"Steam engine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that has been the distinctive feature (speaking materially) of the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century, when it takes its place with the other centuries in the chronological charts of the future, will, if it needs a symbol, almost inevitably have as that symbol a steam engine running upon a railway. This period covers the first experiments, the first great developments, and the complete elaboration of that mode of transit, and the determination of nearly all the broad features of this century's history may be ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... that cowpeas gather nitrogen from the air: a man may harness this scientific truth, use it and set it to work, and get results, profits, power, from it, as surely as from a harnessed horse or steam engine. And so with every other useful bit of knowledge under ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... the steam engine, which Watt had just finally improved, removed the first difficulty, and the second was soon to disappear, thanks to a projected canal. An iron foundry was then established there under the patronage of Louis XIV., while the Queen ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... briquettes have a cross-section similar to an ellipse with the ends slightly cut off; they are about 1 in. thick and average about 1 lb. in weight (Fig. 2, Plate XX). The press is operated by a direct connection with a steam engine of 150 h.p., the base of which is continuous with that of the press. The exhaust steam from the engine is used to ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... halves, sopped in gravy, and taken one, two! Corn cakes went into great jaws like coal into a steam engine. Knives in the right hand cut and scooped gravy up. Great, muscular, grimy, but wholesome fellows they were, feeding like ancient Norse, and capable of working like demons. They were deep in the process; half-hidden by steam from the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... certainty, any tool, from the club with which he defends himself against his enemies or cracks the shells of fruit, up to the finest instruments of optics and chemistry, and even to the telegraph and steam engine. The conformity to law, with which the forces of nature act, far from being an impediment to his appointing and reaching his ends is much more the indispensable means by which he is enabled in general to reach ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... and extent to which they have at present reached, till the middle, or rather the latter part of the eighteenth century; then her potteries, her hardware, her woollens, and above all her cotton goods, began to improve. Certainly the steam engine is the grand cause to which England's wealth and commerce may be attributed in a great degree; but the perfection to which it has been brought, the multifarious uses to which it is applied, both presuppose skill, capital, and ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... now and then from the ocean, and darted through the air, their bright scales glittering in the sun. Occasionally a whale spouted forth a jet of vapour and spray with a loud noise like that emitted by the safety valve of a steam engine; while albicores, bonitos; and dolphins, with various other fish, could be seen here and there, sporting and tumbling, as they came to the surface, sending a circle of wavelets extending far and wide ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... comparatively modern times, the development within a few centuries of a new faculty. The Greek never solaced his leisure with the latest tale of a gifted Charicles or Aristarchus, and the grave Roman would have been as much startled by a 'new novel' as by the apparition of a steam engine. The famous Minerva press was the first mighty wellspring whence gushed the broad and rapid torrent of cheap fiction. This perennial fountain has long ceased to flow, yet has its disappearance left no unsatisfied void. The procreation of human kind ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... freezing water by evaporation; that is, the syrup being exposed to a vacuum, the water evaporates quickly, with no greater heat than that of a little steam, which is introduced round the boiler. The air-pump is of course of large dimensions, and is worked by a steam engine. A great saving is thus obtained, and a striking instance afforded of the power of science in suggesting useful ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... Boulton's manufactory of steam engines at Soho. Mr. Boulton showed us everything. The engines, some in action, although beautifully smooth, showed a power that was almost fearful. Since these early forms of the steam engine I have lived to see this all but omnipotent instrument change the locomotion of the whole civilized world by ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... cable, the steam engine, the electric light, the wireless telegraph, the very republic in which we are ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... as has just been stated, food may be considered as anything that the human engine can make over into tissue or use in living and working, not all foods are equally desirable any more than all materials are equally good in the construction of a steam engine and in the production of its working power. Those food substances which are the most wholesome and healthful are the ones to be chosen, but proper choice cannot be made unless the buyer knows of what the particular food consists and ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... ago, did the community, already conscious of the momentous influence the steam engine was exerting upon the social and economic condition of the countryside, but yet to discover the not less remarkable potentialities of the electric or the petrol spark applied to the problems of transport, herald the ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... meeting obstacles. All honor to the men who do not fear obstacles, but push them aside and press on. Stephenson was explaining his idea that a locomotive steam engine could run along a track and draw cars after it. "But suppose a cow gets on the track," some one objected. "So much the worse," said ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... Education. Grand prize Traveling libraries Blanks Statistics Syracuse University, Syracuse. Gold medal College of Fine Arts Drawings, architectural