IMPROVEMENTS IN ROTARY ENGINES BAD BA An AMERSNES FOR USING STEAM OR OTHER EXPANSIVE FLUIDS
Year: 1873

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Richard Boyman Boyman, of Park Hill, Clapham
Park, Surrey, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN ROTARY ENGINES
BAD BA
An AMERS
"
Sealed the 14th April 1874, and dated the 29th October 1873.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Richard Boyman
Boyman at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 29th October 1873.
I, RICHARD BOYMAN BOYMAN, of Park Hill, Clapham Park, Surrey,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
ROTARY ENGINES FOR USING STEAM OR OTHER EXPANSIVE FLUIDS," to be as
follows:-
My rotary engine is a steam or heated air wheel constructed on
principles and method of action which I believe to be quite new.
Inclined cells for the reception and push of the steam are made round
the circumference of a wheel. The general principle as a guide for
making them is that the cells must be fixed to the wheel at such an

page_text: angle that the sum of the moments of the wheel reduced to its axis
shall as regards friction not be more than that of the sum of the moments
of the crank of the same leverage as the wheel. The area of the mouth
and back of the inclined cells must be made as nearly equal without
any curve as the outer and inner circumference of the wheel will permit,
because it is only the unbalanced pressure at the back of the cells in the
direction of motion that is the push or driving power. The mouths of
these cells must be so inclined that they will revolve steam-tight, or
nearly so, against a circular fixed case, in which openings are to be
made for the passage of the steam or heated air into the cells. This
case will be surrounded by another case, which will serve the double
purpose of a steam jacket to keep the cells hot and to supply them with
steam or heated air; and this jacket or steam belt should be well pro-
tected from the air by some non-conducting substance. The steam or
heated air will rush through the openings in the fixed case into the
inclined cells one after the other as they are driven over such openings.
The space of the fixed circular case between the cells, against which
they revolve steam-tight, or nearly so, will form the immoveable
abutment for the steam to push against to enable it to push against the
back of the inclined cells to drive the wheel round.
No valves are required for the above purpose. The cells will be filled
with steam or hot air of nearly the same pressure as that in the steam
or hot air belt. This will do no work, as it rushes into the cells as it
does on a piston; therefore no power will be lost in entering, because
all heat power must go somewhere, in work, friction, or condensation.
The confined steam in the cells cannot expand backwards against the
fixed case, but it can forwards, by pushing the cell before it, and so drive
round the wheel even as steam pushes the piston before it. This circular
fixed case is to the inclined cells what the top and bottom of a cylinder
are to a piston. The combined areas of the back of the cells represent
the piston, and the mean circumference of the wheel in one revolution
may be called the length of stroke, analagous to a double stroke, or one
revolution of the present reciprocating engines.
Openings for the escape of the steam or other expansive fluid äre
made in the steam jacket or belt. Hence as the steam in the cells drives
them to such openings cell after cell of steam escapes through them.
This will either be condensed or escape into the air as required. No cell
must include both induction and eduction openings.

page_text: Air pumps are not needed for this rotary engine, because its power
does not depend on a vacuum or on having no back pressure. Therefore
when it is required to supply the boiler with the same water a much
smaller surface condenser will be sufficient.
My next improvement is a rotary engine without valves, connecting
or piston rod, crank, excentric, condenser, air pump, exhaust or back
action. Such rotary engine will still be made on the same principles as
those before explained, but will have no outlets for the escape of the
steam from the wheel, either into a condenser or into the air. This
great loss of heat shews the fundamental crror of the reciprocating
engine, because such loss is now necessary to free the piston from what
is called back action, which is the resistance of the escaping steam. This
is not used steam, but steam having heat in it and therefore power, con-
sequently so much waste.
The following is my Invention to save it:-The steam in the cells will
drive them round, until cell after cell comes again to a steam opening.
By this time the temperature of steam in the cell will be reduced, and
consequently its pressure, in proportion to the work done in overcoming
the resistance of the wheel. The stronger steam will then rush into the
cell of weaker steam, and so continue the action of the wheel. Hence,
by the fundamental law of thermodynamics, the work done by my wheel
will be a function of the two limits of compression and expansion,
between which the wheel works.
The reciprocating engine, hot air engine, and all rotary engines can
only be worked by the same laws, that is, by the prime mover receiving
heat from fuel and expending it upon the machine; but those laws which
all such engines, embody wastefully my engine embodies economically,
for after the first supply of steam or air, as the medium for containing
heat to give its expansive power to the machine, fucl ought merely to
make good the heat expended in work, not, as it does now, in continually
evaporating water to make good the wasted steam.
The resistance to the steam being swept round the wheel in the cells
will be that due, (1), to the friction of the steam over the curved
surface; (2), to the velocity of rotation of the wheel; and (3), to the
area of curved surface swept over in one linear foot. This resistance
can be found near enough for all practical purposes by this formula,-
R=c v² a lbs.,
which will be explained in my final Specification. Now as this resistancò

page_text: the cases will also keep the cells hot to prevent condensation. What
steam does condense will fall to the bottom of the case, and be pumped
again into the boiler.
With a sufficiently large boiler the power of the same engine can be
materially increased by making more steam entrances from the belt
into the cells, and turning such entrances on and off by cocks, as
required.
My principle of making a circular fixed case or belt the abutment for
steam in the cells to push against to drive round a wheel can be thus
varied Fix inclined cells on the case instead of on the wheel, and let
the drum revolve steam-tight against the cells. The steam from them
will then exert an inclined pressure against the drum in the direction of
motion.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Richard Boyman Boyman in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 28th April 1874.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, RICHARD
BOYMAN BOYMAN, of Park Hill, Clapham Park, Surrey, send greeting.
.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-ninth day of October, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, in
the thirty-seventh year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and
successors, give and grant unto me, the said Richard Boyman Boyman,
Her special licence that I, the said Richard Boyman Boyman, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Richard Boyman Boyman, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time
and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should
and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle
of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN ROTARY ENGINES FOR USING
STEAM OR OTHER EXPANSIVE FLUIDS," upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said Richard Boyman Boyman, my executors or admini-
strators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their

page_text: hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be per-
formed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office
within six calendar months next and immediately after. the date of the
said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Richard Boyman Boyman, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascer-
tained in and by the following statement, that is to say :—
1. One of my Inventions is a rotary cellular engine without a cylinder,
piston, piston rod, connecting rod, valves, crank, eccentric, fly wheel,
condenser, air pump, exhaust, or back action. It is founded on my
discovery in October last that condensing or exhausting the steam is no
part of the laws or phenomena of nature, and no part of the laws for
using [steam or other expansive fluids. Especially as I discovered by
mathematical analysis that condensing or exhausting the steam loses
about 91 per cent. of fuel in latent heat alone.
2. Condensing or exhausting the steam is necessary in the reciprocating
engine and in all the rotary engines with which I am acquainted except
my own, in order to prevent the loss from the used steam retarding the
action of the piston, called back action. But I contend that the
traditional type of engine continued since the time of the illustrious
Watt, its inventor, is an unphilosophical machine, because it is not in
harmony with the fundamental laws of steam as I understand them.
Before then I can "describe and ascertain the nature of my said Inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed," it seems to me
necessary to explain my own ideas of the laws of steam on which my
said Invention is founded.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES OF THE ROTARY CELLULAR NON-
CONDENSING AND NON-EXHAUSTING ENGINE.
3. My primary object is to save the 91 per cent. of fuel now wasted
in latent heat, and which does not seem to be known. It is therefore
I think to say something on so material a point connected

page_text: utilized, but from the units of work in feet lbs., which one pound of coal
can exert by its combustion, then by the number of pounds of coal per
horse-power per hour consumed in the best engines, and next by the
effective power obtained therefrom. For this purpose I took the units
of work which one pound of the usual steam navigation coal can exert
at only 8955200 foot lbs., whereas the late Regius Professor Rankine
takes a pound of coal at 11194000 foot lbs. "The Steam Engine and
other Prime Movers," 1859, p. 300.
5. In my calculation 3 pounds of coal per horse-power per hour were
taken for the consumption of the Hercules, one of the best of Her
Majesty's ironclads, and ten pounds of water evaporated by each pound
of coal. This gives only 3×10=30 lbs. of water per indicated horse-
power per hour, whereas recent experiments with locomotives shew a
mean of 35 and 38 pounds of water. Engineering, March 13, 1874,
p. 185. With only 30 pounds of water I found that the power, which
the latent heat on the steam used in the Hercules is capable of exerting,
amounts to 96369 horses per second. The indicated power at 14.9 knots
was only 8528 per second, consequently the loss of latent heat alone
comes out 100
96369-8528
=91
96369
per
cent. of the fuel consumed.
6. I know that there is great loss of heat in the furnace and boiler,
but the greater part of it is because such large boilers are required to
evaporate water to make good the wasted latent heat every second.
Hence there is great loss of heat from great surface radiation. Large
funnels and rapid draught are also necessary to flash the water into
steam fast enough to supply the cylinders, especially in locomotives,
forced as the draught is by the steam blast. Thus great quantities of
heat are being continually swept up the funnel. But by retaining the
steam in the engine no more water would be required to be evaporated,
but only sufficient heat to make good what is converted into work..
Therefore to reduce the loss of steam to a minimum in the engine is to
reduce the loss to a minimum in the boiler and furnace, and especially.
in the draught.
7. Watt's best engines in their day consumed 10 pounds of coal per
horse-power per hour; taking however only nine pounds all he got out
of his engines was 2.666 per cent., wasting therefore 97.334 per cent. of
the coal. The loss of latent and sensible heat in the best present engines
is 92 per cent.; and in paddle wheel and screw propulsion the loss is-

page_text: 73.36 per cent. more; therefore the total loss in steam navigation is
.97.868 per cent. It follows that all the steam vessels in the world are
at this moment weighed down with coal, to get out of it only 2.132 per
cent. to propel them.
:
8. We teach no less by our failures than by our successes; the former
what to shun, the latter what to follow. I cannot tell the result either
of my theory or of my Inventions to test them. I have however put
on record this mournful waste of coal, the most useful, precious, and
mysterious production in the world, without which England and other
civilized nations would relapse into the barbarism from which they
sprung. We see therefore that even in an age so advanced in theoretical
and practical science as our own there is " ample room and verge
enough" for the highest philosophic research into the nature of steam
and the steam engine. For whenever there is waste, especially so great
as 91 per cent. of coal, there is the field for the philosopher to investigate
its causes and to save it; and how vast the waste is! Surely it cannot
be known that in only one of the many steam vessels in the world there
is a loss of power going on every second whilst the Hercules is at work,
doing 14.9 knots an hour, equal to (96369-8528=) 87841 horses.
9. The same proportionate loss for every 8528 horse-power engine
is also going on every second in all the steam engines now working
in the world, whether for navigation, railways, or manufactures. What
then must be the total loss to mankind in millions sterling by the
loss of so many millions of horse-power for only one year! What too
must be the waste of coal in millions of tons, and the waste of three
times the millions of tons of human force in getting the coal. For
every ton must pass through at least three hands from its primal sleep
of unreckonable ages until shovelled into the burning fiery furnace.
Now the quantity of coal raised from only our pits in 1872 was.
123,497,316 tons, but the returns do not show what proportion went
to feed the steam engines for manufactures, railways, pumping,
navigation, and other purposes.
10. Let us however trace this to its primal principle, as we should all
things; what flocks of sheep, what droves of oxen; what miles of
pasture and of wheat, and hops, and barley; what ship loads of tea,
sugar, and tobacco; what rivers too of beer and spirits; and what
productions from all parts of the world, and ships, and sailors, and

page_text: clothing, are required to generate and keep going these millions and
millions of tons of human force expended in getting the coal! We
see them all collected there, an innumerable throng, so far and wide
no eye can reach their end, all wending their way into the furnace of
steam engines to be wasted in latent heat; all but a miserable remnant
of eight per cent. in some engines, and in all steam navigation of only
2.132 per cent. We see then how any great waste of coal ramifies
into a thousand different branches, and what a great saving of flocks
and herds, and the produce of the earth and millions sterling would
be saved by preventing such waste; the cruellest waste ever known
of the most precious material gift of God to man.
11. The man of science has no guide to go by but God in nature,
and harmonies and analogies, and my own philosophic axiom, which
led me to all my previous discoveries and this one; the unity of
principle in diversity of action, repeated so often in my former
Specification. Now God is the great economist and free trader of the
world, for ever changing His Divine production for man's use and
benefit, but losing nothing, insisting as He does on an exact equivalent
for everything He changes, no more but no less; it follows that there
is no such thing in existence as a law of loss, much more a loss of
97.868 per cent. of the sun's heat stored up in coal from ages past,
beyond all count, and solely for the warmth and various purposes of
mankind, for coal is useless for anything else. It is therefore for
science to save such sad waste, and so win the greatest prize in the
whole range of philosophic research.
"
12. It is to be done and will be done, sooner or later, because true
science is the embodiment of the laws of nature, and these lose
nothing. Now this "consummation so devoutly to be wished for
can only be done (1) by emancipating the mind from the authority of
Watt and the Schools and tracing the laws of steam up to their
element; and (2) by means of that divine gift a philosophic imagina-
tion, which is the great and only instrument of physical discovery
and Invention. For this alone can design some machine to embody
the laws of steam, a machine which will then necessarily be a miracle
5 of simplicity, cheapness, efficiency, economy, and durability. And
these the great prime mover of the world on sea and land and in the
air ought to embrace..

