Archimedes ships steam engine7/7/2023 ![]() ![]() Stevens, a son of John, started with Captain Bunker to make the passage by sea.Īlthough meeting a gale of wind, he arrived at Philadelphia safely, having been the first to trust himself on the open sea in a vessel relying entirely upon steam-power.ĩ5. ![]() The Phœnix, shut out of the waters of the State of New York by the monopoly held by Fulton and Livingston, was placed for a time on a route between Hoboken and New Brunswick and then, anticipating a better pecuniary return, it was concluded to send her to Philadelphia to ply on the Delaware.Īt that time, no canal offered the opportunity to make an inland passage, and, in June, 1808, Robert L. This boat was sufficiently successful to indicate the probability of making steam-navigation a commercial success, and Stevens, assisted by his sons, built a boat which he named the Phœnix, and made the first trial in 1807, just too late to anticipate Fulton. 56 ), the latter being another instance of his use of a device brought forward long afterward as new, and since frequently adopted. The sectional steam-boiler only just becoming a standard type high-pressure steam with condensation has just become generally adopted the screw only came in use forty years later, when Ericsson, Smith, and Woodcroft, came forward with it, and twin-screwsīuilt another one, using the same engine as before, but employing a larger boiler, and propelling the vessel by twin-screws (Fig. This great engineer and inventor was therefore far in advance of his time. This was probably the earliest embodiment of the now well-established "Monitor" principle. As each gun was brought into line of fire it was discharged, and was then reloaded before coming around again. A set of screw-propellers driven by steam-engines and situated beneath the vessel, where they were safe against injury by shot, were so arranged as to permit the vessel to be rapidly revolved about its centre. This vessel was secured to a swivel, and was anchored in the channel to be defended. It consisted of a saucer-shaped hull, carrying a heavy battery and plated with iron of ample thickness to resist the shot fired from the heaviest ordnance then known. We have, in this strikingly original combination, as good evidence of the existence of unusual engineering talent, in this fellow-countryman of ours, as we found of his political and statesman-like ability in those efforts to forward the introduction of railways already described.Ĭolonel Stevens designed a peculiar form of iron-clad in the year 1812, which has been since reproduced by no less distinguished and successful an engineer than the late John Elder, of Glasgow, Scotland. The use of such a boiler seventy years ago is even more remarkable than the adoption of the screw-propeller in such excellent proportions thirty years before the labors of Smith and of Ericsson brought the screw into general use. The whole is a most remarkable piece of early engineering. ![]() The hub and one blade of this screw are still preserved. 55) was a direct-acting, high-pressure condensing engine of ten inches diameter of cylinder, two feet stroke of piston, and drove a screw of four blades, and of a form which, even to-day, appears quite good. In another form, as applied to a locomotive in 1825, the tubes were set vertically in a double circle surrounding the fire. The furnace-gases passed among the tubes, down under the body of the boiler, up among the opposite set of tubes, and thence to the smoke-pipe. The fire was built at one end, in a furnace inclosed in this jacket. The whole of the lower portion was inclosed in a jacket of iron lined with non-conducting material. It consists of two sets of tubes, closed at one end by solid plugs, and at their opposite extremities screwed into a stayed water and steam reservoir, which was strengthened by hoops. Inch, at a time when the usual pressures were from four to seven pounds.
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