and free hand College of Applied Science Metal work Wood work Model of steam engine Home-made laboratory apparatus University of the State of New York. Grand prize Bulletins Reports Decimal classification Traveling library for the blind Photographs Large pictures Statistical charts Specimens from ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... useful, there is enclosed a seed of beauty; and upon the fructification, growth, and expansion of that seed depends,—aye, absolutely depends,—the development of the practical. But for the expansion of that seed, we should have neither the plough nor the printing-press, neither shoes nor the steam engine. To that we owe silver forks as well as the electric telegraph. In no province of work or human endeavor is improvement made, is improvement possible, but by the action of that noble faculty through which we are uplifted when standing before a masterpiece of Raphael. This ceaseless ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... up the other forms of discourse, the difficulty becomes still greater. Description and narration are frequently used in exposition. If a boy should be asked to explain the working of a steam engine, he would, in all likelihood, begin with a description of an engine. If his purpose was to explain how an engine works, and was not to tell how an engine looks, the whole composition would be exposition. So, too, it is often the easiest way to explain what one means by telling a ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... he whispered the Doll: "I shall run away!" And he galloped out to the street With the curly-headed Doll Baby on his back; And hard at his heels went the Jumping Jack! And the little boy—he never knew, Though the little Steam Engine blew and blew! ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... steam engine, was one of the most industrious of men; and the story of his life proves, what all experience confirms, that it is not the man of the greatest natural vigor and capacity who achieves the highest results, but he who employs his powers with the greatest industry and the most carefully disciplined ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... one back, my lad. Two strings to one's bow arn't enough. Say, Master Lee, you're a clever sort of chap, and make all kinds of 'ventions; can't you set me going with a steam engine thing as 'll make my stones ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... equipment was installed long before wireless telegraphy was a maritime need and a government requirement. Hence, her dynamos protested vigorously against the strain imposed upon them by the radio machine. Any electric engine is unlike any steam engine. Steam engines will do so much work—no more. Dynamos or motors will do so much work—and then more. They can be overloaded, unsparingly. But the strain tells. Stout, dependable parts become hot, ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... thresher, the binder, the sulky plow, an infinite variety of mechanical contrivances to make the labor of the farmer easier, or rather to dispense with a multitude of laborers, and substitute in their places the horse, the mule and the steam engine. In other words, to convert the business of farming from an agricultural pursuit, where the labor of men and women was the chief factor of production, to a mechanical pursuit, in which the chief element ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... England and America during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. These epoch-making inventions were the spinning jenny of Hargreaves, the spinning machine of Arkwright and the mule of Crompton, in combination with the steam engine, which turned, says John Richard Green, "Lancastershire into a hive of industry." And last, though not least in its direct and indirect effects on slavery, was the cotton gin of Eli Whitney, which formed the other ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke
... never hope to take all this in our ship!" said Arcot, looking at the great collection. "Look—there's an old winged airplane! And a steam engine—and that's an electric motor! And that thing looks like some kind of an ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... for the adoption of his locomotive is another noteworthy case in point. People said "he is crazy"; "his roaring steam engine will set the houses on fire with its sparks"; "the smoke will pollute the air"; "the carriage makers and coachmen will starve for want of work." So intense was the opposition, that for three whole days the matter was debated ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... the Aeronautical Society in 1868. It consisted of three superposed surfaces aggregating 28 square feet and a tail of 8 square feet more. The weight was under 12 pounds and it was driven by a central propeller actuated by a steam engine overestimated at one-third of a horsepower. It ran suspended to a wire on its trials but failed of free flight, in consequence of defective equilibrium. This apparatus has since been rebuilt and is now in the National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... of Venice, and Frank sat in rapt attention and interest through it. When the performance was over he walked briskly homewards. When he had proceeded some distance he saw a glare in the sky ahead, and presently a steam engine dashed ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... woman if to-day should be removed from Christian civilization the school, the steam engine, the smokestack and the printing press, and leave but the Scriptures, the steeple and the parson. Would Elizabeth Cady Stantons, Mary A. Livermores and Frances E. Willards be the products of this strictly ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the manufactory of electric energy. I gaze in at the windows as I pass and notice that it contains machines of the latest invention and highest attained perfection, which take up little space. Not one steam engine, with its more or less complicated mechanism and need of fuel, is to be seen in the place. As I had surmised, piles of extraordinary power supply the current to the lamps in the cavern, as well as to the dynamos of the tug. No doubt the current ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... applications of rubber, that of packing for the steam engine and connecting machinery appears to have been the most important, as it has been an essential condition of the development and extended use of steam as a ...
