Mr J. G. Stuart on the Turbine JFater-Wlieel 163 



French have, both theoretically and practically, arrived at 

 much greater perfection than we have in economising water- 

 power, and a great variety of very beautiful wheels have been 

 introduced in that country. " Coals being abundant," Dr 

 Kane well remarks, " the steam-engine is invented in Eng- 

 land ; coals being scarce, the water-pressure engine and the 

 turbine are invented in France. It is thus the physical con- 

 dition of each country directs its mechanical genius." Such 

 suggestions may explain the greater practical interest taken 

 in the subject in France, but can hardly excuse the want of 

 theoretical inquiry which we have to complain of in this 

 country. My complaint is surely not without reason, when 

 I mention the fact, that no hint of any water-wheel, beyond 

 the common old-fashioned overshot, breast, or undershot 

 wheels, is to be found in any one of the otherwise elaborate 

 articles on water-works, hydrodynamics, &c., in the seventh 

 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, although, in the pe- 

 riod embraced by its publication, from 1830 to 1843, many 

 treatises by Poncelet, Morin, De Prony, and other eminent 

 members of the Academy of Sciences, appeared in France, in 

 which the merits of the Poncelet and the Turbine wheels are 

 set forth. I beg to lay one of these treatises on the table, 

 along with this paper, for the use of the Committee, to whom 

 I hope the Society will remit the matter ; and only regret 

 that, as I have been unable to procure another copy of it for 

 aiding me in my future experiments, I cannot present it to 

 the Society. It is the result of experiments on the Turbine 

 wheel, by Monsieur Morin, made under appointment of the 

 Academy, and at the expense of the French Government, and 

 it brings out these very interesting results : — 



1. That the Turbine wheel is equally suitable to every 

 height of fall, from the greatest to the smallest. In illus- 

 tration of this, I may mention, that at St Blazien, there is 

 one erecte<l, by which is driven the whole machinery in a 

 cotton-mill of 8000 spind?es, with carding engines, and all 

 necessary preparation. The available fall is 332 feet ; the 

 quantity of water 60 feet per minute ; while on the Seine, in 

 France, there is one erected with a fall of only 13 inches, and 

 which, even in such unfavourable circumstances, economizes 

 55 per cent, of the theoretical power of the water. 



