"Steam engine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which was not powerful enough, was replaced by a 14-horse power "semi-portable" steam engine, by Ransomes & Co., of Ipswich—an engine of sufficient power to drive double the required number of lights. The dynamo machine is a No. 7 Brush. There are sixteen lamps in all—eight on each side of the court. The machine has given no trouble whatever, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... framing" is a framing made of iron, but a "steam engine" (maquina a vapor) is an engine ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... a day at Birmingham, on purpose to see Watt and Boulton's manufactory of steam engines at Soho. Mr. Boulton showed us everything. The engines, some in action, although beautifully smooth, showed a power that was almost fearful. Since these early forms of the steam engine I have lived to see this all but omnipotent instrument change the locomotion of the whole civilized world by sea and ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... in Adolphe's lap, and Adolphe cannot help smiling. This smile, extracted as if by a steam engine, Caroline has been on the watch for, in order to ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... and fitness may be discovered by experience. I know a man who, from childhood, took pleasure in construction and invention. At the age of nine he made a real steam engine which "could go" with steam, and which was small enough to be carried in his pocket. He was encouraged to follow the providential indication, went through all the drudgery of workshops, and ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... it; so the only other thing that I have to tell you about it is, that people had gone on from finding that steam could be made to work their ships to making it draw carriages. Railways were being made for trains of carriages and vans to be drawn by one steam engine. The oldest of all was opened in 1830, the very year that William IV. began to reign, and that answered so well that more and more began to be made, and the whole country to be covered with a network of railways, so the people and goods could ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... material structures and enterprises, man is a superb success. The bridge, the triumphs of architecture, the steam engine, the almost intelligent machine are marvellous manifestations of inventive genius, and of the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... temper) went out and told his footmen to wear powder henceforth. And in this they obeyed him. And there arose a Lord of the Treasury, saying, 'Let powder be taxed.' And it was so, and the tax was paid, and powder was still worn. And there came the great Reform Bill, and the Steam Engine, and all manner of queer things, but powder did not end, for custom hath many lives. Nor was there an end of those things which the Nobility and Gentry had long since shed from their own persons—as, laced coats and velvet breeches and silk hose; ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... gauges. Reciprocating steam engine, simple. Resistance, adjustable, for electric railway. Reversing ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... society, in which whole volumes will be devoted to the effect of a particular campaign or military alliance in influencing the destinies of a people like the French or the German. But in those histories you will find no word as to the effect of such trifles as the invention of the steam engine, the coming of the railroad, the introduction of the telegraph and cheap newspapers and literature on the destiny of those people; volumes as to the influence which Britain may have had upon the history of France or Germany by the campaigns of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... be as far off as ever. In life, as in art, and as in mechanics, the only profitable teaching is the teaching by example. Your mathematician, or your man of science, may discourse excellently on the steam engine, yet he cannot make one; he cannot make a bolt or a screw. The master workman in the engine-room does not teach his apprentice the theory of expansion, or of atmospheric pressure; he guides his hand upon the turncock, he practises his eye upon the index, and he ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... which waited in the end. Do not sneer at the humble beginnings, the heaving table or the flying tambourine, however much such phenomena may have been abused or simulated, but remember that a falling apple taught us gravity, a boiling kettle brought us the steam engine, and the twitching leg of a frog opened up the train of thought and experiment which gave us electricity. So the lowly manifestations of Hydesville have ripened into results which have engaged the ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... use, with certainty, any tool, from the club with which he defends himself against his enemies or cracks the shells of fruit, up to the finest instruments of optics and chemistry, and even to the telegraph and steam engine. The conformity to law, with which the forces of nature act, far from being an impediment to his appointing and reaching his ends is much more the indispensable means by which he is enabled in general to reach them. Now, if we thus find, in the only action striving towards an end which we ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... published by D. Appleton and Co. Of this work we have thirteen numbers, which bring the subjects, in alphabetical order, to the article on "Etching," the last number completing the elaborate description of the "Steam Engine," which in itself forms a treatise on a leading branch of practical science, and may be commended in high terms to the attention both of the general reader and the professional engineer. It is rarely that such a mass of important ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... flying-fish which rose every now and then from the ocean, and darted through the air, their bright scales glittering in the sun. Occasionally a whale spouted forth a jet of vapour and spray with a loud noise like that emitted by the safety valve of a steam engine; while albicores, bonitos; and dolphins, with various other fish, could be seen here and there, sporting and tumbling, as they came to the surface, sending a circle of wavelets extending far and wide around. Sea birds also flew through the blue ether, their wings ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... never hope to take all this in our ship!" said Arcot, looking at the great collection. "Look—there's an old winged airplane! And a steam engine—and that's an electric motor! And that thing looks like some kind ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... lighting in the shop, it will be necessary to install a generator and a gas, gasoline, or steam engine, or a waterwheel to drive it. A 10 battery belt driven generator may be used in such a shop, and