page_text: 13. For mankind and the poor horses which, still groaning, draw
our tram cars and omnibusses, and other vehicles, with such hard
usage require some prime mover that will be superior to the greatest
power of nature, and yet be so cheap and manageable that the artizan
can buy it to turn his lathe, the sempstress her sewing machine,
heating the little boiler by gas. Moreover the multitudinous peoples
of the world cannot afford to keep horses like the rich, it is then the
duty of science, and she will perform it sooner or later, to give them
some cheap and simple iron horse, which will last them their life and
need no veterinary surgeon; only attention every now and then to any
little stomach derangement, which men call the boiler. Such a horse
will suffer nothing and cost nothing to keep, requiring only to be fed
with a bushel or two of the sun's heat, called coal, and a gallon or so
of water when wanted for business or pleasure. It must be a noiseless
horse too, and easily managed, to go about our streets in the thickest
crowd; one that will draw carts and waggons, and cabs, and carriages,
and ploughs, with far more safety, certainty, comfort, and economy,
than animal power; and without such a machine the navigation of the
air, which my previous discoveries have now made certain, cannot be
so easily accomplished.
"
14. It is then I think incumbent on me to explain those principles
which I have discovered, by which such great waste as 91 per cent.
of fuel can be saved; and such a universal prime mover can be
obtained. I don't presume to say positively I have thought out such
a machine. I have put on record what is now required by the world,
and my prediction will be fulfilled. For the wants of man increase
with civilization, and as they always have been so will they always be
supplied.
15. Steam is composed of sensible and latent heat, as is well known.
The former is about 1000° and the latter 212°. The whole of these
1000° of latent heat is unproductive, and necessarily so, for this reason:-
It is the heat power which has been expended in doing the terribly hard
work of separating the cohesion of the particles of water in the boiler,
and converting it into steam for our use. The power required by nature
to do this is indeed suprising, as before shewn in the Hercules, for
the power of 96369 horses is required every second in latent heat merely
to supply sensible heat enough to give only 8528 horses power to propel
her. Now we can no more have the latent heat of these 96369 horse-

page_text: power to employ than we can "eat our cake and have it," to use a.
homely but teachable phrase, because this latent heat has already done
its work in giving the steam required to propel the Hercules, hence we
cannot have the work and the heat that did it too. If then we can
never get back this latent heat in work, which we never can, and if we
can never get steam to drive an engine without first expending this pro-
digious power in latent heat, which we never can, how are we to prevent
it being wasted at every stroke? That is the question. Let us see if
we can answer it.
16. Heat is the great prime mover of the world, the sun now as in
ages past; heat, too, not steam, is the prime mover of the engine,
for steam is merely the medium for conveying the heat to do the work
required. This medium does not absorb the heat, as iron, copper, and
other solids do, but simply holds the heat as a box holds anything. This
scientific fact is shewn by the heat passing out of its holder, steam in
the shape of work done in the engine, and leaving the steam behind.
This therefore cannot do any part of the work, for if it did, just as much
of the medium that held the heat would pass away, for we can no more
have both the work and the power that did it in this case than we can
have the work of latent heat in connecting water into steam and the
heat that did it too, as explained in paragraph 15. We see then how in
accordance with common sence the laws of nature are when once we
have thought them out and discovered the reason of things.
17. The next process in reasoning which led to my Invention of a
rotary engine without condensing or exhausting the steam was this:-
When heat passes out of its fluid medium in the form of work the
medium must necessarily be left just as much cooler, hence Nature by
her own laws cools the medium sufficiently to receive more heat without
requiring the artificial and wasteful means of man, therefore the
separate condenser of Watt or discharging the steam into the air is
unnecessary for such purpose. If then the steam' left in the cylinder
and cooled by its heat having gone out of it in work could receive the
same quantity of heat again, the same steam would in a properly made
engine to prevent back action do the same amount of work as before,
consequently the same steam kept supplied with heat might be used all
round the world merely by making good any loss from liquefaction,
radiation, or escape.
c

page_text: 18. In this way of using steam the latent heat would always be
retained in the steam as the foundation for adding the sensible heat to
do the required work, consequently so much fuel, boiler, water, and
rapid draught would no longer be wanted to evaporate more water to
supply more steam nor wasted at every stroke, but merely to supply
more heat. This would greatly reduce the consumption of fuel, and
size, radiation, weight, and stowage of boiler, water, and draught.
19. Why then is the steam not retained in the present engine?
Because the steam must be got rid of in some way at every stroke for
three reasons:-1. To prevent loss of power from resistance to the
motion of the piston due to the sensible heat which has not been
utilized in work, called back action. This wastes power of about 2 or
3 lbs. per square inch of the piston even in condensing engines, and
about 18 lbs. per square inch in locomotives. 2. Another reason for
condensing or exhausting the steam in the present engines is to prevent
still greater loss of power from compressing the steam, which would
cause the piston to be resisted in proportion to the latent heat becoming
sensible from such compression; and 3. To admit more heat in more
steam to work the engine, which now can only come in on one side of
the piston, as the steam cooled down by the heat transformed into work
escapes on the other side of the piston.
20. The necessity of false principles are many and grievous. To carry
them out in the reciprocating engine and separate condenser led the
great engineer into all kinds of complicated machinery. Pistons, with
their difficult packing to keep steam tight, piston rods with their stuffing 2
boxes to prevent the steam escaping, and huge and accurately turned
cylinders. These require a crank, so imperfect a machine, in spite of
all the praise it has received, that it cannot even make one revolution
without coming to two stops. These are properly called dead. points
for the crank cannot get over either without the assistance of another a
engine or a fly wheel. Then come eccentrics, valves, separate condensers,
and air pumps.
ر
21. In this way the present engines take about one-fifth of the power
merely to work them, besides the loss of latent heat of 91 per cent. of
the fuel, and all this waste of power and complication is simply to turn 3
a crank, which the knife grinder does with his foot. These things make
the present engine the most complicated, costly, and wasteful machine

page_text: that has ever been invented. It is then in opposition to the simplicity,
cheapness, and economy of nature, and therefore cannot be the ultimate
I have therefore ventured to put my
powers of philosophic science.
ideas on record that others may succeed in inventing a simpler and more
economical prime mover than the present if I have failed.
THE AUTHORITY OF GREAT NAMES.
.
22. This waste and complication of the present engine still continue
after a century of labours of some of the most distinguished philo-
sophers, engineers, and mathematicians that have ever lived. It is then I
think of some scientific interest to put them on record. Those of England
are Black, Watt, Robison, Sowthern, Rumford, Young, Dalton, Davy,
Boyle, Ure, Tredgold, Moseley, Whewell, Rankine, Scott Russell, Joule,
Siemens, Sir W. Thomson, Arnott, Tate, Tyndale, Balfour, Stewart, and
many more. The French philosophers are Gay Lussac, Marriotte Reg-
nault, Poncelet, Arago, Dulong, Prony, Carnot, La Place, Pambour, and
others. Those of Germany are Mayer, Clausius, Helmholtz, Waterston,
Hirn, Schreuer, Kestner, and others. Those of the United States are
A. D. Bache, B. Reeves, W. K. Keating, J. V. Berrick, and J. Tukers,
being the Committee of the Franklin Institute in 1830 appointed by the
United States Government to conduct certain experimental enquiries into
the nature of steam. Belgium too has of late years added a few steam
engines to those of other nations, Burnat Le Contre and Grosctete.
23. Passing by a century of practical men since the Invention of the
separate condenser by Watt in 1765, the principal engineers of our own
time, who have carried out the discoveries and investigations of the
philosophers referred to, are Tredgold, the two Stephensons, the two
Brunels, Maudslay and Field, Penn, Scott Russell, Samuda, Laird,
Napier, Rankine, Elder, and many more. Thus no department of
human knowledge, not even astronomy, bàs been investigated by so
many distinguished theorists and practical men, as steam and the steam
engine. And yet there is still a loss of 20 per cent. in friction, and of
91 per cent. in latent heat in all the engines of the world. The great
founders of the steam engine, Black and Watt, and its chief exponent
of their time, Professor Robison, do not seem to have been aware that
there was any loss at all. In a letter to Dr. Roebuck, of the 23rd of
August 1765, Watt says,-" I expect almost totally to prevent waste of
steam, and consequently bring the machine to its, ultimatum."

page_text: Muirhead's je of watt, 1859, p. 161. Yet the great engineer, after
bestowing on his engine 44 years thought and labour, left it at his death
in 1819, wasting 97.334 per cent. of coal. That there is however some
great loss in the present engine is clearly understood by Rankine,
Joule, Tyndall, and Balfour Stewart, and in France, Germany, and
Belgium.
24. I can however find no record of any attempt to save the loss of
latent heat. On the contrary, Professor Tyndale in his great work,
"Heat a Mode of Motion," 1870, says at page 121, "That this loss is not
to be avoided in the steam engine." With great respect however I must
say that I was led to try to save this loss solely by my conviction that
there is no such thing as a law of loss in the world, that everything is
changed into something else, but nothing lost. Therefore that all loss
is false science, and can and will be saved.
"
The last work on the subject with which I am acquainted is by
Balfour Stewart, "The Conservation of Energy," 1873. This author is
also of the same opinion, for at page 108, speaking of the hot boiler and
cold condenser, the Professor says,-" Our own earth is another instance
" of such an engine, having the equatorial regions as its boiler, and the
polar regions as its condensers. Now if it be essential to an engine
"to have two chambers, one hot and one cold, it is equally important
"that there should be a considerable temperature difference between
"the two. If nature insists upon a difference before she will give a
work, we shall not be able to pacify her or to meet her requirements
by making the difference as small as possible; and hence, coeteris
paribus, we shall obtain a greater proportion of work out of a
"certain amount of heat passing through our engine when the
temperature difference between its boiler and condenser is as great
" as possible."
66
"
"
25. Here the professor of natural philosophy follows all others, from
the days of Black, Watt, and Robison, in 1765, in assuming a law of
nature in steam which does not exist; namely, the necessity of con-
densing the steam in order to use it. And he then goes as far as the
equatorial and polar regions to find an analogy which does not apply,
because nature loses nothing in the process there, or elsewhere, mucli
more 91 per cent. of the power she exerts.

