready on time, accepted and paid for,
and the note met at maturity.
This was the beginning of a uniform process, which continued
for four years. It was disclosed that Mr. Phillips' financial position
was the same as my own, neither of us had a cent of money. The
way we managed was this. I always afterwards required payments
in instalments, one quarter with the order, one quarter when the
engine was ready for shipment, and the balance when running
satisfactorily. Thus with my notes we got along famously. My
orders were always from first-class parties, engines always ready
SALE OF ENGINE TO MR. PETERS 243
on time, always gave satisfaction, and promptly paid for. I had
many thousands in notes out all the time, and never had to renew
a note. Mr. James Moore of Philadelphia, the celebrated builder
of rolling mill machinery, once long after remarked to me, "I keep
my bank account in the shop." It occurred to me that I had
always done the same thing.
Directly after we got running I received a letter from William
R. Jones, superintendent of the Edgar Thompson Steel Company,
running a rail mill recently started at Braddocks by Carnegie
Brothers, saying that they were in need of an engine to drive a
circular saw at a very high rate of speed to cut off steel rails cold.
They had been recommended by Mr. Holley to get one of mine,
and if I could furnish a suitable engine immediately he would order
it. Fortunately I could. While I was building engines in Harlem,
the city of Washington, D. C, went into the system of wooden
pavements, and the contractor obtained an engine from me for
sawing up the blocks. About the very time I received Mr. Jones'
letter I had learned that the wooden pavement system was being
abandoned in Washington for asphalt and the sawing-mill was
closed. I at once wrote to the contractor making him an offer for
the engine. I received by return mail a reply accepting my offer,
and adding most complimentary words concerning the engine.
These I remember closed by saying that his admiration of it was
such that if he were able he would put the engine in a glass case
and keep it there as long as he lived
The engine proved just right for Mr. Jones' use. I went myself
to Braddocks to see it started. All were much interested in the
governor action, I as much as any one, for I had never before seen
this particular application of it. In sawing through the head and
web and bottom flange of the rail, the width of section being cut
varied continually, and the gentle rising and falling of the counter-
poise, adjusting the power to the resistance, while the engine kept,
so far as the eye could detect, a uniform motion, had about it a con-
tinual fascination. The success of this engine brought me several
orders for governors, the most important of which was one from
Mr. Jones himself for governors and throttle valves for his bloom-
ing mill and rail-mill engines. I got up for him balanced piston
valves which operated perfectly. In iron valves and seats of this
244
ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
character it had been found, where the steam contained primed
water, that their edges wore rounded, and their action in regulating
the motion became less and less satisfactory. I knew that these
boilers primed badly, and avoided this defect by setting brass rings
in the edges.
The following illustrations show this regulating valve which I
designed and made in two sizes.
The brass liner for the lower seat was passed through the upper
seat by being made thinner than the upper liner. Those for the
valve were made $ inch too long, and guttered in the lower edge.
They were then driven down by a set and sledge on an anvil.
By going around them three times the lower edges were spread
out to fill the chamfer, and the flanges brought down to their
seats. Those for the lower valve were put in in halves.
Mr. Porter's Regulating Valve.
William R. Jones
CHAPTER XXIII
Experience as Member of the Board of Judges
At the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition
NE day in April I was surprised to receive by mail a
commission as a member of the Board of Judges in
Group Twenty of the Philadelphia International Ex-
hibition. I was at a loss to know how I got it, but
learned afterwards that I had been appointed on the recom-
mendation of Mr. Holley, who was consulted by the commissioners
about the judges in several groups. The exhibition was opened on
May 1, but the judges were not to assemble until the 24th, and
on that day we had quite a ceremony in the judges' hall. The
American judges were seated at one side of the hall and rose
to receive the foreign judges who filed in from some place where
they had been corralled, while a fine band played the national airs
of all nations that had any airs. After a time spent in welcoming
and responsive addresses, we were marched to a large cafe and
given luncheon, after which the different groups were organized.
There I had the pleasure of first meeting Mr. James Moore, also
Professor Reuleaux of Berlin and Colonel Petroff of St. Petersburg;
and Emil Brugsch the interesting Egyptian commissioner, also
serving as a judge in our group. I observed that these foreigners
used the English language more accurately than I did. We
organized by the election as president of Horatio Allen, formerly
president of the Novelty Iron Works (then extinct), he being the
oldest and the biggest man among us. Under Mr. Allen's admin-
istration we had a fine illustration of how not to do anything —
of endless preparation and never getting to work. He had an
interminable series of subjects for discussion and was accustomed
245
246 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
to say: "These questions must be all settled before we can
enter upon the discharge of our duties, gentlemen." This had
the effect upon our foreign judges that they absented them-
selves from our meetings. I remember Mr. Moore saying tome:
" Porter, if you and 1 had had this work to do we would have had
it half done by this time." Directly after that Mr. Moore resigned,
ostensibly pleading want of time to attend to it, but really dis-
gusted at the waste of time. Our work was in a state of chaos.
The field was very extensive, as it embraced all exhibits pertaining
to steam and water except locomotives. One morning I came to
the meeting with a copy of the catalogue on which I had divided
the exhibits into three classes, lettered A, B, and C: class A em-
braced steam-engines and their accessories, class B boilers and
their accessories and class C pumps and their accessories; I had
prefixed these letters to the names of all our exhibits according to
their class. At this meeting, at which I had procured the attend-
ance of the foreign judges, this classification was unanimously
adopted, and the judges formed themselves into these classes
accordingly. Our work was then undertaken in earnest; it was
found to be really too extensive to be accomplished otherwise.
Mr. Charles E. Emery was appointed a judge to fill the vacant
place' made by Mr. Moore's resignation, and he proved most effi-
cient. As is well known, medals were not awarded, but brief writ-
ten reports were made on those exhibits which were deemed most
deserving: these reports were signed by all the judges.
The firm of E. P. Allis & Co. of Milwaukee, exhibited a saw-
mill. This exhibit consisted of two large circular saws, each
driven by a horizontal engine. The two engines were united by a
common shaft on the ends of which the cranks were set at right
angles with each other. The center lines of these engines were
nearly 20 feet apart; the shaft carried two belt drums S or 10 feet
in diameter, one of them near to the bed of each engine: at the
middle of the shaft was a fly-wheel about 10 feet in diameter.
The rim of this fly-wheel was in eight or ten segments, with an arm
attached to the middle of each segment; the segments were bolted
together and the arms were bolted to a hub on the shaft. The
saws were set behind the cylinders, and the belts were carried
from the drums on the shaft past the cylinders to smaller drums
Professor Francis Reuleaux
THE PHILADELPHIA CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION 247
on the saw arbors. On starting these engines the two bearings of
the main shaft heated so badly that the engines had to be stopped.
The gentleman in charge of the exhibit applied to me for advice.
I told him that although his shaft was large it was long, and the
weight of the fly-wheel bent it so much that the two journals ran on
the inner edges of their bottom boxes, which caused the heating.
I told him he did not need the fly-wheel at all; the cranks being
quartering, the momentum of the belt-drums was amply sufficient
to maintain uniform motion, and I advised him to take off the
fly-wheel. This he did at once, leaving only the hub on the shaft;
the engines then ran with cold bearings and uniform motion
throughout the exhibition. They had made a cut-off gear for
these engines, but it was found not to suit the purpose and was
taken off. This firm then did a great stroke of business : they came
to the sensible conclusion that they could do a great deal better
than to attempt to work out a new system of engineering for them-
selves, so they offered to Mr. Edwin Reynolds, the manager of Mr.
Corliss' works, and to his head draftsman, inducements sufficient
for them to leave Mr. Corliss' employment and take the same
positions in the Allis works at Milwaukee for the manufacture of
the Corliss engine there. With the magnificent result of this action
the engineering world is familiar.
We had all sorts of queer experiences. One day I was de-
manded by Mr. Jerome Wheelock to tell him why the engine
exhibited by him was not a perfect engine. I glanced over the
long slender bed, a copy of the Corliss bed without its rigidity,
and declined to answer his question. Mr. Emery was more com-
pliant; on receiving the same demand, he kindly pointed out to
Mr. Wheelock one respect in which his engine could hardly be
considered perfect; the steam was exhausted into a large chamber
embracing the lower half of the cylinder from end to end. This
comparatively cold bath produced the condensation of a large
quantity of the entering steam. From the middle of this chamber
a pipe took away the exhaust from the opposite ends of the cylin-
der alternately. Mr. Wheelock admitted the defect, and said in
future he would avoid it, so, as I learned, having two exhaust
pipes instead of one, he gave to each pipe one half the area of the.
single one.
248 EXGINEERIXG REMINISCENCES
I had the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with Professor
Sweet, who was superintending the exhibit of the mechanical work
of his boys at Cornell; this was very creditable and included quite
a show of surface plates.
The Corliss engine in this exhibition was far the most imposing,
and to the multitude the most attractive single exhibit ever shown
anywhere. It consisted of two distinct engines, each having a
cylinder 40 inches in diameter, with 10 feet stroke of piston, the
motion of which was transmitted through cast-iron walking
beams to cranks set at right angles with each other on the opposite
ends of a common shaft. This shaft made 36 revolutions per
minute and carried a gear-wheel 30 feet in diameter; this wheel
engaged with a pinion 10 feet in diameter on the line of shaft
under the floor, giving to this shaft a speed of 108 revolutions per
minute.
One day I said to Professor Sweet: "Do you know, Professor,
that an engine with a single cylinder of the same bore as these and
5 feet stroke directly connected with a line shaft and making 150
revolutions per minute, with a fly-wheel 10 or 12 feet in diameter,
would exert more power than is afforded by this monster and
would run with far greater economy, because the internal surfaces
to be heated by the condensation of the entering steam would be
one piston instead of two, two heads instead of four, and 5 feet
length of exposed cylinder instead of 20 feet?" He replied : "That
i^ all very true, but how would you get the steam in and out of
the cylinder properly with a piston travel of 1500 feet per minute?"
I was not prepared to answer that question on the instant, but
I afterwards found no difficulty about it.
The accompanying figures illustrate this engine and my high-
speed equivalent drawn to the same scale; it will be seen that the
small engine occupies about one tenth of the floor space needed
for the large one, and would cost less than ten per cent, of the
money. It would also have a more nearly uniform motion, the
impulses received by the crank being 300 per minute, against
only 144 per minute received by both cranks of the large engine,
besides which in the latter the full force of the steam is exerted at
the commencement of each stroke and falls to nothing at the end,
while in the smaller engine, by the inertia of the reciprocating
THE FIRST EXHIBITION OF THE BELL TELEPHONE 249
250
EXGIXEE1UXG REMIXIXCENCES
parts, the forces exerted at the opposite ends of the stroke would
be practically equalized. The reader will doubtless inquire, as Mr.
Green did why, with these enormous advantages, does not every-
body use the high-speed engines and every builder make them?
At this exhibition the Bell telephone was first shown to a
select company, among which were President Grant and Dom
Pedro, the last emperor of Brazil. This exhibition was given on
Sunday, that being the only day when silence could be had.
Human speech, both in talking and singing, was transmitted
through the whole length of the main building, about 1S00 feet;
it has since been transmitted somewhat further.
" , t. . ■-. !"." "fT "'x. " m •)•._ i.\ }~".... j i^_^ i ... „xi — f.. .'".'h j — .-/jT7-'^...Li"7irn'.' J -: ," '.X
Porter-Allen Engine Equal in Power to the Exhibited Corliss Engine.
The exhibitors of hand pumps all talked about the ease with
which their own pumps could be worked; one man touched bot-
tom in this respect. He had set his pump so that the spout was
nearly on a level with the surface of the pool from which it drew
its water; he boldly claimed that his pumps required no power at
all. T was invited, as I suppose multitudes were, to take hold of
the handle and see for myself that his claim was true. I never
heard ot but one man who I think would be satisfied with this
demonstration; that was the engineering editor of the New York
Tribune. Shortly before this he had published an account of a
wonderful pump invented by a Mr. George, which he concluded
by saying that the superiority of Mr. George's pump lay in the
SHOW OF STEAM FIRE ENGINES 251
fact that at each stroke not the whole column of water had to be
lifted, but only that which was to be discharged. We had a
waterfall maintained by a centrifugal pump, which received its
water on one side only; the maker evidently knowing nothing
about the method of balancing these pumps by admitting the
water equally on the opposite sides.
The boiler-makers abounded. My old acquaintance, the Harri-
son boiler, turned up. Mr. Allen urged a favorable award to Mr.
Harrison because of the motives of humanity by which he knew
Mr. Harrison was actuated in designing that boiler. A Mr. Pierce
invited all the judges to visit his boiler and hear him explain it.
He informed us that this boiler had been the subject of three
scientific tests by Professor Thurston, but he did not tell us the
results of those tests.
As we were coming away Professor Reuleaux said to me:
"That is foolishness, isn't it?"
An inventor named Smith came several times to our judges'
room to urge upon us the merits of his boiler. He had two on
exhibition, one in use in the boiler-house and the other in Machin-
ery Hall; these were quite different from each other. One day
not long after the close of the exhibition I received a note from a
stranger requesting me to call upon him at the Astor House. I
thought, "This man doubtless wants an engine, but his time is too
precious to come out to Newark," so at the hour appointed I was
there. When I entered the room the first object I saw was a
sectional model of this Smith boiler, and I found that the gentle-
man wanted to know our reasons for overlooking that boiler.
I replied to him that I had a question to which I would like an
answer at his earliest convenience; we observed that the two
boilers exhibited by Mr. Smith were quite different from each
other, and I saw that this model differed in essential details from
both of them, and I would like to know which one he wished us
to approve of and bade him good afternoon.
One day afterwards I happened to be in Mr. Holley's office
in New York when a man came in with a drawing of a boiler which
he wished Mr. Holley to recommend. Mr. Holley turned him over
to me, and he explained to me that the great novel feature of his
boiler was that the feed-water was admitted by spraying it into
252 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
the steam space, thus avoiding the cooling of any part of the
boiler by its admission at one point; so I found one freak boiler
that was not at the exhibition.
We had a fine exhibit of steam fire-engines. I think every
maker in this country was represented, and we had a trial of these
engines lasting three or four days. The committee desired to
make a thorough comparative test of their performance, but the
man (a lieutenant in the navy) appointed to keep the record put
down so few items that we found we had no record at all. We
could only guess how he came to do this.
An exhibitor from Canada brought an engine that presented
a very fine appearance; it was made up of a collection of what he
believed to be the best features of every steam-engine made in
the United States. The experts looked his machine over and saw
where he had got every one of them, but his different appropriations
did not work well together; his engine broke down every day
and he worked all night to be ready for the next day's trial. It
afforded a good commentary on the narrow-minded laws of Canada,
which forbade a citizen of the United States from taking out a
patent there.
The show of steam-engines was not large, and the indicator
was not applied to any engines, so I had no use for the indicators
I had imported from England. If I remember rightly, we had
only two engines from abroad, one of these sent by the Govern-
ment of Brazil. This was what was called a "table" engine, in
which the cylinder stands on a table in a vertical position and
two connecting-rods extend down from the cross-head and con-
nect with the crank under the table. It was copied from a Scotch
elementary drawing-book from which I learned mechanical draw-
ing. One of these engines had been made by Mr. Hoe to drive
the press of the New York Daily Times when that paper was
started in 1851 or 1852. The other foreign engine was made by a
Brussels manufacturer with the assistance of the Belgian Govern-
ment. It had an American cut-off which was used by Mr. Dela-
mater on his engines, and it had the eccentric between the main
bearing and the crank, giving to the latter therefore three or four
inches of unnecessary overhang; it had my condenser, which I
learned was then coming into considerable use on the Continent.
Col. Alexis Petroff
REPORT OF THE SICKELS EXHIBIT 253
The only American engines I now recall besides the Corliss were
the Buckeye and the Brown engines, and our awards to these
engines did not do them any harm; the Corliss engines were not
within our jurisdiction and we were not permitted to say any-
thing about them; Mr. Corliss was not a competitor but a patron
of the exhibition.
Mr. Frederick E. Sickels made an extensive exhibit of his
various inventions, the models of which had been loaned to him
for that purpose by the Patent Office. Only two of these inven-
tions came within our province: the first was what is known
as the celebrated trip cut-off, patented by him in the year 1842;
the latter an arrangement patented in 1S4S. The former inven-
tion was an improvement on the Stevens cut-off, already in gen-
eral use in steamboats on our Eastern waters. The Stevens in-
vention was applied to equilibrium valves, rising and falling in
a direction vertical to their seats. It enlarged the opening move-
ment of the valve in a degree increasing as the speed of the piston
increased, by means of the device known as the wiper cam; but
the closing motion of the valve, being the reverse of the opening
movement, grew slower and slower, until the valve was gently
brought to its seat. It was found that during the closing of
the port a great deal of steam blew into the cylinder through
the contracting openings, with very little addition to the use-
ful effect. Mr. Sickels conceived the idea of liberating the
valve just before the opening movement was completed and
letting it fall instantly to its seat, which would effect a sharp
cut-off and a great economy in the consumption of steam. This
action involved the difficulty that the valves would strike their
seats with a violent blow, which would soon destroy both. This
difficulty Mr. Sickels met by the invention of the dash-pot.
This apparatus performed two functions: when its piston was
lifted above the water it left a vacuum under it, so the pres-
sure of the atmosphere on this piston was added to the weight
of the valve and the pressure of the steam on it to accelerate
its fall. This was arrested by the piston striking the surface
of the water just in time to prevent the valve from striking its
seat, but not soon enough to prevent the complete closure of the
port. This nice point was determined by the ear. The engineer
254 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
first let water out of the dash-pot gradually, until he heard the
valve strike its seat faintly; then he admitted water drop by drop,
until the sound had died away. For these inventions and for his
steam steering gears the judges made an award.
Our foreign judges were enthusiastic about them; Horatio
Allen had fought Mr. Sickels during his whole business life
and would never allow a Sickels cut-off to be applied in the
Novelty Iron Works. For example, the directors of the Collins
steamship line adopted the Sickels cut-off, but it was put on only
two of their ships, the "Arctic" and the "Baltic," the engines
of which were built at the Allaire works. The "Atlantic" and
"Pacific," which were engined at the Novelty Works, did not
have it, Mr. Allen absolutely refusing to allow it. To my surprise
Mr. Allen signed this award with a cordial expression of admira-
tion of Mr. Sickels' genius; he had softened in his old age.
The following is a copy of this award.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
United States Centennial Commission,
Philadelphia, 3d August, 1876.
REPORT ON AWARDS.
" Group No. XX.
"Catalogue No. 1027.
"Product, Models of Improvements in Steam-engines.
"Name and address of exhibitor, Frederick E. Sickels.
"The undersigned, having examined the products herein de-
scribed, respectfully recommend the same to the United States
Centennial Commission for Award for the following reasons, viz:
"These exhibits possess great historical interest.
In the year 1842 Mr. Sickels patented the trip or liberating
cut-off, an invention which, in a variety of forms, has come into
use wherever steam-engines are made. In applying this inven-
tion to poppet valves, Mr. Sickels prevented these valves from
striking their seats by his invention of the dash-pot, in which
he availed himself of the incompressibility, the indestructibility
and the divisibility of water, and which is now employed for this
purpose in all such applications.
" In 1848 he patented an improvement in the method of controll-
ing motive power, by which method steam is applied at the present
time to various uses, notable among which is the steering of steam
James Moore
THE COMMITTEE OF REVISION 255
vessels, the steersmen turning the wheel precisely as in steering
by hand, but all the force being exerted by the steam.
"Charles T. Porter,
" Reporting Judge.
