MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 39 



beinof raw commercial naphtha, instead of coal, coke, or wood. — 

 Les Mondes. 



AERO-STEAM ENGINES. STORM's EXPERIMENTS. 



Dm*ing a period of several years, dating from about 1851, 

 Wm. Mount Storm, an inventor and engineer of considerable 

 note, made a series of experiments with air and gases in connec- 

 tion with steam, with a view to promote economy in fuel used 

 for generating motive power. An engine, called the " Cloud 

 Engine," was exhibited by him at the Fair of the American 

 Institute, in 1855. The engine was named as above from the 

 fact that the air, which was mingled in the cylinder with the 

 steam, changed the latter into a vesicular condition, resembling 

 fog. The inventor claimed 33 per cent. ; and those who saw it 

 state that, at times, it did actually make a gain of even more 

 than this. 



Its operation was, however, fitful and unreliable, and it finally 

 was withdrawn from public attention, and nothing more has been 

 heard from it. 



None of these experiments, however, seems to have been 

 made on the same principles as those of Mr. George Warsop, 

 of JSTottingham, whose object is to attain to a method whereby 

 the expansive force of heated air may be used in an engine with- 

 out the difficulties attending the use of heated air alone in the 

 cylinder, and which are met with in the engines of Ericsson, and 

 others employing only heated airs. 



In Warsop's experiments the object seems to have been to 

 make steam assist in ajDplying the expansive force of air. 



Warsop, however, has found that a maximum eff"ect from 

 mixed aii« and steam depends upon the proper proportion of the 

 two gaseous bodies, — a conclusion which might have been theo- 

 retically drawn from a consideration of the relative capacities of 

 air and steam for heat. Still such an inference would scarcely 

 have warranted great hopes of economy from this source Avithout 

 extended experiment, and although extraordinar}^ results — stated 

 in a former article — are claimed, we shall not be surprised to 

 hear that some off'set to these claims has ere long been discov- 

 ered. 



Incidental to the results sought by Warsop is of course a better 

 circulation in the boiler employed to generate the steam used in 

 the experiments, from which some gain might be expected, 

 though nothing like what is claimed. " 



AERO-STEAM ENGINES. 



To the mechanical engineer, the paper bearing the above title, 

 read before the British Association, at Exeter, will be one of the 

 most interesting of any of the able and valuable contributions to 

 the transactions of that distinguished body. 



The first part of the paper was devoted to a review of the data 



