Rudimentary Treatise On The Construction Of Cranes And Machinery: For Raising Heavy Bodies, For The Erection Of Buildings, And For Hoisting Goods

PREFACE. Some of the most pleasant days of the Authors early life were passed on a small, but picturesque estate belonging to his family, on which were three corn mills-one driven by wind, and two by water. To his youthful associations with these and their tenants may in part be owed his attachment to mechanical pursuits. Subsequently his father was induced, as an investment, to build, on other property, a flom-mill driven by steam, to which, during its erection, he was a daily visitor. In after life his professional employment as a civil engineer frequently involved the construction of waterwheels, many of them on a large scale, for drainage and irrigation, and for motive power, besides hydraulic works of various kinds. Few persons have had occasion to use the steamengine more extensively, and he is fully sensible of its great value and importance as a prine mover for machinery yet he has often felt that water-power has been unduly superseded or neglected when it might hare been usefully employed there are many places where fuel is scarce, where water abounds, and where mechanical power is wanted, but much expense cannot be afforded and if motive power be used at all, it must be obtained at light cost. In such circumstanc are some of the colonies, and many parts of Ireland there water-power must precede the steam-engine and be the pioneer to manufacturing industry. He has often contemplated writing some short and popular work on this subject, whenever an opportunity might present itself this has now occurred in the publication of a series of rudimentary books by Mr. Weale and having already written one of these, a Rudimentary Treatise on Cranes, which has circulated very extensively, and been translated into several foreign languages, he has been induced to devote such intervals of leisure as he could obtain to the production of the present volume. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. 0s m k Usx O F MII LSTONB TO S GRWD C orn, L T TB B EMPLO O Y F T W ATEE m A MOVZN P C O WER. PAeX JLere Toil generally shunned by Mankind . 1 Use of Millstones amongst the Jews and Romane . 2 Description of ancient Roman Mill . 2 Use of Horizontal Water-wheels for driving Con-mills in India 3 The modern Horizontal Water-wheel Fromonts ., . 4 Pompeian Conical Flour-mill . 5 Vertical Water-wheels known to Ancients . . G Used by modern Chinese and Egyptians . 5 Description of Water-wheels on the Euphrates . . 6 Chinese Water-wheel . . 8 CHAPTER 11. Composition of Water . . 10 Its powerful Expansive Force . . 11 Combination with Winee . . . 11 Weight of Water Mode of Estimating it . . . 12 Ite slight Degree of Compressibility . . . . 12 Velocity of Falling Water . . . . 12 Difference between a Falling and Flowing Body . . . 13 Experiments of Rennie, Poncelet, and Lesbroa . . . 14 Re. dta of George Rennies Experiments . . . l6 Of thoee by Poncelet and Lesbros . . 17 Beardm - o res Formula . 18 viii COXTENTS. PAQB Influence of the Form of the Aperture . . . . . 19 Experiments by Mylne . . . 2 0 Blackwells Experiments . . 2 2 CHAPTER IV. THJI SOURCE A S N D SUPPLY O P WATEB I rs DISTRIBUTIO A N N D USE as A MOTIVE POWER. Goneral Outline of Causes regulating the Distribution of Rain . 25 Exemplified by the Rainfall in India, . . . . 26 And in England . . . 26 Influence of the Form of the District and Ground . . 27 Rainfall of Ireland . ...