Inventions in the Century

It also having been discovered that the fall of a column of water in a tube would cause a portion of it to rise higher than its source by reason of the force of momentum, a machine was devised by which successive impulses of this force were used, in combination with atmospheric pressure, to raise a portion of the water at each impulse. This was the well-known ram, and the first inventor of such a machine was John Whitehurst of Cheapside, England, who constructed one in 1772. From a reservoir, spring, or cistern of water, the water was discharged downward into a long pipe of small diameter, and from thence into a shorter pipe governed by a stop-cock. On the opening of the stop-cock the water was given a quick momentum, and on closing the cock water was forced by the continuing momentum through another pipe into an air chamber. A valve in the latter-mentioned pipe opened into the air chamber. The air pressure served to overcome the momentum and to close the chamber and at the same time forced the water received into the air chamber up an adjacent pipe. Another impulse was obtained and another injection of water into the chamber by again opening the stop-cock, and thus by successive impulses water was forced into the chamber and pressed by the air up through the discharge pipe and thence through a building or other receptacle. But the fact that the stop-valve had to be opened and closed by hand to obtain the desired number of lifts rendered the machine ineffective.

In 1796 Montgolfier, a Frenchman and one of the inventors of the balloon, substituted for the stop-cock of the Whitehurst machine a loose impulse valve in the waste pipe, whereby the valve was raised by the rush of the water, made to set itself, check the outflow and turn the current into the air chamber. This simple alteration changed the character of the machine entirely, rendered it automatic in action and converted it into a highly successful water-raising machine. For this invention Montgolfier obtained a Gold Medal from the French Exposition of 1802. Where a head can be had from four to six feet, water can be raised to the height of 30 feet. Bodies of water greater in amount than is desired to be raised can thus be utilised, and this simple machine has come into very extensive use during the present century.

Allusion was made in the last chapter to the powerful hydraulic press of Joseph Bramah invented in 1795-1800, its practical introduction in this century and improvements therein of others. After the great improvements in the steam engine made by Watt, water, steam and air pressure joined their forces on the threshold of this century to lift and move the world, as it had never been moved before.

The strong hands of hydraulics are pumps. They are divided into classes by names indicating their purpose and mode of operation, such as single, double-acting, lift or force, reciprocating or rotary, etc.

Knight, in his celebrated Mechanical Dictionary, enumerates 100 differently constructed pumps connected with the various arts. In a broader enumeration, under the head of Hydraulic Engineering and Engineering Devices, he gives a list of over 600 species. The number has since increased. About nine-tenths of these contrivances have been invented during the 19th century, although the philosophical principles of the operation of most of them had been previously discovered.

The important epochs in the invention of pumps, ending with the 18th century, were thus the single-acting pump of Ctesibius, 225 B. C., the double-acting of La Hire in 1718, the hydraulic ram of Whitehurst, 1772, and the hydraulic press of Bramah of 1795-1802.

Bramah's press illustrates how the theories of one age often lie dormant, but if true become the practices of a succeeding age. Pascal, 150 years before Bramah's time, had written this seeming hydraulic paradox: "If a vessel closed on all sides has two openings, the one a hundred times as large as the other, and if each be supplied with a piston which fits it exactly, then a man pushing the small piston will equilibrate that of 100 men pushing the piston which is 100 times as large, and will overcome the other 99." This is the law of the hydraulic press, that intensity of pressure is everywhere the same.

The next important epoch was the invention of Forneyron in 1823, of the water-wheel known as the Turbine and also as the Vortex Wheel. If we will return a moment to the little steam engine of the ancient Hero of Alexandria, called the Eolipile, it will be remembered that the steam admitted into a pivoted vessel and out of it through little opposite pipes, having bent exits turned in contrary directions, caused the vessel to rotate by reason of the reaction of the steam against the pipes. In what is called Barker's mill, brought out in the 18th century, substantially the same form of engine is seen with water substituted for the steam.

A turbine is a wheel usually placed horizontally to the water. The wheel is provided with curved internal buckets against which the water is led by outer curved passages, the guides and the buckets both curved in such manner that the water shall enter the wheel as nearly as possible without shock, and leave it with the least possible velocity, thereby utilising the greatest possible amount of energy.