"Approval of Group Judges,
Horatio Allen, Chas. E. Emery, Emil Brugsch,
F. Reuleaux, N. Petroff."
After our work was finished and I had gone home the awards
were made public; to my astonishment the award to Mr. Sickels
was not among them, so I wrote to General Walker, who was our
medium of communication with the Commission, asking the rea-
son for this omission. He replied that the award had been thrown
out by the Committee of Revision. "Committee of Revision!"
I had never heard of such a thing. I asked for an explanation and
I learned that the judges did not make awards, they only recom-
mended them; the awards were made by the Commission after
they had passed the scrutiny of the Committee of Revision. Well,
who were the Committee of Revision? I learned that the Com-
mission consisted of two commissioners from each State appointed
by the Governor; Mr. Corliss was a commissioner from Rhode
Island. At a meeting of the commissioners Mr. Corliss proposed
the novel scheme of a Committee of Revision, to which the action
of the judges should be submitted for approval before the awards
were made. The idea seemed to please the members of the Com-
mission, as tending to magnify their own importance, and it was
adopted; as a matter of usual courtesy Mr. Corliss was made
chairman of the committee, and the committee threw out the
award to Mr. Sickels. I made careful inquiry and could never
learn that the Committee of Revision threw out any other award,
so it seemed evident that with the throwing out of this award to
Mr. Sickels the object of its existence was accomplished.
In the Corliss valve system the liberation of the valve was
the fundamental idea ; this was applied by him to valves moving
in the direction parallel with their seats. It not being necessary to
arrest their motion at any precise point, they were caught by air
cushions at any points after they had covered their ports. Mr.
Corliss had appropriated the liberating idea, according to "the
good old rule, the simple plan, that they may take who have the
256 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
power, and they may keep who can," and all this machinery had
been devised by him to prevent the historical fact that the liber-
ating idea had been invented by Mr. Sickels from appearing in
the records of the exhibition. By all this enormous expenditure
of ingenuity and influence he succeeded in giving to this fact a
prominence and importance which it would never otherwise have
had, besides advertising his efforts to suppress it.
Mr. Horatio Allen's life-long aversion to Mr. Sickels was caused
by professional jealousy Mr. Allen conceived himself to be an in-
ventor, and for years had been cherishing a cut-off invention of his
own. The original firm was Stillman, .Allen & Co., and for years
Mr. Stillman had prevented the Novelty Iron Works from being
sacrificed to Mr. Allen's genius, but later Mr. Allen had obtained
supreme control of these works by an affiliation with Brown Broth-
ers, the bankers, his principal stockholders, and Mr. Stillman sold
out his interest and retired from the firm. Mr. Allen, having a
clear field, now determined to put his invention on the new steamer
of the Collins line, the "Adriatic," and American engineers were
amused at the display of this amazing absurdity on the largest
possible scale. In this construction there were four valves; each
valve was a conical plug about six feet long and had four move-
ments; first it was withdrawn from its seat a distance of three
inches so that it could be rotated freely, then it was rotated first
to draw off the lap. Up to this point theoretically the port had
not been opened, but the steam had been blowing into the cylinder
or out of it, as the case might be, through these enormous cracks;
the valves then rotated further to produce the opening movement,
for either admission or release; the rotation was then reversed
until it reached its original position, then the fourth movement
brought it to its seat. It is probable that the ship would have
gone to sea working steam after this ridiculous fashion, if the
complicated mechanism required to produce the four movements
had not broken down at the trial of the engines at the dock, beyond
the power of Mr. Allen's genius to remedy; so the valves had to
be removed and the Stevens valves and Sickels cut-off were sub-
stituted for them. The story that any sane man ever designed a
tour-motion steam-engine valve, ami that he made the first appli-
cation of it on the largest steamship, except the Great Eastern,
Emil Brugsch
ENGLISH VISITORS 257
then in the world, is such a tax on credulity, that I was glad to
find the following corroboration of it in a letter to "Power,"
from which I copy the essential portion.
" In one of Mr. Porter's ' Reminiscences/ which I have mislaid,
he gives an account of the alterations to the last steamer of the
E. K. Collins lines, the 'Adriatic.' His description of Horatio
Allen's cock-valves and their motions is absolutely correct. The
writer made the greater part of the detail drawings by which the
new valves and the Sickels cut-off were placed on the ' Adriatic.'
Peter Van Brock.
Jefferson, Iowa."
These engines, as further designed by Mr. Allen, were afterwards
described by Zerah Colburn in the London Engineer in his usual
caustic style. His description began with this expression: "These
engines are fearfully and wonderfully made."
I had hoped that my old friend Daniel Kinnear Clark might
turn up as the English member in our group of judges at the Cen-
tennial Exposition, but in this I was disappointed. The English
judge in our group was Mr. Barlow, son of the celebrated author
of "A Treatise on the Strength of Materials," which, if I remember
rightly, was the first authoritative treatise on that subject. Mr.
Barlow, however, was not of much help to us; he came late and
attended but one meeting. That, I remember very well, was the
meeting at which I presented my classification. He left Philadel-
phia with his son to visit Niagara Falls, and we never saw him
again. I remember his giving me a very cordial invitation to visit
him when I should find myself in England.
Two of my English engineering acquaintances appeared at this
exhibition. One of them was a judge in the group which embraced
sewing machines. I remember asking him what was the most
interesting mechanical device he had seen at the exhibition; he
told me it was the automatic tension in the Wilcox & Gibbs sewing
machine. In a walk with him through Machinery Hall one day, I
called his attention to a locomotive built by the Baldwin Locomo-
Works. After looking it over cursorily he remarked that he
did not see anything particular in it. I could not help replying,
"That may not be the fault of the locomotive." I had thought him
258 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
a light weight in England, and that superficial remark confirmed
my opinion. The other friend, as I am proud to call him, I have
always considered mechanically the most interesting man I ever
met. It was Mr. Smith, of Smith & Coventry, the machine-tool
builders of Salford. Mr. Smith was the brains of the concern. He
had come over to learn what America could teach him, and the
only thing he took back, so far as I know, was the twist-drill, the
manufacture of which was begun by that firm after his return. I
shall have something to add later to what I have already said
respecting his wonderful improvements in machine tools. In one
of the pleasant walks we took together, our attention was arrested
by the exhibit of Riehle Brothers, the celebrated scale manufac-
turers of Philadelphia. Among other novel and interesting feat-
ures of their exhibit this firm showed a f-inch bolt broken by a
stress applied to it through a nut of only one half the standard
thickness, or three eighths of an inch deep, and that run on loosely
by hand. This astonishing revelation drew from Mr. Smith the
ejaculation, " Why, old Whitworth lied." Mr.Whitworth had stated
that he had ascertained by experiment that a nut to be as strong
as the bolt must have a depth equal to the diameter of the bolt,
and this had been accepted as mechanical truth by the entire
engineering world, no one ever thinking to make the simple meas-
urement which would show that the force required to strip the
threads of any bolt in a nut of this standard depth would be nearly
three times the strength of the bolt. He was, of course, highly
interested in the wonderful steelyards made by this firm, which
would weigh anything that could be lifted by a crane. His only
discovery respecting machine tools was, that their manufacture in
the United States was generally very inferior.
It was fortunate that I had prepared the drawings according
to my revised model for three or four sizes of the engines, as other-
wise I should not have been able to accept the position offered me
at the Philadelphia exposition. I received two more orders before
May 24, and two more during the summer, but with the prepara-
tions I had made and Mr. Goodfellow's familiarity with the work,
everything went on smoothly during my absence.
CHAPTER XXIV
Engine Building in Newark. Introduction of Harris Tabor
FTER my return from Philadelphia the first order I
received was a very important one. On the advice of
Mr. Holley, the Albany and Rensselaer Iron and Steel
Co. of Troy, N. Y., decided to order from me two
engines for the new roll trains they were about to establish;
this being the first opportunity I had of applying my engine
in what proved to be its most important field. These were a
22 X 36-inch engine to drive a 16-inch train for rolling light steel
rails, and an 18 x 30-inch engine to drive an 8- or 10-inch train for
rolling merchant steel. These engines did not run rapidly; the
first was a direct-connected engine making only 75 revolutions per
minute; the second made only 112 revolutions per minute, but was
belted to drive the train at twice that speed.
Mr. Corning, president of the company, did not like the slow
way in which the rails were turned out of the former train. I
happened to be standing with him observing this work when he
asked a boy why the billets were not fed to the rolls faster. The
boy replied, "Because the gentlemen at the hooks could not catch
them, sir." Where are the gentlemen at the hooks to-day, when
rails 200 feet long are turned out of the rolls?
These engines stood near each other, the trains extending in
opposite directions. The battery of boilers was located at a con-
siderable distance from them. I set between them a vertical steam
receiver, four feet in diameter and twelve feet high. This receiver
performed two functions : it maintained the steam pressure at the
cylinders and separated the steam from the water carried over.
This latter was accomplished by admitting the steam at the top of
259
260 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
the receiver by a pipe extending two thirds of the way to the bottom,
draining the water from the bottom by means of a Nason steam
trap, and taking the dry steam to the engine from the top of the
receiver. This was my first application of this method, which
afterwards proved most valuable in cases of greater importance.
These engines were of the highest interest to me, as their success-
ful running opened the door to that important field.
While they were still lying on the floor of the shop ready for
shipment, I had an opportunity of submitting them to the criti-
cism of William R. Jones, the manager of the Edgar Thompson
Steel Works, to whom, as already related, I had sold a small engine
and governors for his large ones. I had not made these engines
properly in one respect, as he pointed out to me that, for rolling-
mill uses, they must be made capable of being run backwards
by hand from any position, a requirement of which I had been
ignorant. I soon made the necessary additions to the valve-gear
which enabled this to be done. I never knew how Mr. Jones came
to make this opportune visit, but undoubtedly Mr. Holley sent him.
I had another visitor before these engines were shipped.
It was the manager of the Laclede rolling mill at St. Louis, accom-
panied by his engineer. They had designed a system of driving
several trains of rolls from one engine, the power of which was to
be transmitted through gearing. They were greatly fascinated by
the appearance of the engines, and gave me an order for a large
engine on the spot.
This engine afforded me a curious experience. When it was
started, teeth were broken out of the gear at the very first revolu-
tion, and I received a telegram from them telling me of this mis-
fortune and that I must come to St. Louis immediately and see
what was the trouble with the engine. I was too busy to go myself,
but Mr. Phillips kindly permitted his engineer, Mr. Collins, to go
in my place. Mr. Collins took with him everything necessary to
expose the defect, whatever it might be, which we expected would
be found in the gearing. Among other things he had the pattern-
maker prepare for him two or three short pieces of lath about two
two inches wide and one eighth of an inch thick; these latter
proved to be all that he needed. On his arrival the proprietors
assured him there could be no fault with the gearing, for they
EXPERIENCE WITH GEARING 261
had it made by the most eminent engineering firm in St. Louis.
The members of this firm showed him triumphantly the broken
pieces and directed his attention to the perfect soundness of the
metal, as proved by the fractured surfaces. His first experiment
was to whittle an end of one piece of lath to fit exactly between
two teeth of a wheel at one end of the space. To his amazement
he found that this templet would not fit in any other space around
the whole wheel, every one was in some degree or other too large
or too small; neither would the templet fit in the opposite end of
the same space. This one experiment settled the matter; the
engine, to be sure, had broken the gears, because the larger teeth
of the driving-wheels had wedged into the smaller spaces of the
driven wheels. How such work could be produced was a puzzle
to Mr. Collins; as for myself, I have never wondered at any imper-
fection in gearing since my experience with Mr. Whitworth's work.
The owners of the rolling mill applied for advice to Samuel T.
Wellman, the manager of the Otis Steel Works at Cleveland. He
gave them the sensible advice to abandon altogether the plan of
driving through gearing, and to drive each train by a separate engine,
directly connected, which my high-speed engine would enable them
to do. This was the first I heard of Mr. Wellman, with whom I
was afterwards to have such pleasant relations.
Wliile on the subject of gearing I will state a couple of incidents.
One of my first small engines I sold to Mr. Albright of Newark, a
harness-maker. Half of the power of the engine was to be trans-
mitted to an adjoining building driving a vertical shaft through a
pair of miter gears. It was required that these should run noise-
lessly, which at 350 revolutions per minute seemed a difficult thing
to accomplish. I had the gears cut in the best gear cutter I knew
of, and fitted them to run in a lathe, the spindle of the driven gear
running in a frame made for the purpose, and being provided
with a friction wheel and brake. To make sure that the same
teeth and spaces should always come together, I made a prick-
punch mark on one tooth and behind the corresponding space.
When started at 350 revolutions they rattled finely. The resist-
ance of the friction brake was sufficient to make the points of
contact on the teeth mark themselves well in 15 minutes' running.
I then took them down and carefully removed the bright spots on
262 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
the surface with a scraper. The next time the noise was more
than half gone, and four successive scrapings by a skillful workman
cured it entirely. There is this encouragement in correcting gear-
ing, that its subsequent running always tends to improve the truth
of the surfaces; they wear to a more general contact.
One day I had a letter from Mr. Barclay, the miller for whom
I had made my first engine in Harlem, and which I arranged to
drive his millstones by belting. He told me he had moved his
mill from Harrison Street to a building on North Moore Street,
New York, and he found there was something the matter with the
engine. (In these cases there is always something the matter
with the engine.) It used to drive three runs of stones, now it
would only drive two, and he burned a great deal more coal than
before. He wanted me to come and see what the matter was. The
moment I opened the door of his mill I knew what the matter
was. I heard the roar of rough gearing and was pretty mad.
I told him I hoped he liked that music, for it cost him more than
half the coal he was burning to keep it up. I gave him a sharp
piece of my mind for changing the system of driving from that
which I had provided without consulting me on the subject. I
told him when he threw out his gearing and put the pulleys and
belts back just as I made them, he would find the engine would
give him the same power that it had done for five or six years in
its old location.
In the first engines which I built in Newark the governor had
a more or less uncomfortable action. This annoyed me exceed-
ingly. It did not sensibly affect the running of the engine, but
was a drawback to the appearance of the engine in motion. I
was utterly at a loss how to account for it, so I finally deter-
mined I would solve the problem by a comparison of two engines
of the same size. One of these was the smaller engine for the roll-
ing mill at Troy, where the action of the governor was quite satis-
factory; the other was an engine I had made for the Newark Lime
and Cement Company, in which the action of the governor was
very unsatisfactory. After some weeks of comparison I gave the
problem up; I could get no light on the subject. Soon after I had
occasion to go to Troy and found nry smaller engine running at
double its former speed or at 224 revolutions per minute. Mr.
Robert W. Hunt
ENGINE FOR GAUTIER STEEL WORKS 263
Robert W. Hunt, the general superintendent, informed me that
they planned to employ this speed when rolling steel to finish at
very small sizes, which they were then doing for the first time.
The action of the governor which had before been so perfect
was now most abominable; the counterpoise flying up and down
furiously between the extreme points of its action. I told Mr.
Hunt that something was hindering the action of the governor,
and asked him if he would have an examination made and let
me know what he found. A few days after I received a letter
from him saying he had found nothing at all, but he added that
that order had been completed and the engine was running at
its old speed, and the governor was working as well as ever. In
an instant the truth flashed upon me; it was the inertia of those
polished cast-iron disks on the rocker-shaft which I had thought
so much of that caused all the trouble. This inertia, increasing as
the square of the speed, had offered four times the resistance to the
reversing of their motion when the speed of the engine was doubled,
and the pressure of the link which was necesary to overcome this
resistance held the block fast. The governor could not move it
until it had accumulated sufficient force by change of its speed;
then it moved it too far, and so it was kept in constant violent
motion from one end to the other of its range of action. I was
thoroughly ashamed of myself that when I had made the subject
of inertia a study for years this action should have been going
on so long, the most prominent thing before my eyes, and I never
saw it. I had use enough at once for my new insight as will
appear.
The Gautier steel works, which had been located in Jersey City,
were removing to Johnstown, Penn., having formed an alliance with
the Cambria Iron and Steel Company. Mr. Stephen W. Baldwin,
then manager of the Gautier Company, had given me an order for
an engine suitable for driving at 230 revolutions per minute their
ten-inch train, or it may have been an eight-inch. I went to
Jersey City and made a careful measurement of the indicated power
required to drive this train. The engine used was rather a large
one, with a large and heavy fly-wheel running at slow speed and
driving the train at this rapid speed by means of a belt. I found
that my 10-inch by 20-inch engine directly connected with the train
264 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
would, at 230 revolutions per minute, be capable of furnishing twice
the power they were then using. I built an engine of that size with
a fly-wheel about 8 feet in diameter, shipped it to Johnstown, and
senl George Garraty, my most trusty erecter, to set it up. I
should say that Mi-. Baldwin had meantime severed his connection
with the Gautier Steel Company, and it was then in the hands of
parties who were strangers to my engines. I received a letter
from Garraty stating that on his arrival he had found them just
about to send the engine back; everybody about the works had
agreed that a man who sent I hat little engine to drive that train to
roll steel was a fool. At his solicitation they promised to do nothing
until they should hear from me. I then wrote to the president
Mr. Douglas, stating 1 had carefully measured the utmost power
which that train had required at .Jersey City, and had furnished an
engine capable of supplying double that power with ease, and I was
sure he would run no risk in setting it up. This he consented to
do. While Garraty was erecting the engine they were making
preparations in the mill to stall it if possible. There was great
excitement when it was started; the furnace men worked like
beavers and succeeded in feeding billets to the train twice as rap-
idly as ever before, but they could not bring down its speed in the
least. Finally they lowered the steam pressure, but the engine
did not stop until they had brought this down to 40 pounds. Then
a great shout went up. not for themselves but for the engine,
which had shown itself capable of doubling the output of that
train, and telegrams were hurried off to the stockholders of the
concern in New York and Philadelphia to relieve their anxiety.
Garraty left that night and reported himself to me the following
morning. After giving an account of the success of the engine he
added: "Rut the governor is working very badly; they have not
noticed it yet as they have thought only of the running of the
train, but they will." By a remarkable coincidence T had that
very morning received the letter from Mr. Hunt which had opened
my eyes to the cause of this bad action; the day before I could
not have understood it.
Within twenty-four hours after my interview with Garraty I
had started for Johnstown, carrying with me two light steel levers
to replace those disks. In that time I had made the drawings and
Stephen W. Baldwin
INTRODUCTION OF HARRIS TABOR 265
had the levers forged and finished, joint-pins set and key ways
cut, perfect duplicates of the disks in all their working features.
When I told my purpose to Mr. Douglas he smiled and said for the
life of him he could not see what disks on the rocker-shaft had to
do with the governor action. However, they had not yet started
their night shift, so I might have the engine after 6 o'clock, but
it must be ready for use at 6 o'clock the next morning. I told
him that as the change would probably- occupy me less than an
hour, I thought I might safely assure him on that point. I engaged
a machinist with the engineer to help me at 7 o'clock in the- evening
and amused myself the rest of the day about the mill. The furious
governor action was so irritating I did not stay long in the engine-
room. In the evening we had the disks off and the levers on and
all connected up, ran the engine idle for .a few minutes to see that
all was right and I was back in my hotel within the hour, which
illustrated the advantage of working to gauges. I had taken off
29 pounds weight, that being the difference between the weight
of the disks and the levers. Next morning I went down to see the
effect of this change. It seemed magical. The governor appeared
to have gone to sleep, it was not taking any interest in the activity
about it; the counterpoise stood at about the middle of its range
of action, only moving lazily a short distance up or down occa-
sionally. After calling Mr. Douglas in to see what disks on the
rocker-shaft, with their motion reversed 460 times a minute, had
to do with the governor action, and hearing his expressions of
admiration, I took the next train home. As might be supposed I
was not long in eliminating all traces of this blunder from drawings
and from engines already made.
