INTRODUCTION. To supply the Mechanic with a concise history of the invention and subsequent improvements of the Steam Engine, from the earliest period to the present time, together with such practical rules and explanations as would enable him to design and construct a machine of any required power, and of the most improved form, for whatever purpose desired, has been the main object of the Author of this volume. For the purpose of rendering the reference from the letterpress to the plates as convenient as possible, it was deemed advisable to have the engravings in a separate volume, thereby enabling the author to have them of such a size as would be practically useful to the workman, instead of being merely illustrations of the letter-press. The plates being all drawn to certain scales, the dimensions of every part may be taken and machines built from any of the designs. The various engines have been selected as being the most improved of their respective classes, and with four exceptions only, are all of American construction and arrangement; thus exhibiting, for the first time, the rapid march of improvement which this enterprising country has taken during the last few years in the science of engineering. How far the Author may have succeeded in his endeavours to supply this desideratum-" A practical work on the Steam Engine"-is a question to be decided by the intelligent and and enlightened citizens of the United States. NEW-YORK, OCT. 1840. HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE STEAM ENGINE, &c. FROM the earliest ages, mankind must have been acquainted with the fact, that the application of heat would turn water into vapour, and that such vapour would rush through any aperture in the vessel containing it, with a considerable degree of force; but the application of this vapour to useful purposes, the employment of this force as a mechanical agent, is comparatively of recent date. FIGURE I. Hero the elder, who flourished at Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about 130 years before the Christian |