Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-05

| lFSsSzgdlT L is 140 years ago loudy SllCe
Ia al Watt took out the first patent
! lk on the reciprocrating steam en-
! lR9 ai gine. and it is interesting to
read the signs that betoken the
kssES approaching eclipse of this
world invention.
| Gradually man has been discovering
new methods until the reciprocating
! engine, once the acme of economical
! transformation of heat to work, has
! become, by comparison, the agency of
+ sllperlative extravaganza. Not only is
| the cost of it's operation serving to re-
| tire the reclprocating engine, but at
! least one realm has been found into
which it can never enter-that of aero
nautics.
Wherever there is a reciprocating en-
| gine 1t sees the spectre of retirement.
| The steam turbine wants its job and
| offers to do its work at a much smaller
| cost. The gasoline engine claims that
| for small power it is the most ready
and most economical. The electric en-
| CINE claims that it can reduce to a
minimum, expense, smoke and noise.
and that it can be relied upon to send
| it's pbwer hundreds of times further
/ than the belt of q reciproCating engine
! can reach Petrol is declared to be the
motive power par excellence for the
| flying machine.
Here is a picture which describes the
superiority of the electric engine over
the one invented by Watt Behold Il
stretch of twentieth century, four
tracked railroad outside of New York.
On one track is the finest steam-driVen
| locomotive that ever pulled limited
train. 1t is rushing onward as If the
very demons We're in pursuit. The
drivers are whirring around, and vol
umes of inky black smoke are pouring
from the stack. Steam bursts from
every valve and a mighty roar accom-
panies it's flight. 1t is the steam driven
locomotive at the very zenith of its
power. But behind it comes another.
| The second racer glides along as
smoothly as a meteor sweeping down
reach of sky. No steam, no smoke, none
of the familiar things about an en-
gine which betoken maximum steam
pressure and a wide-open throttle. Yet
silently this easy-going monster bears
down upon the other train, closes the
gap between them, and then passes on
with the ease of a Kentucky thorough
bred passing a plow horse. This pic
ture might be called 'the passing of
steam"
While the reciprocating engine is too
slow for this swift age, during the CEN
tury and a quarter of its perfected ex-
istence it has conferred incalculable
benefits upon man, especially when
made part of a locomotive. The priu-
cipal indictment drawn against it does
not set forth that it fails to do its
work well, for two-thirds of all the
power used in manufacturing is en-
ployed through the reciprocating en-
gne, and perhaps nine-tenths of all
used in transportation. 1t is the lack
of economy. Systems of cost-keepins
and studies of conservation doctrines
have revealed that the reciprOcating
engine makes power too expensive,
wasting and squandering dozens of
times more than it uses.
The scientifically trained engineer
who speaks in the language of heat
units. potentiality condensation an
calorics with the same ease that char
acterizes the physician in referring to
ganglia, hemaphlegia and thrombosis,
has discovered that he sends a whole
regiment out to fight and that only a
company gets to the front prepared for
action. In other words, he puts 1920
heat units into the fireboX of his boiler,
and only 100 of them get through to
help turn the shaft which drives the
machinery Of the plant. The other 1920
escape or are used up in other ways.
OF these 224 use the very first avenue
of escape from the temporary sentence
of hard labor, getting out through fur
mace radiation and flue gases. One
hundred and twelve more of them shirk
duty by getting away through steam
pipe radiation. And then comes the
exhaust where 667 of them, more than
half the number who started in, make
bold dash for liberty and succeed in
reaching the circumambient This
leaves 1T ready for service. Seven
teen of these must run the engine it
self. leaving only 100 for the machinery
to which it is hitched.
When one remembers that nearly
half of the coal that is in the mine is
wasted by improper mining methods,
and that only per cent of that which
reaches the factory is made to do
gainful work, he will see what a tre-
mendous waste of energy there is un-
der modern methods of power produc-
tion. Leaving entirely out of the
reckoning the energy employed in the
mining and the transportation of the
coal, which is no inconsiderable item,
less than per cent of the power rep
resented by the unmined coal can be