may also, of course, be used with a separate motor. The generator should, of course, be a direct current machine. The size of the generator will depend upon ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... prevailed. Some were inclined to give credence to Swedenborg's statements; more, who did not know the man, derided him as a sensation monger. But all had to wait with what patience they could, for those were the days before steam engine and telegraph. Forty-eight anxious hours passed. Then letters were received confirming the philosopher's announcement, and, we are assured, showing that the fire had taken precisely the path described by him, and had ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... improved method of fire fighting in Southern cities—before the steam engine, the hook and ladder and water tower companies supplanted the old hand pump and bucket companies, the Negro was the chief fire fighter, and there was nothing that tended more to make fire fighting a pleasant pastime than those old volunteer ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... invention is made, like that of a steam engine or a printing press, for example; or some discovery of scientific method, like that of analytical geometry or the infinitesimal calculus; or some discovery of natural law, like that of falling bodies or the Newtonian law of gravitation. ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... Devilshoof; and Benson could not help looking a little mortified, for Charlie was not very well off for tail, and had recollections of his harness days, which made him drop his head at times and pull like a steam engine; besides which, Harry—partly, perhaps, from motives of economy, partly, as he said, because he thought it snobbish to ride in handsome toggery—always mounted in the oldest clothes he had, and with a well-used bridle and saddle. But there was no ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... In the second place, some adequate power must be found to propel the machinery, which is ordinarily too heavy to be run by hand or foot power. This necessary motive power was discovered in steam. The steam engine was devised by James Watt, an English inventor of great ingenuity. He invented a cylinder containing a piston, which could be forced back and forth by the introduction of steam. His progress was much retarded ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... sailing ship was being brought to its highest perfection, it was on the eve of being supplanted altogether. In 1769, Watt took out his first patent for the steam engine, and in October 1788 Mr Miller, of Dalswinton in Scotland, first applied the new motive power to propel a vessel. An engine was placed on a frame, fixed between two pleasure boats, and made to turn two paddle-wheels, one in front of the other—the invention of William Symington—which ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... half a chance to develop the finer qualities of his nature—and he knew it. He was a tremendous worker and as an aggressive editor, an ambitious politician and an ardent reformer, driven like a steam engine, he could give little heed to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but he was sensitive as a girl to rebuffs bringing to mind what might have been. Among friends with whom he felt at home and in really congenial company, he was a different being from the hard hitting ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... as men who, trying to set a steam engine in motion, should turn its wheels round with their hands, not suspecting that the underlying cause of its movement was the expansion of the steam, and not the motion of the wheels. By turning the wheels by hand and by levers they could only produce ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... attempt whatever will be made to give a technical explanation of the mechanism of the winding motion. It may be said that it was a special application of the Sun and Planet motion originally utilised by Watt in his Steam Engine, for obtaining a rotary ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... than firearms. It is potential or otherwise, in exact proportion to the artist's wisdom and dynamic mentality, and is useless in the hands of the idiotic or weak-minded. A Magic Wand requires brains and vigorous mental force to make it effective, just as the steam engine requires an apparatus for generating the steam, that moves it. With a determined will, and a mental conception of one's inward power, any man or woman can, by means of this sensitive Wand, defy all the legionaries of Hell, and quickly disperse ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... that could be cheaply carried to the most remote parts of the world. Such protection was needed, because while England prohibited the export of even a single collier who might instruct the people of India in the mode of mining coal—of a steam engine to pump water or raise coal, or a mechanic who could make one—of a worker in iron who might smelt the ore—of a spinning-jenny or power-loom, or of an artisan who could give instruction in the use of such machines—and ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... to run well,—to do its work thoroughly. But with all his keeping it in order he does not make it work night and day for weeks or months. Such folly is never heard of in an engineer; but with us human beings, who own and manage a far more wonderful machine than any steam engine, we hear of it often, and always, always the tale winds up with the inevitable catastrophe. The business man develops paresis, the clergyman loses his voice or his eyes, the nurse contracts some disease that incapacitates her for work, in every case mother Nature ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... mechanisms constructed by man. Between such and a flower, a butterfly, and a human body, the difference is enormous. He who elects to bring the latter under the title of mechanism cannot mean that he discerns no difference between them and a steam engine or a printing press. He can only mean that he believes he might, could he attain to a glimpse into their infinite complexity, find an explanation of the physical changes which take place in them, by ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... anything on me," said Bob. "That Mr. Waterman is some 'moose.' He tears along like a steam engine and never seems ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... of husbandry—the mower, the reaper, the thresher, the binder, the sulky plow, an infinite variety of mechanical contrivances to make the labor of the farmer easier, or rather to dispense with a multitude of laborers, and substitute in their places the horse, the mule and the steam engine. In other words, to convert the business of farming from an agricultural pursuit, where the labor of men and women was the chief factor of production, to a mechanical pursuit, in which the chief element of ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... preying upon another. To-morrow, not religion, not politics, but chemistry, not priests nor politicians, but chemists, would change all that—and change it by the only methods that compel. An abstract idea of liberty or justice can be rejected, evaded, nullified. But a telephone, a steam engine, a mode of prolonging life—those ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... the cathedrals which are still the wonder of the world, failed to discern what seems to us so obviously simple a proposition, that two parallel lines of rail would diminish the cost and difficulty of transport to a minimum. Without that discovery the steam engine, which has itself been an invention of quite recent years, would have ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the table all gathered upon deck. There was no wind, but the yacht had a steam engine and used her sails only on occasions when they could be of service. Stars shone brightly in the sky overhead, but their light was not sufficient to give an extended view on land or water, and as all were weary with the excitement and sightseeing of the ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... provincial China to the metropolitan government was therefore in the last analysis finance and nothing but finance; and if the system broke down in 1911 it was because financial reform—to discount the new forces of which the steam engine was the symbol—had been attempted, like military reform, both too late and in the wrong way, and instead of strengthening, had vastly weakened the authority ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... produced until a much later date, when in 1885 M. Wolf constructed an envelope of 26,500 cubic feet. An engine and propeller were fixed in a triangular framework in front of the airship, supported by the steam pipe of a steam engine fixed under the body of the envelope. The framework lacked rigidity, and the envelope tore during inflation and ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... CENTURY AGO. A century ago people everywhere lived comparatively simple lives. The steam engine, while beginning to be put to use (p. 493), had not as yet been extensively applied and made the willing and obedient slave of man. The lightning had not as yet been harnessed, and the now omnipresent electric motor was then still unknown. ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... but yet at a period not so far distant as to be beyond the remembrance of many still living, a clear-headed North-countryman, on the banks of the Tyne, was working out, in spite of all opposition, the great problem of adapting the steam engine to railway locomotion. Buoyed up by an almost prophetic confidence in his ultimate triumph over all obstacles, he continued to labor to complete an invention which promised the grandest benefits to mankind. What was thought of Stephenson and his schemes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... Alexandria, who lived in the second century before Christ. Hero describes a number of contrivances by which steam was utilized as a source of power. Although these contrivances were at the time of very little practical value, they are interesting as the prototypes of the modern steam engine. The attempts to move wheels by steam date back to the seventeenth century, when a number of experiments were made, but their exact nature is not known, because they were all soon abandoned, either on account of unsuccessful results or lack of means. ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... though she was steppin' on the necks of the airy-stockracy. She went to the office, an' after a couple o' minutes I follered her, expectin' to cheer her up a bit; but she wasn't mournin' none; she was workin' like a steam engine, with her face cold an' white except for a little patch o' red in each cheek; an' when she raised her eyes to mine I knew 'at the ol' man had gone ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... Secretary's report which has reference to recent experiments in the application of steam and in the construction of our war steamers, made under the superintendence of distinguished officers of the Navy. In addition to other manifest improvements in the construction of the steam engine and application of the motive power which has rendered them more appropriate to the uses of ships of war, one of those officers has brought into use a power which makes the steamship most formidable either for attack or defense. I can not too strongly recommend this subject to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Aeronautical Society in 1868. It consisted of three superposed surfaces aggregating 28 square feet and a tail of 8 square feet more. The weight was under 12 pounds and it was driven by a central propeller actuated by a steam engine overestimated at one-third of a horsepower. It ran suspended to a wire on its trials but failed of free flight, in consequence of defective equilibrium. This apparatus has since been rebuilt and is now in the National Museum of the Smithsonian ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... Exchequer, under such circumstances, endeavoured to levy the same taxation which is now borne by the country? From one end of India to the other, with very trifling exceptions, there is no such thing as a steam engine; but this poor population, without a steam engine, without anything like first-rate tools, are called upon to bear, I will venture to say, the very heaviest taxation under which any people ever suffered with the same means of paying it. Yet the whole of this money, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... she said fervently. "Yes, the old gentleman's come, an' he's quite comfertable in bed—though he don't know no one yet. Dr. Anderson's gone to Cunjee, but he's coming back in his steam engine to stay all night; an' your pa's having his dinner, which he needs it, poor man. An' he don't want you to get up, lovey, for there ain't nothin' you can do. I'll go and get ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... and having clerks and porters to do as he bade them. A great many young men dream such things, and though they seem a little silly when spoken out loud, they are what wood and water are to the steam engine—they are the mainspring of action. Some are stupid enough to dream about these things, and spend their time in idleness and dissipation, waiting for "the good time coming." It will never come to them. They are more likely ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... fool away, muddle away, throw away, fling away, fritter away; burn the candle at both ends, waste; squander &c 818. waste its sweetness on the desert air [Gray]; cast one's bread upon the waters, cast pearls before swine; employ a steam engine to crack a nut, waste powder and shot, break a butterfly on a wheel; labor in vain &c (useless) 645; cut blocks with a razor, pour water into a sieve. leak &c (run