— The Romance of Rubber • United States Rubber Company
... metals,—such, for example, as cast-iron, and cast and bar steel; the various qualities of iron enabling it to be used for purposes so opposite as a steel pen and a railroad, the needle of a mariner's compass and an Armstrong gun, a surgeon's lancet and a steam engine, the mainspring of a watch and an iron ship, a pair of scissors and a Nasmyth hammer, a lady's earrings and a ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... machinery requires an occasional relaxation, as much as the steam engine does the application of oil to its divers springs; and, after a bona fide slumber, we rise with a freshness equal to that of flowers in the best regulated flower-pots. But dozing must not be confounded with legitimate sleep, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... A sound, as sustained as that which is emitted by the whistle of a steam engine, and much stronger, echoed far over courtyard, garden, and wood, miles away into the country; and simultaneously with the tone came a rushing wind that roared, "Everything in its right place!" And papa flew as if carried by the wind straight out of the hall ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... and fitness may be discovered by experience. I know a man who, from childhood, took pleasure in construction and invention. At the age of nine he made a real steam engine which "could go" with steam, and which was small enough to be carried in his pocket. He was encouraged to follow the providential indication, went through all the drudgery of workshops, and is ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... a great deal towards improving the country. He wanted canals to be cut. And as the steam engine had just been discovered, he was eager to have railroads and bridges. But Congress ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... I was," came the answer. "I saw you just in time. 'Tisn't often that an auto has to come to the help of a steam engine, but it happened this time," he ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... often, patient as it is, flamed out into occasional leonine wrath. It really does not like fighting. That performance interferes with its proper business. It takes to the ploughshare more kindly than to the sabre, and likes to manage a steam engine better than a six-gun battery. But if imbeciles and scoundrels will get in its way, and will mar its pet labors, then, heaven help them! The patient blood blazes into lava, fire, the big muscles strain over the black cannon, the brawny arm ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the Bluebird was driven along through the water by a small engine. It was not a steam engine, such as are found in many boats, but a gasoline one, such as those ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... steamboat.—But while Fulton was doing these things with his diving-boat, he was always thinking of the paddle-wheel scow he used to fish in when a boy. I turned those paddle-wheels by a crank, said he, but what is to hinder my putting a steam engine into such a boat, and making it turn the crank for me? that would be a steamboat. Such boats had already been tried, but, for one reason or another, they had not got on very well. Robert R. Livingston was still in France, and he helped Fulton build his first steamboat. It was put ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... the first practical steam engine about 1710. It was of about five and a half horse power, and was used for pumping water from coal mines. Savery had described such an engine in 1702, but Newcomen improved upon it and ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... necessarily of limited durability. The food and clothing consumed by the labourer, the buildings in which he works, the implements with which his labour is assisted, are all of a perishable value. There is, however, a vast difference in the time for which all these different capitals will endure. A steam engine will last longer than a ship, a ship than the clothing of the labourer, and the clothing of the labourer than the food which he consumes." (Principles of Political Economy, 1817, p. 22.) The last sentence is conclusive in its inclusion under capital ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... Kuszleika. The old fiddle squeaks and shrieks in protest, but Tamoszius has no mercy. The sweat starts out on his forehead, and he bends over like a cyclist on the last lap of a race. His body shakes and throbs like a runaway steam engine, and the ear cannot follow the flying showers of notes—there is a pale blue mist where you look to see his bowing arm. With a most wonderful rush he comes to the end of the tune, and flings up his hands and staggers back exhausted; and with a final shout of delight the dancers ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... traverse kingdoms at a pace equal to that of the fleetest race horse. The Marquess of Worcester had recently observed the expansive power of moisture rarefied by heat. After many experiments he had succeeded in constructing a rude steam engine, which he called a fire water work, and which he pronounced to be an admirable and most forcible instrument of propulsion. [131] But the Marquess was suspected to be a madman, and known to be a Papist. His inventions, therefore ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... left severely alone[3]. The chain which bound provincial China to the metropolitan government was therefore in the last analysis finance and nothing but finance; and if the system broke down in 1911 it was because financial reform—to discount the new forces of which the steam engine was the symbol—had been attempted, like military reform, both too late and in the wrong way, and instead of strengthening, had vastly weakened ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... pumps so much more blood up inside your body," explained Daddy Blake. "Our blood is just the same to our bodies as coal is to a steam engine. The more coal the fireman puts under the boiler (that is if it all burn well, and there is a good draft) the hotter the fire is, and the ...