page_text: 26. Again, one of the first men of science of our times, if not the
first both in theory and practice, Scott Russell, thus speaks of the con-
denser, "The condenser is the most wonderful part of the marine
" engine, as indeed of the ordinary steam engine. It is here that the
"whole process carried on in the boiler in so great bulk and at so much
expense is instantly reversed, and all its efforts at once, as it were,
"annihilated." Yes, at once annihilating 92 per cent. of the power
generated in the boiler "at so much expense." "The Nature and
" Property of Steam, p. 273; reprinted from the seventh edition of the
Encyclopædia Britannica."
$6
27. Besides Mr. Scott Russell's different works, he is the discoverer
of the wave line principle of naval architecture, designer and builder of
the greatest and sublimest dome in the world, that at Vienna, and of the
biggest steam vessel yet built, the Great Eastern, to which mankind
owe so much for laying down the electric chain of thought which unites
all nations. We see then how hard it is even for so eminent a man to
emancipate his mind from the tradition of the schools in the necessity of
the separate condenser. For Mr. Russell considers it "the most
wonderful," instead of the most wasteful "part of the steam engine."
Never indeed did any one receive such universal praise for so wasteful a
machine as Watt, who could only get 2.666 per cent. of coal out of his
best engines. But no one ever deserved it more for what he did, wrong
as I presume to think all the principles and practice were of so eminent
a man! and which must be discarded before mankind and horses can get
so cheap and universal a prime mover as they need. But for further
encomiums on "Watt's master piece," as his separate condenser is
called, see Muirhead's Life of Watts, and Arago's Eloge, especially
p. 132, and p. 183.
28. Carnot, son of the celebrated engineer of the first Napoleon,
seems to have fixed this fundamental error of the necessity of the
separate condenser more deeply in the mind of the scientific world than
even Watt. This was in his work published in Paris in 1824, called,
"Reflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu." The Professor of Natural
Philosophy, at the Owen's College, Manchester, before referred to,
Balfour Stewart, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., thus speaks of Carnet's theory:
Carnot, the celebrated French physicist, has ingeniously likened the
" mechanical of heat to that of water, for just as you can get no
"work out of heat unless there be a flow of heat from a higher tem
_ "
power

page_text: ""
perature level to a lower, so neither can you get work out of water
" unless it be falling from a higher level to a lower. There is therefore
one condition that must be rigidly fulfilled whenever heat is changed
"into machincal effect. There must be a difference of temperature,
"and heat will only be changed into work while it passes from a
"body of high temperature to one of low." The Conservation of
Energy," 1873, p. 106.
29. It is a remarkable fact that this is not the case, and that no work
at all could be so done. All the work done in the steam engine is best
done in the hottest cylinder that can be obtained, where that and the
piston are of higher temperature than the steam itself; and consequently
where it cannot do what the professor says, it must be changed into
work. It was indeed for the sole purpose of preventing the steam
passing from a higher temperature level to a lower," and becoming
liquefied that Waft invented the steam jacket, used to this day for the
same purpose, though a vain one. For the condensation of steam in the
cylinder in doing work can no more be prevented than gravitation can.
Both are divine laws and therefore not to be interfered with.
30. The same fundamental crror of the necessity of the separato
condenser, or of exhausting the steam, I say so with all deference and
respect, is also thus enunciated by Professor Tyndale at p. 121, of
his work, "Heat as a Mode of Motion." Speaking of the great loss of
the steam engine the philosopher observes, "Nor is loss to be avoided,
"for the amount of heat converted into work depends upon two things,
"the temperature of the steam as it enters the cylinder and its temper-
"ature as it enters the condensor. The further the initial and the
"final temperature are apart the greater is the amount of heat con-
"verted into work"; (the greater the loss by my doctrine) "but to
"convert all the heat into work a condenser kept at the absolute zero
"of temperature would be required."
31. My own fundamental and primary principle on which alone an
elastic fluid can do work, and on which my rotary cellular engine is
based, is in direct opposition to all those authorities. My doctrine is
this, an elastic fluid must have a resistance greater than its own power
at one end to push against, and a resistance less than its own power at the
other end to set in motion to do work upon; and while this is being done
an equivalent quantity of heat will constantly pass out of the fluid that

page_text: contains it, and so leave it just as much cooler to receive more heat
because, as said before, we cannot have work and the power that did it
too, which the heat would be.
32. A boiler for instance is full of steam at the same temperature,
it cannot therefore pass to a lower to do work, but it finds out a part in
the boiler which is of less resistance or power than the steam; and pushing
against part of the boiler of greater resistance the steam either raises
the safety valve or bursts the boiler. In either case the steam does
work, not in passing from a high temperature to a lower, because the
boiler is all of the same temperature, but the steam does work first by
first giving motion to something and so passes from a higher to a lower
temperature in doing it because, as said so often, we cannot have both
work and heat too.
33. This is not "a distinction without a difference," for if " a hot and
cold chamber" be indispensable to enable steam to do work, as main-
tained by all the authorities of all scientific nations from the day of
Watt to our own, then all I have here enunciated and my engine'
without condenser or exhaust are alike wrong, for my doctrine to the
contrary is the fundamental principle on which such an engine is
founded. This, as I have said, is an immoveable body at one end for
the steam to push against, and a moveable body at the other to work
upon. All then man has to do is merely this,-to provide the simplest
possible organism to enable them to act, and nature will do the rest;
convert the heat into work and so leave it cool enough to receive fresh
.supplies of heat to do more work.
34. It has been said that Watt invented the steam jacket to prevent
the steam condensing in the cylinder when expanding in doing work,
and that this is still used for the same purpose, but it is impossible
to prevent it. Suppose for instance the jacket be filled with hot air of
much higher temperature than the steam in the cylinder, that and the
piston will then be hotter than the steam. It is then manifest that the
condition required to do work enunciated by Watt, Carnott, Russell,
Tyndale, Balfour Stewart, and others cannot be obtained, namely,
a hot and cold chamber" to enable the steam to pass "from a higher
temperature to a lower." For the steam will work against a body much
hotter than itself, yet in some mysterious manner the heat in the steam
reverses the ordinary laws of nature and passes from a colder to a hotter
"
B

page_text: body, and that without raising its temperature. For were that so we
should have the work done by the heat and the heat still remaining in
the cylinder and piston to reheat the steam to do again the same work.
Hence one cylinder full of steam would be all sufficient for all time,
but the heat passes out of existence for ever through a hotter body than
itself in the shape of work, and so, as said before, leaves the steam
proportionately cooler to receive more heat to do more work.
35. It is then obvious that so far as the laws of nature are concerned
the separate condenser, or discharging steam into the air to cool it, is not
necessary, because nature does it of herself. It is on the contrary with
its complicated valves, air pumps, and other costly contrivances
departing from the simplicity of nature, and dearly enough does she
make man pay for it in a loss of 92 per cent. of coal and power. As
observed before, condensing or exhausting the steam is only necessary
in a reciprocating engine or rotary engine of the old traditionary type.
to prevent back action, or no such engine could work at all without
either condensing or exhausting the steam.
36. Now as regards the mode of motion, reciprocating or rotary, what
does Nature say? Why, that there is no such thing in nature as a
reciprocating motion. All the motion of the heavenly bodies are rotary,
and so too are those required for the purposes of man. Locomotives and
carriages are driven by the rotary motion of their wheels, steam vessels
by the similar motion of screw and paddle. Machines too for turning,
boring, screwing, and grinding of all kinds; corn, coffee, colours, old
bricks and mortar for cement, sawing, hay cutting, and a thousand
more applications of power. And this from greatest to least from the
motion of the vast sun and other heavenly bodies down to the little
sewing machine. All are rotary, and are therefore surely meant to teachi
us that some simple and direct rotary prime mover is required for all
these various purposes. We want indeed straight motions, but a
rotary motion to give a straight one for locomotives, carriages, steam
navigation and other things, not a straight motion to give a rotary
motion to give a straight one with its inevitable complexity and waste
as seen in the reciprocating engine, any such roundabout affair is not
true science, say what men will.
37. Newton indeed tells us that motion is naturally straight, and
Newton is an honourable man and a wise, but where are his

page_text: instances either in nature or the useful arts, except in the complicated
and costly reciprocating engine, which in consequence of this departure
from the laws of nature looses 92 per cent. of coal and power. Even
when an arrow leaves a bow or a shot a gun, they begin immediately to
turn into the rotary motion of the earth as though a straight motion
were an anomaly in nature. Further, men, birds, beasts, fish, the wind
in his currents, the rivers and the sea, indeed all things move in a circle,
and ships sail round the world. We may then fairly conclude that the
reciprocating engine is a false principle in science, indeed its great
inventor Watt himself, seems to have had some doubts about it, for his
contempary and friend Professor Robison, says in his memoir that
"Watt had a predilection for the wheel engine, and much time and
labour were spent on it, while he was uncertain whether he should bring
this or the reciprocating engine first to market." Muirhead's Life of
Watt, page 399. Unfortunately he chose the wrong principle, judging
it by its complexity, costliness, and waste, and the harmonies and
analogies of nature and of art, which show that the reciprocating engine
is the only reciprocating motion in the world.

page_text: to write elsewhere about my discovery, and of its truth. I have no doubt
that condensing or exhausting the steam, and wasting so much in
consequence, is no part of the laws of steam, or of the phenomena
of nature as maintained by the authorities of all scientific nations, 11
I have therefore thought my duty was to explain fully and freely my
ideas on the subject here, where they are safe from all accidents, so
so that if my own engines fail others of higher inventive power
may devise some simple rotary machine to save so great a drain on
the resources of our country, amounting as it does to millions of tons
of coal, three times as many tons of human force, and many millions
sterling every year.
40. It is now necessary to explain the principles which governed
me in devising my rotary cellular engines to save this loss of 92. per
cent. of coal which I had discovered in the best engines of our best
makers. It is for instance said in my Provisional Specification that
the general principle, as a guide for making the cells, is that they
must be fixed to the wheel at such an angle that the sum of the
moments of the wheel reduced to its acis shall, as regards friction,
not be more than that of the sum of the moments of the crank of the
same leverage as the wheel.
41. The steam wheels shewn in the Drawing are made on this
principle, as will be seen by the following explanation:-A crank
has two dead points in every revolution which all the power of a
single engine cannot get over. This I call the vertical resistance to
the motion of a wheel round its axis. To overcome this a pressure
is required at a certain distance from the centre of pressure on the
axis, which distance I call the lever of equilibrium. Certain theoretical
considerations have led me to the conclusion that such leverage is about
.one-eighth of an inch from the centre of the axis, which distance I have
taken as my guide.
42. If then a vertical pressure P be applied to the circumference
of the wheel at about this leverage, that is, at about one-eighth of an
inch from the centre of the axis, the pressure P will be in equilibrium
with the wheel. I conclude that such pressure must be equal to the
weight of the wheel W, and its co-efficient of friction= wf lbs. f='075,
the wheel will then be equally balanced like a pair of scales, and

page_text: just as they would be put into motion by the smallest additional
weight in one scale, so would the wheel be by the smallest additional
pressure to P; this must be applied just upon or, say, just past the
leverage of equilibrium, that is applied a little more than one-eighth
of an inch distant from the perpendicular let fall from the centre of thic.
axle, because no part of a solid force fully imparted to a body capable
of being moved by such force and not counteracted can be expended
except in work and friction, and the latter is already equalized by the.
pressure P.
43. It is on these principles the cells were formed to apply the
pressure of steam to turn the wheel, so as not to be within the leverage
of equilibrium, and it is on these principles that my rotary engine is
designed to work; these may be thus summed up :-There must be
a pressure equal to the load or working resistance added to that of
the wheel wf, applied beyond the leverage of equilibrium. The mean
leverage of the steam pressure in the cells in Sheet I. is in the middle
at their back, and this leverage much exceeds the leverage of equili-
brium. Assume that there is no pressure of retardation against the
bottom of the longest side of the cells, then the sides being equal
the internal pressures will be equal, and the resultant pressure will
be equal to the area of the back of the cells, provided the area of
unbalanced pressure at their mouth is equal to the area of the back
of the cells, and there is nothing intermediate in the cell to prevent the
free action of such unbalanced pressure.
44. I am unable to determine exactly by pure theory only, on which
alone this Specification is written, how an elastic fluid will conduct
itself in so novel an application; but assume this, that there is an
unbalanced pressure against the end of the longet side of the cells
in Sheet 2, and that this acts against a longer lever than the angular
thrust of the steam in the cells, and that these combined should be
found prejudicial, I have provided for this as well as I can in the
tangential cellular engine shown in Sheets 4 and 5; this is an appli-
cation of the principle thus referred to in my Provisional Specification:
_" My principle of making a circular fixed case or belt the abutment
" for steam in cells to push against to drive round a wheel can be
"thus varied. Fix inclined cells-on the case instead of on the wheel,
"and let the drum revolve steam-tight against the cells. The steam
"from them will then exert an inclined pressure against the drum in

