It is not commonly known that the commencement of the gas engine for the production of motive power antedates that of the steam engine. Yet such is the case. It was not until the year 1744 that James Watt ran his first successful steam engine at the Soho Works, Birmingham, England, while Huyghens, Papin and other scientists had produced power in the seventeenth century by the explosion of chemicals and the expansive force of heated vapors. But the mechanical difficulties proved too great, and so little was known in that age of economical methods of producing gas as fuel for the production of heat, that when the apparently more simple method of using the expansive force of steam produced by the desertion of water by heat produced by the combustion of coal or wood was discovered, and Watt constructed his engine for utilizing steam, all further efforts in the direction of producing power by other heated vapors were suspended. For a century and a half the intelligence and genius of the world have been expended in improving the steam engine, until it is now conceded that it is as perfect as human effort can make it. No further economy in producing power by this method can be proficient. After careful and clever tests by experts with the best instruments made at the present day, it is generally admitted that what is now deemed the perfect steam engine does not convert more than 10 per cent of the heat efficiency into indicated work, and that usual engines and boilers do not apprehend over 4 per cent. |
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