In the chapter on Electrical inventions reference is made to the mighty power of Niagara used to actuate a great number of electrical and other machines of vast power. This utilisation had long been the dream of engineers. Sir William Siemens had said that the power of all the coal raised in the world would barely represent the power of Niagara. The dream has been realised, and the turbine is the apparatus through which the power of the harnessed giant is transmitted. A canal is dug from the river a mile above the falls. It conducts water to a power house near the falls. At the power house the canal is furnished with a gate, and with cribs to keep back the obstructions, such as sticks. At the gate is placed a vertical iron tube called a penstock, 7½ feet in diameter and 160 feet deep. At the bottom of the penstock is placed a turbine wheel fixed on a shaft, and to which shaft is connected an electric generator or other power machine. On opening the gate a mass of water 7½ feet in diameter falls upon the turbine wheel 160 feet below. The water rushing through the wheel turns it and its shaft many hundred revolutions a minute. All the machinery is of enormous power and dimensions. One electric generator there is 11 feet 7 inches in diameter and spins around at the rate of 250 revolutions a minute. Means are provided by which the speed of each wheel is regulated automatically. Each turbine in a penstock represents the power of 5,000 horses, and there are now ten or more employed.

After the water has done its work on the wheels it falls into a tunnel and is carried back to the river below the falls. Not only are the manufactures of various kinds of a large town at the falls thus supplied with power, but electric power is transmitted to distant towns and cities.

Turbine pumps of the Forneyron type have an outward flow; but another form, invented also by a Frenchman, Jonval, has a downward discharge, and others are oblique, double, combined turbine, rotary, and centrifugal, embodying similar principles. The term rotary, broadly speaking, includes turbine and centrifugal pumps. The centrifugal pump, invented by Euler in 1754, was taken up in the nineteenth century and greatly improved.

In the centrifugal pump of the ordinary form the water is received at the centre of the wheel and diverted and carried out in an upward direction, but in most of its modern forms derived from the turbine, the principle is adopted of so shaping the vanes that the water, striking them in the curved direction, shall not have its line of curvature suddenly changed.

Among modern inventions of this class of pumps was the "Massachusetts" of 1818 and McCarty's, in 1830, of America, that of some contemporary French engineers, and subsequently in France the Appold system, which latter was brought into prominent notice at the London Exposition of 1851. Improvements of great value were also made by Prof. James Thompson of England.

Centrifugal pumps have been used with great success in lifting large bodies of water to a moderate height, and for draining marshes and other low lands.

Holland, Germany, France, England and America have, through some of their ablest hydraulic engineers and inventors, produced most remarkable results in these various forms of pumps. We have noted what has been done at Niagara with the turbines; and the drainage of the marshes of Italy, the lowlands of Holland, the fens of England and the swamps of Florida bear evidence of the value of kindred inventions.

That modern form of pump known as the injector, has many uses in the arts and manufactures. One of its most useful functions is to automatically supply steam boilers with water, and regulate the supply. It was the invention of Giffard, patented in England in 1858, and consists of a steam pipe leading from the boiler and having its nozzle projecting into an annular space which communicates with a feed pipe from a water supply. A jet of steam is discharged with force into this space, producing a vacuum, into which the water from the feed pipe rushes, and the condensed steam and water are driven by the momentum of the jet into a pipe leading into the boiler. This exceedingly useful apparatus has been improved and universally used wherever steam boilers are found. This idea of injecting a stream of steam or water to create or increase the flow of another stream has been applied in intensifiers, to increase the pressure of water in hydraulic mains, pipes, and machines, by additional pressure energy. Thus the water from an ordinary main may be given such an increased pressure that a jet from a hydrant may be carried to the tops of high houses.

In connection with pumping it may be said that a great deal has been discovered and invented during this century concerning the force and utilisation of jets of water and the force of water flowing through orifices. In the art of mining, a new system called hydraulicising has been introduced, by which jets of water at high pressure have been directed against banks and hills, which have crumbled, been washed away, and made to reveal any precious ore they have concealed.

To assist this operation flexible nozzles have been invented which permit the stream to be easily turned in any desired direction.

