Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1876-05-13
STARTING THEBIG ENGINE
The Great COr1iss Engine.
Built for the Centennial
Its First Trial.
PhiIn(1eLDhin Times.

CtttttttpttCt ltHttS.
The contract between the Gen.
tennial authorities and George III.
Corliss, of Providence, r. L.,
obliged the latter to have his great
engine in Machinery Hall COM
pleted and ready for action by the
10th of April. The announcement
circulating in the grounds that in
the evening this gigantic source
of motive power that will operate
upwards of a dozen. acres of ma
chinery would be set in motion for
the first time, great crowd of
employees and others, congregated
about the iron giant before five
o'clock. Steam had been created
in four of the twenty boilers re-
quired to feed the engine,and was
turned upon the latter half an hour
later. There were so many sooty-
looking men perched away up at
various points outside, and inside
on the top of the monster, oiling,
polishing and finishing inferior
details of the construction, that
some Of the spectators began to
think that the proposed starting Of
the engine that evening was a
hoax. Question after question was
asked as to its size, weight, etc.
FEATURES OF THE IRON GIANT
The curious interrogators were
told, not for the first time, that it
weighed 800 tons, will drive eight
miles of shafting; has fly wheel
thirty-feet in diameter, and seven
ty tons; is of 1,400 horsepower,
with capacity of being forced to
$500 horsepower, has two walk
ing beams, weighing twenty-five
tons each: two forty-inch cylind-
ers, a ten feet stroke, crank
shaft nineteen inches in diameter,
and twelve feet in length con-
Meeting rods twenty-four feet in
length, and piston rods six and
one-quarter inches in diameter
and composed of polished iron
plates, resting upon brick founda-
tions that extend far down into
the earth. The height from the
floor to the top of the walking
beams is thirty-nine feet.
Mr.. Corliss is the inventor, pat
entee, builder and owner, having
had it erected for the double pur-
pose of exhibition and furnishing
motive power, which will be sup
piled gratuitously, but only for the
purpose of exhibiting machinery
in operation, none being al
lowed to run longer than is neces-
sary for that purpose, except by
permission from the chief of the
bureau. Of the eight lines OF
shafting flour on each side of the
transept) seven will have speed
of 100 revolutions per minute and
one of 240.
AN ENTHUSIASTIC SCENE.
At twenty minutes past six
O'Clock, the oily, sooty workmen
climbed down the top of the walk
ing-beams, and a few muscular
fellows, with a heavy lever acting
ON the cogs of the fiy-wheel as a
weight, caused several turns of
the latter to prove that all was
clear before turning steam on.
The inventor, without the
slightest anxiety depicted ia his
countenance placed his silk hat
jauntily on the iron-gray hair and
made one last rapid survey of the
situation. By this time the di-
rector-general and other promi-
nent officials had mounted
the platform and taken their
stands between the cylinders
The expectant throng below COM
prised nearly all officials connected
with the exhibition vino happened
to be in town,