Pumping Engines for Water Works (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Pumping Engines for Water Works<br><br>This, accompanied by the touchstone of personal experience, will, it is hoped, make a strong appeal to human interest.<br><br>Those about to take up or to extend the study of steam engines, pumps, and pumping engines, are often discouraged at the very start from approaching the matter as closely as they desire, by the complicated character of the opening pages of a great many of the text books; and, although natural laws and their principles and effects must be necessarily wrestled with to a very serious extent by the student at school, and others later, by way of substantial foundation for after life, it seems as though there might be a small space available for a book which deals with the subject in a somewhat primitive manner, in plain every-day words, without taking too much knowledge for granted upon the part of the reader, and with the almost total absence of mathematical details. If the student or the layman hesitates at the smaller books, some of which are really too brief upon important points and often assume too much knowledge of principles and details upon the part of the reader, then it may be imagined with what thoughts and feelings the beginner or the seeker after knowledge approaches the larger books, which go so thoroughly into minute details. Besides all this, even a person of experience likes to see something in print which clearly and unmistakably coincides with his own views. It makes him feel that he is not mistaken in his own course and ideas, which is more or less assuring to anyone.<br><br>In the following pages it has been considered best to commence at once, after a few words of introductory character and of historical interest, with a description of the highest attainments of pumping engines and a comparison between the nearest practicable approach as shown by the Mariotte curve, to theoretical lines in steam expansion, and the actual practice of building and operating such machinery upon a large scale.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.