page_text: "the direction of motion." This of course could only be tangential.
I much prefer however this tangential application with the cells fixed
to the wheel to revolve with it, as shewn in Sheet 5, instead of the cells
being fixed to the case.
45. As regards friction, in the present engines their whole power is
thrown upon the axle, and the friction is about one-fifth of the indicated
power. The principle that guided me in designing my wheels was to
make the working pressures as tangential as possible and the unfavour-
able pressures as axial as possible. Thus they are pretty nearly, if not
quite, so harmoniously adjusted as to be resolved into the mere weight of
the wheel, which is scarcely worth the trouble of calculating%; for the
power expended on it is reduced (1) to the co-efficient of 075, and (2)
to the small diameter of the axle, whilst the power expended on the
load is as the absolute pressure and diameter of the wheel. The axle
fwdn
friction can however be thus formed IP =
550
where f075,
w weight of wheel, diameter of axle in feet, # 3.146, and n number of
revolutions per second.
This for steam
46. The frictional power expended in moving the steam in the cells
round the case and the drum against the steam can be found near
enough for some guide as to the losses of my rotary engine by my
formula in the Provisional Specification, R = cv³ a lbs.
or air however should be R = 0155 c v² a lbs., because in the one for
water (cv2 a) the divisor of v² = 2g, to find the height due to v, is
so nearly equal to the density of a cubic foot of salt water d,
R is the
that I always eliminate 2g and d in my calculations.
resistance of the steam passing over one foot when found by the
formula 0155 c² va lbs. -.0155 is the equivalent of 44 for
finding the height due to ve is the co-efficient of friction cqual to the
density of the steam used in the wheel, and a the area in square feet
passed over by the steam in one lineal foot.
1
-
1
27 64.4
47. As regards the value of c, the density of one cubic foot of steam
at 240 lbs. on the inch, which I propose to use, is by Tate's admirable
formula 4754 lbs., which is 131 less than the density of a
62.5.
4754
=
cubic foot of water. By Beaufoy's experiments the resistance to water
friction is 012 lbs. per square foot at one knot an hour = 1.688 feet per

page_text: second. Hence the friction would be much less at only one foot a
second, at which I take it. Since then steam at 240 lbs. is 131 times
less dense than water the value of c in my formula for steam friction
will be approximately = '00009 lbs. for one square foot. If then
-
'012
131
d the diameter of the wheel, d = the circumference where =
3.1416, and a is the whole area in square feet of surface passed over by
the steam in one lincal foot, including the sides of the wheel. If then
R = ‘0155 c v² a lbs. pass over f feet per second, the horse-power
consumed in friction will be about P=550
Rf This is assuming that
the resistance of friction of an elastic fluid is governed by the same laws
as govern water, which is as the density independent of the pressure.
I will mercly observe in passing that it seems to me that they are
identical, because (1) there can hardly be two different laws of fluid
friction, and (2) that as we cannot have a motive power equal to pressure,
density, and velocity combined we cannot have resistance equal to
pressure, density, and velocity combined.
48. The following are the symbols of my formula in the Provisional
Specification for finding the horse-power of my rotary engine:-
144 pan f
550
IP =
p is the mean pressure per square inch; a, the
area in square fect of the back of all the cells; n, the number of revo-
;.
lutions of the wheel per second; and is the circumference of the
wheel in feet, its mean circumference being that part where the steam
acts against the back of the cells. This formula however applies to only
the wheel of one steam entrance, that shewn in Sheet I., the steam in
which expands from cell to cell until it escapes into the condenser
or air.
49. The formula for finding the horse-power of the two other forms of
550 IP
rotary cellular engine shewn in Sheets 2 and 5 is this,
τάπαρη,
HP is the effective horse-power required; c, the number of cells on the
wheel; d, its mean diameter, which is found from the middle of the
cells; = 3.1416; a is the back or end area in square inches in all the
cells acted upon by the steam; p, the mean pressure per square inch;
and n, the number of revolutions of the wheel per second. It is
manifest that the divisor (without the area a, which we want to find) iş

page_text: the feet pounds per second on one square inch. Therefore these, dividing
the dividend, must give a in square inches; also a, divided by the
circumference & d must give the width of wheel in inches w =
a.
π d.
50. Suppose, for example, the tangential cellular engine in Sheet 5
is required to give an effective power of 500 horses for a locomotive at
50 miles an hour. If its present driving wheels be 6 feet in diameter
50 × 1.467
73.35
πα
3.1416 x 6
they must revolve
=
3.89, say four times
a second. Thus each piston is set in motion, stopped, reversed, and
flashed backwards and forwards 8 times every second, showing, I think,
the necessity of some simple direct acting rotary engine to save the
great strains and wear and tear of such unnatural exertions. My engine
must make the same number of revolutions per second as the driving
wheels, and so the value of n in the formula in paragraph 49 will be 4.
51. Driving wheels 6 feet in diameter will enable me to have the
mean diameter of the drum of my rotary engine equal 3.5 feet. The
number of tangential cells in the rotary engine in Sheet 5 is 4. Using
steam at 240 or 300 lbs. pressure, take the mean pressure in the
cells at 200 lbs. on the square inch, then the feet pounds- for
one square inch per second will be, by the formula in paragraph 49,
cdpn 4 × 3.5 x 3.1416 × 200 × 4 35185 92. The feet pounds
required per second for an effective power of 500 horses is 550 × 500 =
275000. Consequently the area of pressure required for the formula
275000
in paragraph 49 is, a =
= say 8 square inches, as this will
35185.92
give an excess of about 11 horse-power. Hence the width of the drum
part of my rotary engine will be only
a
πα
-
-
8
3.1416 x 3.5
=73 of an
inch. To this add 10 per cent. for friction, though I cannot make it so
much. And in round numbers we get a rotary engine of 500 effective
horse-power in a space of 3.5 ft. diameter and 1 in. wide, exclusive
of course of steam belt and lagging.
52. Locomotives will be backed by a similar engine of the same size
and power revolving in a separate case on the same axle, but with the
cells reversed, as shewn in the Drawings. Hence the width of both
drums will be only 2 inches. For great powers, for ironclads and
despatch boats at 30 and 40 miles an hour, the horse-power will be

page_text: ԱՂԱՆԱ
απο
роро
Sheet I. in the Specification of my discovery of the type of least
resistance with the greatest capacity, Patent of April 10th, 1871,
No. 944.
53. The reaction propellers referred to are shewn in Sheet 4, Fig. I.,
of such Specification, and are referred to here because it was that
propeller, or, more accurately, the similar one in Figure 1, Sheet 7, of
my Specification of the 3rd of March 1870, No. 623, which gave me
the first idea of the rotary cellular engines. This idea was based
entirely on the same philosophic axiom of mine which led to all my
discoveries. The unity of principle in diversity of action. If, I said, a
pressure of water will drive that propeller, why should not a pressure of
steam ? Such was the first rudimentary germ of the rotary cellular
engine, and it occurred to me for the first time at Brighton in October
last, 1873.
"
.
}
54. But to return to paragraph 52. My rotary engine will be divided
for great powers, ironclads and despatch boats. Therefore the width of
the drum, found for the whole power by the formula given in paragraph
49, will be the width of each drum, including the one for reversing.
For it must be divided into two equal parts in separate cases, half of the.
drum with the cells turned one way for going a-head, and half of the
drum with the cells turned the reverse way for backing. Because half
of the cell power on two shafts turned one way will make up the whole
power required for going a-head, and the same reversed on the two shafts
will make up the same power for backing.
55. All the preceding formula are given merely as some rough guide
in practice, for anything like mathematical exactness cannot be reason-
ably expected in a new application of a new theory, one which had no
human existence seven months ago, and which are so opposed both in
O principle and form, to all the authorities of scientific nations, from
Black, Watt, and Robison in 1765, to Arago, Russell, Tyndale, and
Balfour Stewart, and others in 1874.
.
56. This will be further seen in a paper by John Watt read before the
Liverpool Polytechnic Society, printed in Engineering of the 27th of
5 March 1874:-" The production of power by heat, or the conservation
"of heat into force, dates back nearly two centuries, since then no

page_text: "machine has received more attention nor had more minds directed to
" its improvement than the steam engine.
"
"If the records of the Patent Office be turned up for a century back,
hundreds, nay thousands of Patents, attest the attention and genius
"displayed in perfecting this machine, which has added to England a
"force greater than the physical force of the entire human race, and is
"unexampled in applied science.
6
$
#C
"The aim of nearly the whole of these Patents' has been to reduce the
consumption of fuel, and yet, strange to say, a steam engine con-
"structed last century consumes as little steam and performs its
"work quite as efficiently as the best engines turned out of our
engineering establishments of the present day. In fact notwith-
standing that a century has elapsed since the five great principles
were established, viz., a hot cylinder, a cold condenser, the air pump,
high pressure steam, and the expansion of steam, no new principle
"has been introduced that has practically affected the efficiency of
"the engine. The steam performs the same functions, passes through
"similar valves, cylinders, condensers, air pumps, &c., that it did 100
**
66
years ago.
57. For the first time then since steam has been used as a motive
power, new laws of steam and a new form of engine have been
discovered in which is no condenser, air pump, exhaust, expansion of
steam, cylinder, or valve, except of course the starting and stopping
valve mentioned in my Provisional Specification, and which I call the
ring valve. I do not expand the steam by a cut off for several
reasons, (1), to reduce the size, weight, stowage, and cost of engines
as much as possible; and (2), to reduce the surface in the cells
to prevent the natural cooling of the steam in doing work from
acting on a large surface. I do not however think it will have time
to do so.
For my formula for the velocity of steam issuing into the
air is 146.128\
28√B
'B+147,
W
log". where B is the boiler pressure, W the
weight of one cubic foot of steam at the pressure B=
62.5
Ꮯ
; C' is the
number of cubic feet of steam by Tate's formula, which I have put into
logarithms for convenience, thus:-Log. (C-12-5)=-4-3132343-

page_text: {Log. (B+147) 9301) } and n is the number of feet into which one
foot of steam of pressure B will expand itself.
1
38088
58. Thus the velocity of steam at only 120 lbs. boiler pressure
is 3174 feet a second. My theory of the action of steam which is neither
condensed nor exhausted is this:-Heat as it does work in the cells will
pass out of the steam and leave it just so much colder; the hotter steam
behind it is in contact with the colder, not even the eighth of an inch
apart. The greater heat will then rush into the colder steam in less
than the 12×3174 th part of a second, that is, if the steam that
has done the work be reduced to atmospheric purpose, but if not the
heat will pass from the hotter to the colder steam with the velocity
of V-v due to P-p, P being the pressure of steam in the belt, and p in
the cells after it has done its work. Now a certain time is required to cool
as well as to heat a metal, in any case therefore this fresh supply of heat
will pass so rapidly from the non-absorbing hotter steam to the colder in
contact as can scarcely give the cooler steam time to cool the cells in
which the work is done.
59. These moreover will be kept very small by high pressure non-
expanded steam to reduce the surface of the cell as much as possible.
I conclude therefore that none of the heat can be expended except in
work, and mere axle and steam surface friction mentioned in paragraphs
45, 46, and 47. For what heat is not given out in work will still remain
in the steam in the cells with all the latent heat since it has nowhere
else to go to, and so it will be ready to receive more heat to do the
required work; and since the pressure in the cells must always be in
direction of motion, and there is no communication with condenser or
air, and no steam to be got rid of, there can neither be loss of steam or
back action. This then is how I expect to save the whole of the latent
and sensible heat now wasted as well as the back action.
ROTARY ENGINES AND CONDITIONS OF MOTION OF A WHEEL ROUND ITS
AXIS IMMERSED IN THE MOTIVE POWER.
60. A good working rotary engine has long been considered an
impossibility. It has been shewn in paragraph 37 that Watt at length
abandoned it "after spending much time and labor upon it." No one
has written so exhaustively against it as Mr. Scott Russell, and there is
no higher authority; he has devoted no less than (260-226-) 34 pages