I had an order from John W. Hyatt of Newark for a 6 X 12-
inch engine to make 450 revolutions per minute, to drive an
attrition mill running at 900 revolutions per minute, in which he
pulverized bones to dust for manufacturing artificial ivory.
This was the highest number of revolutions per minute that I had
ever employed, and perhaps it was the most absolutely silent
running engine that I ever made. Not long after its completion I
had a call from a young gentleman who introduced himself to me
as Harris Tabor. He told me he had invented a steam-engine
indicator which he thought would be superior to the Richards
266 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
indicator, as the pencil movement was very much lighter and
would draw a straight vertical line. He said he called in the hope
that I might give him an opportunity to test his indicator on a
very high-speed engine. I told him I thought I could do just what
he wanted. I took him down to Mr. Hyatt's place where the
engine was running with the indicator rig on it which I had been
using; he was, of course, greatly pleased with this remarkable
opportunity. He took a number of diagrams with his indicator,
and they proved to be quite free from the vibrations which were
produced by the Richards indicator at the same speed. I gave
hdm a certificate that these diagrams had been taken by his indi-
catoi from a Porter-Allen engine at a speed of 450 revolutions per
minute. With these he started for Boston to see Mr. Ashcroft.
With the result of that interview the engineering world is familiar.
To my great regret not one of the diagrams taken at that time
has been preserved either by Mr. Tabor, Mr. Ashcroft or myself,
an omission that none of us can account for. The Hyatt plant was
afterwards, I understood, removed to Albany, N. Y.
I had a singular experience with another 6 X 12-inch engine
which I sold to William A. Sweet, elder brother of Prof. John E.
Sweet, for use in his spring manufactory in Syracuse, N. Y. Mr.
Sweet had two batteries of boilers set at some distance from each
other and at different elevations; these were connected by a pipe
which was necessarily inclined. About the middle of the length of
this pipe a stop-valve had been introduced, and when this valve
was shut the pipe in the upper end of it was, of course, partly filled
with water. My engine received its steam from the bottom of this
pipe below the stop- valve. The boijers at the lower end. were one
day overloaded, and while I happened to be present Mr. Sweet
himself opened the stop- valve for the purpose of getting an addi-
tional supply of steam from the upper battery, but he did not get
it. What he did get was a charge of solid water, which brought
my engine to an instantaneous stop from a speed of 350 revolutions
per minute. I was standing near the engine and saw shooting out
from the joint of the back cylinder head a sheet of water, which
at the top struck the roof of the building. On examination it was
found that the steel key of the fly-wheel had been driven into the
wrought-iron shaft almost half an inch and the shaft was bent.
Harris Tabor
TEST OF FLY-WHEEL 267
The engine suffered no other injury; the bolts of the cylinder head
had not been strained to their elastic limit, and the nuts did not
require to be tightened. The shaft was straightened, new key-
seats were cut for the fly-wheel, and the engine worked as well as
ever — a pretty good proof of its general strength.
I had a couple of funny experiences arising out of my new way
of boring fly-wheels and belt-drums. I sold an engine to Mr.
Westinghouse for his original shop in Pittsburg, before the appear-
ance of the Westinghouse engine. They erected it for them-
selves. I received a telegram from their superintendent, reading:
'The hole in your wheel hub is oblong, what shall we do about
it?" To which I wired back : "Put the wheel on the shaft and
drive in the key."
Another superintendent discovered the same unaccountably
bad piece of work, and did not communicate with me. He did
the best he could by centering the shaft in the hole and filling the
spaces on each side with thin iron scarfed down on each edge.
Then the key would not enter the keyway; so he reduced it until
it would. Then the wheel ran an eighth of an inch out of truth.
Then he unstopped the vials of his wrath and poured out their
contents on, my devoted head.
I had an order from Mr. Mathieson, manager of the works of
the National Tube Company, at McKeesport, Penn., for two
engines, 28 and 32 inches diameter, with 48 inches stroke. The
interest of this story centers in the former of these engines, which
made 125 revolutions per minute. One day the governor spindle
stuck fast in its column, an accident I never knew to happen
before or since, whether caused by a tight fit or for want of
lubrication I do not know. Of course the engine ran away like
mad. Mr. Mathieson and I were in the engine-room; the last I
saw of him his coat skirt was nearly horizontal as he rushed through
the door. The engineer ran to screw down the starting-valve. I
thought that would be too long a process and ran in front of the
fly-wheel to unhook the gab. On the instant, however, I feared
what might be the possible effect in the cylinder of instantly
arresting the motion of the admission valves at an unknown point
in the stroke at that speed, and I did not do it. In a few seconds
the engineer had the valve closed, and the engine soon slowed
268 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
down. The fly-wheel, which was 20 feet in diameter, did not
burst, and I was confident it would not. I never had an accident
to a fly-wheel, but this was the most severe test to which my fly-
wheels were ever subjected. I have heard of many accidents to
fly-wheels, in which it was evident that they were so carelessly
made it seemed as if they were intended to burst on a moderate
acceleration of their speed.
This fly-wheel was necessarily made in halves in order to trans-
port it, and the joints were so made as to be as strong as the section
of the rim. As the accompanying drawing will show, they were
held together by two steel loops opened out of the solid and shrunk
in. It will be seen that any section of cast iron at this point was
equal to the section of the rim, while the steel loops were
stronger. The halves of the hub were held together by bolts and
steel rings.
I sold an engine for a rubber manufactory in Cleveland, Ohio,
and some months after received a letter from the proprietor saying
he had been adding to his machinery and the engine would not
drive it all and would not give its guaranteed power, and he wanted
me to come immediately and see what was the matter with it.
On going into the boiler-room I saw that the steam-gauge showed
only 55 pounds pressure. I asked the engineer why he carried so
little pressure, and he told me that the safety-valve was set to blow
off at 60 pounds, which he considered to be all the pressure a boiler
ought to carry; that he had been an engineer several years on the
Lakes, where 60 pounds was the greatest pressure allowed. I
asked the proprietor if he had his boiler insured; he said he had,
in the Hartford Boiler Insurance Company. I said I supposed
that company had an agent in Cleveland. He said: "Yes, and
his office is around the corner on this block, and if you want to see
him I presume I can have him here in ten minutes." Pretty soon
he appeared, and I said to him: "I understand you have insured
this boiler."
"Yes."
"Have you made a personal examination of it?"
"I have."
"What would you consider a safe pressure to carry?"
"One hundred and twenty pounds."
TEST OF FLY-WHEEL
269
270 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
"Would you hold it insured at that pressure?"
"Certainly, it would be perfectly safe."
"Now," said I to the proprietor, "you will observe that my
guarantee of power assumes a pressure of 85 pounds, and you
have no excuse for not carrying that pressure, and if you do so
you will have no trouble; as for the practice on the Lakes, if you
will come to New York we will show you that on our river and
sound steamboats the practice is to carry only 25 pounds pressure."
He readily agreed to carry the higher pressure, which he found
ample; so I was fooled into going to Cleveland pretty much for
nothing. Afterwards I went there to a better purpose.
CHAPTER XXV
Engine for the Cambria Iron and Steel Company
HE uniform success of my rolling-mill engines encouraged
the Cambria Iron and Steel Company, of Johnstown.
Penn., again on the advice of Mr. Holley, to order
from me an engine to drive their rail-train. For this
purpose I made the largest engine I had yet made, 40-inch cylinder
by 48-inch stroke. It was altogether too large to be built in the
Hewes & Phillips Iron Works, so I had the parts, except the valve-
gear, constructed in three different establishments in Philadelphia.
The bed, which weighed 40,000 pounds, was cast and finished at
The I. P. Morris & Company's works, the cylinder was cast and
finished by Mr. James Moore, who also turned the shaft, and the
crank-disk was turned and bored by William Sellers & Co. The
several parts were not brought together until they met at Johns-
town. The Cambria Company made their own fly-wheel. I spent
considerable time while the work was in progress in traveling
between Newark and Philadelphia, carrying measuring-rods, tem-
plets and gauges. I put the engine together myself, and every-
thing came together without a hitch, which confirmed me in the
belief that putting engines together and taking them down again
in the shop was a great waste of time and space, and the manu-
facturing system which I was planning in my mind I intended
should be wholly a manufacture of pieces to be kept in stock,
and orders filled by shipment of the separate parts direct from
the storehouse.
The boilers at Johnstown were located over the heating furnaces,
utilizing their waste heat, and were scattered all over the works.
The largest steam-pipes were 8 inches in diameter. I gave them
271
272 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
an order to make a steam-receiver 5 feet in diameter and 15 feet
high, to be set close to the cylinder of the engine. They made it
18 feet high, the width of the sheets favoring this greater height.
I took the steam by an 8-inch pipe entering at the top of this
receiver and extending down 12 feet; from the top of the receiver
I took the steam over to the engine by a 12-inch pipe. I drained
the water from the bottom of this receiver by the largest Nason
trap, from which a one-inch stream of water was delivered con-
tinually. I set in the side of this receiver four try-cocks, one
above another four feet apart. From the lowest, six feet from
the bottom, the steam blew as white as a sheet, from each one
successively it blew with less color, and from the upper one it
was quite invisible. I set a steam-gauge on this receiver, and it
showed that when the greatest resistance was on the engine the
pressure did not fall more than three pounds. This assurance of
dry steam in the cylinder was vital to the success of the engine.
The engine was started at 80 revolutions per minute. This was
the same speed at which their old engine was supposed to run,
but practically its speed had always fallen to 60 revolutions when-
ever two passes were in the rolls together. I should say here that
the new engine was set at the opposite end of the train from the
old one, and the only change made was disconnecting the old
engine and connecting the new one. The advantage was found
in the fact that with the new engine four or even five passes could
be in the rolls simultaneously and the speed of the engine never
fell sensibly below 80 revolutions per minute. The result was that
the first week the train turned out 2400 tons of rails instead of
1200 tons, which was the former limit. This latter was a product
of which they had been quite proud and which they claimed
exceeded that of any other mill. Mr. Daniel N. Jones, their chief
engineer, increased the speed of the engine five revolutions per
minute each week for four successive weeks by changing the
governor pulley for a larger one. This he did every Sunday when
the mill was idle, increasing the speed finally to 100 revolutions per
minute and the production to 3000 tons per week. He prided him-
self on doing this without the men at the hooks finding it out,
which if they had clone might have made trouble. This seems a
very small thing to say when for many years the output of a rail-
Daniel N. Jones
SUPPORT OF CYLIXDER
273
train has been 3000 tons a day without the aid of human hands,
but at that time it was considered an immense achievement. It
was also a remarkable thing for the company financially, as directly
after a greatly increased demand for steel rails appeared and the
price rose to $60 per ton, at which it was maintained for some
time.
This thoughtful act of Mr. Jones was an example of his
magnificent co-operation with me in all my work.
Mr. Jones had insisted that the cylinder should have a sup-
port at the back end, as he felt sure that without it the running of
the piston, weighing 3600 pounds, would produce a deflection; so
Connection of Arms and Rim in Mr. Fritz' Fly-wheel
a support was built under the end of the cylinder, which was
cast with a corresponding projection underneath. These surfaces
were planed parallel with each other, but I took pains to secure
a space between them sufficient to admit a sheet of paper, and
when the engine was running I was able to draw a sheet of paper
through that space without its being seized, showing the support
of the cylinder from the bed to be sufficient, as I had claimed it
would be. Mr. Jones laughed.
The fly-wheel which the Cambria Company made for this
engine interested me greatly. The hub and arms were cast in one
piece as a spider and, of course, were free from internal strain.
274 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
The rim was also cast in one piece. The manner in which the
arms were united to the rim is shown in the accompanying cut.
The spaces at the sides and end were f inch wide; these were
filled with oak, into which long slender steel wedges were driven
from each side, as many as they would contain. This wonderful
fly-wheel, I learned, was the invention of Mr. John Fritz, made
while he was superintendent of the Cambria Works.
The engine had many visitors, among whom I particularly
remember Mr. Otis and Mr. Wellman, whom I happened to meet
there. Their visit resulted in an order for an engine of the same
size to drive the new plate-mill which Mr. Otis was about building.
I received also three other orders for duplicates of this engine,
one from the Pennsylvania Steel Company, one from the Bethle-
hem Steel Company, and a second order from the Cambria Com-
pany themselves. The order from the Bethlehem Steel Company
was given me by Mr. John Fritz, then its superintendent and
engineer, the inventor of the three-high train of rolls, and the de-
signer of all their machinery for rolling both rails and armor-plates.
An incident connected with the order from the Cambria Com-
pany I will mention, as showing the contrast between the brutal
and the considerate way of doing business. I received a telegram
from the Cambria Company, reading: "You are wanted here at
once about another engine." I learned afterward that this tele-
gram as written by Mr. Powell Stackhouse, the general manager,
did not contain the last three words, but read: "You are wanted
here at once." Mr. Stackhouse had written this telegram and laid
it on his table for a boy to take to the telegraph operator. At
that moment Mr. Jones came into his office and read the telegram,
when the following conversation took place:
Mr. Jones: "It will never do to send this in that shape."
Mr. Stackhouse: "Why not?"
Mr. Jones: "It will break Porter all up."
Mr. Stackhouse: "How so?"
Mr. Jones: "The only thing he can think of will be that some
great disaster has happened to his engine."
. No answer. Mr. Jones thereupon added the words "about
another engine," which changed somewhat the impression which
the telegram was calculated to produce.
John Fritz
ORDERS FOR LARGE ENGINES 275
These orders for four more engines of the largest size on my list
were afterwards supplemented by a similar order from the Albany
and Rensselaer Iron and Steel Company, making in all five, or
with the one then running six from the sime patterns.
The more rapid rolling was found to possess advantages beyond
the merely increased output. It insured a uniform excellence in
the product, which could not otherwise be attained even by the
utmost care, and it effected several important economies. Mr.
Jones had recently completed and put in operation a new bloom-
ing-train, then the largest in the world, for which the size of the
ingots to be rolled was increased from 12 inches square to 17
inches square at the base, and the capacity of the Bessemer con-
verters was increased in the same proportion. The output of
this mill was much greater than the rail-train could dispose of,
and a large pile of cold blooms had accumulated in the yard.
A force of about thirty men was employed in chipping out all
defects in these blooms which might cause rails to be classed as
"seconds."
After my engine had been started it was soon observed that,
between the shorter time of exposure and the greater rapidity
with which heat was imparted to the rails by the rolling, the
original heat of the blooms was very nearly maintained to the end
of the process, every defect was welded up, and a perfect rail
was produced, so the chipping of the blooms was no longer necessary.
It was not a great while before the accumulation of the blooms
in the yard was disposed of and the hot blooms were brought
directly from the blooming-mill. These, of course, were more
readily reheated, and moreover, to the surprise of the workmen,
less power was required to roll them, and the rolls endured much
longer without needing to be re-turned. The explanation was
that the cold blooms had never been thoroughly heated in the
middle. This was the beginning of maintaining the original heat
of the ingot, which has since been turned to such great advantage.
CHAPTER XXVI
My Downward Progress
gall HAD now reached the top of my engineering career;
I had devoted myself for twenty years to the develop-
ment of the high-speed engine and to the study of the
best means and method of its manufacture, and had
introduced into it designs and workmanship of an excellence be-
fore unknown in steam-engine construction. I had solved all
the theoretical problems involved in the running of high-speed
engines, and, starting from Mr. Allen's inventions of the single
eccentric link and the four-opening balanced valve with the
adjustable pressure-plate, and my governor, had designed every
constructive feature and detail of this engine.
I had been for four years carrying on the business of the manu-
facture of these engines in my ow r n name as sole proprietor, but,
as already stated, without a cent of capital. I had in this time
built between forty and fifty engines of every size on my list,
from the smallest to the largest, except two, the 44-inch diameter
cylinder having been added after my time. Considering my
business as an organization, I had been president, secretary, treas-
urer, general manager, chief engineer, inspector, and draftsman.
At any rate, the duties belonging to all those positions had been
performed by me w 7 ith satisfactory results. I made every draw-
ing, both general and detail, with my own hands, having only
the help of a young man who made my tracings, and when he had
time helped me with my section lining. At that time blue-print-
ing had not come into use ; drawings were made on white drawing-
paper and were inked in, and the tracings were made for the shop;
276
THE FUNDAMENTAL ERROR 277
I began to use the blue-print system when I removed to Phila-
delphia.
Every one was loyal to me, I could always rely upon my instruc-
tions being faithfully followed, so the work ran as smoothly as
the engines themselves; we were, however, much hindered by
the poor tools we had to use. These were a fair average of Ameri-
can tools at that time, but Mr. Goodfellow and myself estimated
their output to average only about one half that which we ex-
pected in our contemplated works. Besides this, I could not
establish piece-work prices or introduce any systematic methods.
I became gradually swamped with orders. These outgrew the
capacity of the Hewes & Phillips Works, or of that portion which
I could use. Before I left there, besides the four large orders
already named, amounting altogether to $48,000 f.o.b., without
fly-wheels, and which could not be handled in these works, I had
accepted orders for smaller engines sufficient to bring the aggre-
gate up to $125,000. These latter were more than I could manage
alone, so I had arranged to have some of these also made, or
partially made, in other shops.
From this point my path sloped steeply downward to the grave
of all my hopes; in about two years and eight months the business
had dwindled to practically nothing, and I, as the party held
responsible for this result, was turned out of the Southwark Foun-
dry into the street. At the bottom this was entirely my own
fault. No one could ask to be associated with a better body of
men than were those who united to sink their money in the manu-
facture of the Porter-Allen engines.
My aim had been to reach a point where I could command the
capital necessary to establish my business according to the plan
which I had cherished ever since my return from England, but on
a much larger scale than I then contemplated. I had now reached
that point. Parties who were finding themselves enriched by my
engine were ready to pour out their money like water for my use;
but there was something else that I needed even more than their
money, without which indeed, as the event proved, their money
was of no use at all. That was their respect for me and confidence
in me as a strong business man; my record would have sufficiently
justified that confidence, but of this they were ignorant. They
278 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
had no means to form a judgment of me except what I did then
and there. I never thought of this supreme requirement, and in
response to their request made them an offer which, regarded
from their point of view, appeared so unbusinesslike that they
could form only one conclusion, that while unquestionably I
could make engines all right, in matters of business I was a mere
baby whose opinion on business matters was not to be regarded
seriously.
How came I to do myself, and them also, as the victims of their
mistaken judgment, this injustice? My whole life was bound up
in the engine; I cared nothing for money except to develop its
manufacture; I felt that every dollar paid to myself would leave
so much less for this purpose. I asked nothing for the good-will
of my business, for I was not selling it; they were putting money
into my business, which, of course, I would continue to carry on
as I had done. This was my mistaken view. I consulted fully
w r ith Mr. Hope, whose interest was equal with mine, and he viewed
the matter precisely as I did. Although standing at the head of
his profession as a fire underwriter, he had not the special business
training or experience that would enable him to give me the advice
I needed, so I told them that if a company should be formed to
manufacture the engines with $800,000 capital, I would assign to
it my patents for $100,000 of its stock, the value of which I assumed
I would increase several fold in a few years. Beyond this I assumed
everything and made sure of nothing, so our minds never came
together. I did not assert myself because it never occurred to me
that I needed to do so.
They could not understand my position. They could not
appreciate my sentiment. They were business men, and did
business on strictly business principles. What their position was
I came to understand later. From the fact that I did not stipu-
late for it they concluded that I did not expect the presidency of
the company, but had yielded it to them, which they accepted,
of course, in accordance with the general usage that capital takes
the direction of a business which it knows nothing about, relying
upon skilled experts in its various departments.
