Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1868-11-03
What Invention has Done Within q
Generation.

could not swim. When they had swum, it
was argued that they could not hold together,
although We now know that iron ships may
be made of sizes and proportions that could
never be repeated in wood, as for example, the
Great Eastern, $50 feet long, and other ships
400 feet long, and of beam only one eleventh
of their length. Next it was contended that
the iron ships would foul to such an extent
as to prevent their being kept going, and it
is but very few years since iron war-ships
were reckoned as wholly impracticable. There
were no arguments against water-tight bulk>
heads, because there could be none beyond
these-that they cost something and weighed
something but it was long time before
they came into general use. Iron masts were
objected to because they could not, as it was
said, be cut away, as lift was always necessary
to be cutting away masts, but fange joint,
with bolts and nuts near the deck, removed
this objection. Iron standing rigging came
in at last, and SO did topsails that could be
reefed from.the deck just as the sails of wind
mills are reefed from the mill house. Anchors,
too, of far greater holding power for given
weight are now common, and we have boat
lowering gear which will disengage both ends
of boat at the same instant of time. Once
it was reckoned impossible to apply steam to
the propulsion of ships, and, long afterwards,
it was thought unlikely that screws could ever
compete with paddles.
Now the swiftest and most economical trans
Atlantic steamers are driven by screws. We
have steam steering, gear at last, although it
was long maintained by old shippers that the
hand, and the hand only, was the thing fit to
touch tiller. AT last, too, ships are fitted
with balance or differential rudders, although
there were plenty of naval pundits to declare
that they would ney er do. A leading builder
of steamships "a member of Parliament, too)
not long ago publicly and openly declaimed
against twin screw vessels, and he is even yet
ships. Steam launches, now a necessity for
playthings, fit only for children.
In steamship machinery, too, it was the
opinion only few years ago that only slow
engine speeds and spur gearing, or very coarse
pitched screws, could ever answer. 1t is
enough to say that this is not the opinion now.
Even with high speeds Of screw-engnes it
was long before any one thought it worth
while to apply CONFERENCE.-The, patented, we
may as well say, by Mr.. Champion, in 1876,
six years before they were used by Penn or
Mr.. Bourne.
The screw was once on the point of dis
honorable dismissal, and all for the want of
Mr.. Penn's wood bearings, the least likely,
upon an priori view, to Withstand wear, and
yet they constitute one of the greatest inn
provements ever made in steamship machinery.
The same unlikely material, wood, now serves
as the best for packing the many thousand
jointcd service condensers. High speed screw
engines could not, it was once belived, work
their air pumps at full stroke from the piston,
yet we have now double acting pumps Of large
force worked at the rate of 60, ,76 and even
LOG double strokes per minute, and the un-
likely material, India. rubber, serves perfectly
for the valves. Even the value of the marine
engine governors has been at last discovered.
So with railways We have been long ia
millar with them, yet 1t was but very lately
that clever engineers argued that they could
never be worked underground with frequent
trains US for metropolitan traffic. 1t is hardly
longer since it was maintained that there was
no hope for coal-hurning locomotives. And
who would admit few years ago, that con-
tinuous brakes, mechanically put on, could be
worked on railway trains, or that mail bags
could be caught at forty miles per hour, or
that gas could be introduced in railway trains,
or that communication between passengers
and guards was both practicable and aIlowa-
BILE, or that sleeping carriages could be made
both comfortable and profitable, or that signals
could be so arranged, as by Anderson's plan,
made by Yardley, of Manchester, that mistakes
were no longer possible.
And as for locomotive and carriage details,
how long were balanced slide valves the ignus
.futui of locomotive engineers how long did
it take to understand that Ramshottom's mode
of picking up water, just as it is wanted, is
cheaper than carrying it about eight or ten
tons at time, with a ten or twelve ton tender
to hold it; how long to learn that condensed
steam would certainly displace oil in tho gray-
ity or displacement lubricator, and how long
will it take to learn that axle boxes fabricated
with oil cause less friction than the dirty,
troublesome and extravagant grease pots now
in use? 1t is only now that engineers are
learning that locomotives can take load up
incines of in 10, and that without mid
rail, and that bogi rolling stock is the easiest
and safest of all.
What world of irritation it has taken to
convince engineers that Richards's indicator
is the only one fit to be used for high speeds,
even up to four hundred and fifty revolutions
per minute; how long to instill into the minds
of owners of steam power that Prony's fric-
tion brake, as improved by Appold, is the
only true measure of power, as developed or
consumed by machines having circular
motion? By-aud. by the Canadian managers
and engineers will be believed, and we shall
pse chilled cast iron instead of wrought iron
wheels. It was only few years ago that the
''wash" along the banks was reckoned fatal
obstacle to the employment of steam power on
canals, and that inclined planes were thought
impracticable as substitutes for locks.
Engineering.
There has been, within the last few
days, religious awakening of great interest
in Rr;d1a-otor :, Rookinohop, oo,, fu undar