page_text: of his work "On Steam and the Steam Engine," reprinted from the
seventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, in exposing the fallacy
of rotary engines of all kinds.
At p. 27. Mr. Russell says "Many men
"of high talent and inventive genius have sacrificed their talents, their
"industry, and their lives, to the delusion of rotary engines; we feel
« it therefore to be our duty to give a full and uncomprimising exposure
"of the fallacy of the rotary engine, we regard such a fallacy as a
grievous obstruction to the advancement of the arts and industry of
"Great Britain."
"
61. There is much more to the same purport, and Mr. Russell thus
sums up at p. 259. "In simplicity of parts the rotary engine has no
"advantage over the reciprocating piston; in difficulty of construction
"the rotary piston far exceeds the reciprocating engine; it is more
" expensive at the outset, it has more friction, it is more bulky and less
" compact; it is inferior in precision and uniformity of action to the
"crank, and there is a radical fault in the very nature of rotary
"mechanism, from which it follows that the rotary engine can never be
"rendered either an economical or a durable machine. We have
"further shewn that even if the rotary engine could be made economical
" and durable, its very nature renders it unsuitable to the great purpose
"of steam navigation and inland locomotion.
62. All these are indeed formidable difficulties to be got over, but the
impossibilities of the past are the commonplaces of the present, and so
happily it may be with that "impossibility, a good rotary engine." It
would, not however seem to be even wanted, according to the same
great authority, for Mr. Russell remarks at p. 137 "The history of the
"steam engine ends with the history of Mr. Watts' labours. It is a
"remarkable fact that the steam engine has scarcely received any
"valuable improvement since his time, he in fact rendered it a
" machine nearly perfect. The testimony of Mr. Farey upon this
subject is explicit." The scientific fact however discovered by me is
beyond reputation that Watts' best engines wasted 97.334 per cent. of
the coal, and after a century of labour of some of the most eminent men
of science of all nations, this "nearly perfect machine" still wastes 91
per cent. of fuel in latent heat alone, besides which its complication,
weight, and cost, make it still more evident that the present engine
is very far removed from being "nearly perfect," especially for
navigation.
"

page_text: "
.
63. The late Regius Professor Rankine says at p. 504 of his "Steam
Engine," The number of rotary engines which have been patented in
"Great Britain alone is certainly upwards of 200, and perhaps con-
siderably more, but very few have been brought into practical
operation, and those to a limited extent only, for their friction and
liability to wear have been found to be greater than those of ordinary
"engines and they have no advantage except compactness."
$6
6
64. The aim and end of all science is thrift to save human labour and
coal, and so cheapen the various productions of nature and of art for the
common benefit of mankind. Now the waste of 91 per cent. of latent
heat cannot be saved by any piston engine reciprocating a rotary,
because of the resistance to the piston by what is called back action,
explained in paragraph 19. It was therefore unnecessary to abandon the
traditionary type of piston engine, both reciprocating and rotary, for
some entirely new form of engine without a piston; the first idea of this
which gradually developed into the new form of rotary cellular engine
I got from my Invention of a reaction propeller in 1870, as mentioned
in paragraph 53. I found however on investigating different forms of
cells that what would do for am impulse of steam or water would not do
for an elastic pressure.
65. Simple then as seem the cellular forms of wheels in the Drawings
none of my previous discoveries gave me such long and profound
meditation and so many almost sleepless nights, especially the wheels
shown in Sheet 5. Indeed it seemed impossible to combine what I
wanted, a cellular engine which should have an equilibrium of pressures,
(1) where wanted in the cells at the sides; (2) where not wanted,
in direction of motion; and (3) an equilibrium of pressures where
wanted round the axle. For with steam at 240 lbs. pressure, which I
propose using, the pressure upon only one square foot of the drum will
Obe 144 x 240-34560 lbs. = 15 tons. I did therefore twice abandon the
idea of taking out a Patent and once stopped my Drawings being
copied.
66. Nothing encouraged me to proceed except the philosophic
principles before mentioned, and which therefore I venture to think are
6 not out of place here. I have for instance a paper of twelve large folio
Sheets dated the 22nd January 1874, with many Diagrams from one of

page_text: +
is to shew that by the resolution of forces, the equilibrium of pressure
and the nature of a polygon, such a wheel as mine cannot possibly
_move whatever be the form or position of the cells. It may be so, as 1
have not read the paper, preferring to think out my own errors and
having long ago discovered that the polygon of common sense is the
best of all polygons.
67. The common sense view that I take of the matter is this, that so
sensible and far seeing a Creator as our's never did ordain a law of loss,
much more of 92 per cent. of the sun's heat, which He took so much
pains through so many ages, first to prepare, and then store up for the
purposes of man, and this too long before he was created; and there it
was and there it is still, all ready for him when he wanted it to conquer
and subdue all nature for his use. Now no one with the brains of a
grub would be so silly and ridiculous as to pass an immutable law to
waste 92 per cent. of his own labours and frustrate his own objects.
Equally sure I was and am that He would never mock and irritate us
with laws without the means of using them. Therefore that the laws
of nature and their application have a reciprocal relation, consequently
that they will be discovered in time when man wants them, and by those
who persevere the longest in the search. Should then my labours be of
any service to mankind in saving so many millions of tons of coals, still
more millions of tons of human force in getting it, the flocks and herds
and produce from all parts of the world to generate such force, and the
millions sterling now wasted in the furnace of steam engines, all this
will be due solely to my reliances on the philosophic principles I have
mentioned. For only my conviction of their truth induced me again
and again to persevere against what seemed impossible, and for these
reasons I have ventured to put these principles on record, as a guide to
others of higher inventive powers should my engines fail to save so
great a drain on the resources of England.
68. It did indeed seem impossible at first to make a wheel revolve in
its own motive fluid, because being in equilibrium it must apparently
remain at rest for ever. How then can we make the motive power in
which the wheel is immersed give it automatically and without valves
more power in one direction than another, and so do the work required
for manufactures, railways, and steam navigation ? The problem was
solved step by step as the following principles occurred to me.

page_text: 69. In every mode of motion there must be a plus and minus
resistance to enable the motive power to push against at one end and to
escape at the other, because we cannot have the work and the power that
did it too; this was my fundamental principle throughout. We cannot
have work and the power that did it too. I had therefore to get these
conditions somehow. Now my plus is the fixed case for the steam in
the cells to push against, and the minus is the moveable wheel for the
heat power to escape. This seems to me similar in principle to steam
doing work in raising the weight of the safety valve or bursting the
boiler, as enunciated in paragraph 32. We may then call the cells
round the wheel perpetual moveable valves, but through which only the
heat and not the steam can escape. Against them the steam will keep
pushing constantly, because like every other body in motion it must
necessarily find out and then keep taking the line of least resistance.
70. In that line then, through the cells, will the heat power keep
escaping in the form of motion, and cease to exist as heat. It must
therefore leave the steam just so much colder to receive more heat from
the hotter steam behind it, and this will keep flowing up from the boiler
through the steam, which will serve it as a funnel, for whilst metals
absorb and transmit heat gases merely transmit it.
71. What perplexed me so long and so mournfully was how to prevent
the push of the steam in the cells from being neutralised by
the pressurc
on the opposite side of the wheel. At last it happily occurred to me that
just as nature does not want any of the complicated and bungling
contrivance of man, his condensers, air pumps, and cut-off valves, to
cool the steam, neither does she want any of his contrivances to prevent
the push of the steam in the cells being neutralized by steam pressure
on the opposite side of the wheel. She simply prevents it herself, for
whilst the steam acts in the cells at right angles, which is the best
leverage and with its full pressure, the resistance on the opposite side of
the wheel is merely frictional, and that the least of all known the friction
of steam against a well turned polished steel drum; or more accurately
against the fixed case, because the drum will no doubt carry the steam
round with it.
72. I thereupon made the following calculations :- A steam drum
of 500 horse-power, capable of revolving on an axle, is immersed in
steam of 240 lbs. pressure on the square inch. The mean diameter of

page_text: ་
drum is 3.5 feet, but, say, for extreme drum 4 feet, and the width one
inch. For on reversing the engine the steam is let out if needed, so
that no reversed cells can revolve in steam but merely in the air in the
case; and as this is set in motion by the wheel, and cannot be
compressed, all have one common motion in the same direction; this
then prevents all retardation. The co-efficient of friction for steam
at 240 lbs. is 00009 per square foot, as shown in paragraph 47;
consequently for one square inch c = = .0000006. Assume even
that the friction of an elastic fluid is different to that for water, and is
as the pressure. Required, the force to hold such a wheel in equilibrium,
so as to put it in a state bordering on motion. It is manifestly the
axle and drum friction only, for there is nothing else to prevent it
moving
*00009
144
73. The mere drum friction can only be nominal because it is in
the nature of a great axle without weight, revolving in a steam
bearing; and the friction of this is all but infinitessimal, the weight
of the drum being borne by the axle. Reducing the circumference to
inches, and assuming the friction to be as the pressure of the steam,
the pressure required to put the drum in a condition bordering on
motion will be approximately P = 12 d pf = 12 x 3.1416 × 4 ×
240 ×·0000006 = 0217 lbs. Now the area of pressure being 8 square
inches, and the mean pressure 200 lbs. in the cells, the force at
disposition is 8 × 200 = 1600 lbs. to overcome 0217 lbs. The circular
friction is not included because close calculation is not here needed.
The axle friction will be the weight of the drum, and co-efficient of
friction wflbs. As steam will be in and outside the of the drum
its thickness will be much less than that of locomotive boilers. But
take the weight of a steel drum, 4 feet diameter and one inch wide,
at 1000 lbs., the pressure to put it in equilibrium or bordering on
motion will be P = 1000 × 075 = 75 lbs. But as the radius of drum
where the power acts is = 7 times the radius of axle friction
the power required to put the wheel in equilibrium will be only
75
7
12 × 35
2 × 3
= 10.7 lbs. As about the same small power will work my ring
valve for starting and stopping, I have left out of the Drawings the
donkey engine I had designed for working such valve...

