That the small and very imperfect air engines
in use on the system give an efficiency of 50 per cent., while with
ordinary steam engines driven by air an efficiency of 80 per cent. can
be reached with a very small expenditure of fuel for heating the air
before admitting it into the motor. That special attention should be
given to the improvement of air engines, and that with increased
initial pressures at the central station the distance of the
transmission can be very considerably augmented. Finally, Professor
Riedler claims that power can be transmitted by compressed air more
conveniently and more economically than by any other means.
* * * * *
[Continued from SUPPLEMENT, No. 802, page 12810.]
THE BUILDERS OF THE STEAM ENGINE--THE FOUNDERS OF MODERN INDUSTRIES
AND NATIONS.[1]
[Footnote 1: An address delivered at the Centennial Celebration of the
American Patent System, Washington, April, 1891.]
By Dr. R.H. THURSTON, Director of Sibley College, Cornell University.
Papin, Worcester, Savery, were the authors of the period of
application of the power of steam to useful work in our later days.
The world was, in their time, just waking into a new life under the
stimulus of a new freedom that, from the time of Shakespeare, of
Newton, and of Gilbert, the physicist, has steadily become wider,
higher, and more fruitful year by year.
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