Returning to the idea of raising weights by hydraulic pressure, mention must be made of the recent invention of the hydraulic jack, a portable machine for raising loads, and which has displaced the older and less efficient screw jack. As an example of the practical utility of the hydraulic jack, about a half century ago it required the aid of 480 men working at capstans to raise the Luxor Obelisk in Paris, whilst within 30 years thereafter Cleopatra's Needle, a heavier monument, was raised to its present position on the Thames embankment by four men each working one hydraulic jack.

By the high pressures, or stresses given by the hydraulic press it was learned that cold metals have plasticity and can be moulded or stretched like other plastic bodies. Thus in one modification a machine is had for making lead pipes: – A "container" is filled with molten lead and then allowed to cool. The container is then forced by the pump against an elongated die of the size of the pipe required. A pressure from one to two tons per square inch is exerted, the lead is forced up through the die, and the pipe comes out completed. Wrought iron and cold steel can be forced like wax into different forms, and a rod of steel may be drawn through a die to form a piano wire.

By another modification of the hydraulic press pipes and cables are covered with a coating of lead to prevent deterioration from rust and other causes.

Not only are cotton and other bulky materials pressed into small compass by hydraulic machines, but very valuable oils are pressed from cotton seed and from other materials – the seed being first softened, then made into cakes, and the cakes pressed.

If it is desired to line tunnels or other channels with a metal lining, shield or casing, large segments of iron to compose the casing are put in position, and as fast as the tunnel is excavated the casing is pressed forward, and when the digging is done the cast-iron tunnel is complete.

If the iron hoops on great casks are to be tightened the cask is set on the plate of a hydraulic press, the hoops connected to a series of steel arms projecting from an overhanging support, and the cask is pressed upward until the proper degree of tightness is secured.

In the application of hydraulic power to machine tools great advances have been made. It has become a system, in which Tweddle of England was a pioneer. The great force of water pressure combined with comparatively slow motion constitutes the basis of the system. Sir William Fairbairn had done with steam what Tweddle and others accomplished with water. Thus the enormous force of men and the fearful clatter formerly displayed in these huge works where the riveting of boilers was carried on can now be dispensed with, and in place of the noisy hammer with its ceaseless blows has come the steam or the hydraulic riveting machine, which noiselessly drives the rivet through any thickness of metal, clinches the same, and smooths the jointed plate. The forging and the rolling of the plates are performed by the same means.

William George Armstrong of England, afterward Sir William, first a lawyer, but with the strongest bearing toward mechanical subjects, performed a great work in the advancement of hydraulic engineering. It is claimed that he did for hydraulic machinery, in the storage and transmission of power thereby, what Watt did for the steam engine and Bessemer did for steel. In 1838 he produced his first invention, an important improvement in the hydraulic engine. In 1840, in a letter to the Mechanics' Magazine, he calls attention to the advantages of water as a mechanical agent and a reservoir of power, and showed how water pumped to an elevated reservoir by a steam engine might have the potential energy thus stored utilised in many advantageous ways. How, for instance, a small engine pumping continuously could thus supply many large engines working intermittently. In illustration of this idea he invented a crane, which was erected on Newcastle quay in 1846; another was constructed on the Albert dock at Liverpool, and others at other places. These cranes, adapted for the lifting and carrying of enormous loads, were worked by hydraulic pressure obtained from elevated tanks or reservoirs, as above indicated. But as a substitute for such tanks or reservoirs he invented the Accumulator. This consists of a large cast-iron cylinder fitted with a plunger, which is made to work water-tight therein by means of suitable packing. To this plunger is attached a weighted case filled with one or many tons of metal or other coarse material. Water is pumped into the cylinder until the plunger is raised to its full height within the cylinder, when the supply of water is cut off by the automatic operation of a valve. When the cranes or other apparatus to be worked thereby are in operation, water is passed from the cylinder through a small pipe which actuates the crane through hydraulic pressure. This pressure of course depends upon the weight of the plunger. Thus a pressure of from 500 to 1,000 pounds per square inch may be obtained. The descending plunger maintains a constant pressure upon the water, and the water is only pumped into the cylinder when it is required to be filled. With sensitive accumulators of this character hydraulic machinery is much used on board ships for steering them, and for loading, discharging and storing cargoes.