page_text: 74. There is a capability of increasing the power of this principle
of rotary engine possessed by no other. The Drawings in Sheet 5 are.
made to scale, which show that the cells are only two inches wide,
measured vertically and across the wheel. If we make them four
inches wide we get 1000 actual horse-power, and if eight inches wide
2000 horse-power; and this encrease is with the same weight, size, and
friction, also at the same cost as 500 horse-power so far as the engine
alone is concerned, which is far more costly than the boiler. The
actual power will not come out so much because the mean diameter
of drum decreases with the width of cells; but it is proper to shew
that by my Invention we have the means of encreasing the power of
the same engine, possessed by no other.
"
.
75. Without explanation the longer arms, in Figure 9, Sheet 5,
may seem to others to do what I have been told, to neutralize the
pressure in the cells. But steam presses at right angle to the body,
and in direction from the nearest fixed point, now just at the end of
these long arms; two equal pressures I think act on the same part of
the arms at right angles or nearly so. The wheel therefore cannot go
either way, hence the line that represents the resultant of these
pressures must bisect the angle where the lines representing the
pressures meet. Complete different parallelograms of these pressures,
and one or two of the resultants, will pass through the centre of the
axis. These are of no use to us, but of no harm, because neutralized
by similar resultants from the opposite parts of the opposite arms.
The other resultants will pass through the wheel in the direction of
motion, and what is true of one arm is true of all. I have no time
to calculate the sum of the resultants, and have not included them in
the formula for horse-power in pagraph 49.
.
76. I have said that we cannot tell without experiment how an elastic
fluid will conduct itself in any new application of which we have no
experience. Hence, the wheel may be so evenly balanced in its
surrounding steam that no such resolution of forces can take place; so too
the pressure of steam in the cells in Figure 9 may be neutralized by the
pressure on the opposite side of the drum, instead of that being resolved
into mere friction; but I cannot so conceive it, because bodies of
invariable, form on motion are governed by invariable laws.. Now it is
plain that a cylinder revolving in a fluid would be governed by the laws.
of friction only, and by no other, so that I cannot see how opening cells.
C

page_text: in one part of a cylinder and leaving the other parts of the same
invariable form can alter the laws which govern it, those of friction in.
this case.
77. But assum that the cell pressure is neutralized by the steam
pressure, I have provided for it in Figure 11, Sheet 5, by resolving the
pressure on the drum on the other side of the cells into mere metal
friction, by making such other sides revolve steam-tight against the
fixed case. There is perhaps no advantage without some disadvantage,
for man being imperfect himself cannot make a perfect machine. In
this wheel there is a pressure of retardation at starting, due to the steam
in the longer side of the cells, but this is not loss of steam, because it
cannot expand, and so cannot do work in that direction. This pressure
of retardation resolved into its leverage is about made up by the
favorable pressure in each quadrant acting on so much larger an area.
This is on the principle enunciated in paragraphs 41 and 42, and leaves
therefore the cellular. pressure free.
78. I have since verified the principle by the following crucial test.
I met a knife grinder near my house, not Canning's "needy knife
grinder," but still as ragged and needy as his tribe, and gave him my
knife to grind to try the principle in paragraphs 41 and 42. When his
wheel was at rest I took a bit of thin iron rod out of his box, and
pressed it vertically upon his grindstone on the centre of its axis, and it
would not of course move. I then pressed it, not at any angle, but
quite vertically, about one-eighth or three-sixteenths of an inch from
the centre of pressure, and had the gratification of feeling and seeing the
wheel move freely; and so, for twopence, did I confirm my theory
mentioned in paragraphs 41 and 42, and which is of such essential
importance to my present Inventions.
79. The pressure of retardation before mentioned in the wheel shown
in Figure 11 is similar to that mentioned in paragragh 44; but both cease
as soon as the wheel begins to move, because steam and cell have one
common motion together, and so the pressure of steam has no fixed
fulcrum to push against, and is therefore resolved into the more gliding
motion over the circumference of the case.
80. When the solid parts of the drum of this wheel come to the steam
openings, they embody the principle of wheel referred to in my Pro-
visional Specification, extracted in paragraph 44. This wheel will

page_text: sometimes stop with such sond parts of the steam drum over the steam
ports. Suppose then the four steam pressures on the solid parts cannot
start. the wheel, it must be divided into four parts if used for locomotive
and steam navigation, or for other reversing purpose. Two halves with
the cells in the same direction must be so set that when stopped the
steam can always get into the cells, and the other two halves, with the
cells reversed for backing, must be also set in the same way. This
principle is shewn in Sheet 2.
81. As I can find no trace of any steam wheel like mine, it seemed to
me proper to explain the scientific principle on which they are designed,
to show why they were made so and not otherwise, without which they
would never be understood, except by the same amount of thought and
labour. It would indeed be incredible to me what such simple designs
have cost me, did I not know that the laws of progress are the laws of
God, and that even as men begin in all parts of the world in barbarism
and end in civilization, so does science begin in complexity and waste
and end in simplicity and economy. These therefore are ever the last
and highest reaches of the human mind.
82. In nature we find simplicity, directness, efficiency, economy,
durability, and universality, and these excellencies ought to be combined
in the prime mover of the world for land, and sea, and air, and manu-
factures. Now I know that my discovery is true, that condensing and
exhausting the steam, and a waste of 92 per cent. of the most precious
commodity in the world form no part of the laws of steam. But I do
not presume to speak with the same confidence of my Inventions
especially of the untried action of steam, which instantly fills up with
equal pressure every corner and crevice, and takes the form of a
machine like a mould. If however the wheels act we shall have a prime
mover of the simplest, cheapest, and most durable kind, for it combines
with the greatest efficacy a steam engine crank and fly wheel in one
without cylinders, pistons, condensers, air pumps, eccentrics, and the
other complexities and waste of the present engine, without too the dead
points of the crank, and with all the uniformity of motion of the fly
wheel, and all in a simple engine. It is then the counterpart of nature
simple, direct acting, efficient, economical, and universal; universal
because adapted as well to the lowest and highest velocity without bands
or multiples for locomotion, steam and aerial navigation, and the arts from

page_text: 3764
2
one foot to =1882 feet a' second if the boiler pressure be
240 lbs. This is a velocity far beyond anything which any known metal
could bear, and infinitely beyond the capability of the present engine.
For its pistons must flash backwards and forwards eight times a second
at only 50 miles an hour.
83. But let us carry the rotary engines in Figures 9 and 10 into the
highest harmonies and analogics of nature, seeking as I do in all things
to verify my favorite axiom, the unity of principal in diversity of action,
and which led me to my present and previous discoveries. The still and
solemn orbs of heaven revolve in their invisible ether as does our earth in
cquilibrium, in the midst of the even pressure of the atmosphere all
round, and they meet with no literal resistance.
84. Steam acts at right angles to the body and from the nearest fixed
point; thus the wheel in Figure 10 revolves in the midst of an infinite
number of radii proceeding from the pressure of the steam against the
circular fixed case. It meets therefore with no literal pressure from the
steam any more than the heavenly bodies do, but only radial pressure;
but this is resolved into mere friction equal all round like the atmo-
spheric pressure upon the earth. I can then see nothing in reason or
the nature of things to prevent a wheel like mine even with cells all
round (though set at a different angle) from revolving in its own
invisible ether, like the earth and the other heavenly bodies. For steam
like the soul, gravitation, the wind, and all the great forces of nature is
invisible. The cells then are pistons of infinite length of stroke, with an
infinite length of resistance in the fixed case for the steam to push
against, for a circle has no end.
85. Resolve the action of the steam to its first principles. An electric
fluid confined must necessarily press equally in all directions, and pro-
portional to the surface. It must therefore finds its way into the cells,
and all force must go in the line of its direction unless diverted from its
course. But no circular or radial pressure can do this. The heat then
will pass out of the steam in the cells in the form of work and leave
such steam of less tension. The stronger steam will then instantly rush
from where there is most pressure to where there is least. This can only
be in the cells, because only these can work be done and the pressure be
reduced. The steam round the wheel I look upon as a new fluid bearing

page_text: on which the drum revolves instead of a metal case, it is therefore a
simple matter of friction. At any rate my theory and Invention are to
mẹ two of the most interesting and important problems in philosophic
science I ever took up, so that I cannot help throwing what light I can
upon them for their true solution.
86. It would seem from my own axiom, the unity of principle in
diversity of action, that a stream of water ought to work the wheel
without an outlet in Sheet 2; for if a pressure of steam will why not
that of water? The water would no doubt send round cell after cell till
all were filled, and then the wheel must necessarily stop, because it
derives its power from an external source, gravitation, and could fall no
more to give more power to the choked up wheel without an outlet; for
we can put no more power into a machine than goes out of it. But
steam derives its power from internal source, the heat that is in it, and
as that is transferred into motion goes out of the steam, which is nothing
more than the mere medium or organism to hold the heat, and thus the
colder stream, as said before, is in a condition to receive more heat. Wo
sec therefore that the unity of principle is not the same in water.
+
87. It seems indeed to me that my machine is a nearer approach to
the human machine than any other; for food, like coal, generates heat,
and this goes out of man in work and other things, and leaves his
medium or organism in a condition to receive more food to generate
more heat to do more work. Thus the simple conditions of all working
machines, men, animals, birds, and fish, and those made by man arc an
inlet and outlet, an inlet for constant conversion of material into
heat, and an outlet in the shape of work and refuse. There is nothing.
then in man or nature so cumbrous, wasteful, and ridiculous as "a hot
and cold chamber and condenser," and consequent waste of 92 per cent.
of food and power.
88. As this is my third attempt to supersede the present complicated,
and to my mind unnatural steam engine, it is proper to explain the..
difference between the three. I venture to think that I am the founder,
if not the finisher of the two different sciences of the dynamics of elastic
and inelastic fluids and their application. In support of the former I have ·
before me a quarter book of 52 pages thus endorsed,-" Steam Experi
ments, began 23rd February and ended 1st November, 1842." Thesc
were tried at my expence by me and Mr. James Pilbrow, now of Belle
Vục, Tonbridge Wells, and ended in his Invention of the steam' in jet

page_text: reaction engine, for which I took out a Patent in his name dated the
23rd November 1842, No 9354.
89. The following part of his Specification at page 3 was written by
me:- "I was satisfied that steam possessed an impulsive power of the
" utmost efficiency entirely different from what had been supposed, for
"the full expansive force not being given out laterally must have gone
" somewhere." This last remark is the first germ I have met with of
the conservation and correlation of force; for no force can be lost, it
must go somewhere, and we must get an equivalent somewhere. More-
over so long ago as 1842 I expressed at p. 2 of Mr. Pillow's Specification
my opinion of the present reciprocating engine in these words," Feeling
a strong conviction that the whole power of the steam was to be
"obtained by some more simple means than the present costly, compli-
"cated, and ponderous machine, and that a power so easily raised need
"not be so laboriously applied, I undertook a long series of experiments
"to discover how this was to be done."
65
90. These were taken down by me at the time, 32 years ago, and all
turned out of no value, except one solitary experiment made on Tuesday,
the 12th day of July 1842, the Drawing of which was put in by Mr.
Pilbrow. Singularly enough it was not made in reference to any of my
discoveries, yet in 1866, after a lapse of 24 years, such experiment (plain
and fluid impulse of equal areas and reaction), led to them all, except
the present one. His engine, which I tried at Romford in 1843 at some
cost, is of no practical value. It must not therefore be confounded with
mine, though both are rotary. His was driven by the impulse of a jet
of steam, not like mine, by pressure, and his steam after acting in the
cells escaped into the atmosphere.
91. It failed for this reason. I found out afterwards that the velocity
of a jet of steam at only 120 lbs. pressure is 3174 feet a second, as
shewn by my formula in paragraph 57; also that the maximum effect
of impulse, which is the principle of his wheel, is when V = 2 v.
Consequently Mr. Pilbrow's wheel must revolve at an impracticable
velocity to make a jet of steam an economical application of power;
besides which his steam escapes into the air, and so wastes about 91 per
cent. in lateral heat, and consequently in fuel.
92. The principle of all my rotary engines is that of pressure which
is directly opposite to that of impulse, the principle of Mr. Pilbrow's

page_text: V=3764 feet a second, the velocity due to a boiler pressure of 240 lbs.,
that any loss due to increasing the wheel to a practicable velocity is
not worth calculating.
93. My second attempt to supersede the present engine was in 1860
which was by the reaction of one foot of steam, and this I venture to
think completes all that can be said on the dynamics of clastic fluids.
I had for instance discovered that the striking force of a body, in
C
V2
motion against a body at rest was d lbs.; now by my formula, in
2 g
4754
paragraph 57, the velocity of steam at a boiler pressure of 240 lbs
is 3764 feet a second, and at this pressuc d=" Hence the
working force of one foot of steam of one square inch area is
3764 4754
144°
✓ =726.24 lbs. per square inch. I can nowhere find any
64°4 144=
other investigation of the motion and force of clastic fluids cither
as a continuous jet or as one foot. The late Canon Moseley, the only
philosophic mathematician I have known does indeed speak of a jet of
steam, but he knew nothing of the subject until I showed him in my
experiments in 1842, which took him a whole day to sec.
94. In 1860 I invented a circular valve for measuring off and
delivering separately at equal intervals of time 88 feet of steam per
second, and took out a Patent for this application of power (which I
called intermittent reaction), on the 10th of May 1860, No. 1155. I
subsequently tried this principle of propulsion on a model locomotive
and it would not even move. I was and am convinced of the truth of
my two formulæ, that for the velocity of steam in paragraph 57, and for
the striking and working force of a body in motion, in paragraph 93.
Why then would not the locomotive move? I discovered that the
reaction of one foot of steam acting for only the 64th part of a
second had not time to overcome the inertia, and this law I called
"the time of repose of bodies or the difference in effect between a long
and a short impulse, and but for this law, no gun could be fired a
second time, because action and reaction are equal and contrary. If
then the reaction of the gases had sufficient. time to exert their full,

page_text: force on the gun as the shot has upon an ironclad, the gun must of
course receive the same damage. Thus my two attemps to supersede
the present engine, one in 1842 and the other in 1860, failed because of
two unknown bias of physics, which cannot I think be found in any
work. But with all my trying I cannot discover any law to prevent
the success of this my third attempt.
66
$1
"
95. In Mr. Pilbrow's Specification of 1842 "I said "Having departed
"from the simplicity of nature (a direct rotary motion) a complication
"of beams, levers, connecting rods, pistons, valves, eccentrics, ex-
pansive gear, and vast cylinders of ponderable matter became
necessary to enable the steam to expand over large areas of surface,
merely to give back to the more simple operations of nature that
"power which is taken from her by complexity. Whereas by using
" steam in its more natural and therefore more simple state, precisely
" the same advantage may be obtained by machinery as cheap, simple,
" and easy of construction as the water wheel." This was written by
me 32 years ago and is the philosophy of my present Inventions, those
in Sheets 4 & 5 being as cheap, simple, and easy of construction as
the water wheel."
66
96. Although Mr. Pilbrow's wheel failed in April 1842 because of the
then unknown laws of the great velocity of steam, which by the laws of
impulse require an impracticable velocity of wheel, this failure did not
alter my conviction that the present engine was a delusion and snare,
and would therefore be superseded, for in my Specification of 1860,
No: 1155, I say at p. 23, "It is wrong to say that the great Watt
" exhausted steam, he seems to have known little or nothing of the
"latent force and work accumulated in latent heat and which too ho
"wasted, nor had he any knowledge of the velocity or dynamic force of
"steam which he found so feeble from unphilosophical expriments
"that he abandoned his application of it; he was a great engineer a
"and able mathematician, but not a great discoverer, and one man
"however great cannot do everything. He worked according to the
light vouchsafed to him and the requirements of his age, and it was
86
r
:
a great light for the requirements of his age were great. But though
"he did enough for his country and mankind to become one of the a
"world's greatest benefactors he only nursed the infancy of steam and
"set it on its legs; the gigantic strength of its manhood has yet to
"be developed. But when by ceaseless reiteration men take for

page_text: granted that a science is exhausted they no longer search in the right
"direction but seek the new when the old is the better path."
97. The truth of these remarks that "Watt only nursed the infancy
of steam" is seen in the fact that even his best engines lost 97 per
cent. of coal and power. And the truth of the last part of the above
extract from my Specification. of 1860 is seen in the fact that since
then I have discovered that this "nearly perfect machine" the " ex-
hausted science" loses some 91 per cent. of fuel only in latent heat.
This however I did not know until seven months back, since when
I have not rested, and indeed could not rest, mind or body, until
I had gone into every nook and corner and tortuous winding of the
mystery, and had ferretted out the secret even as a ferret would a
rat hole until he got a firm grip of his enemy. If then I fail a
third time in superseding the present complicated and wasteful engine,
and in giving mankind a far superior prime mover, it will not be an
ignoble failure, and that in Invention only, for I know that the
discovery of the true laws of steam is a true one. The opinions of
able men are valuable, not as they agree with but as they differ from
our own, for then we may learn something we did not know before,
and I have said men teach by their failures as well as by their suc-

page_text: do so now at seventy, when a man has lived to little purpose if he be
not indifferent both to fame and fortune.
99. But as I would not have the labours of a life lost I think I
may be allowed to put on record to encourage enquiry the following
practical results:-Referring to the sciences in paragraph 98, which
may be included in the general term naval architecture and steam
navigation, I have done, as regards their laws, what Newton did for
astronomy; as regards economy what was done by Watt for the steam
engine; and as regards speed at sea what the two Stephensons did
for speed on land; but they had not to contend against those terrible
dynamic laws of the squares and cubes which require eight times
the power to double the velocity of bodies passing through a fluid,
which till my discoveries seemed to limit for all time the speed at
sea to some wretched twelve miles an hour or so. Ships however
can now go at nearly twice this speed, and continental and some other
vessels of more than thirty miles an hour, and this great increase, not
merely without consuming eight times the coal, as must be the case
without my discoveries, but with a saving of from 40 to 50 per
cent. of fuel from port to port. These new scientific truths are based
upon the laws of nature as immutable as those of gravitation, and
without which laws I could not have devised the formulæ by which
alone the calculations of such results could be made.
100. We are not merely expending our capital, writes Professor
Jevons, in his investigations into our coalfields and their probable
duration, "but the best part of it, our surface coal." By saving one-
half of the consumption in steam navigation, we double the duration
of our coalfields for such purpose. It seems then desirable to record
discoveries which will save one-half of such consumption, and also give
England the fleet of science instead of a fleet of hulks propelled by
brutal force, which she now has, one that can neither steam nor sail in
the proper meaning of the words, and both these my discoveries will do,
independent of the present Inventions.
101. I have said that I consider myself the founder and finisher of
hydro-dynamical science, both for the resistance of bodies passing.
through fluids and propulsion. All who have written on these subjects*
maintain that the normal efficiency of a plane is equal to its area and
pressure upon it. The one solitary useful experiment made by Mr.

page_text: Pilbrow and me in 1842, out of all our nine months' labours, enabled me
in 1866 to discover that the normal efficiency of a plane is equal to only
half its area and pressure, and that when used as a propeller, paddle
VP
4 v
wheel, screw, or oar, its efficiency is equal to only lbs. Now all
the best paddle wheel and screw vessels in the world work with the
relative velocities of V = 1.25 v, consequently all begin with a loss of
68.7 per cent., which I called the loss of primary velocity in 1866,
when it was discovered, whereas the principle of reaction propulsion,
which is my system, begins with no loss at all. Now we can add
nothing to nor take anything away from the laws of nature, therefore
my dynamic formulæ for the normal efficiency of a plane and of
reaction, which embody different laws of nature, must necessarily found
and finish the science of hydro-dynamics. These formulæ will be found
in my Specifications of the 3rd of March 1870, No. 623, p. 26 to 30; and
of the 10th of April 1871, No. 944, p. 8 to 13, and the table at p. 22.
102. My Specification of 1870, p. 75, contains "an abstract of my
discoveries from July 1842 to March 1870. They are so connected
together that I venture to record here the two subsequent discoveries to
which the former ones led, 1st, the laws of fluid resistance and type of..
least resistance with the greatest capacity, which are explained in my.
Specification of the 10th of April 1871, No. 944. These laws are distinct
from the laws for finding what that resistance is, discovered in 1866..
VP
For such are R =Plbs. for reaction, and lbs. for paddle wheel,
4 v
screw, and oar impulse. The second discovery since 1870 is for finding
the resistance of pure triangles to determine the best length of the bows.
of ships. These were discovered on Tuesday, the 17th of December 1872,
and thus formularized next year :-B ==
a b v²
lbs. a is the immersed
area of the broadest part in square feet; b, such broadest part in lineal.
feet; v, the velocity in feet per second; and 1, the length of bow
immersed from the broadest part immersed.
103. This formula does not give the actual bow resistance due to bad¨´
naval design, nor does it give the stern resistance. It shows 1st. The
small amount to which the resistance of vessels may be reduced by pure
triangular bows. 2. That nearly the whole resistance of the vessels may
probably be reduced to the mere bow resistance. The reasons for this

page_text: opinion are given in my Specification of 1871, No. 944, p. 9, para-
graphs 9, 10, and 13: Moreover, the formula makes known for the first
time by the divisor that the law which governs the resistance of triangles
is a law of infinite advantage, as I called it in 1872, the only one with
which I am acquainted, for so far as the law is concerned there is no
limit to the reduction of resistance, and consequent reduction in the
cost of engines and consumption of fuel; the only limit is safety, con-
venience, and strength of materials. Another valuable fact follows from
this law, that the coal capacity encreases as the square of the length of
bow, which is important for long steam voyages of the navy. There is
too another advantage of the same law, that the best steamers will now
make the best sailing vessels, because as the resistance is reduced for
steaming and saving of coal by increasing the length of bow, the
reduced resistance will also reduce the sailing power to overcome it
and the crew to man the sails, and lastly, the most useful will hence-
forth be the most beautiful ships in the world, for this discovery will
verify the philosophy of one of my lines, if I may be allowed to quote
from myself ten years ago, "The useful and the beautiful are one."
104. I have ventured to put these facts on record for several reasons:
1. They would otherwise most likely die with me. 2. Some twenty
millions of public money have been spent upon a fleet of what is called
short ironclads, and about a million and a half sterling a year is being spent
on the same incapable fleet, for it is necessarily the worst type of vessel
known for reasons which seem to me self-evident. Sufficient displace-
ment must be obtained to bear the ponderous armour, engines, boilers, a
water, coals, and stores, and this can only be made up in greater draught
in proportioned to the ship being shortened. This increases the resist-
ance and the horse-power and coals and weight to overcome it.
Shortening the bow furthur increases the resistance pursuant to the
laws discovered in 1872, explained in paragraphs 102 and 103. Thus a
the resistance of short ironclads increases as the square of the shortening
of the bow, consequently the coal capacity decreases as the square of
such shortening. This is burning the candle at both ends. Moreover
the whole navy is propelled by screws, which begin with a loss 68-7 per
cent., as discovered by me in April 1866, by induction from the experi- 3
ments referred to in July 1842. This is burning the candle in the
middle as well at both ends, and most costly candles they are, since each
costs the public about a quarter of a million sterling.

page_text: 105. The practical results are too deplorable. We will take the
Hercules and Sultan for examples only because considered the best. It
is then the fact that the whole British navy, which has cost some twenty
millions sterling and twelve years to produce, has only an independent
life of about fifty hours at a speed under fifteen knots. It cannot there-
fore steam in the proper meaning of the word, and with screws immersed
some 23 feet in diameter and weighing many tons no ship can sail in
the, proper meaning of the word. The present navy is therefore an
incapable one, and inadequate to the ever-increasing wants of England,
the only one perhaps in her history which cannot go anywhere and do
anything.
106. This crucial test of an efficient navy seems to me the simplest
and truest of any, now and for all time. I venture then to think that
the nation should never be satisfied until it has got such a navy, and
which only my discoveries can give. And these being based on the
unchanging laws of nature are independent of the present engine, mine,
or any future prime mover. Let me then hope that the great Imperial
interests which are inseparably connected with the British navy are
sufficient excuse for recording here what might otherwise never be
known. I have now to explain my Drawings.
3
107. As regards the first improvement in rotary engines mentioned
in the Provisional Specification, that for condensing or exhausting the
steam: In this and in all my other improvements, the cells in which
the steam acts to drive the engine are open only at their mouth and are
inclined between two sides, and revolve in a fixed case for the steam to
push against to work the wheel.
108. Sheet I., Figures 1 and 2, show a section and elevation of an
engine with reversed cells and condenser. The parts, letters a and a¹,
are the wheels for going forward and backward; they are fixed on the
shaft which carries them round; c, c, c, and c¹ c² c¹, &c. are the
driving cells, underneath which is a space all round the fixed case to let
the steam rush from cell to cell until it finds its way out at the
condenser or exhaust; 'd and d are the steam belts round the wheel for
going forward and backward to supply the cells through the ports f
and fl; and x shows the division between the wheels to prevent
the steam in the working wheel from escaping into the non-working
wheel.