out) 295; run to waste; ebb; melt away, run dry, dry up. Adj. wasted &c v.; at a low ebb. wasteful &c (prodigal) 818; penny wise ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of manufactures presupposes the existence of learning. There is no branch of manufactures without its appropriate machine; and every machine is the product of mind, enlarged and disciplined by some sort of culture. The steam engine, the spinning-jenny, the loom, the cotton-gin, are notable instances of the advantages derived by manufacturing industry from the prevalence of learning. It was stated by Chief Justice Marshall, about thirty years ago, that ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... accession of Queen Victoria the 'industrial revolution,' the vast development of manufacturing made possible in the latter part of the eighteenth century by the introduction of coal and the steam engine, had rendered England the richest nation in the world, and the movement continued with steadily accelerating momentum throughout the period. Hand in hand with it went the increase of population from less than thirteen millions in England in 1825 to nearly ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... you had that thing on her stomach? Why didn't you send her up to the mill an' let us lay a hot steam engine on her?" ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... she said, with a tinge of her old-time briskness. "You just keep breathing away like a steam engine, and I ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of a sudden, the rabbit heard a noise like a steam engine going, and he was quite surprised, until he happened to look up, and there stood a pussy cat as big as a cow, and the cat was purring, which made the noise like ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... When the steam engine was still being experimented with, and before it was perfected sufficiently to come into practical use, a well-known Englishman—well known then in scientific circles—wrote an extended pamphlet proving ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... that we felt unusually interested at this place, from the fact that here the Marquis of Worcester invented the steam engine. ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... always be turned in the direction from which the wind comes. But a person who does not understand the management of a boat should no more attempt to handle one than an unskilful person should attempt to run a steam engine. ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... to the road level, I sprawled out flat and lay perfectly still for a few seconds, with my heart jumping like a steam engine. Nothing happened. I gradually drew up my leg, dug the toe of my boot in the ground, and pushed myself forward bit by bit. So far, so good: I was half-way across. I was congratulating myself on my easy task. "What in the world am I lying ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... performed through the medium of a small steam engine and sixteen hydrants, so posted and supplied with hose as to reach every square foot of the 170 acres. The water used for this purpose is mostly, if not entirely, supplied from the draining pipes, even in the dryest season. The manure thus liquified ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... Spectacles, Mariner's Compass, Barometer, Thermometer, Watches, Clocks, Telescope, Microscope, Gunpowder, Steam Engine, and Electro-Magnetic Telegraph ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... done the greater service to mankind, the printing press or the steam engine? Rowton, p. 153: ...
— Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Debate Index - Second Edition • Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
... falls, whereas about 37,000,000 primary horse power[6] was available; but, by the storage of flood waters so as to equalize the flow, at least 100,000,000 horse power, and possibly double that amount, could be developed. As it requires ten tons of coal to develop one horse power a year in a steam engine by present methods, there is here a potential substitute for coal equal to two to four times our present annual use of coal (about ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... civilising the East End of London than by governing from Cape to Cairo."[479] "It is not only impossible for one nation to civilise another by governing it; it is wrong that it should attempt to do so. Conquest may have opened up one civilisation to another in times long antecedent to the steam engine and a world commerce, but to-day its only effect is to crush out and level down all national life to the dead uniformity of an alien ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... you how the Bluebird was driven along through the water by a small engine. It was not a steam engine, such as are found in many boats, but a gasoline one, such as those in ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite—that is all he did. These object lessons ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... liberty has rapidly and widely spread. The steamship and railway, and mutual interests in trade and commerce, have united nation to nation, and the press has given one mind and simultaneous thoughts to the whole community. Power there is in plenty for the emancipation of the whole race; since the steam engine and machinery may be to the working-classes what they have hitherto been to those classes above them. All that is wanted is to know how to use these forces for the general good. The powers of production are inexhaustible; we have but to organize ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... the Monarchy of July, and the Revolution of 1848.[*] "I do not think," he says, "that in ten years from now the actual form of government will subsist—August, 1830, has forgotten the part played by youth and intelligence. Youth compressed will burst like the boiler of a steam engine." In "Les Paysans," one of his most wonderful novels, he gives a vivid picture of the constant struggle going on under the surface between the peasants and the bourgeoisie, and shows that the triumph of the former class must ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... was beginning to show signs of ennui. I leaned against the wall of the Highgate Literary and Scientific Institute, to read it. The news was catastrophic. Commander Wells of the Fire Brigade had, it stated, visited Kensington Gardens with two manuals, one steam engine, and a mile of hose, in order to play upon the Crinoline and its occupants. Presuming on the immunity of persons bearing his name during the Martian invasion, the gallant Commander had approached too near and was in ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... and clothing consumed by the labourer, the buildings in which he works, the implements with which his labour is assisted, are all of a perishable value. There is, however, a vast difference in the time for which all