Water Pressure Engines or Water Motors of a great variety as to useful details have been invented to take advantage of a natural head of water from falls wherever it exists, or from artificial accumulators or from street mains. They resemble steam engines, in that the water under pressure drives a piston in a cylinder somewhat in the manner of steam. The underlying principle of this class of machinery is the admission of water under pressure to a cylinder which moves the piston and is allowed to escape on the completion of the stroke. They are divided into two great classes, single and double acting engines, accordingly as the water is admitted to one side of the piston only, or to both sides alternately. Both kinds are provided with a regulator in the form of a turn-cock, weight, or spring valve to regulate and control the flow of water and to make it continuous. They are used for furnishing a limited amount of power for working small printing presses, dental engines, organs, sewing machines, and for many other purposes where a light motor is desired.

The nineteenth century has seen a revolution in baths and accompanying closets. However useful, luxurious, and magnificent may have been the patrician baths of ancient Rome, that system, which modern investigators have found to be so complete to a certain extent, was not nor ever has been in the possession of the poor. It is within the memory of many now living everywhere how wretched was the sanitary accommodations in every populous place a generation or two ago. Now, with the modern water distribution systems and cheap bathing apparatuses which can be brought to the homes of all, with plunger, valved siphon and valved and washout closets, air valve, liquid seal, pipe inlet, and valve seal traps, and with the flushing and other hydraulic cleaning systems for drains and cesspools, little excuse can be had for want of proper sanitary regulations in any intelligent community. The result of the adoption of these modern improvements in this direction on the health of the people has been to banish plagues, curtail epidemics, and prolong for years the average duration of human life.

How multiplied are the uses to which water is put, and how completely it is being subjected to the use of man!

Rivers and pipes have their metres, so that now the velocity and volume of rivers and streams are measured and controlled, and floods prevented. The supplies for cities and for families are estimated, measured and recorded as easily as are the supplies of illuminating gas, or the flow of food from elevators.

Among the minor, but very useful inventions, are water scoops for picking up water for a train while in motion, consisting of a curved open pipe on a car, the mouth of which strikes a current of water in an open trough between the tracks and picks up and deposits in a minute a car load of water for the engine. Nozzles to emit jets of great velocity, and ball nozzles terminating in a cup in which a ball is loosely seated, and which has the effect, as it is lifted by the jet, to spread it into an umbrella-shaped spray, are of great value at fires in quenching flame and smoke.

Next to pure air to breathe we need pure water to drink, and modern discoveries and inventions have done and are doing much to help us to both. Pasteur and others have discovered and explained the germ theory of disease and to what extent it is due to impure water. Inventors have produced filters, and there is a large class of that character which render the water pure as it enters the dwelling, and fit for all domestic purposes. A specimen of the latter class is one which is attached to the main service pipe as it enters from the street. The water is first led into a cylinder stored with coarse filtering material which clears the water of mud, sediment and coarser impurities, and then is conducted into a second cylinder provided with a mass of fine grained or powdered charcoal, or some other material which has the quality of not only arresting all remaining injurious ingredients, but destroys organisms, neutralises ammonia and other deleterious matter. From thence the water is returned to the service pipe and distributed through the house. The filter may be thoroughly cleansed by reversing the movement of the water, and carrying it off through a drain pipe until it runs clear and sweet, whereupon the water is turned in its normal course through the filter and house.

In a very recent report of General J. M. Wilson, Chief of Engineers, U.S.A., the subject of filtration of water, and especially of public water supplies in England, the United States, and on the Continent, is very thoroughly treated, and the conclusion arrived at there is that the system termed "the American," or mechanical system, is the most successful one.

This consists, first, in leading the water into one or more reservoirs, then coagulating suspended matter in the water by the use of the sulphate of alumina, and then allowing the water to flow through a body of coarse sand, by which the coagulated aluminated matter is caught and held in the interstices of the sand, and the bacteria arrested. All objectionable matter is thus arrested by the surface portion of the sand body, which portion is from time to time scraped off, and the whole sand mass occasionally washed out by upward currents of water forced through the same.

By this system great rapidity of filtration is obtained, the rate being 120,000,000 gallons a day per acre.

The English system consists more in the use of extended and successive reservoirs or beds of sand alone, or aided by the use of the sulphate. This also is extensively used in many large cities.