Thus by my failure to realize their necessary position and to
lay before them a thoroughly business-like proposition, demanding
NAME AND OFFICERS 270
for myself the practical direction of the business and a proper
sum for the patents and the good-will of the business, and assuring
to them the safety and disposition of their money the enterprise
was doomed from the start.
An excellent opportunity seemed to offer itself for going right
on with my business without the delay which would be involved
in the erection of new works. The Southwark Foundry was in
the market for sale. These were the old engineering works of
the firm of S. V. Merrick & Sons; they were famous works before
the war, when they were largely devoted to the manufacture of
municipal gas and water plants, having, I think, a monopoly
of this class of work, for which they were especially equipped.
During the war they had built engines for some government vessels.
A few years after the war the elder Mr. Merrick died, and his two
sons, J. Vaughan and William H. Merrick, retired from business,
and these works were closed. In company with several of the
gentlemen interested I was shown over the works by William H.
Merrick and was very favorably impressed with them. They
covered a large plot of ground, the front extending from Fourth to
Fifth streets on the south side of Washington Avenue, in Phila-
delphia; they were favorably located with respect to transpor-
tation facilities, a branch of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Rail-
road ran through this avenue to the Delaware River, and two
switches from these tracks entered the works, one going to the
foundry and one to the erecting-floor. This floor was com-
manded by three cranes, operated by power, the largest I had
ever seen, while an annex to the foundry was commanded by a
steam-crane of equal size, and the main foundry floor was provided
with an overhead traveler, the only one at that time in the country.
The machine-shop was a large three-story building, the first and
second floors of which, as well as the erecting-shop, were filled with
tools, some of them of large size. I was particularly impressed by
the great planer, the largest in the country, capable of passing
objects twelve feet square. The office was provided with a large
fire-proof vault which was carried up to the second story for the
use of the drawing-office.
I expressed myself decidedly in favor of purchasing these
works. I could form no judgment respecting the tools, all their
280 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
working parts being coated with a composition of white lead and
tallow: but I did not care much about them, because I should
speedily fill the works with the latest improved tools, most of
which I expected to import from England. A contract was im-
mediately made for the purchase of these works, in part pay-
ment for which the Merrick brothers were to accept stock in the
proposed company. Thus they became numbered among our
stockholders.
I was next invited to attend a meeting of a few gentlemen
held at the office of the Cambria Company to arrange a slate
for the action of the subscribers at a meeting which had been
called for organization. This first meeting was full of surprises
to me. I went into it expecting the gentlemen to say to me:
"Of course, Mr. Porter, you will accept the office of president?"
quite unconscious that I had made it impossible for them to think
of such a thing, but quite conscious that no amateur in that posi-
tion could by any possibility make the business successful, unless
he should commit the management entirely to my hands and con-
tent himself with being a mere figurehead.
Mr. Townsend, the president of the Cambria Company and the
leading mover in this enterprise, called the meeting to order and
announced that the first question to be settled would be the
name of the company. I remarked: "There can be but one name
for it: the Porter-Allen Steam-engine Manufacturing Company."
Then Mr. William H. Merrick spoke up: "I don't know about
that; of course, no one can imagine that the manufacture of
these engines can employ all the resources of these great works ;
there is a vast amount of work of the character formerly carried
on in them which will naturally flow back to them, and I think
the door should be left open for its return." I expressed my
amazement at such a view; I had not come there to revive any
i M business, but to make the Porter-Allen engine and nothing else;
that it must be obvious to any observer that my business only
required suitable means for carrying it on to grow to great pro-
portions, and the resources of these works, whatever they were,
would need to be greatly enlarged for its use, and besides the
name ought to describe and advertise the business. When a vote
was taken every man voted for the historic Philadelphia name of
NAME AND OFFICERS 281
the "Southwark Foundry," to which they added "and Machine
Company," and I discovered that my views had no weight at all.
I had afterwards the pleasure of being asked by my friends occa-
sionally what good I supposed that name would do my business.
The next subject was the selection of a president, and my
next discovery was that I was not even thought of. If any one
had been asked why he had not thought of me he would, from
his point of view, very properly have replied that "to commit
the interests of this company to a man who had shown so little
ability to look out for his own interests did not impress him
favorably." Every vote was cast for William H. Merrick, and I
was selected as vice-president, with charge of the manufacturing.
A day or two after, the meeting was held which had been called
for the purpose of hearing the report of the patent expert and
organizing the company. At this meeting the expert was not
prepared to report, as an application for the reissue of an important
patent was still pending. Mr. Merrick moved that a temporary
organization be then effected, so that we might proceed at once
with work on pressing orders. On my assurance that this reissue
was certain to be allowed, the motion was adopted and a tem-
porary board of directors was elected. Mr. Merrick and myself
were elected president and vice-president respectively. Mr.
Merrick told me afterwards that he made the motion because he
knew that those twenty-one gentlemen there assembled could
never be got together again if this meeting should prove fruitless.
The directors held a meeting immediately after, and at this
meeting I presented a letter which I had written to the chairman
of the meeting called for organization, setting forth the require-
ments of the engine for the latest and most improved tools and
asking for an immediate appropriation of $100,000 for their pur-
chase, as time was of the utmost consequence. To this Mr. Merrick
replied that such action would be entirely unnecessary, saying:
"I assure you gentlemen, and I assure Mr. Porter, that for a long
time to come he will find in these works everything he can possibly
desire." Of course I could make no reply to this positive state-
ment, and the matter was dropped. We immediately took posses-
sion of the works, and a large force of men were put at work cleaning
the tools and getting them in working order; I also had my draw-
282 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
ings, patterns, and all work in progress brought from Newark and
from all shops where it had been commenced. Prominent among
these latter were the bed, cylinder and shaft of the first of the
40 X 48-inch engines which were then ready for finishing.
In about two weeks from the date of this meeting Mr. Good-
fellow came into the office pale and trembling with excitement, and
addressing himself to me, Mr. Merrick sitting on the opposite side
of the table, said: "Mr. Porter, I give it up; we might just as well
be set down in a cotton-mill to make steam-engines; there is not
a tool in the place that has not spoiled every job that has been put
in it, from the day we came here. I don't believe another such
lot of antiquated and worn-out rubbish exists on the face of the
earth." This was not news to me, as I had spent much of my
time in the shop. Our most serious disappointment was the con-
dition of their great planer; we had hurri.d the above-mentioned
engine bed on it as soon as it arrived, and when it had been planed
the surface plate was laid on the guide-bars, which were 7 feet
6 inches long, and it was found to rock on two diagonal corners more
than an eighth of an inch, showing a cross-wind of over half an
inch in the whole length of the planer bed; this of course rendered
the tool useless in its present condition. I had found that the
means for boring the 40-inch cylinder and for finishing the shaft,
as well as for doing the other work for this engine, were all equally
useless, and I proposed to Mr. Merrick that these parts should
all be sent back to the shops from which they had been brought
and finished there, and the engine altogether built in outside
shops, just as I had built the first one. This he flatly refused to
do, saying he would not make such an exposure of our condition.
Our plight may be understood when I state that it was over a
year before we could deliver that first large engine, although
every effort was made to complete it, the castings and forgings
waiting for many months.
"But," exclaims the reader, "why, when this state of affairs
was first discovered, were not steps instantly taken to remedy it?"
The answer to this question involves a very different subject.
When I had received in Newark a letter from Mr. Merrick request-
ing me to send on my patents for examination by an expert, I
was suddenly reminded that I had omitted to obtain the reissue
TREACHERY OF PATENT EXPERT 283
of the latest patent which Mr. Allen had obtained, namely, the one
for his adjustable pressure-plate, which had been so shockingly
muddled by the Washington agent of the patent solicitors that
when we received it we could not understand the specification,
and the claims were absolutely meaningless. However, I had
said to myself, there will be time enough to have it reissued when
it becomes necessary, as applications for reissue are always passed
upon immediately. But before sending the patents on, I pre-
pared myself a new and clear specification for that patent and
put it in my pocket.
In two or three days I followed the patents to Philadelphia
and met the patent solicitor; he told me all the patents seemed
to be well enough except this one, and this he could make nothing
out of. I told him how that came to be such a muddle, that I
always intended to get it reissued and now would employ him to do
it. I produced the amended specification I had prepared for that
reissue; he read it and handed it back to me, saying it would be
of no use to him. I instantly thought of the protest of Mr. Perker :
"Really, Mr. Pickwick, really, my dear sir, when one places a
matter in the hands of a professional man he must not be inter-
fered with; indeed, he must not, my dear sir, really." I made an
humble apology for my presumption, but asked him if he would
get the application in the next day at farthest, that the reissue
might be received in time for him to report on it at the meeting
called for the organization of the company, then some days distant.
He made no reply. I soon found that I had fallen into the hands
of a traitor who intended to use his professional power to strangle
my enterprise in its birth, and who never did give up his prey until
it was torn from his fangs.
Not hearing from him for a day or two, I called to see what
was the matter, and was stunned by his telling me that he had
determined not to apply for a reissue, but to report against me
on the patent as it stood, saying that a reissue could not be got,
and if it was it would be good for nothing. I attempted to argue
the matter with him, but found him firm. I then went directly
to the office of Morgan & Lewis, the attorneys for the company, and
told the story. Mr. Morgan said, "I will go and see him at once;"
so we went together. The expert repeated his determination to
284 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
Mr. Morgan, and, anxious that the latter should understand the
merits of the case, I presented it to the expert as plainly as I knew
how, Mr. Morgan being an attentive listener. Many months after-
wards I realized the vital importance of the lesson I then gave to
Mr. Morgan. The expert persisted in his determination, but con-
sented to see Mr. Morgan again the next clay. On our way back
I said to Mr. Morgan: "It seems to me that this man does not see
the point of the application because he won't see it; he doesn't
want to see it." Mr. Morgan made the rather enigmatical reply:
"It seems very plain to me."
The next day Mr. Morgan made the point to the expert that
he could not afford to take such a position as that — he could not
sustain it. He then consented to make the application, but added
what he had already said to me, that he had no idea it would be
granted, and if it was, it would be good for nothing. It will,
hardly be credited that he was over two months in preparing this
application, getting it into a form in which he was sure it could
not be allowed. When it was finally shown to me I could not
understand it. It contained two references, the pertinence of
which I could not see; he assured me, however, that it was the
very best that could be done, although he said he had very little
hopes that it would be allowed. Sure enough, in a few days the
rejection was received from Washington and a meeting was called
to hear his report. He used very strong language in making this
report, saying: "This rejection is final and the case is hopeless,"
and walking over to where I was sitting, he shook a paper in my
face with an air as if I had been a detected felon and he held in
his hand the proof of my rascality, saying: "This is a paper I
received from Washington this morning that settles your hash,
sir." When he sat down the silence might have been felt. Every
one shrank from what appeared to them the inevitable and final
step, the adoption of a resolution to the effect: "Whereas Mr.
Porter has failed to keep his agreement with us, the whole matter
be now dismissed from our further consideration."
I did not allow them much time for reflection, but rose and
made a little speech as follows : "Mr. Chairman, I have but a single
word to say. I have taken this case out of the expert's hands;
I expect to go to Washington to-morrow morning and return in
INTERVIEW WITH CHIEF EXAMINER 285
the afternoon, and when I come back I shall bring this reissue
with me. ' No one said a word, but I knew what was in every
man's mind ■ ''What a fool, when our great Philadclphian author-
ity has spoken, to imagine that he can do anything to change the
result! " However, there was no disposition to cut me off by any
precipitate action, and the meeting adjourned subject to the call
of the chair, every one feeling that it was a mere waste of time.
The next morning I was received by Mr. Fowler, the accom-
plished chief examiner in the class of steam-engines, with his
usual extreme courtesy. He told me that he felt very sorry
at finding himself obliged to reject my application, but the very
precedents cited in the application itself left him no alternative.
"However," he added, "if you have anything new to present I
shall be most happ} 7 to receive it." In reply I handed to him the
specification wmich had already done duty so ineffectively with
the expert and in which I had not changed a syllable. He read
it through with fixed attention, and the instant he finished he
exclaimed: "Why, Mr. Porter, it is perfectly obvious that you
are entitled to this reissue, and the cases cited in the application
have nothing to do with it; but why was not this presented to me
in the first place?" I told him I had prepared it for that purpose
and placed it in the hands of the expert, who, after reading it,
returned it to me, saying it would be of no use to him. Mr.
Fowler instantly asked me if I had prepared any claims. I told
him I had, because I could not get any one to prepare them for
me; but it was a new business to me, and I had asked the
advice of the expert about them, who, after reading them, re-
turned them to me without any suggestion, merely remarking:
"If you get these allowed you will be doing very well." The
moment Mr. Fowler glanced at them he exclaimed: "Oh, Mr.
Porter, we cannot allow any such claims as these; they are
functional claims, which the Patent Office never allows." Then,
evidently seeing my helpless condition in the hands of a traitor,
he instantly added: "I shall be occupied this morning, but if
you w 7 ill call at three o'clock I will have two claims prepared
for you w T hich will be allowed." So the expert had let me go
to Washington with claims that he knew could not be allow r ed,
and sure that my errand would be fruitless. But he did not
286 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
imagine that the examiner would see through his treachery
and thwart it. At three o'clock our interview was brief; as I
entered Mr. Fowler's room he handed me a paper, saying: "These
have been allowed; you will receive the reissue in the course of
three or four days, and it will appear in next week's Gazette. Good
afternoon."
I suppose that I never looked on a countenance expressing
more amazement than did that of Mr. Merrick when next morning
I handed him the copy of the claims and told him my brief story.
He said he could hardly believe his senses. Taking the paper, he
started for Mr. Townsend's office, and in the course of an hour all
the parties in interest had been apprised of my easy triumph.
The reissue arrived as promised, was placed in the expert's hands,
and a meeting was called to receive his report. I thought my
troubles were all over: the case was an absolutely simple one,
there was no pretense that the invention was not new, and he must
report in its favor, no matter how reluctant he might be to do so.
What was my amazement and fury when he quietly stated to the
meeting that he had no report to make; that the case involved
very serious questions which would require much time for their
consideration; that the granting of the patent was nothing —
it was the business of the Patent Office to grant patents, not to
refuse them, but whether or not they would be sustained by the
courts was entirely another matter, about which in this case he
had very grave doubts.
I now did what I never did before or since, and what no good
business man, who is accustomed to accomplish his purposes, ever
allows himself to do: I, who always prided myself on being desti-
tute of such a thing, lost my temper. And not only my temper,
but, like Tarn O'Shanter, I lost my reason altogether. Already
driven frantic by the frightful condition of affairs at the works,
which had been protracted over three months by this man's
machinations, and which he threatened to continue indefinitely
while he should endeavor to find some means to accomplish his
purpose of wrecking my business, without an instant for reflection
I shouted, regardless ot all proprieties: "You rascal! What
was the Patent Office doing a week ago when you reported to these
gentlemen that this reissue had been refused,, that the decision was
/ LOSE MY SENSES. 287
final and the case was hopeless; what were they doing then, I
would like to know? Were they granting patents or refusing
them? The fact is, you are either a traitor or know nothing
about your business, and you may hang on either horn of the
dilemma you like," and I sat down, having in these few seconds
done myself and my case more harm than anybody else could
have done in a lifetime. I did not reflect that I could not have the
sympathy of my audience; they knew nothing of the state of
affairs at the works — this they had been keen kept in ignorance
of, — nor of the consistent course of treachery which this man had
been following. All they could see was that I had used outrageous
language, for which they could not imagine any justification,
toward an eminent patent lawyer who enjoyed their confidence,
and they naturally supposed that was my usual way of doing
business. The chairman coldly informed me that the lawyer
was their patent adviser and nothing whatever could be done
until his report on the reissue should be received. I had entered
the room expecting to receive the congratulations of every one on
the bold coup by which I had saved my business. I left it un-
noticed by any one. The reader will not be much surprised to
learn that it was months before we heard from him again — months
more of frantic helplessness.
About the first of August I called at the expert's office and was
informed that he had gone on his vacation and would be absent
about six weeks, and the case could not be taken up until his
return. In my desperation I called upon Mr. Townsend and made
to him a clean breast of our helpless condition, and offered to pledge
all our stock as security for a loan of the money necessary to buy
a few of the most indispensable tools. He replied to me: "Sup-
pose the report of the expert shall be adverse and the enterprise
be abandoned, what do you think your security will be worth? "
I succeeded in saving one order from the wreck in rather a
singular manner. This was an order from Mr. Lewis, of Cincin-
nati, the projector of the cottonseed-oil business, for an 18 x 30-
inch engine to drive the machinery of their first oil-mill at Houston,
Texas. I had built in Newark an engine of the same size for
Senator Jones of Nevada, to drive an ice-making plant which he
was establishing in the city of New Orleans. Word came to me
288 ENGINEERIXG REMINISCENCES
sometime that spring that this enterprise had proved a failure, the
work had been abandoned, and the engine, their only asset of value,
was for sale. I instantly bought it and sent a man down to trans-
port it to Houston and erect it there. Mr. Lewis wrote me from
Cincinnati an indignant letter at my sending him a second-hand
engine. I replied to him, stating first it was my only possible way
of filling his order at all, as I did not know when we should be
able to build an engine in our new works, and, second, that it was
a new engine, having been run only a few weeks, long enough to
show its excellent condition and not so long as engines are often
run in public exhibitions, from which they are always sold as new.
Mr. Lewis gracefully accepted my explanation, and the engine was
in readiness for them to grind the coming cottonseed crop. The
next summer we had a call from the agent of that mill, who had come
North during their idle interval, while they were waiting for their
next crop, to make his report at Cincinnati, and had come out of
his way to tell us of the wonderful manner in which that engine
had carried them through their first season, which he concluded by
saying: "That is the engine for the cottonseed-oil business."
After he had gone I said to Mr. Merrick: "That is an old story to
me ; everybody says that is the engine for their business, whatever
their business may happen to be."
What did I do with myself during that six months? Well, I
was not altogether idle. First I found all the drawers in the
drawing-office filled with piles of old drawings which Mr. Merrick
ordered to be preserved and which we piled up on the floor of the
unoccupied third story. Out of the contemplation of that con-
fused heap I evolved a new system of making and keeping
mechanical drawings, which I described in the following paper,
read the next year before the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers:
'The system of making and keeping drawings now in use at
the works of the Southwark Foundry and Machine Company in
Philadelphia has been found so satisfactory in its operation that
it seems worthy of being communicated to the profession.
"The method in common use is to devote a separate drawer to
the drawings of each machine or each group or class of machines.
The idea of this system is keeping together all drawings relating to
MECHANICAL DRAWINGS 289
the same subject-matter. Every draftsman is acquainted with
its practical working. It is necessary to make the drawing of a
machine and of its separate parts on sheets of different sizes. The
drawer in which all these are kept must be large enough to accom-
modate the largest sheets. The smaller ones cannot be located in
the drawer, and as .these find their way to one side or to the back,
and several of the smallest lie side by side in one course, any
arrangement of the sheets in the drawer is out of the question.
"The operation of finding a drawing consists in turning the con-
tents of the drawer all up until it is discovered. In this way the
smaller sheets get out of sight or doubled up, and the larger ones
are torn. No amount of care can prevent confusion.
' : In the system now proposed the idea of keeping together draw-
ings relating to the same machine, or of classifying them according
to subjects in any way, is abandoned, and in place of it is sub-
stituted the plan of keeping together all drawings that are made
on sheets of the same size, without regard to the subject of them.
Nine sizes of sheets were settled upon as sufficient to meet our
requirements, and on a sheet that will trim to one of these sizes
every drawing must be made. They are distinguished by the first
nine letters of the alphabet. Size A is the antiquarian sheet
trimmed, and the smaller sizes will cut from this sheet, without
waste, as follows:
"A, 51"x30"; B, 37"x30"; C, 25" X 30"; D, 17" X 30"; E,
12!" X 30"; F,8rx30"; G, 17"xl5"; H,8i"xl5"; I,14" X 25".
