CATALOG OF THE MECHANICAL COLLECTIONS 107 



tive boiler type to the present day. The boiler used with the Lawrence, 

 Mass., pumping engine of 1876 (described below) is a typical one of 

 the multitubular locomotive type used for stationary plants. The 

 externally fired horizontal return tubular boiler is the modern sta- 

 tionary boiler of the fire-tube type, and the Scotch marine boiler is an 

 example of a combination of the internally fired flue boiler with 

 fire tubes. 



Water-tube boilers. — The water-tube boiler, in which the water is 

 contained in tubes or small connected chambers in the path of the 

 flame or hot gases, is one of the oldest forms of the boiler. The 

 Catalogue of the Mechanical Engineering Collections of the Science 

 Museum, London, 1907, mentions copper vessels found in the ruins 

 of ancient Roman cities, which are apparently boiler elements in- 

 corporating the principle of water tubes. The recent development 

 is usually traced from the boiler of John Blakey, patented in England 

 in 1766. This consisted of several short tubes inclined at alternately 

 opposite angles and joined with very short bent tubes of small 

 <liameter. These tubes were enclosed in a vertical brick furnace, 

 which was merely an enlargement of the base of the chimney. This 

 boiler had no water reservoir or steam chamber. Many of the steam- 

 engine pioneers experimented with the use of water tube and pipe 

 boilers, and very early descriptions of them are not at all uncommon. 

 One of the earliest of the actual uses of the water-tube boiler was 

 by James Rumsey, who employed a pipe boiler in the steamboat 

 he built at Shepherdstown, W. Va., in 1787. This boiler is mentioned 

 in his Treatise on the Application of Steam^ etc. (see above), and a 

 drawing and description of it (see below) appeared in the Columbian 

 Magazine of May 1788. This boiler consisted of a nest of pipes made 

 up of alternate horizontal rows of pipe laid at right angles to each 

 other so that rectangular vertical passages for the hot gases were 

 formed between the tubes. Rumsey described other boilers and pat- 

 ented several water-tube boilers in England and the United States. 

 Col. John Stevens, of Hoboken, N". J., and his son, John Cox Stevens, 

 made successful water-tube boilers for their experimental steamboats 

 and locomotives during the period 1804 to 1825. The porcupine, or 

 dead-ended, water-tube boiler used in the Stevens steamboat of 1804 

 and the tube and header assembly of the vertical water-tube boiler 

 of the experimental locomotive of 1825 are described below. The 

 second one was patented in the United States in 1803 by John Stevens 

 and in England in 1805 by John Cox Stevens. 



In 1821 Julius Griffith built one of the earliest of the sectional 

 water-tube boilers, while Joseph Eve's boiler of 1825 was the first 

 with a well-defined circulation. The short-lived interest in steam 

 road carriages about 1825 was responsible for the introduction of 

 many portable water-tube boilers that contributed little to the de- 