page_text: 109. G and g¹ are the valves; and 9² and g³ the toothed quadrants or
sectors for working them through the racks at the backs; 9' and g³ are.
the spindles carrying the quadrants; and 9ª and g' the hand levers by
means of which the separate valves for going forwards and backwards are
actuated; his the outer case; m, the lubricator; j and j, inlet passages;
i, the lagging round the outer case; n, the condenser; o, the cold water.
cistern; p, the cold water pump; q, the injection cock; r, the overflow
pipes, the pipe connecting the respective portions of the fixed case with
the condenser; 81, the exit pipe from condenser; t and t¹, are cocks in the
branches of the pipes to control the communication between the con-
denser and the portions of the fixed case. These cocks are turned by
the handles u and u¹. Where the shaft b, and the handle spindles 9*
and go, and the spindles to the cocks and t¹ pierce the case stuffing
boxes are provided to prevent any escape of the expansive fluid..
.
110. As regards the other. improvements in rotary engines mentioned
in the Provisional Specification, those for not condensing or expanding
the steam, Sheet 2, Figures 3 and 4 show a section and elevation of an
engine with cells reversed for going forward or backward mounted on a
tubular boiler. The ports a and a' are the wheels with reversed cells
fixed on the shaft b-c, c c and c¹ c¹ c¹, &c., are the cells. Half of
their width on each wheel is so set that each cell round the wheel shall
be in the middle of the other cell, the object being merely to overcome
any dead point or unfavorable position if any; d and d¹ are the steam
belts to supply the wheels with steam through the ports fff and f-g
is the ring valve, one for each wheel, with ports to start, stop, and
reverse the same. These wheels, like those in Sheet I., are separated by
the division x to prevent steam passing from one wheel to the other; /
is the outer case, and i the lagging round it. For starting, stopping,
and reversing the two ring valves with their ports are separate and
worked by the separate hand wheels 9' and ' through the pinions g
and fitting into the racks at the back of the ring valves through the
intervention of the spindles 9 and 9. The inlets from boiler to the
steam belts d are shewn at j and j³, and the steam discharge passage
at w, which is opened by the ring valve only on reversing the engine,
and even them may not be necessary. Because the sensible heat in the a
steam in the cells may be so soon exhausted when the parts are closed
for reversing as to leave only the latent heat in the cells, which will not
offer any obstruction to the cells moving the reverse way. Similar inlet

page_text: ports and discharge passage w are of course provided for the other wheel.
When the steam condenses in the belts it runs into the cistern / and is
sent into the boiler by the injector. If necessary the rims of the two
reversed wheels are lubricated, as shewn. I propose to vary this wheel
by surrounding it with steam, as shown in Sheet 5, Figures 9 and 10.
111. Sheet 3, Figures 5 and 6, shew elevation and plan of my non-
condensing and non-exhausting rotary engine with reversed cells on the
same shaft applied to a-locomotive. The handles 9 and 9', with the
usual connecting rods and levers, are for starting, stoppage, and
reversing the locomotive. The engine can be applied between the two
driving wheels in the same shaft, and so partake with them of the same
common jolts and motion. No steam blast will I think be wanted to
urge the draught, because the furnace and boiler will not be required to
supply fresh steam at every stroke of the present engines, but only fresh
heat to the steam in the cells in the place of that which has passed away
through the cells in the shape of work. If a blast be required it will be
better and more economical to supply it by a noisless blower than to
waste the latent heat in a noisy steam blast.
112. Sheet 4, Figures 7 and 8, shew an end view and side elevation of
a tramway car driven by my rotary engine with reversed cells, non-
condensing, non-exhausting, and noiseless. The car is partly cut away
and the frame carrying the machinery in part section to show better its
attachment to the car. The handles and 9' are for working the valves
to start, stop, and reverse.
113. Sheet 5, Figures 9, 10, and 11, show different forms of my
double-acting, rotary, non-condensing, and non-exhausting engine. I
mean by double-acting, here and before, that there are two engines in.
the same shaft one with cells one way to go forward, the other with
cells the other way to go backwards. Figure 9 is a half section and half
elevation of a wheel for driving in one direction, and Figure 10 a section
of a different form of wheel for driving in the opposite direction. In
Figure 9 the four inlet ports fff and ƒ are shewn open, and the
discharge passage W closed by the ring valve g, and in Figure 10 the
inlet ports fff and fare shewn closed, and the discharges passage W
open if required on reversing to prevent the cells revolving against
steam. A locomotive engine is scarcely reversed a dozen times between
London and Edinburgh, or between here and New York; a loss of steam.
(if necessary at all) not worth calculating.

page_text: In Figures 9 and 10 is shown the shaft on which the wheels are fixed
and all revolve together; c, c, c, are the cells; d, the steam belts round
the wheels; h, the outer case, and i the lagging; 9³, are the pinions for
working into the rack at the back of the ring valve 9 which is worked
by the hand wheel go through the intervention of the spindle 9, and j i
and are the inlet ports.
114. Figure 11 is another rotary engine on the same principle of
non-condensing and non-exhausting the steam. It was designed
expressly to prevent the steam pressures against the wheel opposite to
the cells from neutralizing the pressures in them, assuming such
unfavorable pressures may not be mere drum friction. Thus Figure 11
shows that the parts opposite to the working pressure revolve steam-
tight against the fixed case. Should it be found that steam will escape
from wheel to wheel by the axle, in the different wheels referred to the
division between the forward and backing wheel must be wide enough 1
for a stuffing box, and be open all round to get at it.
115. I have not encumbered my Specification with another Drawing
to show the application of my rotary engine to the great purposes of
steam navigation. For besides being obvious enough the rotary engine
can be applied to drive my reaction propellers (described in Specifications 2
1870, No. 623, and 1871, No. 944), either as shown in the locomotive or
car application in Sheet 3 or 4. But the following formulæ will find
the number of revolutions and mean diameter of propellers for the
required speed of vessel v; let V equal the mean velocity of propeller in
feet per second; for my system of reaction propulsion, say V=1·4.v.. 2
Then the number of revolutions required will be n =
where 3.1416, and d is mean
=
find d, d, =
Ꮴ
π n
Ꮴ
π d
diameter of propeller.
feet. The area of propellers will be a =
per second,
And to
R
2V (V-v)
square feet, R being the resistance of the ship at the velocity v.
CONCLUSION.
116. A few words on the general principles on which a rotary engine
3
116. A few words on the general principles on which a rotary engine
like mine should be designed to revolve in the expansive fluid that
works it.. It seems to me that it matters not in what way the motive
power is supplied to the engine, whether indirectly by a pipe from the

page_text: boiler or directly from the fluid in a fixed case surrounding the engine,
provided the motive power is sufficient for the purpose and properly
applied, for force must keep acting in the line of its direction until
turned aside or neutralized by some other equivalent force. Therefore
tangential pressure in cells round a wheel unneutralized is to my mind
the best application to maximise power, and axial pressure neutralized
all round the best means to minimise the friction. Such at any rate
are the fundamental principles on which I designed my rotary cellular
engine, which is the most automatic prive mover I know of. The great
question is whether or no my engine complies with my conditions; and
what a momentous question it is, for if the conditions are observed an
Invention which saves more than half the consumption of coal in all
the steam engines of England and the world, for manufactures, railways,
and steam navigation, is equivalent to the discovery of new coal fields,
or to doubling the duration of the present for the above purposes.
117. In inventing we think of everything that will not do, and only
last of the one thing that will alone do, if we think of it at all. So too
we may think out and overcome with infinite pains objection after
objection and remove every obstruction to the efficient working of our
machine and yet fail to see the one fundamental principle that will
sweep away all our labours. Now although the discoveries and Inven-
tions herein contained had no human existence seven months ago they
have taken me more than a quarter of a century at intervals to under-
stand and design. It is these things which make discovery and Invention
the most laborious, uncertain, and ill paid of all intellectual pursuits.
118. Yet thought moves, and in time governs the world, especially
scientific thought, and no other has such great and durable and bencficial
influence on the different races of mankind. It has raised man from
being the slave of matter and the sport of the elements, and given him
the beneficial power of an earthly god, for science is so divine that
it is the one thing which no one can abuse, or degrade, or invent, or buy,
to pander to the lusts and passions of mankind. It has moreover called
into being the arts, the commodities, the enjoyments of life, and done
more than anything else to break down the tyranny of class and caste
and bring together the different nations of the world. It has given
employment to millions of human beings, and poured an incalculable
stream of wealth into the coffers of the state; and yet discoveries and
D

page_text: 119. All things that now most benefit and bless mankind have come
out of a few pounds of brains of a few independent thinkers forming
again part of the elements from which they came, but not the immaterial
principle that moved them. On their broodings now live myriads of
practical men and their families in carrying out the discoveries of pure
thought. It is plain therefore that theory must precede practice; the
laws first, the application afterwards.
120. Now my Invention is founded on my discovery of the true laws
of steam. Arnott in his Elements of Physics, a works whose profundity
is hidden in its clearness, says that "The nature of steam and the laws
of its formation and action are so well understood that the intelligent
engineer no more hopes for great improvement in steam engines than
he does for improvement in the mode of using a waterfall to turn a
mill." And the last writer on the subject, Dr. Balfour Stewart, the
Professor of Natural Philosophy at Owen's College, Manchester, says in
his Conservation of Energy (1873), "The essential point of the steam
engine is the possession of two chambers, one of high and the other of
low temperature, while it performs work in the process of carrying
heat from the chamber of high to that of low temperature.
121. On the contrary my discovery is that when the cylinder and
piston are surrounded by air hotter than the steam the ordinary laws of
nature are reversed. For the heat in the colder body of the steam will
pass from it to the body of higher temperature without encreasing it,
and so pass out of existence. as heat in the form of motion called work.
This is indeed the fundamental principle on which my non-condensing
and non-exhausting rotary engine is based. From these and the other
English, French, and German authorities before mentioned I conclude
that I am the only discoverer of the true laws of steam as before
explained, and which may thus be briefly summed up:-That all the
work of steam is done in a hot and not in a cold chamber, consequently
that a hot and cold chamber, condenser, air pump, and exhaust, and a
loss of about 91 per cent. of fuel in latent heat, form no part of the laws
of steam or of the phenomena of nature.

page_text: 122. From the time of Hero of Alexandria, 120 years B.C., to our own,
many attempts have been made to drive an engine without a piston.
Those best known to me are by Brunel, Stirratt, and Pilbrow, but all
were either by impulse or reaction, which means not by pressure but by
the expansive velocity of steam, and which I abandoned in 1843 after no
little expense. I believe therefore that I am the only inventor of an
engine driven by the pressure of an expansive fluid without a piston.
The only inventor too of an engine without condenser or exhaust to
save the loss of latent heat, the sensible heat unused, and back action.
123. I claim therefore a fixed circular case for steam in cells to push
against to give rotary motion to an engine by the pressure of steam or
other elastic fluids; 1st., to condense or exhaust the steam; and 2nd.,
not to condense or exhaust the steam.
124. I have described and shown in the Drawings several ways of
doing this in order to carry out my discoveries of the laws of steam, on
which such Inventions are founded; and these I claim though I do not
confine myself to the number, position, form, or angles of the cells.
I wish moreover to say that I do not confine my engine to the use of
steam, because I believe it may be to a great extent if not entirely
superseded.
In witness whereof, I, the said Richard Boyman Boyman, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-eighth day of April,
One thousand eight hundred and seventy-four.
R. BOYMAN BOYMAN. (L.S.)