these different capitals will endure. A steam engine will last longer than a ship, a ship than the clothing of the labourer, and the clothing of the labourer than the food which he consumes." (Principles of Political Economy, 1817, p. 22.) The last sentence ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... compared to a steam engine which is constructed to run at a certain pressure of steam, say one hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch of boiler surface. Once I ran such an engine; and well I remember a morning during my early apprenticeship ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... calling each other black, when they had both been blackened in the same kitchen. And he would have been substantially right; for the great industrial disciple of the kettle, James Watt (who learnt from it the lesson of the steam engine), was typical of the age in this, that he found the old Trade Guilds too fallen, unfashionable and out of touch with the times to help his discovery, so that he had recourse to the rich minority which ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... passed a fat policeman on the corner, and waved my hand reassuringly at him merely to show that I was not fleeing from Justice. Talk about fast running! I actually surprised myself. I caught up with the car just as it was turning that curve on High Street, and floundered into it, puffing like a steam engine. I made one dash past the conductor, reached the seat where my cherished umbrella still reposed and captured it. The conductor must have thought me hopelessly demented, for I dashed out as the car stopped at the next corner without ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... . Byron is a steam engine producing a rebellious energy; a lord who was dissatisfied in England and dissatisfied in Venice with Suiciolla, for although he had a warm climate and money he was bored. He is a rebel-individualist, a strong, passionate monster; a lord who is always seething with fury and using all the forces ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... years, provided that within a year he should build a boat of twenty tons capacity and propel it by steam at a speed of four miles an hour. John Fitch had disappeared, and with him his idea of applying steam to paddles. He had fitted a steam engine of his own invention into a ferry-boat of his own construction, and for a whole summer this creation of an uneducated genius had been seen by the people of Philadelphia moving steadily against wind and tide; but money gave out, the experiment ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... died at his home in this city Dec. 6, 1867, at the age of 67. A long and eminently useful although unobtrusive life entitles his memory to respect. He commenced his career as a mechanic in the steam engine establishment of James P. Allaire, soon after the application of steam for the propulsion of boats and long before its application to ships for the purposes of commerce or war. For fifty-two years, with the exception ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... shade. Steam ascends in a dense white cloud, shutting out the sun; the ground is all hot, soon becoming insupportable. In places a little jet of steam and smoke rises fiercely from a hole in the hills, while in others boiling water rushes out as if forced from a steam engine. The water possesses varying ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... at some station on the way. However, our time at Rio is pleasantly spent in the main, and on the first day of June, we set sail once more for Paranagua and Antonina of pleasant recollections; partly laden with flour, kerosene, pitch, tar, rosin and wine, three pianos, I remember, and one steam engine and boiler, all as ballast; "freight free," so the bill of lading read, and further, that the ship should "not be responsible for leakage, breakage, or rust." This clause was well for the ship, as one of those wild pampeiros overtook her, on the voyage, throwing her violently on ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... thrifty aunt was shocked to find her nephew engaged in so profitless an occupation, and soundly scolded him for what she called his trifling. The good lady little dreamed that James Watt was even then unconsciously studying the germ of the science by which he "transformed the steam engine from a mere toy into the most wonderful instrument which human industry has ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... hunt a safe distance off, was one thing, but to have one of those huge animals come thundering along like a steam engine directly upon you, was quite another. I was on one of Lieutenant Baldwin's horses, too, and I felt that there might be danger of his bolting to his companion, Tom, when he saw him dashing by, and as I was not anxious to join in a buffalo chase just at that time, I ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... would have carried literature, art, and philosophy to a high degree of refinement and set standards for the succeeding weeks. For two months our generation would have been living under the blessings of Christianity; the printing press would be but a fortnight old and they would not have had the steam engine for quite a week. For two or three days they would have been hastening about the globe in steamships and railroad trains, and only yesterday would they have come upon the magical possibilities of electricity. Within the last few hours they would have learned to sail in the ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... Conolly, "an electro-motor is only an engine for driving machinery, just like a steam engine, except that it is worked by electricity instead of steam. Electric engines are so imperfect now that steam ones come cheaper. The man who finds out how to make the electric engine do what the steam engine ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... on the swaying Sanctuary lamp during Benediction, Galileo discovered the laws of the pendulum. Such a trifle as the fall of an apple suggested the laws of gravitation to Newton; and the first idea of the steam engine came to Watt while he was watching the lid rising from the boiling kettle. During a royal banquet the argument to crush the Manicheans grew on the great mind of St. Thomas, and the king made his secretary write ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... Saturday when Eleanor saw Quin in the park with Rose Martel, the factory had been in the throes of one of its most violent upheavals. Some weeks before the old steam engine had been replaced by an expensive electric drive. There had been much interest manifested in the installation of the modern motor, and Quin, with his natural love of machinery, had rejoiced that his duties as shipping clerk required him to be present at the unpacking. He ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... The industrial revolution was effected by the multiplication of