— Daddy Takes Us Skating • Howard R. Garis
... temper) went out and told his footmen to wear powder henceforth. And in this they obeyed him. And there arose a Lord of the Treasury, saying, 'Let powder be taxed.' And it was so, and the tax was paid, and powder was still worn. And there came the great Reform Bill, and the Steam Engine, and all manner of queer things, but powder did not end, for custom hath many lives. Nor was there an end of those things which the Nobility and Gentry had long since shed from their own persons—as, laced coats and velvet breeches and silk hose; forasmuch ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... antepenultimate ninety-ninth and ninety-eighth inventions, may indeed be justly considered as the wonder of the 'Century,' since, when united with the sixty-eighth, they appear, in Partington's opinion, to suggest all the data essential for the construction of a modern steam engine. The injustice which he encountered during life, seems to have followed Worcester for two centuries after death; for Lord Orford declares that the bill granting the marquis such advantages as his invention might give birth to, was passed on a simple affirmation of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... wooden leg than any creature could be expected to manufacture introspectively and consciously—our mechanical inventions have almost invariably grown up from small beginnings, and without any very distant foresight on the part of the inventors. When Watt perfected the steam engine, he did not, it seems, foresee the locomotive, much less would any one expect a savage to invent a steam engine. A child breathes automatically, because it has learnt to breathe little by little, and has now breathed for an incalculable ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... all gathered upon deck. There was no wind, but the yacht had a steam engine and used her sails only on occasions when they could be of service. Stars shone brightly in the sky overhead, but their light was not sufficient to give an extended view on land or water, and as all were weary with the excitement and sightseeing ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... thin material, like a large hood with a cape, is useful to draw over the bonnet and neck, to keep off dust, sun, and sparks from a steam engine. Green veils are very apt to stain bonnets, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... food slowly, or stewing it gently, saves all its goodness. After the pot once boils you cannot make its contents cook any faster if you have fire enough under it to run a steam engine; so save your fuel, and add it to the fire, little by little, only enough at a time to keep the pot boiling. Remember, if you boil meat hard and fast it will be tough and tasteless, and most of its goodness will go up the chimney, or out of the ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... wonderful about a child. Why did God not rather give some invention or discovery or piece of knowledge that would revolutionize and bless the world? Would he not have done enormously more for mankind if in the first century of our era he had given them the printing press, or the steam engine, or the electric light? May there not yet be waiting for us some invention or knowledge that will work wonders beyond anything we have dreamed and shower material ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... younger Pitt, "the youngest man ever appointed Prime Minister," had never heard of White. But Gilbert does not seem to have heard of him; nor of Hargreaves' spinning jenny, nor of the inventor of the steam engine. "But I can show you some specimens of my new mice," he remarks on March 30, 1768. That was the year in which the great Pitt resigned. His ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... most ingenious," said Vizard; "but it does not account for this fellow. He is not an antediluvian; he is a barefaced modern, for he is A STEAM ENGINE." ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... shocked to find her nephew engaged in so profitless an occupation, and soundly scolded him for what she called his trifling. The good lady little dreamed that James Watt was even then unconsciously studying the germ of the science by which he "transformed the steam engine from a mere toy into the most wonderful instrument which human industry has ever ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... chapter. But as your mother was in collusion with the old scamp of a friend, it has turned out that science has henceforth a temple in our house—a regular sorcerer's den, according to the picturesque expression of your old Gothon: it lacks nothing, not even a four-horse-power steam engine. Alas! what can I do with it? I am confident, nevertheless, that the expenditure will not be altogether lost to the world. You are not going to sleep upon your laurels. Oh, if I had only had your fortune when I had your youth! I would have dedicated ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... on the swaying Sanctuary lamp during Benediction, Galileo discovered the laws of the pendulum. Such a trifle as the fall of an apple suggested the laws of gravitation to Newton; and the first idea of the steam engine came to Watt while he was watching the lid rising from the boiling kettle. During a royal banquet the argument to crush the Manicheans grew on the great mind of St. Thomas, and the king made his secretary write it down on the spot. Had not ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... to be done if I have to work like a steam engine!" she exclaimed to Grace, thrusting in and drawing out her needle with a rapidity that surprised her ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... most remote parts of the world. Such protection was needed, because while England prohibited the export of even a single collier who might instruct the people of India in the mode of mining coal—of a steam engine to pump water or raise coal, or a mechanic who could make one—of a worker in iron who might smelt the ore—of a spinning-jenny or power-loom, or of an artisan who could give instruction in the use of such machines—and thus systematically ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... most heavily on a woman in the provinces is that abrupt termination of her passion which is so often seen in England. In the country, a life under minute observation as keen as an Indian's compels a woman either to keep on the rails or to start aside like a steam engine wrecked by an obstacle. The strategies of love, the coquetting which form half the composition of a Parisian woman, are ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... vapor throw open the lid of a teakettle, and lo! a steam engine came puffing from his brain. And now many a huge monster of Corliss, beautiful as a vision of Archimedes and smooth in movement as a wheeling planet, sends its thrill of life and power through mammoth plants of humming machinery. The fiery courser of the ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... the application of steam and in the construction of our war steamers, made under the superintendence of distinguished officers of the Navy. In addition to other manifest improvements in the construction of the steam engine and application of the motive power which has rendered them more appropriate to the uses of ships of war, one of those officers has brought into use a power which makes the steamship most formidable either for attack or defense. I can not too strongly recommend this subject to your consideration ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... white cloud, shutting out the sun; the ground is all hot, soon becoming insupportable. In places a little jet of steam and smoke rises fiercely from a hole in the hills, while in others boiling water rushes out as if forced from a steam engine. The water possesses varying ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sadly. When the Griffin saw the last of the twelve hundred dozen mice disappearing down the road with never a cat after them, he was in a tremendous temper and flew away to the house of the Wicked Witch, only stopping to pick up a steam engine which he dropped through her roof, and then went home to bed. Next day he remembered a friend of his called the Grumpy Giant, who lived six doors away, that is, about a thousand miles, so he flew to ask his advice. When the Giant heard his story, he said in the gruffest voice you ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... somewhat vaguely, that precisely the same idea might be applied to a carriage or a wagon on the road. A horseless carriage was a common idea. People had been talking about carriages without horses for many years back—in fact, ever since the steam engine was invented—but the idea of the carriage at first did not seem so practical to me as the idea of an engine to do the harder farm work, and of all the work on the farm ploughing was the hardest. Our roads were poor and we had not the habit of getting around. One of the most remarkable ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... high oval chimney. A halo of kitcheny smell floated about it, and the open door of its fire-box, in which brands were burning furiously, and a jet of vapor from somewhere, gave it quite the appearance of an odd steam engine. Beside the contre-torpilleur stood the two cooks, both unusually small in stature. One was about thirty-two or three years old, chunky, and gifted with short, strong, hairy arms; the other was much slighter, younger, and so juvenile of face that his downy ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... increased the power of the telescope, invented the micrometer, discovered the rings and satellites of Saturn, constructed the first pendulum clock, and a machine, called the gunpowder machine, in principle the precursor of the steam engine. For sheer brain power and inventive genius Christian Huyghens was a giant. He spent the later years of his life in Paris, where he was one of the founders and original members of the Academie des Sciences. Two other names of scientists, who gained a European reputation for original ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... Columbus among all the navigators who crossed from Europe to America; there can only be one Watt among all the inventors and improvers of the steam engine; only one Newton among those who discuss the great discovery of the basal law ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... hundred in depth. This well is an immense iron frame of cylindrical form, filled in with bricks; it was constructed on level ground, and then, by some wonderful mechanical process, sunk into the earth. In the midst of this is a steam engine, and above, or below, as far as your eye can see, huge arms are working up and down, while the creaking, crashing, whirring noises, and the swift whirling of innumerable wheels all round you, make you feel for the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... pleasantly spent in the main, and on the first day of June, we set sail once more for Paranagua and Antonina of pleasant recollections; partly laden with flour, kerosene, pitch, tar, rosin and wine, three pianos, I remember, and one steam engine and boiler, all as ballast; "freight free," so the bill of lading read, and further, that the ship should "not be responsible for leakage, breakage, or rust." This clause was well for the ship, as one of those wild pampeiros overtook her, on the voyage, ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... connected with Dartmouth of late years is Newcomen, the inventor of the steam engine. He carried on business in the town as an ironmonger. All honour is due to his memory, although others perfected ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... Hope, whether they journeyed by steamer or by sailing-ship; and it was no very uncommon thing for the latter to beat the former on the passage to India, China, or Australia. Moreover, the marine steam engine was, at that period, a very expensive piece of machinery to operate, developing only a very moderate amount of power upon an exceedingly heavy consumption of coal; hence it was only the nabobs who could afford to indulge in the then costly luxury of ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... was not powerful enough, was replaced by a 14-horse power "semi-portable" steam engine, by Ransomes & Co., of Ipswich—an engine of sufficient power to drive double the required number of lights. The dynamo machine is a No. 7 Brush. There are sixteen lamps in all—eight on each side of the court. The machine has given ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... the same mistake as men who, trying to set a steam engine in motion, should turn its wheels round with their hands, not suspecting that the underlying cause of its movement was the expansion of the steam, and not the motion of the wheels. By turning the wheels ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... are like the various bits of machinery which go to make up a steam engine. In performing their work they produce heat and motion. The fuel which supplies this force is taken into the body as food, prepared for use in the intestinal tract, and from there carried by the blood to be stored up in the muscles and various tissues as latent force. ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... Marquess, was the author of the celebrated "Century of Inventions," in which the first hint of the steam engine appeared, which he calls "By divine providence, and heavenly inspiration, a stupendous water commanding engine, boundless for height or quantity;" and so delighted was he at the discovery of what he terms "The most stupendous work ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... Industrial College of the State needing a practical and efficient man to take charge of their technical department, solicited his services, where he taught all branches of architectural and mechanical drawing, manual training, uses and care of wood-working machinery and steam engine. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... is," said Mr. George, "that a growing boy, especially if he is a boy of unusual capacity, is like a steam engine in this respect. A steam engine must always have a load to carry,—that is, something to employ and absorb the force it is capable of exerting,—or else it will break itself to pieces with it. The force will expend itself on something, and if you ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... Tolman, pausing to shift the gear of the car. "Before the steam engine, as we know it, saw the light, there had to be more experimenting and improving of the steam fountain. It was not until 1705 that Thomas Newcomen and his partner, John Calley, invented and patented the first real steam engine. Of course it was not in the least like the ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... throw away, fling away, fritter away; burn the candle at both ends, waste; squander &c 818. waste its sweetness on the desert air [Gray]; cast one's bread upon the waters, cast pearls before swine; employ a steam engine to crack a nut, waste powder and shot, break a butterfly on a wheel; labor in vain &c (useless) 645; cut blocks with a razor, pour water into a sieve. leak &c (run out) 295; run to waste; ebb; melt away, run dry, dry up. Adj. wasted &c v.; at a low ebb. wasteful &c (prodigal) 818; penny ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... universe. I do not for one moment believe the teaching of my learned skeptical professor of physiology, Sanford E. Chaillei, that life is the result of organization; that digestion is a chemical process; and that animal heat and force result from this process. His favorite illustration was the steam engine. The fuel in the fire-box generated the heat which made the water in the boiler boil, and thus the steam force was produced that moved the boat on the river. But, unfortunately for this illustration the Professor always left out of the consideration the fireman. No amount of fuel and ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... earth can it be?" exclaimed Tiffles. "Not a new kind of steam engine; or an electrical apparatus; or a clock; or a sewing machine; or anything for spinning, carding, or weaving—nothing that is adapted to any useful labor. These heavy weights, that have fallen on the floor, would give the works a kind of jerky ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... to believe, although positively true, that so great an act of vandalism could have been perpetrated, even in a Government office. It is true that no demand existed for some of them, but it is equally true that in numerous cases, especially in the early specifications of the steam engine and printing machine, the want of them has caused great disappointment. To add a climax to the story, many of the "pulped" specifications have had to be reprinted more than once ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... for that purpose iron and steel have, with few exceptions, proved to be the best. In the second place, some adequate power must be found to propel the machinery, which is ordinarily too heavy to be run by hand or foot power. This necessary motive power was discovered in steam. The steam engine was devised by James Watt, an English inventor of great ingenuity. He invented a cylinder containing a piston, which could be forced back and forth by the introduction of steam. His progress was much ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... used a mixture of combustible gas and air, which operated like steam in a steam engine. This engine had a water-jacket, centrifugal governor, and flame ignition. In 1838 Barnett applied the principle of compression to a single-acting engine. He also employed a gas and air pump, which were placed respectively ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... of holloaing, "Stop a bit," he said, "I shall find a quicker way;" with that he threw himself directly into the sea, and cut through the waves towards them as if his arms had been driven by a steam engine. ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... much cheaper source of energy than steam motors, but they are not so reliable and constant as the latter. The very irregular supply of water sometimes causes stoppages of the mill, and often a reserve steam engine has to be provided in order to assist the water motor when the quantity of water decreases during the summer months. Wind motors were formerly extensively used for milling purposes, but they are now gradually disappearing. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... years the steam engine will be as old a notion, and as queer an invention, as the press Ben. Franklin worked is now. In fifty years, copper-plate, steel-plate, lithography, and other fine engravings, will be multiplied for a mere song, in a beautiful manner, by the now ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... said he was occasionally very happy in clothing an idea in words; and he mentioned one which was recorded in his sister's journal during a tour they all made together in Scotland. They passed a steam engine, and Wordsworth made some observation to the effect that it was scarcely possible to divest oneself of the impression on seeing it that it had life and volition. 'Yes,' replied Coleridge, 'it is a giant with ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... eyes to his with an expression of gratitude; a warmer feeling for an uncontrolled moment mingled with it. Mr. Carlyle nodded pleasantly, and then set off toward his house at the pace of a steam engine. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... labour. What would you think if the Chancellor of the Exchequer, under such circumstances, endeavoured to levy the same taxation which is now borne by the country? From one end of India to the other, with very trifling exceptions, there is no such thing as a steam engine; but this poor population, without a steam engine, without anything like first-rate tools, are called upon to bear, I will venture to say, the very heaviest taxation under which any people ever suffered with the same means of paying it. ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... nor in that kind of literature, they were quite innocent of the herculean labors they proposed. On the first attempt to frame a resolution; to crowd a complete thought, clearly and concisely, into three lines; they felt as helpless and hopeless as if they had been suddenly asked to construct a steam engine. And the humiliating fact may as well now be recorded that before taking the initiative step, those ladies resigned themselves to a faithful perusal of various masculine productions. The reports of Peace, Temperance, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... ahead there appeared a strange object, coming straight toward them. It sounded something like a steam engine. "Chug, chug, chug, ...
— Prince and Rover of Cloverfield Farm • Helen Fuller Orton
... Halverson!" cried the tiller maiden with scorn in her voice. "He thinks because he happens to have a steam engine he needn't look to see which way ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... and public usefulness; its roads equal to the best roads in England or in Europe. The people are active and energetic, alike in education, in trade, in manufactures, in construction, in invention. Watt's invention of the steam engine, and Symington's invention of the steam-boat, proved a source of wealth and power, not only to their own country, but to the world at large; while Telford, by his roads, bound England and Scotland, before separated, firmly into one, and ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... now fairly started on the subject of her wrongs, and hurried on before Elsie could stop her, with all the energy of a belated steam engine. Elizabeth had walked into the other room, and Victoria took that opportunity to pour out her sorrows with ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... then applied by means of suitable heat engines to produce the motions we require. It is probably to this circumstance that we must attribute the slowness of the human race to take advantage of the energy of combustion. The history of the steam engine hardly dates back 200 years, a very small fraction of the centuries during which man has ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... would have more political power, could dominate the North. Some one must dominate. There must be a supremacy. And what would this growing hostility lead to? What would future inventions do to exacerbate it? What of the steam engine, what of machinery, ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... William III. at Hampton Court Palace, and to the Royal Society. He proposed the following uses, which perhaps may as well be mentioned, as they show how little was then known of the real value of the power of steam:—1. To raise water to drive mill-wheels—fancy erecting a steam engine now, of say fifty horse-power, to raise water to turn a wheel of say thirty; 2. To supply palaces and houses with water; 3. Towns with water; 4. Draining marshes; 5. Ships; 6. Draining mines. There is one more thing I may mention as curious, that though the steam he used must ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... the iron, travelling proudly over the shirt-collar, for it thought it was a steam engine and ought to be at the ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... upon every second syllable throughout the whole line. A little variety must, he admits, be allowed to avoid satiety; but all lines which do not go in the steady jog-trot of alternate beats as regularly as the piston of a steam engine, are more or less defective. This simple-minded system naturally makes wild work with the poetry of the 'mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies.' Milton's harsh cadences are indeed excused on the odd ground that he who was 'vindicating the ways of God to man' might have been ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... principles, the Swiss have developed in the political world a factor which, so far as it is in operation, is creating a revolution to be compared only with that caused in the industrial world by the steam engine. ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... Queen Victoria the 'industrial revolution,' the vast development of manufacturing made possible in the latter part of the eighteenth century by the introduction of coal and the steam engine, had rendered England the richest nation in the world, and the movement continued with steadily accelerating momentum throughout the period. Hand in hand with it went the increase of population from less than thirteen millions in England in 1825 to nearly three times as many at the end of ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Industrial Revolution, and its spread beyond England to Europe, America, and, later, to Asia, were possible only because these bases of capitalism were already laid. To a large extent, thus, the steam engine, the railroad, the steamship, the electric light, and countless other inventions which have helped to revolutionize the world we live in, may be traced directly or indirectly to individual freedom and to the protection of property rights. In so far as science, art, ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... other black, when they had both been blackened in the same kitchen. And he would have been substantially right; for the great industrial disciple of the kettle, James Watt (who learnt from it the lesson of the steam engine), was typical of the age in this, that he found the old Trade Guilds too fallen, unfashionable and out of touch with the times to help his discovery, so that he had recourse to the rich minority which had warred on and weakened ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... sudden, the rabbit heard a noise like a steam engine going, and he was quite surprised, until he happened to look up, and there stood a pussy cat as big as a cow, and the cat was purring, which made the noise like a ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... and for the last time, they returned to the charge, but the plucky scout was awaiting them, and his club whizzed through the air like the piston rod of a steam engine. The grizzlies found it more than they could stand, and tumbling back to solid earth they gave up the contract in disgust. Carson tarried where he was until they were beyond sight, when he descended and hastily caught up and reloaded his rifle, having escaped, as he always declared, ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... overcrowded population of Europe, cramped by man, and priest-ridden, have been brought across the ocean into republican America. They have been placed in this seemingly unpropitious Salt Lake country. There they have founded a city; they have erected factories and mills. The steam engine, the plow, and the sewing machine have aided them; and now, in place of a company of barbarous peasants, ignorant and benighted, and steeped in poverty, you find them transformed into energetic, intelligent citizens, surrounded with comforts ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... home in this city Dec. 6, 1867, at the age of 67. A long and eminently useful although unobtrusive life entitles his memory to respect. He commenced his career as a mechanic in the steam engine establishment of James P. Allaire, soon after the application of steam for the propulsion of boats and long before its application to ships for the purposes of commerce or war. For fifty-two years, with the exception of one or two brief intervals, he ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... which impressed Matilda very much. Tapes unrolled themselves deftly, and pins went infallibly into place and never out of place; and Madame measured and fitted and talked all at once, with the smooth rapid working of a first-rate steam engine. New York mantua-making was very different from the same thing at Shadywalk! And here Matilda saw the wealth of her new wardrobe unrolled. There was a blue merino and a red cashmere and a brown rep, for daily wear; and there was a most ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... turbine, which we will complete and have tested. His idea was to have us manufacture and sell register and cylinder gate turbines. His inventive powers were not confined to water wheels, for on Feb. 23, 1886, patents were granted him for automatic steam engine, governor and lubricating device. We also remember in the year 1873 or 1874, when his mind was occupied with his "Standard turbine," he was hindered by some device used now on locomotives of the present construction (what it was we are unable to say), but when ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... secretly communicating with Charles the Second. In consideration of these services he was created a baronet of Sulhamstead Banister, Berks, after the Restoration. He was an ingenious mechanic, supposed by some persons to have invented the Steam Engine, and lived to an advanced age.] In the afternoon a council of war, only to acquaint them that the Harp must be taken out of all their flags, it being very offensive to the King. Late at night we writ letters to the King of the news of our coming, and Mr. Edward Pickering carried them. ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... make. I send you herewith, a medal of Franklin executed by us here, entirely by this process. The original was a medallion likeness of Franklin in burnt (p. 278) clay. All the rest was a purely mechanical operation, (the work being, in fact, done by a steam engine), except a little retouching, and the impression of ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... little sickening, after a day or two). You saw Duke, the Hawaiian world champion swimmer, come in on a surf-board, standing straight and slim and naked like a god of bronze, balancing miraculously on a plank carried in on the crest of a wave with the velocity of a steam engine. You saw Japanese women in tight kimonos and funny little stilted flapping footgear running to catch a street car; and you laughed at the incongruity of it. You made the three-day trip to the living volcano at Hilo and sat ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... many ways how your steam engine might stop working. You might ask Dicky. He knows one of them. I think it is the way ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... seats reserved for the foreign representatives. There were not many Europeans present; but the platform was densely crowded with Japanese, sitting on their heels, and patiently waiting to see the extraordinary sight of their hitherto invisible spiritual Emperor brought to them by a steam engine on an iron road. The men had all had their heads fresh shaven, and their funny little pigtails rearranged for the occasion. The women's hair was elaborately and stiffly done up with light tortoiseshell combs and a large pin, and decorated ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... completed, the earth was taken away, and levelled about the vicinity. The modern method of raising stones for building, and which is now used in the building of heavy stone edifices, is by the use of a set of stout tackle blocks, the fall rope of which is taken up by a geered windlass, operated by a steam engine; the upper block being of course attached to an elevated shears or derick. Vessels, and other bodies, which have been sunk in the ocean, have been sometimes raised by means of airtight sacks, attached to different parts of the object by means of diving bells, been inflated with air, forced ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... before,—etc., etc. The policy and government of the vast possessions of Great Britain were then duly discussed, and Rumanika acknowledged that the pen was superior to that of the sword, and the electric telegraph and steam engine the most wonderful powers he ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... the Queen for progressive politics has surely been greatly underrated. She invented democratic monarchy as much as James Watt invented the steam engine. William IV., from whom we think of her as inheriting her Constitutional position, held in fact a position entirely different to that which she now hands on to Edward VII. William IV. was a limited monarch; that is to say, he had a definite, open, and admitted ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton |
