t}» th^ Ufi cf Sie«m at e-VeUck fitf e»twe>^nQ Wa. 159 



VII. 



On the Ufe of Steam as a Vehicle for conveying Heat from one Place to another. 



By Count RvMFORD.* 



M< 



^ORE than fifty years ago, Colonel William Cook, in a Paper prefented by him to 

 the Royal Society, and publiftied in their Tranfa£lions, made 3 propofal for warming rooms 

 by means of metallic tubes filled with (team, and communicating with a boiler fituatcd out 

 of the room; which propofal was accompanied by an engraving, which fhowcd, in a man- 

 ner perfe£tly clear and diftin£t, how this might be efTeiled. Since that time this fcheme 

 has frequently been put in practice with fuccefs, both in this country aad on the Conti- 

 nent, t Many attempts have likewlfe been made, at different periods, to heat liquids by 

 means of fteam introduced into them ; but moft of thefe have failed : and, indeed, until it 

 was known that fluids are noncondu(Sors of heat, and, confequently, that heat cannot be 

 Made to defend in them — (which is a recent difcorery), — thefe attempts could hardly fuc- 

 ceed ; for, in order to their being fuccefsful, it is abfotutely neceflary that the tube which 

 conveys the hot fteam fliould open into the loivejl part of the veflel which contains the liquid 

 to be heated, or on a level with its bottom ; — but as long- as the erroneous opinion ob- 

 tained, that heat could pafs in fluids in all direBionSi there did not appear to be any reafon ; 

 for placing the opening of the fleam tube at the bottom of the ve//el, while many were at hand ' 

 which pointed out other places as being more convenient for it. 



But to fucceed in heating liquids by fteam, it is neceffary, not only that the fteam fhould i 

 eater tl»e liquid atthc bottom of the veffel which contains iti but alfo that it fhould enter- 

 It coming from ■ ahove. The fteam tube fhould be In a vertical pofition, and the fteam (houtd 

 defend through it previous to its entering the veflel, and mixing with the liquid which it is 

 to heat ; other wife this liquid will be in danger of being forced back by this opening into 

 the fteam boiler; forthe hot fteam being fuddenly condenfed on coming into contaft with < 

 the cold liquid, a vacuum will neceflarily be formed in the end of the tube ; into which 

 vseuum the liquid in the veflel — prefled by the whole weight of the incumbent atmofphere— 

 will rufti with great force, . and with a loud noife; but if this tube be placed in a vertical 

 pofition, and if it be made to rife to the height of fix or feven feet, the liquid which is . 

 thus forced into its lower end will not have time to rife to that height before it will be met 

 by fteam and obliged to return back into the veflel. — There will be no difficulty in arrang- 

 ing the apparatus in fuch a manner as effe£lually to prevent the liquid to be heated from . 



• Journal of tUe Royal Inftitution I. 34. 



■f- Although one (hould naturally imagine that the notoriety of thefe fails would have been fufficient to 

 prevent all attempts in our, days to claim a right to this invention, yet it is faid that a patent for it was ; 

 talten out only a few years ago. . 



being 