mechanical appliances for spinning and weaving which so influenced the institution of slavery as seemingly to doom the Negroes to heathenism. These inventions were the spinning jenny, the steam engine, the power loom, the wool-combing machine, and the cotton gin. They augmented the output of spinning mills, and in cheapening cloth, increased the demand by bringing it within the reach of the poor. The result was that a revolution was brought about not only in Europe, ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... Centennial Exhibition in 1876, a prime mover is the central figure in the building. There it was the immense Corliss steam engine. Here it is a Diesel, started by President Wilson by wireless on the opening day, and generating all the direct current used in the palace. Another commanding exhibit is a 20,000 horsepower hydro-electric generator, significant of the modern use of water-power. The United States Government ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... himself seized the oar, which he plied with such vigour that, as Michel afterwards averred, the rudder had to be kept nearly hard a-port all the time to prevent the boat being pulled round even though Le Rue was working like a steam engine and blowing ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... mint was erected at Soho, to be worked by the steam engine; from the rolling of the copper into sheets, afterwards passing it through steel, polished rollers, and then cutting out the blanks; all which was performed with the greatest ease and regularity by girls, instead of employing able men. This was not the whole, ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... the Growth of the Steam Engine. By Professor R. H. Thurston. With numerous Illustrations. Third Edition. ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... these traits, with a moderate share of judgment, would qualify one for running a steam engine, other and still higher and more important qualities are needed for managing ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... was no automobile; forty years, and there was no telephone, and no electric light; sixty years, and there was no photograph, and no sewing machine; seventy-five years, no telegraph; one hundred years, no railway and no steamship; one hundred and twenty-five years, no steam engine; two hundred years, no post-office; three hundred years, no newspaper; five hundred years, no printing press; one thousand years, no compass, and ships could not go out of sight of land; two thousand years, no writing ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... In 1782 the steam engine, which Watt had just finally improved, removed the first difficulty, and the second was soon to disappear, thanks to a projected canal. An iron foundry was then established there under the patronage of Louis XIV., while the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... everything by three or the power of three. He was now sent to an aunt at Cartstatt, Croatia, to finish his studies in what is known as the Higher Real School. It was there that, coming from the rural fastnesses, he saw a steam engine for the first time with a pleasure that he remembers to this day. At Cartstatt he was so diligent as to compress the four years' course into three, and graduated in 1873. Returning home during an epidemic of cholera, he was stricken ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... the road ahead there appeared a strange object, coming straight toward them. It sounded something like a steam engine. "Chug, ...
— Prince and Rover of Cloverfield Farm • Helen Fuller Orton
... the practical use of this. "The world is made up of little things," saith the proverb. So with the productive arts. The steam engine consists of many parts, each part being itself composed of atoms too minute to be detected by our observation. The earth itself, in all its solidity and life, consists entirely of atoms too small to be perceived ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... impressed Matilda very much. Tapes unrolled themselves deftly, and pins went infallibly into place and never out of place; and Madame measured and fitted and talked all at once, with the smooth rapid working of a first-rate steam engine. New York mantua-making was very different from the same thing at Shadywalk! And here Matilda saw the wealth of her new wardrobe unrolled. There was a blue merino and a red cashmere and a brown rep, for daily wear; and there was a most beautiful crimson silk and a ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... The school, a beehive. 2. The body, a steam engine. 3. Two generals about whom you have read. 4. Girls, boys. 5. Two of your studies. 6. Graded school work, high school work. 7. Animal life, plant life. 8. Two of ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... felt kinder sorry for the delay too, for I know'd we should make a poor journey on't, on account of that lawyer critter's gig, that hadn't no more busness on that rough track than a steam engine had. But I see'd the Judge wanted me to stay company, and help him along, and so I did. He was fond of a joke, was the old ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... wheels; others more modern, which had awaited for years the call to action, were scattered over the ground. The great iron guns were oxidized, as were the gun-carriages; the long-range cannons, painted red, and sunken in the herbage, resembled exhaust pipes of a steam engine. Neglect and the rust of disuse were aging these modern pieces. The traditional, monotonous atmosphere which, according to Febrer, enveloped the island, seemed to weigh upon these instruments of war, old ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... honor those Who best deserve their gratitude, The King, His Ministers, and many of the Nobles And Commoners of the Realm, Raised this Monument to James Watt, Who, directing the force of an original Genius, Early exercised in philosophic research, To the improvement of The Steam Engine, Enlarged the resources of his Country, Increased the power of man, and rose to an eminent place Among the most illustrious followers of Science And the real benefactors of the World. Born at Greenock, MDCCXXXVI, Died at ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... a length sufficient to make a gun barrel is cut off by a pair of steam-moved shears, of which the lower jaw is stationary and the upper weighs a ton, of which plenty of examples may be seen in every steam engine factory. ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... follow the decisions of a majority which, by the influence of ambitious aspirants for the lead, was continually becoming more aggressive. In constitutional countries, defections to the minority are a steady check upon an aggressive majority; but the southern majority was a steam engine without a safety valve. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... with Dartmouth of late years is Newcomen, the inventor of the steam engine. He carried on business in the town as an ironmonger. All honour is due to his memory, although others perfected the ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... degree; its banking a model of efficiency and public usefulness; its roads equal to the best roads in England or in Europe. The people are active and energetic, alike in education, in trade, in manufactures, in construction, in invention. Watt's invention of the steam engine, and Symington's invention of the steam-boat, proved a source of wealth and power, not only to their own country, but to the world at large; while Telford, by his roads, bound England and Scotland, before separated, firmly into one, and rendered the union a source of ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... animal is a piece of mechanism, the moving power of which is the vital principle, which like fire to the steam engine sets the whole in motion; but whatever quantity of fire or vital energy may be applied, neither the animal machine nor the engine will work with regularity and effect, unless the individual parts of which the machine is composed are properly adjusted and fitted for the purposes for which ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... briquettes have a cross-section similar to an ellipse with the ends slightly cut off; they are about 1 in. thick and average about 1 lb. in weight (Fig. 2, Plate XX). The press is operated by a direct connection with a steam engine of 150 h.p., the base of which is continuous with that of the press. The exhaust steam from the engine is used to heat ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... Squire had driven to the village six miles away, to get a load of hothouse glass. While we stood pondering that bit of puzzling information, a third hired man drove into the yard on a heavy wagon drawn by a span of work horses. On the wagon was the old fire box and the boiler of a stationary steam engine that we had had for some time in the shook shop a mile ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... being exposed to a vacuum, the water evaporates quickly, with no greater heat than that of a little steam, which is introduced round the boiler. The air-pump is of course of large dimensions, and is worked by a steam engine. A great saving is thus obtained, and a striking instance afforded of the power of science in suggesting ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... towered three enormous reservoirs for water, huge cylinders of zinc strongly made, and in the rear was the drying room, an apartment with a very high ceiling and surrounded by blinds through which the air passed. On the right of the reservoirs a steam engine let off regular puffs of white smoke. Gervaise, habituated apparently to puddles, did not lift her skirts but threaded her way through the part of eau de Javelle which encumbered the doorway. She knew the mistress of the establishment, a delicate woman ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... experience of all persons in civilized communities to-day is intimately associated with industrial processes and results. These in turn are so many cases of science in action. The stationary and traction steam engine, gasoline engine, automobile, telegraph and telephone, the electric motor enter directly into the lives of most individuals. Pupils at an early age are practically acquainted with these things. Not only ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... 1833 used a mixture of combustible gas and air, which operated like steam in a steam engine. This engine had a water-jacket, centrifugal governor, and flame ignition. In 1838 Barnett applied the principle of compression to a single-acting engine. He also employed a gas and air pump, which were placed respectively on either side of the engine ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... of distinct metals,—such, for example, as cast-iron, and cast and bar steel; the various qualities of iron enabling it to be used for purposes so opposite as a steel pen and a railroad, the needle of a mariner's compass and an Armstrong gun, a surgeon's lancet and a steam engine, the mainspring of a watch and an iron ship, a pair of scissors and a Nasmyth hammer, a lady's earrings and a ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... such that a man could travel only a short distance in a day. He must go either by a vehicle drawn by horses or oxen, or afoot; and when he would cross the sea he must go in a sailboat that made little progress. In 1831 the first locomotive steam engine was invented. Such wonderful progress has been made in this regard that now one can travel through almost any part of the earth at a rapid rate upon a railway train. Later came the electric engines and electric motor cars and gas engines; and ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... time he went on thinking and thinking; and when he became a man, he improved the steam engine so much that it could, with the greatest ease, do the work of many horses. 6. When you see a steamboat, a steam mill, or a locomotive, remember that it would never have been built if it had not been for the hard thinking of some one. 7. A man named Galileo was once standing in the cathedral ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... pointed out by Bonenberger, it was employed by Captain Kater as the foundation of a most convenient practical method of determining the length of the pendulum.—The interval which separated the discovery, by Dr. Black, of latent heat, from the beautiful and successful application of it to the steam engine, was comparatively short; but it required the efforts of two minds; and both were of the highest order.—The influence of electricity in producing decompositions, although of inestimable value as an instrument of discovery in chemical inquiries, can hardly ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... ministers, and many of the nobles And commoners of the realm Raised this monument to JAMES WATT, Who, directing the force of an original genius, Early exercised in philosophic research, To the improvement of the Steam Engine, Enlarged the resources of his country, Increased the power of man, And rose to eminent place Among the most illustrious followers of science, And the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... that cowpeas gather nitrogen from the air: a man may harness this scientific truth, use it and set it to work, and get results, profits, power, from it, as surely as from a harnessed horse or steam engine. And so with every other useful bit of knowledge under heaven. ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... ingenious," said Vizard; "but it does not account for this fellow. He is not an antediluvian; he is a barefaced modern, for he is A STEAM ENGINE." ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the steam engine and the electric telegraph spend their lives in trying to replace ...