"The drawers for the different sizes are made 1 inch longer and
wider than the sheets they are to contain, and are lettered as above.
The drawers of the same size are distinguished by a numeral pre-
fixed to the letter. The back part of each drawer is covered for a
width of from 6 to 10 inches, to prevent drawings, and especially
tracings, from slipping over at the back.
"The introduction of the blue-printing process has revolution-
ized the drawing-office. Our drawings now are studies, left in pencil.
When we can find nothing more to alter, tracings are made on
cloth. These become our originals and are kept in a fire-proof
vault. This system is found admirably adapted to the plan of
making a separate drawing for each piece. The whole combined
drawing is not generally traced, but the separate pieces are picked
290 . ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
out from it. All our working drawings are blue-prints of separate
pieces.
"Each drawer contains fifty tracings. They are 2% inches deep,
which is enough to hold several times as many, but this number
is all that is convenient to keep together. Each drawing is marked
in stencil on the margin in the lower right-hand corner, and also
with inverted plates in the upper left-hand corner, with the letter
of the drawer and the number of the drawing, as, for example,
3F-31; so that whichever way the sheet is put in the drawer, this
appears at the front right-hand corner. The drawings in each
drawer are numbered separately, fifty being thus the highest
number used.
" For reference we depend on our indices. Each tracing when
completed is entered under its letter in the numerical index, and
is given the next consecutive number. From this index the title
and the number are copied into other indices, under as many dif-
ferent headings as possible. Thus all the drawings of any engine,
or tool, or machine whatever, become assembled in the index by
their titles under the heading of such particular engine or tool, or
machine. So also the drawings of any particular piece, of all sizes
and styles, become assembled by their titles under the name of
such piece. However numerous the drawings, and however great
the variety of their subjects, the location of any one is, by this
means, found as readily as a word in a dictionary. The stencil
marks copy, of course, on the blue-prints, and these, when not in
use, are kept in the same manner as the tracings, except that only
twenty-five are placed in one drawer.
"We employ printed classified lists of the separate pieces con-
stituting every steam-engine, the manufacture of which is the
sole business of these works, and on these, against the name of
every piece, is given the drawer and number of the drawing on
which it is represented. The office copies of these lists afford an
additional mode of reference, and a very convenient one, used in
practice almost exclusively. The foreman sends for the prints by
the stencil marks, and these are thus got directly without reference
to any index. They are charged in the same way, and reference to
the numerical index gives the title of any missing print.
"We find the different sizes to be used quite unequally. The
ADVICE OF MR. MORGAN 291
method of making a separate tracing of each piece, which we carry
to a great extent, causes the smaller sizes to multiply quite rapidly.
We are also marking our patterns with the stencil of the drawings,
as well as gauges, templets, and jigs.
"It is found best to permit the sheets to be put away by one
person only, who also writes up the indices, which are kept in the
fire-proof vault.
"We have ourselves been surprised at the saving of room which
this system has effected. Probably less than one fourth the space
is occupied that the same drawings would require if classified
according to subjects. The system is completely elastic. Work
of the most diverse character might be undertaken every day, and
the drawings of each article would find places ready to receive
them."
It will be observed that in planning the sizes of sheets I was
limited to antiquarian paper. Now no limitation exists. I should
to-day increase the number of sizes.
The whole summer passed, many had taken trips to Europe
and back, when about the middle of September Mr. Morgan noti-
fied the chairman that he had received the expert's report and
requested him to call a meeting of the subscribers to hear it. I
went to the meeting with mingled hope and apprehension. Mr.
Morgan read a long letter from the expert containing an
elaborate argument against the patent which he concluded by
saying that he could not recommend its acceptance. When Mr.
Morgan had finished reading the letter he continued: "Mr. Chair-
man, I am tired of this man's delays and quibbling, and I now
advise you that Mr. Porter has performed his contract, and it only
remains for you to perform yours." This was the harvest from
the seed I had sown six months before.
The following is the Reissue on which the patent expert hung
up our business for six months. The specification was written by
me, the disclaimer and claims were written by Chief Examiner
Fowler.
UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE
John F. Allen of Brooklyn, Assignor to George T. Hope,
of Bay Ridge, N. Y., and Charles T. Porter, of
Philadelphia, Pa.
Balanced Valve.
SPECIFICATION forming part of Reissued Letters Patent No. 9303, dated
July 20, 1880.
Original No. 167865, dated September 21, 1875. Application for reissue
filed June 2, 1880.
To all whom it may concern:
Be it known that I, John F. Allen, formerly of the city,
county, and State of New York, but now of Brooklyn, New
York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements
in Balanced Slide Valves, of which improvements the follow-
ing is a specification.
My invention relates to that class of balanced slide-valves
in which the valve is practically relieved from the pressure of
the steam, this pressure being sustained by a plate supported
above the valve, but so nearly in contact with it that the space
between them will not admit steam enough to affect the valve.
Such plates are designated as "pressure" plates, and have been
made in some instances adjustable, in order that they may be
closed up to the valve as the faces of the valve and its seat be-
come worn. Heretofore such adjustments have been affected
by different mechanical devices, among which there was, in
one instance, a spring to move the plate laterally or crosswise
of the valve while the pressure of the steam held the plate
down; and in other instances screws were used to move the
plate in two directions, both in line with the movement of the
valve, 'and to hold the plate in its adjusted position. All of
these devices, however, are liable to objections well understood
by engineers.
It is the object of my invention to obviate these objections
in a balanced slide-valve; and to this end my improvements
consist in utilizing the pressure of the steam for giving motion
to the pressure-plate down inclined supports and toward the
valve; in employing supports inclined to the face of the valve
at a steep angle, considerably exceeding the angle of repose of
292
PATENT ON PRESSURE PLATE
293
the metal, so that the pressure of the steam on the upper sur-
face of the pressure-plate may be relied on for giving to it the
above-described motion, and in employing an adjustable stop
to prevent the pressure of the steam from forcing the pressure-
plate into too close contact with the valve.
In the accompanying drawings, which form part of this
specification, Figure 1 is a transverse section through a steam-
chest in which my improved balanced slide-valve is applied,
the section being on the line x x of Fig. 2, and Fig. 2 is a longi-
tudinal section on the line y y of Fig. 1.
The valve A is fitted upon its seat in the steam-chest B, and
moved to and fro over the ports in the usual manner. The
back of the valve is a plane surface, parallel with its face. Along
the sides of the steam-chest I provide two parallel guides— one,
294 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
b, inclined downward and outward, and the other, b' ', inclined
upward and outward, as shown in Fig. 1, from a point in the
same plane with the back of the valve and at an angle consid-
erably greater than the angle of repose of the metal. Theo-
retically, the plate should move down its inclined supports if
the angle of inclination exceeds at all the angle of repose; but
practically, under conditions, often unfavorable, existing in
the steam-chest to render the action certain, this angle should
be largely in excess, as shown in the model and drawings. In
the instance shown I have provided chambers G at the ends of
the steam-chest, through which the steam may pass over the
ends of the pressure-plate to the ports; but any other approved
passage for the steam may be provided.
The pressure-plate C fits snugly in the steam-chest length-
wise, and moves freely in it crosswise. This plate has an open-
ing in the top and a hollow center, so that the steam entering
at the top passes through the center and into the chambers G,
at the ends of the steam-chest. The bottom of this plate has
a plane surface, parallel with the back of the valve A, and be-
yond this plane surface it has lateral inclines c c', parallel with
the lateral inclines 6 b' on the sides of the steam-chest, so that
when the plate is in place its lateral inclines rest upon and fit
closely to the inclines on the chest, thus supporting the plane
surface of the bottom of the plate close to the top of the valve.
The width of the plate being less than that of the chest B,
it will be seen that the plate in this position would have a cer-
tain range of movement upon the inclines crosswise of the steam-
chest.
A screw-stop, H, passes through the steam-chest, and bears
upon the adjacent side of the pressure-plate, which will still be
free to be moved crosswise of the valve.
The operation is as follows: The stop H being adjusted
to the point at which it is desired to maintain the pressure-
plate, the pressure of the steam will act upon the plate and tend
to force it down the inclines b b' crosswise of the valve and against
the stop, which will thus determine the range of movement of
the plate and the relation between its plane surface and the
back of the valve. At the same time the stop, being entirely
independent of or disconnected from the plate, can be re-
adjusted as required to compensate for any wear upon the sur-
faces of the valve or its seat, and the steam will at all times
maintain the plate at the point determined by the adjustment
of the stop. This adjustment is, of course, made without open-
ing the steam-chest.
I do not claim the employment of inclined supports by a
MB. MERRICK'S CONFESSION 295
movement along which the pressure-plate is caused to approach
or to recede from the valve, since this device has been already
the subject of patent; but
I claim as my own invention and desire to secure by Letters
Patent —
1. A balance-valve provided with a pressure-plate acted
upon by steam-pressure and having a downward and lateral
movement through means of steep inclines, as shown, as and
for the purpose set forth.
2. A balance-valve provided with a pressure-plate repos-
ing upon steep inclines, as shown, and suitable means for limit-
ing its movement upon the inclines, the said plate being held
down by steam-pressure, as and for the purpose set forth.
John F. Allen.
Witnesses :
De Witt Bogardus,
J. W. Durbrow.
Mr. Morgan's advice was received by the meeting with a
feeling of relief from a long suspense; it was at once accepted
unanimously, and the temporary organization was made per-
manent. The directors immediately convened. Before proceed-
ing to the transaction of business one of the directors said to
me: "Mr. Porter, you have now been in the Southwark
Foundry for six months, and I understand that not a single
engine has been sent out from that place in all that time;
will you tell us why this is so? " I had then an opportunity of
witnessing a nobility of soul such as few persons meet with in the
whole course of their lives. Mr. Merrick rose and said: "I will
save Mr. Porter the trouble of answering that question. Mr.
Porter has not sent a single engine out of these works because he
has not had a single tool with which he could make an engine. I
thought I knew all about those tools when, last March, I assured
you and Mr. Porter he would find everything he could possibly
desire, when the fact was I knew nothing about them. I have
been through those tools carefully with Mr. Goodfellow and have
seen for myself that not one of them could produce work fit to be
put in these engines. While I am about it I wish to make another
confession : I said then, and you all agreed with me, that it could
not be expected that the manufacture of these engines could
296 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
employ all the resources of that great establishment, and so we left
the door open for the return to it of the class of work which had
formerly occupied it ; but from what I have myself seen in the six
months I have been there I am able to say to you that if the works
had possessed the resources which I really believed they did possess,
these would have been insufficient to meet the demand for these
engines which has come to us from all parts of the country and
for many different kinds of business. Mr. Porter knew what he
wanted and the demand that might reasonably be expected; I had
no conception of the one or the other. It is a great pity that we
did not then give him the means he asked for, and I hope this will
be done now."
Mr. Henry Lewis spoke up and said: "What did Mr. Porter
ask for? I have no recollection of his asking us for anything at all."
None of the directors could remember anything about it; the letter
which I had addressed to the chairman had even disappeared.
Luckily, however, I had made a copy of it, and I produced the
letter-book, in which it was the first letter copied, and read them
tins copy. I should say here that I have inquired at the works for
this letter-book, but have been told by Mr. Brooks, the president,
that all correspondence more than twenty years old having no
legal value had been destroyed. When I had finished, Mr. Lewis
exclaimed: "Did you write that letter? " "I did, sir," I replied.
"Well," he said, "I suppose I must have heard it, but I have not
the faintest recollection of it." All said the same thing except Mr.
Merrick, as it had brought out his reply.
This illustrates the indifference of the directors at that time
to anything that came from me. An earnest disposition was now
manifested to make all the amends possible; the $100,000 which I
had asked for was immediately appropriated. In view of the utter
barrenness of the works I was asked if it had not better be made
$200,000, but this I did not favor. I told them I would rather
proceed more slowly, especially as many of the old tools might be
made serviceable when we should have perfect tools with which
to refit them. So at last I had triumphed at every point, but at
what a cost, O, what a cost!
With a number of other engineers I attended, by invitation, a
meeting held at the office of the American Machinist, February 16,
STRENGTH IN MACHINE TOOLS 297
1880, which determined upon the organization of the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers, and soon after I had the honor
of being invited to read a paper at the first regular meeting of this
society, held in the auditorium of the Stevens Institute at Hobo-
ken, N. J., on the 7th of April following. The date of this meeting,
it will be observed, fell during the time when the Philadelphia
expert was racking his brains to concoct for me an application for
a patent reissue which he felt sure could not be allowed.
I read the following paper :
"This association can vindicate its right to exist only by
exerting a constant beneficial influence upon engineering practice
in all its departments. At the outset of its career it should take a
progressive attitude, planting itself upon sound principles of con-
struction, aiming to inspire the engineers of our country with the
highest conception of mechanical truth, and to diffuse a correct
understanding of the means and methods' by which this truth is
to be attained.
"As one subject of primary importance, I wish to present that
of strength in machine tools. Truth of construction, facility of
operation, and range of application are all, in one sense, subordinate
to this fundamental quality of strength; for they are in a greater
or less degree impaired where adequate strength is not provided.
"But what is adequate strength? On this point there exists
among the makers and users of tools a wide diversity of opinion.
On examination it will be found that this diversity coincides
with the diversity in mechanical sensibility. As the mechanical
sense is developed, there arises in just the same degree the demand
for greater strength in machine tools.
"To the mechanic who has never formed a notion of a division
of an inch more exact than 'a bare 32d,' one tool, if it can in any
way be kept from chattering, is as good as another, and better if
it is cheaper.
"To those, on the other hand, who demand in every piece, as
it comes from the tool, the closest approach to perfection, both in
form and finish, a degree of strength in the tool appears, and is
demonstrated, to be indispensable that to the former class seems
as absurd as the results attained by means of it appear in-
credible.
298 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
"In this country, as indeed all over the world, the standard of
mechanical truth has been very low. It is here, however, as
everywhere, rapidly rising. The multitude are being educated up
to the standard of the few. In this work members of this associa-
tion have borne and now bear an honorable part. Just in the
degree that the standard of mechanical excellence is raised must
the demand become more general for greater strength in machine
tools, as indispensable to its attainment.
"But what is the standard of strength? The anvil affords
perhaps its best illustration. It is a strength enormously beyond
that which prevents a tendency to chatter, a strength that under
even the heaviest labor prevents the least vibration of any part of
the tool, or any indication of effort more than if the object being
cut were a mass of butter.
"It will be seen that this absolute solidity in machine tools,
while truth cannot be attained without it, enables also mechanical
operations generally to be performed with far greater expedition,
and the subsequent work of the finisher to be in any case much
diminished and often dispensed with entirely.
"We are enabled in most cases to come at once to the form
desired, whatever may be the quantity of material to be removed,
and always to finish the surface with a degree of truth and polish
otherwise unattainable, dispensing in a great measure with the use
of that abomination, the file.
"Now, with this standard in our minds we look over the face of
the land and behold it covered with rubbish.
"It is curious to observe how ingenious toolmakers have gener-
ally been in trying to avoid this quality of strength, and how decep-
tive an appearance in this respect many tools present.
"It is interesting also to note how little this quality of solidity
adds to the cost of castings. The addition is merely so much
more pig-iron and really not that, because in the stove-plate style
the forms are more complicated, the patterns more expensive and
frail, and the cost of molding is greater. But what signifies even
a considerable increase in the first cost of a tool that in daily use
is to perform the work of many and is to place its possessor on a
mechanical eminence?
"It is not the purpose of this paper to enter into details, inter-
INVENTION OF TOOLS 299
esting and important as these are, but to draw attention to the
subject in a general way. The improvement observed quite recently
in this respect, as well as in other points of tool construction, is
highly gratifying and encourages the expectation of still further
•and more general progress."
The following summer I employed some of my leisure time in
making the plans for a couple of machine tools. One of these was
a double-drilling machine for boring the boxes of connecting-rods,
there being then no such machine in existence to my knowledge.
I had been planning such a machine in my mind as long ago as
when I was in the works of Ormerod, Grierson & Co., in Manchester,
England, in 1864-5. This tool was designed first to bore the two
boxes simultaneously and rapidly, and, secondly, to bore them
with absolute accuracy in their distance apart and in the intersec-
tion by their axes of the axis of the rod at right angles in the same
plane, and all this without measurement or setting out or the pos-
sibility of error. The other tool was comparatively a small affair. I
utilized an old milling-machine for facing simultaneously the oppo-
site sides of nuts and taking the roughing and finishing cuts at the
same time. The ends of the nuts were first faced on a special man-
drel which insured their being normal to the axis of the thread. A
string of these nuts was then threaded on a mandrel fitting the top
of their threads and some 15 or 18 inches long, on which they were
held against a hardened collar, the diameter of which was equal
to the distance between their opposite fini-hed faces. The cutting
tools were set in two disks about 12 inches in diameter; they
were set about an inch apart alternately in two circles, one about
one eighth of an inch inside the other, and were held in position
by set-screws in the periphery. The cutters in the outer circles did
the roughing; those in the inner circles were set projecting about
0.001 of an inch beyond the roughing tools and finished the surfaces.
The mandrel was set between centers, and the string of nuts was
supported from the table at the middle of its length. The nuts
were secured in position by a dividing plate on the forward center-
bearing. What was done with the two drawings I will state pres-
ently.
My success, as already related, came so swiftly and completely
after six months of anxietv as to be almost overwhelming. The
300 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
more I thought about it the more ecstatic I became; all my disas-
ters had been of a nature the effect of which time would soon efface.
I was full of high anticipations, I could see no cloud in the sky; I
awakened to my old zeal and energy and set myself eagerly to the
work of providing new equipment, unable to realize the real help-
lessness of my position. Little did I dream that I was already
doomed to drink to its dregs the bitter cup of responsibility without
authority. That story will come soon enough; now I will ask the
reader to accompany me in my work of filling the shop with new
tools.
My principal orders were sent to my old friends, Smith & Cov-
entry, in England. Among others I sent one for my double-drilling
machine with the drawings. I received a reply from them stating
that they had just furnished a similar machine to the firm of Hick,
Hargreaves & Company, the eminent engine-builders of Bolton, and
that they thought I would prefer their design for this machine, of
which they sent a blue print, to my own. I should think I did
prefer it; it was simply wonderful, It presented one feature of
especial interest, which was that the two drills were driven in-
dependently and when not employed on connecting-rods could be
applied to any other drilling work. So I ordered that tool, and its
work fully justified my expectations. I ordered from them sev-
eral planers, the largest one passing a body five feet square. The
planers they sent me had two novel features which filled me with
admiration. The tables were provided with broad, flat shoes
running on corresponding flat guides, the sideways wear being
taken up by an adjustable gib on one side. This construc-
tion enables the bearing surfaces to be made one true plane from
end to end, making cross-wind impossible. The next feature by
which these planers were distinguished was the mode of lubricating
these surfaces. Each guide was provided in the middle of its
length with an oil-well which was a large square box, formed in the
casting. In the middle of this box was a small rod on which two
levers were pivoted, the arms of which were of equal length. At
one end these arms carried a roller, and at the other end a weight
considerably heavier than the roller. The roller was thus kept up
against the under side of the shoe, while its lower side ran in the
oil; thus the lubrication was effected by the revolution of this
ORDERS FOR TOOLS 301
roller, which needed to be only one half the width of the face
lubricated; this was found to be the perfection of lubrication. The
tables were very stiff and were provided only with T slots from
end to end for holding the work.
I built a one-story addition to the erecting-floor, about 40x100
feet, occupying a space which had before been used mostly as a
stable. I divided this into two bays by columns, and provided
each bay with an overhead traveler of about five tons capacity,
worked by rope loops hanging to the floor. These were also made
for me by Smith & Coventry.
I ordered from Mr. Moore, of Philadelphia, one or two of the
heavy and powerful lathes built by him for turning chilled rolls.
I also ordered a six-foot square planer from the Hewes & Phillips
Iron Works in Newark, which they made expressly heavy, having
become infected with my ideas on that subject. From Pratt &
Whitney I ordered one large lathe and one or two small planers,
and other tools from several other American makers.
In one instance only I was disappointed; that was the case of
a 12-foot horizontal turning and boring machine. On examina-
ing the blue-prints which were sent me at my request, I was struck
with the lightness of the table, and conditioned my order on this
being made twice as heavy, which was done. If I had made the
same requirement for every other part of the machine, I should
have done a good thing for both the builders and myself. The
table ran on a circular track, which was superbly designed. This
track consisted of a circular trough perhaps 8 or 10 inches wide,
and in the middle of it a bearing surface for the table, raised per-
haps half an inch above the bottom of the trough and half an inch
lower than its sides. This bearing surface was about 6 inches
wide and was intersected by diagonal grooves about a foot apart.
Oil could stand in this trough above the level of the bearing sur-
faces. I made a little improvement on the method of supplying
the oil. As sent, a dose of oil was poured through a hole in the
table, which was filled with a screw plug when not required to be
used. I screwed a plug into that hole to stay, and drilled a hole
in the bottom of the trough, in which I screwed a f-inch pipe that
I carried under the bottom of the machine, and up behind one of
the uprights to a higher level, and in the end of this pipe I screwed
302 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
a sight-feed oil-cup. I provided a drain-pipe, which would main-
tain the oil in the trough at the desired level, while it was fed to
the trough continually, drop by drop, as required. This table came
with an imperfectly finished bearing surface. I set several men at
work to bed these surfaces properly, and did a fine job of scraping
on them. When it was finished, I pulled the table around with
one hand, it floating dry on the air caught between the two sur-
faces. When we came to use the tool it chattered, and would do
so however light the cut we were taking; every part of it was too
light and vibrated, except the table. After all, it was the best tool
of this kind and size that I could have got in this country. If
made of proper strength I should have been able to use four cutting
tools in the work, each leaving a perfectly smooth surface; but that
was a degree of strength and usefulness that builders at that time
had not dreamed of.
One of the first of our smaller engines, 10X20 inches, I built
for ourselves, setting it in a location convenient for transmitting
power to both the machine- and crec ting-shops.
The job of taking the cross-wind out of the great planer inter-
ested me perhaps more than anything else, on account of its diffi-
culty. It was a long time before I could decide how to go about
it; besides the cross-wind, the guides were not parallel; at one end
the V's on the table bore on one side, and at the other end on the
opposite side. I finally made an apparatus consisting of two V's
about three feet long, and connected by a cross-bar on which was
set a spirit-level having a ground bubble. Another similar level
was set on top of one of the V's. With this apparatus, which was
strong enough and was finished in the most perfect manner, and
a brass wire, I was able to determine beforehand what was neces-
sary to be done at every point in the guides. To finish this job on
the bed, and afterwards on the V's under the table, required fully
three months' work, including the time spent in preparing the
apparatus, a job I could not begin until I had our new planers.
When it was done I was able to make a perfect job of the great
engine beds already mentioned, and other work which was waiting
for it.
Among the old tools was one large drilling-machine, the size of
which and the strength of its framing impressed me very favorably;
SELLING OLD TOOLS 303
but when we came to use it we found it would not drill a round
hole. This defect could doubtless have been remedied by grinding
the spindle, when we got a tool in which to do it, and fitting new
boxes. It was determined, however, by Mr. Goodfellow and my-
self, that it would not be worth while to bother with it, because it
had been so badly designed that the two traversing screws for the
compound table, with which it was furnished, were located cen-
trally, and so crossed each other exactly under the spindle. It
was therefore impossible to use a boring-bar in this tool, and its
usefulness was ridiculously disproportioned to its size. The con-
trast between it and the Smith & Coventry drill, which was set in
its place, was really wonderful. We had no trouble in disposing of
this and all other rejected tools to parties who were delighted to
get them cheap. It took us about six months to get rid of all the
rubbish and fill the works with the best tools then obtainable,
though still deficient in many respects, as, for instance, the great
planer, which had only one cutting tool on the cross-slide, whereas
a planer of that size should be provided with four cutting tools —
two on the cross-slide and one on each upright, and should be
twice as heavy.
One of the first engines we sold was to D. M. Osborne & Co.,
the celebrated makers of mowers and reapers in Auburn, for
driving their rolling mill. This was 1SX 30-inch engine, making
150 revolutions per minute, and was the fifth engine I had fur-
nished to different industries in my native town.
Twenty- five years afterwards I saw this engine running.
They had increased its speed. By means of a large ball on projec-
tions of the forked lever they were able to very the speed from
200 revolutions to 250 revolutions per minute, according to the
sizes they were rolling.
I observed that, as our facilities for doing work were increased,
the belief that I was unable to execute orders became general
through the country, and applications, at first numerous, dwindled
to almost nothing. United and well-directed action would soon
have put a new face on matters, but now I was to meet with
obstacles that time could not overcome.
Mr. Merrick was an amiable and high-toned gentleman, whose
sole aim was so do his duty; but he was exactly the wrong man
304 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
for the place. He was not an engineer or mechanic. In the firm
of S. V. Merrick & Sons he had been the office man. He was
entirely a man of routine. He seemed obtuse to a mechanical
reason for doing or not doing anything. Of course he knew noth-
ing about my business. He was impressed with the idea of the
omnipotence of the president, which in his case was true, as the
directors would unanimously approve of whatever he might do.
He at once deprived me of the power of appointment and discharge
in my own department, arrogating all authority to himself. In
addition he was naturally a very reserved man, I may say secre-
tive. He consulted me about nothing. I never knew what he
proposed to do or was doing until I found out afterwards. He
had grandly confessed his first two blunders, but unfortunately
he continued to make mistakes equally serious to the end of the
chapter.
About the first order we had was from a company formed
for lighting the streets in Philadelphia with arc lights, of which
Thomas Dolan, a prominent manufacturer in Philadelphia, was
president. Our order was for eight engines, 8X16 inches, to
drive eight Brush dynamos each of 40-light power. The order
was given to Mr. Merrick. I never saw Mr. Dolan; his own mill
was at the northern end of the city, and he met Mr. Merrick
by appointment at lunch in the business center, to which confer-
ences I was never invited. When the plant was in operation I
heard incidentally that they had a new engineer at the electric-
light works, and I thought I would go up and make his acquaint-
ance. I went the same evening. I was met at the door by a
stranger who politely showed me the plant. I did not introduce
myself. He asked me if I were interested in electric lighting. I
told him I was not but might be. He said it was his duty to
warn me against the use of high-speed engines ; he should not have
advised these, but found them already installed when he took
charge of the place, and he was doing the best he could to make
them answer for the present, but the works would be greatly en-
larged after a while, when these engines would be gotten rid of
and proper engines substituted in place of them. He called his
assistant to corroborate his statement of the difficulty they had
in getting along with them. I listened to these outrageous false-
CALL ON MR. DOLAN. 305
hoods and looked around and saw the eight engines running
smoothly and silently at 280 revolutions per minute, each engine
exerting the power of four engines of the same size, at the old
maximum speed of 70 revolutions per minute, and giving absolutely
uniform motion without a fly-wheel, and said nothing.
The next morning I made an early call on Mr. Dolan
at his office. I introduced myself to him, although I think he
knew me by sight. I told him the state of affairs I found
at the electric-light station and received from him in reply the
following astounding statement. He said: "Mr. Porter, when
this company was formed I selected the Southwark Foundry as
our engineers. I had previously b come acquainted with the run-
ning of some of your engines and had come to the conclusion that
they were just what we needed; accordingly I ordered our first
engines from you. I assum d the engineering department of this
enterprise to be in your hands, and that you would be repre-
sented here by an engineer selected by yourselves and devoted to
your interest. Accordingly, when your men had finished their job
I applied to your president to send me an engineer. He sent me a
workman. That was not the kind of man I asked him for; the
engines were in charge of workmen already from your own works.
I wanted an educated man who could represent us in the courts
and before the city councils — in short, an engineering head for this
business, now in its infancy, but which was expected to grow to
large proportions. He ought to have known what I wanted, or if
he did not he should have asked me; his whole manner was
entirely indifferent, he seemed to take no interest in the enterprise.
"Seeing I could get no help from Mr. Merrick, I applied to
William Sellers for an engineer. He sent me a young man from
his drawing-office, and I soon found out he was not the man I
wanted; he knew nothing about a steam-engine — was merely a
machine-tool draftsman — so I found I must rely upon myself.
The only man I could think of was this man I have. He had done
some good work for me two or three years ago in repairing one
of my engines, so I offered him the position, which he accepted.
I knew nothing of his engineering preferences; he seems to be
doing very well, and I am afraid he will have to stay; " and stay
he did.
306 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
The result was most remarkable. A demand for electric-light-
ing plants was springing up in all parts of the country. This
became widely known as a pioneer plant, and was visited daily
by parties who were interested in such projects. These visitors
were met at the door by the engineer and his assistant and were
warned, just as I was, to have nothing to do with a high-speed
engine. They were always business men, quite ignorant of ma-
chinery, and with whom the testimony of two practical men who
had experience with the engines and were actuated in their
advice by a sense of duty was conclusive. The result was
that we never had a single application to supply engines for
electric lighting. Yes, we did have one application; a man came
into the office when I was there alone and gave me an order for his
mill and apologized to me for giving it. He said the place where
he was obliged to locate his lighting plant was so limited, he
found he could not get in the engine he wanted.
This result I felt especially exasperated at when a year afterwards
the secretary of the lighting company, who had his office at the
station, told me that he had done something of which he knew his
directors would not approve; he had sold every light they were able
to furnish. He had felt safe in doing this, because no one of the
engines had failed them for an instant. For his part he could not
see what those men were there for — they had absolutely nothing
to do except to start and stop the engines as required and attend
to the oiling. Their principal occupation seemed to be waiting
on visitors.
This great disaster would have been avoided if Mr. Merrick
had conferred with me with respect to Mr. Dolan's most important
request. We should have had a man there who would have told
the truth about the engines, and would have impressed every
visitor with the enormous advantage of the high-speed engine,
not only for that service, but also for every use to which steam
power can be applied.
It will be observed that this disaster was widespread and con-
tinuous. It not only caused a great immediate loss, but its ulti-
mate injury was beyond all computation. Its effect was that
the Porter-Allen engine was shut out of the boundless field of
MR. EDISON'S PLANS 307
generating electricity for light and power purposes, a field which
was naturally its own. ,,..-,
The following story is too good to keep, although the incident
had no effect that I am aware of to accelerate my downward prog-
ress While in Newark I had built for Mr. Edison an engine for his
experimental plant at Menlo Park. The satisfaction this engine
gave may be judged by what follows: One clay I had a call from
Mr Edison, accompanied by Charles L. Clarke, his engineer. They
had been walking very rapidly, and Mr. Edison, who was rather
stout was quite out of breath. As soon as they were seated, with-
out waiting to recover his wind Mr. Edison began, ejaculating each
sentence while catching his breath: "Want a thousand engines."
-Thousand engines." "Want you to make the plans for them.'^
"Have all the shops in New England working on the parts."
"Bring them here to be assembled." "Thousand engines." In the
conversation that followed I gently let Mr. Edison down, not to
the earth, but in sight of it, The result was that two or three
weeks afterwards I was injudicious enough to accept from him an
order for twenty-four engines, luckily all of one size and type.
This was to be a rush order, but it called for new drawings and
patterns, as he wanted a special proportion of diameter and stroke,
larger diameter and shorter stroke than those in my table. Before
the drawings and patterns were completed, Mr. Edison, or the
people associated with him, discovered that they had no place to
put more than six of these engines, so the order was reduced to six.
These were for a station which was being prepared on the west side
of Pearl Street, a few doors south of Fulton, New York City.
Three of these engines were finished first. After they had been
running a few days a defect of some kind, the nature of which I
never knew, was discovered, and Mr. Edison's attention was called
to it. He charged it to the engine, and exclaimed impetuously,
"Turn them out, turn them out!" It was represented to him,
however, that they could hardly do this, as they were under con-
tract for a considerable amount of light and power, and the current
was being furnished satisfactorily. "Well," said he, "we'll have
no more of them at any rate," so the order for the remaining three
engines was countermanded, and three Armington & Sims engines
were ordered in place of them. When these were started the
308 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
same difficulty appeared with them also. A fresh investigation dis-
closed the fact that the difficulty was entirely an electrical one,
and the engines had nothing to do with it. Mr. Clarke claimed
that had been his belief from the beginning. So the thousand
engines dwindled to three engines sold and three thrown back on
our hands. The two triplets ran together harmoniously until in
the development of the electrical business that station was aban-
doned.
Directly after we began to do work, Mr. E. D. Leavitt
brought us the business of the Calumet and Hecla mine. This
was then the largest copper mine in the country, owned
by a Boston company of which Mr. Agassiz, son of the great
naturalist, was president. He brought it to me personally on
account of his admiration for the engine, and also for the
character of work which I had inaugurated. His first order
was for an engine of moderate size. While that was build-
ing he brought us a small order for a repair job, amounting
perhaps to a couple of hundred dollars. That work was spoiled
in the shop by some blunder and had to be thrown away and
made over again. By accident I saw the bill for that job; a
green boy brought it from the treasurer's desk for Mr. Merrick's
approval. We both happened to be out, and by mistake he laid
it on my side of the table. I came in first, picked it up and read
it, and saw that it was for the full amount of the material and
work that had been put on the job. It seemed to me quite double
what it ought to be. I laid it on Mr. Merrick's side and, when
he came in, told him how I came to see it, and I thought it should
not be sent, being so greatly increased by our own fault. "Oh,"
said he, "they are rich; they won't mind it." I said: "That is
no the question with me; I don't think it is just to charge our
customers for our own blunders." Ht> smiled at my innocence,
saying: "If a machine-shop does not make its customers pay for
its blunders, it will soon find itself in the poorhouse." "Well,"
said I, "I protest against this bill being sent." However, it was
sent, and in the course of a few days a check came for the full
amount, and Mr. Merrick laughed at me. Weeks and months
passed away and we had heard no more from Mr. Leavitt, when
I met him in New York at a meeting of the council of the Society of
E. D. Leavitt
MR. MERRICK'S USURPATION 309
Mechanical Engineers. When the meeting was over he invited
me to walk with him, and said to me: "I suppose you have
observed that I have not visited the Southwark Foundry
lately." I told him I had observed it. He then said: "Do you
remember that bill?" I told him I did very well, and how vainly
I had protested against its being sent. He said: "When that bill
was brought to me for approval, I hesitated about putting my
initials to it until I had shown it to Mr. Agassiz. I told him what
the job was and the bill was quite twice as large as I had expected.
He replied, 'Pay it, but don't go to them any more,' and I have
taken our work to the Dickson Manufacturing Company at Scran-
ton." I realized that I had lost the most influential engineering
friend I had since the death of Mr. Holley. I heard some years
after, and believe it, though I do not vouch for its correctness,
that the work sent to the Dickson Manufacturing Company
through Mr. Leavitt had in one year exceeded one hundred
thousand dollars.
Some time previous to these events, Mr. Merrick had done a
very high-handed thing. Assuming supreme power as president
of the company, he had invaded my department, and, without
a word to me, had appointed over Mr. Goodfellow a superintendent
to suit himself, reducing Mr. Goodfellow to be general foreman of
the machine-shop, to take his orders from the new superintendent
and not from me, whereupon Mr. Goodfellow resigned, and accepted
a position as master mechanic in the Pennsylvania Steel Works,
and by his advice the engine ordered by them from me was taken
from the Southwark Foundry in its incomplete condition and
finished by themselves under Mr. Goodfellow's direction. Mr.
Merrick then filled Mr. Goodfellow's place with another friend of
his own as general foreman, a man who would have been as
valuable as a stick of wood but for his incessant blunders. I was
fully alive to the arbitrary nature of this usurpation, but was
entirely helpless, knowing perfectly well that the directors would
sustain the president in whatever he did.
With the coming of the new superintendent, the fatal change
took place. He came, first of all, full of the superiority of Phila-
delphia mechanics, and, second, feeling that in the nature of things
I must be entirely ignorant of anything mechanical. I was noth-
310 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
ing but a New York lawyer; never did a day's work in a shop in
my life; had gone into a business I was not educated to and
knew nothing about. My presuming to give orders to mechanics,
and Philadelphia mechanics too, rilled him with indignation.
He would not take an order from me — perish the thought — and
as for my drawings, he would depart from them as much as he
liked.
All this appeared by degrees. I observed on the floor several
cylinders fitted up, in which the followers for the piston-rod
stuffing-boxes were made sliding fits on the rods. I asked him
why he had made them in this way when they were drawn and
figured to be bored ^ inch larger than the rod. He replied,
"Because this is the way they ought to be." I told him every
one of them would be fired before the engine had run an hour;
that I wanted him to bore those followers to the drawings, as well
as the cylinder heads back of the stuffing-boxes. "It shall be done,
sir," said he. On examining them after this had been done, I
found he had turned as much off from the outside of the followers
as he had bored out of the hole. I asked him why he had done
that. He said he supposed if I wanted the inside to be loose, I
wanted the outside to be loose too. I told him I did not. He
asked me why. I told him he was not there to argue with me;
I wanted him to throw those followers away and make new ones
precisely to the drawings, and I saw to it myself that it was done.
I went to Mr. Merrick about this matter, and can the reader im-
agine what his reply was? "My advice to you, Mr. Porter, is to
leave all such matters to the superintendent." Think of it; an
amateur president assuming the direction of my business, and
giving such advice to me, who never had left the least thing to
anybody, and without considering the fact that the action of his
superintendent would be ruinous, except for my interference.
I realized that I was absolutely alone, but I felt very much
like fighting the whole world. The above incident is a fair
sample of my constant experience. I was on the watch all the
time. Many times I required the work to be done over when the
superintendent departed from my drawings, and in doing it over
he generally contrived to ruin the job, and would say, "Just
according to your orders, sir." I was reminded of a story told of
Samuel T. Well.man
MR. OTIS' ENGLXE
311
Dr. Beman, a minister of Troy, N. Y., whose wife was peculiar,
to say the least. On a certain occasion the presbytery met in Troy,
and one evening he invited its members to his house, and told
his wife to provide just a light supper. When they were ushered
into the supper-room there was nothing on the table but lighted
candles. "A light supper," said she, "just as you ordered, sir."
I proposed to appoint an inspector to represent me. The
general foreman said if an inspector were appointed he should
resign, and Mr. Merrick forbade it. Was ever a man in so help-
less and ridiculous a position?
The second of the large engines which I finished was for the
Otis Steel Works. I went to Cleveland myself to start the engine
and found that Mr. Wellman, the general manager, had it
running already. Mr. Otis, the president, was very much
pleased with it, and well he might be. This was the first mill
to roll plates from the ingot to the finish without reheating.
February 2nd
Porter-Allen Enginc40 x 1
Otis Iron and Steel Co.
1 Rev. ■) Cleveland,
81 Lbs. \ April 14, 1882
These were the kind of diagrams it made. It will be observed
that these were taken at different times and under different
pressures. Unfortunately the right hand one is the only diagram
I have from the crank end of the cylinder. In rolling these heavy
plates the changes were made instantaneously from full load to
nothing and from nothing to full load. The engine made 93
revolutions per minute, and it will be seen that the changes were
made by the governor in a third of a second or less, the speed not
varying sensibly. Mr. Otis said to me: "Oh, Mr. Porter, what
shall I do with you? You cannot imagine the loss I have suffered
from your delay in furnishing this engine." I said: "Mr. Otis,
you know the terrible time I have had, and that I have done the
very best I could." "Yes," he said, "I know all about it." He
312 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
had, in fact, been to Philadelphia and seen for himself. He added:
"You make a small engine suitable for electric lights; what is the
price of an engine maintaining twenty-five arc lights?" I told
him $1050. "Well," said he, "you strike off the odd fifty and let
me have one for a thousand dollars, and we will call it square," so
I had some sunshine on my way. I present a portrait of this
just man. The engine is now running as good as new after
twenty-five years, and the company five or six years afterwards
put in another 48x66-inch to drive a still larger train.
I had a funny experience at the Cambria Works which has
always seemed to me to have been prophetic. In August, 1881,
the Society of Mechanical Engineers held a meeting in Altoona,
and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company gave us an excursion
to Johnstown to visit the works of the Cambria Company. The
anticipations of the members were expressed by Jackson Bailey,
then the editor of the American Machinist. As I was going
through a car in which he was seated he called out to me, "This is
your day, Porter." The party was taken in charge by Mr. Morrell,
the general manager. Our route took us first to their new blast-
furnaces, where considerable time was spent in examining their new
and interesting features. Next we came to my second engine,
started some two months before. The engine was just being slowed
down; we were told there were not yet furnaces enough to keep
the train running continuously, so they were shut down from half
an hour to an hour between heats, and a heat had just been run
off. We went next to see my rail-mill engine, which had raised the
output of that mill 150 per cent. That too had been shut down.
They had just broken a roll, a most rare accident and one which
I had never before seen or heard of there. "Well, gentlemen,"
said I, "at any rate I can show you my engine driving a cold saw."
Arrived at the spot, we found that all still, and were told that
sawing cold rails was not a continuous operation, we had hit
upon the noon hour, and the men had gone to their dinner.
That was the end of the show, as far as I was concerned. The
Gautier Works were a mile away and were not included in our
visit, so we were entertained with the great blooming-mill in
operation and the casting of the enormous ingots for it, and after
the customary luncheon and speeches we returned to Altoona.
Charles A. Otis
TRICKS OF THE SUPERINTENDENT
313
One clay the superintendent came into the office and told me
he had tried my machine for facing nuts and it would not work.
I felt disappointed, because I had confidence in it. I went out
to see what the matter was, and at a glance I saw that it had been
ingeniously arranged not to work. The feed had been made rapid
and the cutting motion very slow, so that the tools could not take
their cuts and the slow-moving belt ran off the pulleys. I did not
Porter-Allen Engine 40'x 48* +207
Dash pot for Governor.
reduce the feed-motion, but increased the speed of the cutters
and the belt some eight or ten-fold, when the trouble vanished.
I never knew anything to work better than that tool did.
The burning anxiety of the superintendent was to show up my
ignorance. A first-rate chance to do so soon seemed to present itself.
The counterpoise of the governor of the Otis engine dropped instantly
to its seat when a plate struck the rolls and as instantly rose to the
top of its range of action when it left them. This made a noisy blow
which was disagreeable and might in time cause an accident. Mr.
314 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
Wellman sent me a sketch of a device he had thought of for arrest-
ing this motion by air-cushions. I told the superintendent to have
that apparatus made and make the air-cushions four inches in
diameter. He said four inches diameter would not answer; they
must be eight inches. "No," said I, "four inches diameter is
ample; make them four inches." A few days after he called me
into the shop to try my four-inch air-cushions. I found the appara-
tus secured in a vise in a vertical position. I took hold of the lever
and lifted the piston; it met with no resistance until it struck
sharply against the end of the chamber. For a moment I was
stunned by the man's audacity, and threw the piston up and down
again to make sure it was not a dream. I then turned my back on
the superintendent and called to a boy to find Mr. Fulmer, the
foreman of the second floor, and tell him I wanted him here. In
a moment he appeared, and I said to him: "Mr. Fulmer, I want
you to make a new piston for this apparatus and make it a proper
fit; you understand." Mr. Fulmer bowed assent. I added:
"There will be time to-day to get it into the sand, and it can be
finished early to-morrow. When it is ready for my inspection
come yourself to the office and let me know." About the middle
of the next forenoon Mr. Fulmer called for me. I went in and
found the piston arrested at each end of its motion by a perfect air-
cushion. "All right," said I, "see that it is shipped to-day."
Mr. Fulmer was an excellent mechanic and a man of good
general intelligence; he would have made the piston a proper fit
in the first place if he had not been expressly ordered to make it
loose and useless. The superintendent, on his persistent assump-
tion that I was a fool, had actually expected me to say when I
tried the apparatus: "Oh, I see, four inches diameter will not do.
You will have to make it eight."
Some time in 18S1 or 1882 I had a queer experience with
an engine for the New York Post Office. It was to take the
place of an engine then running. The engineer of the Post
Office informed me that this engine had a cylinder twelve inches
in diameter. I told him it looked to me from the external
dimensions that the diameter must be fourteen inches and asked
him to take off the back head and measure it for me. He wrote
me a few days after that he found that he could not get the
Daniel J. Morrell
N. Y. POST OFFICE ENGINE. 315
back head off, but I might rely upon it being twelve inches. So
I did rely upon it being fourteen inches, furnished an engine ac-
cordingly, and found it to be the size needed.
Some time after the engine was started I received a line from
the Postmaster saying they were much disappointed in it. They
expected a gain in economy, but they were burning more coal
than before, also that the engine pounded badly. I went to New
York to see what the matter was. The engine seemed to be work-
ing all right except for the knock, so I made my way down to the
sub-cellar. There was nothing there but the boilers and the
engineer's desk. On the cellar stairs, after I had shut the door
behind me, I heard a loud sound of escaping steam. The boilers
were under the middle of the building; a four-inch steam-pipe ran
from them a distance of about eighty feet, suspended from the
ceiling, to a point under the engine, then turned up through the
floor to the under side of the steam-chest. The exhaust pipe, of
the same size, came from the engine through* the floor and was
carried parallel with the steam-pipe to the middle of the building
and upward through the roof. The two pipes were about eighteen
inches apart, and in the vertical portions under the ceiling they
had been connected by a half-inch pipe having a globe valve in
the middle of its length. The valve-stem was downward and
the valve set wide open. The noise I heard was caused by
the steam rushing through this pipe. I computed that about as
much steam was being thus blown away as was used by the engine.
My first impulse was to call upon the Postmaster and tell him what
I had found, but I decided not to bother him. I could not reach
the valve to close it, but discovered a box used for a step to an
opening in the wall, so I brought that out and standing upon it
was able to close the valve; then the noise ceased and I put the
box back.
There was no one in the cellar but a boy firing the boilers.
I asked him if he knew who put that pipe there. He knew noth-
ing about it, but supposed our men put it there when they set up
the engine. I hunted up the engineer and asked him the same
question, and got the same answer. I went to the people who
did the engineering work for the Post Office and who had put in
the pipes; they knew nothing about it. I could find out nothing,
316 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
but had to content myself with telling the engineer that I had closed
the valve and relied upon him to keep it closed. I asked him what
he thought caused the thump in the engine; he said he had not
the slightest idea, but he would try to cure it. I contented myself
with writing to the Postmaster that I had removed the cause of
the waste of steam and hoped he would now find the engine satis-
factory. Soon after Mr. Merrick was in New York for two or
three days. When he came home he said: "I have cured the
thump in that Post Office engine." " How did you do it? " I asked.
He replied: "I gave the engineer a twenty-dollar gold piece, and
when I went to see it the next morning the thump was gone."
I should add that when the old engine was taken down I had the
back cylinder head removed, which was done without difficulty,
and found the diameter fourteen inches. "For ways that are
dark and tricks that are vain" this engineer was "peculiar"
in my experience.
I had brought with me from Newark an order from the Willi-
mantic Linen Company, who were manufacturers of cotton thread,
for two engines for quite an interesting application. They were
building a new mill entirely unique in its design, which has never
been repeated, being an ignorant freak. It was a one-story mill
800 feet long and 250 or 300 feet wide, intended to contain five lines
of shafting. Each line was independent and drove the machinery
for all the successive operations from opening the cotton bales to
packing the spools of thread. These lines of shafting 800 feet
long were to be in the basement and to drive these machines by
belts through the floor, the engine to be in the middle of each line.
For this purpose I supplied a pair of condensing engines, 11 inches
diameter of cylinder and 16 inches stroke, making 350 revolutions
per minute, with their cranks set at right angles with each other
in the line of shafting. These required no fly-wheel and would
start from any position. I had a great deal of trouble with this
order on account of the delay in its execution, so much so that
before the first engine was finished the order for the second one was
countermanded, and this order was placed with the Hartford Engi-
neering Company, a new concern which was foolish enough to
undertake the same speed. However, after my first engine was
started they found themselves face to face with an impossibility
FAULT IN TUBULAR BOILERS 317
and had to throw up their contract, whereupon the president of the
company became very civil and asked me to be kind enough to
make the second engine for them, which I was quite happy to do,
as I had on hand the peculiar bed for these engines, which I did
not break up after the order was countermanded, but had it set
up against the wall of the shop in readiness for what might happen.
These two engines were both in successful operation when my own
operations ceased; the remaining three engines were to be added
as their business required.
The engineer of that company was an original investigator.
He had a battery of return-tubular boilers, each one crammed
full of tubes according to the usual methods of boiler-makers. He
provided himself with pieces of lath one inch wide, one eighth of an
inch thick, and four inches long, and laid one in the front end of
each tube in one of his boilers and left them there for twenty-four
hours. He had made a diagram of his boiler on which he num-
bered every tube and put a corresponding number on every piece
of lath. In taking them out they presented an astonishing revela-
tion, which he showed me. Some of the pieces were burned almost
to a coal and some were scarcely discolored, while the great body of
them presented various effects of heat between these extremes.
These showed distinctly the enormous differences in the tempera-
ture of the gases passing through the different tubes, and that
fully one half of the tubes did little or no work in evaporating
the water. They taught a lesson which boiler-makers, who count
every additional tube they can get into a boiler as so much added
heating surface and rate their boilers accordingly, have no anxiety
to learn, but which I afterwards turned to good account, as will
be seen.
About the last and the most interesting engine that I built
while in Philadelphia was one for the firm of Cheney Brothers, silk-
manufacturers, of South Manchester, Conn. This was a cross-
compound, the first and the last compound engine that I ever
built, and it is the only engine in this country to which I applied
my condenser. The cylinders were 12 and 21 inches in diameter,
the stroke 24 inches, and the shaft made 180 revolutions per minute.
The condenser presented a new design in one respect; the air-pump
was double-acting and made only 45 double strokes per minute, be-
318
ENGIXEERIXG REMINISCENCES
ing driven by a belt from the engine shaft and the motion reduced
by gears 1 to 4. This engine ran perfectly from the start, and I
looked forward with confidence to a demand for many more of the
same type. The diagrams made by it are here reproduced.
Atmosphere
Diagrams from my First and Only Compound Engine.
I have a pleasant memory connected with this engine. The silk-
mill is located in a very large park, scattered about which are the
residences of different members of the family. About twelve years
after the engine was built, in company with my wife, I was visit-
ing relatives in Hartford, from which South Manchester is about
twelve miles distant. One day we were driven over there with our
friends to make a social call. On our arrival I left the party to
make a visit to my old engine. The mill seemed to have been
changed very much, and I lost my way. Finally I recognized, as I
thought, the old engine-room and went in. My engine was not
there, but in its place stood another engine, a pair of tandem com-
THE CHENEY ENGINE 319
pounds of much larger dimensions. These had evidently just been
erected, as they stood idle. "Oh, dear," said I to myself, "my
engines have been superseded for some reason or other." While
I was indulging in that reflection the engineer came in. I intro-
duced myself and said to him: "I see that my old engines have
been supplanted." "Oh, no," said he, "your engines are all right;
they are running just where they always have been. They have
built a new mill twice as large as the old one, and your engines
have been giving such satisfaction they have ordered another
pair of compounds from the Southwark Foundry, and these are
the engines; they have not been started yet, as the mill is not
ready for them and won't be for a month."
He directed me to the old engine-room, where I found my
engines gliding away as though they had been erected yesterday.
At that time I regarded these engines as only a stepping-stone to
far higher things. I was engaged on a plan for a great develop-
ment of the high speed system, but which has not materialized.
I still consider it as on the whole superior to the turbine, a
superiority, however, which may never be established.
In the spring of 1881, in our anxiety to revive the manufacture
of the engine, we were foolish enough to send one to the Atlanta
exhibition. We eagerly believed the promises of the agent that
we should find all the machinery that we wanted to drive, and
sent an engine finished with great care, and a skillful man to erect
and run it. We also printed the heading of a lot of diagrams, to be
given to visitors. The facts were found to be that we had nothing
to drive but an idle line of shafting and one Clark's spool-winder,
while the exhaust main was so small and choked with the exhausts
from other engines that we had a back pressure of ten pounds
above the atmosphere; so we could take no diagrams; and the
fact that we did not take any was used as a conclusive argument
against high-speed engines; so the exhibition did us harm instead
of good.
I pass over other distressing experiences at the works, and come
at once to the final catastrophy in the late fall of 1882.
Another exhibition opened in the fall of 1882, for which I made
great preparations, and from which I anticipated important results.
This was the exhibition of the New England Manufacturers' and
320 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
Mechanics' Institute, held in Boston. I obtained an important
allotment of space with plenty of machinery to drive, and, besides
a fine engine, sent a large exhibit of our finished work, in the parts
of several sizes of engines, expecting to attract the attention of
all New England manufacturers. I prepared for a regular cam-
paign. I rented an office and engaged a young man to represent
us in Boston as our agent, and another, Mr. Edwin F. Williams, to
travel and solicit orders and take the charge of erecting engines.
Our engine arrived without a piston. Mr. Merrick had thought he
had found a defect in the piston, and ordered another one to be
made. When we came to put the engine together in the exhibi-
tion, this piston would not enter the cylinder. On examination
it was found to have been turned conical, the bases of the two
cones meeting in the middle, so the middle was one eighth of an
inch larger in diameter than the faces. We had to get a coarse
file and file down the middle of the piston all around until it
would enter the cylinder. Then I had a great disappointment —
the greatest I ever experienced — the engine thumped badly on
both centers. The only way in which we could stop the thumping
was by shutting off the steam until the initial pressure was brought
down to the height reached by the compression of the exhaust.
In this plight we had to run through the exhibition. We could
not take a diagram and had to watch the engine constantly, for
whenever the pressure rose ever so little too high in the cylinder
it would begin to thump. I attributed this to the shocking
condition of the surface of the piston. I could not comprehend
how this should cause the thump, but it must be that, for I
could conceive of nothing else that could produce it. This thump
made my exhibition a total failure, and necessitated the abandon-
ment of all my plans.
At the close of the exhibition I went home utterly discouraged.
"When I went into the shop the first person I met was the foreman
of the lower floor, where the engine had been built. I told him of
the plight in which I found myself placed and to which I attributed
my failure. The fellow gave me the lie direct, saying with a con-
ceited smirk: "It is impossible, Mr. Porter, that any such work
as you have described can have gone out of this establishment."
I turned on my heel and left him, and in less than half a minute
MODIFIED EXHAUST VALVES 321
I saw at a distance of fifty feet a 22-inch piston being finished for
an engine we were building for the Tremont and Suffolk Mill.
The workman had finished turning the piston and was then cutting
the grooves for the rings. The reflection from the surface showed
me the same two cones meeting in the middle. I went up to the
lathe, the back side of which was toward me, and told the work-
man to stop his lathe and bring me a straight-edge. This rocked
on the edge in the middle of the piston, opening nearly one eighth
of an inch on each face alternately. I sent a boy to find the fore-
man and asked him what he thought of that and left him. I had
influence enough to have both the foreman and the workman dis-
charged that night. Think of it; superintendent, general fore-
man, the foreman of the floor, and workman, altogether, never
saw what I detected at a glance from the opposite side of the
shop.
I want to stop here to express my disgust with the American
system of making the tailstock of a lathe adjustable, which
enables either an ignorant, careless or malicious workman to ruin
his work after this fashion. To their credit, English tools have
no such feature.
The very next day we received a call from Mr. Bishop, the
engineer of the works of Russell & Irwin at New Britain, Conn., to
tell us that their engine just put in by us had a very bad thump
which he was afraid could not be cured as it was evidently caused
by the piston projecting over the admission ports when at the end
of its stroke. "Impossible," I exclaimed; "I never made such an
engine in my life." I should here state that in experimenting
with the. first little engine that I made before I went to England,
I at first made the piston project over the port one quarter of an
inch, and the engine thumped. I satisfied myself that this was
caused by the impact of the entering steam against the projecting
surface of the piston, driving it against the opposite side of the
cylinder; this was aggravated in high-speed engines. In this
case the engine made 160 revolutions per minute and the steam
was admitted through four simultaneous openings, so it entered
the cylinder with great velocity. I turned a quarter of an inch
off from each face of the piston, and the thump disappeared. I
then made it a law from which I never varied, that the piston
322 ENGIXEERING REMINISCENCES
should come to the admission port and not project over it at all,
and this feature was shown in every drawing.
Mr. Bishop replied tome: "It does project, Mr. Porter: it pro-
jects seven eighths of an inch over the port at each end of its stroke,
for I have measured it." I rushed up to the drawing-office and
called for the horizontal sectional drawing of that cylinder, and
there I saw the piston not only drawn, but figured — projecting
seven eighths of an inch over the port. I felt as though I were
sinking through the floor. That was what had ruined my Boston
exhibition and sent me home disgraced and broken-hearted and
the badly fitting piston, shameful as that was, had nothing to do
with it. The first question that occurred to me was : " How came
this drawing to exist and I to know nothing about it? " The answer
to this question was simple.
When the first pair of Willimantic engines was started I was
disappointed in their economy, and made up my mind that the
excessive waste room was accountable for it. The proportion of
cross-section area to the stroke being fifty per cent, greater than
in my table of sizes increased in the same degree the proportion of
waste room to the piston displacement. I felt that there was need
here for improvement. By far the greatest amount of waste room
was in the exhaust ports. I accepted a modification of the exhaust
valves by which this item of the waste room was reduced fully one
half and made a new pair of cylinders for this engine. The im-
provement in the economy was so marked that I determined to
change the exhaust valves of all the engines. Only the exhaust
valves and ports needed to be changed. These were drawn anew
in pencil and carefully studied and approved of by me. It was
necessary that the entire combined cylinder drawing should be re-
traced, but this, except only the exhaust ports and valves, was to be
copied over the existing tracings. This did not require my atten-
tion, and I gave no thought to it. Here was the superintendent's
opportunity. In copying these tracings he had only to move the
straight line representing each face of the piston on the longitudinal
section of the cylinder seven eighths of an inch, thus adding this
amount to the piston at each end, and shorten the cylinder heads
to correspond, and the job was done; and there did not exist among
the large number of persons in the drawing-office and shop who
FALSE BILL OF ALTERATIONS 323
must have been aware of this change, loyalty enough to let me
know anything about it.
We had also recently finished two engines for the Cochcco Mill
at Dover, N. H., and about this time we received a letter from the
superintendent or that mill expressing his admiration of the engines
in every other respect, but complaining of a bad thump in the
cylinders. He said he would be glad to invite the superintendents
of other mills to see them, but he could not show the engines to
anybody until that thump was cured.
I went directly to the president and demanded authority to
change the pistons and heads of these engines. To my astonish-
ment he refused point-blank, saying he had spent money enough
on these alterations, and he would not spend another cent. I
replied to him that there was one other alternative and that was
to abandon the business, to which he made no reply. But why
did I need to go to the president; why not make these changes
myself? The answer to this question is very humiliating to me.
An account had been made up of the cost of the alterations here
described and presented to the board of directors, showing this to
amount to $20,000. I was aghast at this statement; I had never
seen a figure pertaining to the business, except the single bill already
mentioned. I told the directors that any good pattern-maker
would have taken the contract to alter those exhaust valves and
ports on our twenty sizes of cylinders for an average price of fifty
dollars each, and made a profit of fifty per cent, in doing it. The
cost of the new drawings and the price of cylinders for the Willi-
mantic engine could not more than double this sum, and by some
hocus-pocus this $2000 had been changed to $20,000; probably by
transfer from other losing accounts. The president replied that
was the cost of the alterations as it appeared on the books, and
the directors, without making any investigation, adopted a reso-
lution that no further alterations should be made unless expressly
ordered by the president.
I did not believe that in making this addition to the length of
the piston the superintendent had any intention to wreck the
business. He could have had no idea of its fatal nature; his only
thought was to make a considerable further reduction of waste
room and gratify his itching to change my drawings. But of
course doing this without my knowledge was criminal, and should
324 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
have caused his instant discharge; but his whole conduct from the
beginning had been the same and the president had sustained him.
I had no opportunity to pursue this matter further.
On receiving the president's refusal I determined to appeal to
the directors, but first I thought I would lay the matter before
Mr. Henry Lewis, whom I regarded as the most open-minded of
all. What was my amazement when, after listening to my state-
ment, he replied: "We shall sustain the president, Mr. Porter."
Then I knew the end had come. It was idle for me to butt against
the Philadelphia phalanx. A day or two after a committee of the
directors headed by Mr. Shortridge, called at the office and asked to
see our order book. This showed that in more than a month preced-
ing we had not received a single order. On this state of affairs it was
evident to the directors that a change must be made in the man-
agement. I had long realized that the great gulf that I had dug
between the stockholders and myself, as already described, had
never been filled. Neither the directors as a body, except on the
single occasion already mentioned, nor any director individually,
had ever conferred with me on any subject whatever. They knew
nothing, except what they might have learned from the president;
he had no mechanical knowledge or ability to form a mechanical
judgment, and the superintendent influenced him in a degree which
to me was unaccountable. His want of comprehension of the
business was shown in his answer to the lif e-or-death question which
I had presented to him. The next day I received a communication
from the directors requesting me to send in my resignation, which I
promptly did. Mr. Merrick was also requested to resign. This
was evidently a put up job, to let me down easy. Mr. Merrick
had for some time expressed a wish to be relieved from his position
which he found very uncomfortable.
The directors elected as president one of their own number,
who had nothing else to do, to sit in the president's chair and draw
his salary, and committed the practical management of the business
to an oily-tongued man who had never seen a high-speed engine,
and whose qualifications for the position were that he was a friend
of one of the directors and was a Pniladelphian, and who I
learned received a large bonus for leaving his own business and
accepting the position vacated by me.
Benjamin F. Avery
CHAPTER XXVII
My Last Connection with the Company
WILL close this account of my engineering experi-
ence by relating two incidents.
Among the orders which I brought from Newark
was one from the firm of B. F. Avery & Sons, plow-
manufacturers, of Louisville, Ky., the head of which had first
established the manufacture of plows in the Southern States. Mr.
George Avery, one of the sons, had come to me and asked for a
list of the engines I had running, and took the pains to visit a
number of them, also those of other prominent builders, and as a
result of this extended comparison he brought me his order for
an 18x30-inch engine, with strong expressions of the manifest
superiority of the high-speed engine. This engine was about the
first one I finished in the Southwark Foundry. By great careless-
ness it was permitted to go out without the crank-pin being hard-
ened and ground, which was contrary to my invariable practice.
The man who erected the engine left the crank-pin boxes too loose,
and young Mr. Avery, who was quite an amateur mechanic, under-
took to tighten them up; he succeeded in heating the pin and
causing it to be badly torn. He made the best job of it that he
could with a file, and the engine ran in that crippled condition.
Soon after I left Philadelphia, they concluded they ought to
have a hardened crank-pin and wrote to the Southwark Foundry
respecting it. They received a reply that it would be necessary
to take the shaft out and send it to Philadelphia, and their
works would need to be interrupted about three weeks. The firm
then wrote to me in New York asking me to come to Louisville and
examine the engine and advise them what to do, which invitation I
325
326 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
accepted. The letter to the Southwark Foundry had been written
by their manager, and in it he stated that the engine pounded so
badly that it could be heard two blocks away, it was so wasteful
it was almost impossible to keep up steam for it, and that they
lived in such dread of its breaking down that their hair was all
turning white. I felt that this letter, after making full allowance
for its obvious exaggerations, reflected pretty badly, not only on
the engine, but also on the boilers. These were two return-
tubular boilers which I had designed myself. I had reflected a
good deal on the observation shown to me by the engineer at
Willimantic, and had felt that tubular boilers needed a better ver-
tical circulation. This was limited by the small space left for the
descending currents, the sides being filled with tubes almost touch-
ing the shell. So I allowed a space five inches wide between the
shell of the boiler on the sides and bottom and the nearest tubes,
as it was evident to me that the water, filled with bubbles of
steam, would rush up among the tubes fast enough if the com-
partively solid water at the sides could only get down. I also
left off the upper row of tubes to allow more space above them for
the steam, and from this arrangement I anticipated very superior
results.
On my arrival in Louisville I thought, before presenting myself
at the office, I would go into the works, which was open to every-
body, and see what the state of affairs really was. I was directed
to the boiler-house, on entering which I saw that one of the boilers
was idle. My first thought was that it had been disabled by some
accident, and their being limited to one boiler accounted for the
difficulty they experienced in supplying the engine with steam.
I asked the fireman, who I found sitting in a chair, what had
happened to put this boiler out of commission. He said, "Nothing
at all. They used both boilers at first, but after a while they
thought they did not need both, so they shut one down, and it has
been shut down ever since." "Well," said I, "you must have to
fire pretty strong to make one boiler answer." "No," said he,
"I have been firing boilers over twelve years and this is the easiest
job I have ever had." He then showed me his thin fire and
damper two thirds closed. So in two minutes I was relieved
from a load of anxiety about both boiler and engine, for
NEW CRANK PIN IN AVERY ENGINE 327
I had before me the evidence of their phcnonenal economy,
and I gave the manager credit for one good square lie.
I then asked him the way to the engine-room; he told me,
"Right through that door." I listened for the pound that could
be heard two blocks away and heard a faint sound. On opening the
door, which was opposite the crank, it was more distinct. There
was no one in the engine-room, but while I was looking the engine
over the engineer came in. I introduced myself and asked how
the engine was doing. He said, "Very well, all but that little
knock in the crank-pin." I asked him if he had any trouble with
it. He said, "None at all." "No worry or anxiety?" "Never
thought of such a thing," he said.
A number of years after I met in New York a young gentleman,
Mr. Benjamin Capwell, now of the firm of Kenyon, Hoag & Cap-
well, 817 Broadway, New York, who had been in the office of
B. F. Avery & Sons at that time. I told him this story. He said
he was not at all surprised; the boys in the office heard this
manager every day dictating letters just as full of falsehoods as
this one. I learned afterward that he held his position through
a cabal in the company, and that soon after I was there the
president succeeded in getting rid of him.
I was now ready to call on the president, Mr. Samuel Avery. He
told me they would like very much to have a hardened crank-pin
put in the engine, but of course they could not afford to interrupt
their work seriously for that purpose. I replied there would be no
difficulty about that. The present pin might be pressed out and
and a new one inserted in a few hours; all our work being made to
gauge, the new pin would be sure to fit. I told him he might safely
send an order to the Southwark Foundry to make the new pin, if
they would agree to put the work into the hands of Mr. Williams,
who was then in their employ, who should direct the manufacture
of the pin without any interference, and himself go to Louisville
and do the job. The Southwark Foundry agreed to these con-
ditions, and the work was soon done.
While engaged on this proof I wrote to Mr. Williams for an
account of setting this pin, and received from him the following
interesting letter.
It will be seen that he took the safer but far more laborious
328 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES.
method, as no one then in the works could assure him about the
crank having been bored to gauge.
It reads to me as if he found himself obliged to enlarge the
hole just that one thirty-second of an inch.
The method of verifying the alignment of the pin with the
shaft by means of a ground bubble level was originated by me
in Newark; where I found also that the pin could be thrown by
riveting.
42 Broadway, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1907.
Chas. T. Porter, Montclair, N. J.
My Dear Mr. Porter: In reply to your request of 14th
addressed Cold Springs, I am pleased to give you such account
of the crank pin work at B. F. Avery & Sons, at Louisville, in
1883, as my memory will admit of.
When I was instructed to do this work I received a letter
from you stating that a new crank pin was to be put in and
that it should be "hardened in a furnace," allowing it to re-
main in a crucible with the carbon at a lowered heat for ten
hours.
This was done and resulted in a fine job of hardening. The
pin was then ground true and smooth. Don't think I ever
saw a prettier job.
The old pin had to be taken out and the new one put in.
The exact diameter of the old shank was not definitely known.
It was thought advisable therefore, to make the new shank
about TTf" larger than the drawing dimension; so it would
surely be large enough to admit of drawing the hole which I
proposed to do by hand. Before leaving the works I had a
hollow cast iron cylinder or trial plug made, about twice the
depth of the crank pin hole in length, about T -Jo" smaller than
the shank of the new pin and slightly tapered at one end.
We cut the bead off the old pin and tried a hydraulic jack
on it, but it would not start. We then drilled five or six 1"
holes in the shank and the pin came out easily. The hole was
then calipered and found to require considerable dressing.
The crank shaft was then tried for level and found by turning
in various positions and by using a very sensitive level, to de-
flect from the horizontal approximately h of 1000th of an inch
per foot in length.
The hole was then enlarged by use of file and scraper, its
adjustment being proven as the work progressed by frequent
trials of level placed within the hole, at various points in the
revolution of the shaft. Finally, the trial plug was worked
I WHITE CATALOGUE 329
into the hole and used as a surface plate, the "high" spots being
scraped down and the plug found to line with the shaft and the
hole by caliper, found to be approximately , () : '„„" smaller than
the shank of the pin. The pin was then forced in and found
to stand nearly true. The small untruth was easily corrected
in riveting up the back and the pin was thrown approximately
nftro" away from the center line of shaft rotation to offset the
deflection that would be occasioned when running by the impact
of the steam admission on centers.
I think it quite likely that the pin during the twenty-four
years' service up to the present date has worn scarcely a measur-
able amount.
Very truly,
E. F. Williams.
P. S. I saw the engine about 15 years ago and it was running
very smoothly.
Some time after I had left, the company found that they needed
a descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the engine, and they had
no one to write it; so they came to me, and in my office in New
York I prepared one for them, for which they gave me the credit
by printing on the title-page and cover the line, "By Charles T.
Porter." I took the same pains with this that I should have
done had I owned the whole place.
The following letter, referring to an engine made by me in
Newark, was sent by the addressee to the Southwark Foundry
with an order while I was engaged on their catalogue. They made
a blue-print of it and sent it to me for insertion
Youngstown, 0., Dec. 21st, 1882
Mr. F. L. Waters —
Mankato Minn.
Dear Sir —
Your favor reed, making enquiry how we like the Porter Allen
Engine: would say, we have now run it four years, it has never failed
one minute or cost one cent for repairs nor varied a revolution from its
speed, are using it now non-condensing but think of using a condenser
before long. As we use it in connection with our water power, which is
variable, sometimes too high and sometimes too low, making up the
deficiency with the Engine, be it all or little, we do not know just how
much coal we require for a Barrel in case we had no water, this much
I think I know. That it is the finest Engine made, Simple, durable,
and Economical, and always ready for effective duty.
330 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
We run a Buckeye in the Diamond Mill and a good Engine at our
mine, but the Porter-Allen is my favorite by all odds, ours is 13x24,
160 Revolutions (never more nor less). They are now designed to run
200 Rev. for that size.
If neatness effectiveness durability and Economy & Steadiness is
any object to you, you will always be glad you bought a Porter-Allen,
or I am vastly mistaken.
I know that has been my experience. We now run constantly
day & night the year round {Sundays excepted).
Respectfully Yours
Homer Baldwin
With the preparation of this catalogue my part in the devel-
opment and introduction of the high-speed engine seems to have
ended.
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Fall and Rise of the Southwark Foundry and Machine Company
Popular Appreciation of the High-speed Engine
HE reader may be amused by some examples which
came to my knowledge of the achievements of the
new management. The expensive new vice presi-
dent was of course a mere figurehead, as he knew
nothing of the engine or the business or my system of work, so
Mr. Merrick's superintendent had a free hand.
He adhered to his long pistons, and obtained silent running
by an enormous compression of the exhaust steam, commencing
soon after the middle of the return stroke and rising to initial.
This involved a corresponding premature release of the steam
during the expansion. Between the two, about one-third of the
power of the engine was sacrificed, and they were in continual
trouble from the failure of the engines to give their guaranteed
power.
I had always advocated giving our attention as much as
possible to large engines, where all the profit lay. My views
had so much weight that, unknown to me, Mr. Merrick and his
superintendent were, before I left planning a smaller engine, to
be called the " Southwark Engine," intended to drive isolated
incandescent lighting plants. As soon as I had been gotten rid
of the manufacture of this engine proceeded actively. It was
largely exhibited and advertised, much to the neglect of any-
thing else. This was pursued persistently until over twenty
thousand dollars had been sunk in it, when it was abandoned.
They had an order from the Pennsylvania Steel Company
for an engine to drive a rolling mill which they were about to
establish at Sparrow's Point on the Chesapeake Bay below Balti-
331
332 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
more, for the manufacture of steel rails from Cuban ores, which
were found to be especially adapted to the Bessemer process,
and where the then new method of rolling was to be employed,
the method by which rails are rolled direct from the ingot with-
out reheating, which is now in universal use. This engine was
to be much larger than any previously made, and so requiring
new drawings. In making the cylinder drawings the draftsman
omitted the internal ribs, which are necessary to connect and
stiffen the walls of the square steam chest. The consequence
of this almost incredible oversight soon appeared. The engine
had been running but a few days when the steam chest blew
up.
The Porter- Allen valve-gear required in its joints eleven
hardened steel bushings, which had to be finished inside and
out. These we had always made from cast steel bars. This
process was extremely wasteful of both material and time.
Shortly before I left I had ascertained experimentally that I
could import from England solid drawn steel tubing of any
size and thickness, sufficiently high in carbon to harden perfect-
ly well. The new management undertook to carry out my
plans. For this purpose a list was prepared of all sizes that
would be required, with the finished dimensions external and in-
ternal. From this another list was prepared, giving the addi-
tional material required for finishing. A large lot of the tubing
was ordered. When it arrived they discovered they had sent
the wrong list, the tubes were too thin to be finished and were
useless for any purpose.
They had an opportunity to estimate for a pair of very
large blowing engines. They got out their estimate for one
engine, forgot to multiply the amount by two, and were aston-
ished the morning after they had sent in their tender to receive
the acceptance of it by telegraph.
Performances of this kind were expensive. When their
capital was all gone, they borrowed five hundred thousand
dollars on their bonds, secured by a blanket mortgage. This
did not last a great while. Only five or six years after I left
the affairs of the company reached a crisis. They had no
money to carry on the business, and no business worth men-
James C. Brooks
FALL AND RISE OF THE SOUTHWARK FOUNDRY 333
tioning to carry on, and they owed a floating debt of one
hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. In this emergency
the directors invited Mr. James C. Brooks to take the presidency
of the company. Mr. Brooks was then a member of the firm of
William Sellers and Company. He was already well acquainted
with the high character of the engine. He found the works well
equipped with tools, nothing wanting but brains. He felt en-
couraged to make this proposition to the directors, that if they
would raise two hundred and fifty thousand dollars by an issue
of preferred stock, to pay off the floating debt and give him
seventy-five thousand dollars to start with, he would take hold
and see what he could do. This proposition was accepted and
Mr. Brooks took hold ; and by a rare combination of engineer-
ing skill and business ability and force of character, having no
one to interfere with him, he soon set the business on its feet,
and started it on a career of magnificent development, which
under his management, has continued for nearly twenty years
to the present time.
Of all this, however I was ignorant. I was so situated as
not to have any knowledge of the company. I only observed
that their advertisements had long ago disappeared from the
engineering journals. In the fall of 1905, being in Philadelphia
on a social visit, in the course of conversation I asked my host
"Is the Southwark Foundry still running?" With a look of
amazement he exclaimed, "Running! I should say it was
running and is doing a tremendous business." "Is Mr. Brooks
still at the head of it" I asked. "Yes," he replied, " you will
find him at his old post, and no doubt he will be glad to see you."
The next day I called, and was most cordially received by
Mr. Brooks. He said he discontinued advertising a number
of years ago, "because the business was not of a nature to be ben-
efited by advertising, it rested entirely upon its reputation."
"Our correspondence," he added, "is enormous, employing six
typewriters. He took me to the erecting floor of the shop.
I was filled with amazement and delight at the sight which met
my eyes. This floor, which had been greatly enlarged, was
crowded with large engines in process of completion, most of
them larger and some a great deal larger, than the largest I had
334 ENGINEERING REMINISCENCES
built. I confess to a feeling bordering on ecstasy, heightened
of course by the suddeness of the relevation, when I realized
the commanding height to which the Porter-Allen Engine had
been raised by this remarkable man. Mr. Brooks offered to
take me through the shops: this however I declined, not being
willing to trespass further on his time. He showed me the old
shop engine which I had not seen for twenty-three years. Every-
thing looked familiar except its speed. He said to me, "we
have never done anything to this engine, except to increase
its speed from 230 revolutions to 300 revolutions per minute,
to supply the additional power required by the growth of the
business." Respecting their system, he mentioned only one
feature, which he evidently regarded as of special importance,
and which he seemed to suppose would be new to me. It was
this: "We make a separate drawing of every piece."
Under date of Oct. 31, 1907. Mr. Brooks writes me, "the
business now employs ten typewriters , and the engine which
was started in 1881, and which has run at 300 revolutions per
minute for the last seven years, has now been compelled by
their increased requirements to give place to a compound con-
densing engine of more than twice its power."
Three or four years ago I was spending a few days at the
Mohonk Lake Mountain House, Mr. Albert K. Smiley 's famous
summer resort, and one day strolled into the power house,
where were three dynamos, each driven by a Ball & Wood en-
gine, the latter making, I think, something over 200 revolutions
per minute.
I fell into conversation with the engineer, rather an old
man and quite communicative. He told me he had been in
Mr. Smiley's employ for seventeen years, and was voluble in his
praises; said he was a wonderful man, repeating "wonderful"
with emphasis, but he added "he don't know nothin about
machinery, nothin, no more'n you do." My attention was at-
tracted by the dynamos, which were new to me and the framing
of which I thought presented a remarkably well studied design.
FALL AND RISE OF THE SOUTH W ARK FOUNDRY 335
I mentioned this to the old man, who replied impatiently:
"0, that aint nothin, the engine is the wonder, that's the
wonder; why, when I was a young man we did not suppose an
engine could be run more'n about fifty or sixty turns a minute,
nobody never thought o' such a thing; now we can run' em any
speed we like, no poundin, no shakin, no heatin, it's just won-
derful." I did not respond or show any interest, and the old
man did not waste any more enthusiasm on me. Did not say
a word when I left directly after, but I fancied him saying to
himself: " Another o' them stuck ups, that don't know nothin."
DUE DATE
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