— Maxims for Revolutionists • George Bernard Shaw
... and diversified applications of the steam engine were most ably enforced in the speeches made at a public meeting held (June 1824) for the purpose of proposing the erection of a monument to the memory of James Watt; these ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... observed or seen represented in pictures. Each part of the machinery in turn becomes the center of a set of comparisons leading from the concrete object in question to the general notion of the class to which it belongs. For example, the steam engine in a mill is typical of all stationary engines used for driving machinery. But the parts of the engine are also typical of similar parts in other engines and machines, as the drive-wheel, ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... informed that the accent in blank verse ought properly to rest upon every second syllable throughout the whole line. A little variety must, he admits, be allowed to avoid satiety; but all lines which do not go in the steady jog-trot of alternate beats as regularly as the piston of a steam engine, are more or less defective. This simple-minded system naturally makes wild work with the poetry of the 'mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies.' Milton's harsh cadences are indeed excused on the odd ground that he who was 'vindicating the ways of God to man' might have been condemned for ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... light, electricity, or what not, is equally beyond creation or annihilation, however elusively it may glide from phase to phase and vanish from view. In the mastery of Flame for the superseding of muscle, of breeze and waterfall, the chief credit rests with James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine. Beside him stands George Stephenson, who devised the locomotive which by abridging space has lengthened life and added to its highest pleasures. Our volume closes by narrating the competition which decided that Stephenson's "Rocket" was much superior to its rivals, and thus opened a new chapter ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... continent has seen it in idea before he sees it in reality. If Shakespeare was an inspired man, so was Newton, so was Columbus, so was Lord Bacon, so was Faust when he discovered printing, Watt when he improved the steam engine, and Daguerre when he found out photographic pictures; for, in all great discoveries and inventions, and in small ones too, the original idea is an inspiration, though it has to be worked out mechanically by ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... at this moment is Tamoszius Kuszleika. The old fiddle squeaks and shrieks in protest, but Tamoszius has no mercy. The sweat starts out on his forehead, and he bends over like a cyclist on the last lap of a race. His body shakes and throbs like a runaway steam engine, and the ear cannot follow the flying showers of notes—there is a pale blue mist where you look to see his bowing arm. With a most wonderful rush he comes to the end of the tune, and flings up his hands and staggers back exhausted; and with a final ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the tree was ready for its fall. It slowly swayed, and then with a rush bore the yelling man downward. He landed, as had been planned, in a great bank of snow, from which he was speedily rescued, spluttering and puffing like a steam engine. But he had been taught a lesson, the effect of which was not ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... difficult to believe, although positively true, that so great an act of vandalism could have been perpetrated, even in a Government office. It is true that no demand existed for some of them, but it is equally true that in numerous cases, especially in the early specifications of the steam engine and printing machine, the want of them has caused great disappointment. To add a climax to the story, many of the "pulped" specifications have had to be reprinted more than once since ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... your heart pumps so much more blood up inside your body," explained Daddy Blake. "Our blood is just the same to our bodies as coal is to a steam engine. The more coal the fireman puts under the boiler (that is if it all burn well, and there is a good draft) the hotter the fire is, and the more steam there ...
— Daddy Takes Us Skating • Howard R. Garis
... enables him, in his sphere, to control the very forces whose action is limited by laws. The superiority of man is shown in his control of the powers of nature, and making them obey his will. All such inventions as the steam engine or the electric telegraph lift man above certain physical laws, by enabling him to control the forces with which those laws ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... feature (speaking materially) of the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century, when it takes its place with the other centuries in the chronological charts of the future, will, if it needs a symbol, almost inevitably have as that symbol a steam engine running upon a railway. This period covers the first experiments, the first great developments, and the complete elaboration of that mode of transit, and the determination of nearly all the broad features of this century's history may be traced directly ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... pass, from the prisons, to Mr. Norris's great steam engine, and especially locomotive engine works, which Michel Chevalier had told me to be sure to go and see; and most interesting, truly, they were. Great improvements in the construction of locomotives originated in these works. Mr. Norris had also had a very ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... cramped by man, and priest-ridden, have been brought across the ocean into republican America. They have been placed in this seemingly unpropitious Salt Lake country. There they have founded a city; they have erected factories and mills. The steam engine, the plow, and the sewing machine have aided them; and now, in place of a company of barbarous peasants, ignorant and benighted, and steeped in poverty, you find them transformed into energetic, intelligent citizens, surrounded with comforts ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn |
