2TS.p.-28l 



279.p.28/ 



in which he could see by the rising of the water how 

 rapidly the air was taken up, and he was surprised to 

 see how soon all the air was exhausted, and the stream 

 became irregular and jerky on the moment of the 

 return of the strokes. He said he had a way of 

 remedying this. He would throw away the air vessel 

 and put in its place an open-top cylinder, with piston 

 and rod and crosshead, with rods extending from it 

 to a series of springs under the engine box. 



Father asked, why not put a floating piston in a 

 cylindrical air vessel to separate the air from the 

 water, and still use the air above it for the spring to 

 maintain a steady stream? 



He said he had thought of that, but the piston 

 would be out of sight, and always out of order: the 

 leather cup packing would become dry, the water 

 would pass it, and the spring soon be lost. He said 

 he proposed using a q inch plunger, with a cylinder 

 double its area, and give from 16 to 18 inches stroke; 

 then, with the same number of strokes per minute, he 

 would throw 50 per cent more water than Lyon's 

 "Diligent." 



Father asked him how he proposed to arrange 

 levers to man them to give so great a length of stroke. 



His reply was: "Bless you, I don't intend to use 

 levers at all. I have been blamed enough for using 

 Lyon's or rather Adam Eckfeldt's. folding levers 

 on my village engines. I shall dispense with them 

 altogether, and in doing so with a great weight." 

 He then went on, saying: "Imagine a bell crank with 

 a pendulum arm and a shorter arm at right angles 

 that takes hold of the pitman that is attached inside 



281 



Figure 13. — Rowntree fire engine. Side 

 and end views are above. The lower figure 

 shows a transverse section through the 

 oscillating-vane or wing pump. From John 

 Nicholson, The Operative Mechanic and British 

 Machinist (cited in legend for fig. 12), vol. 1, 

 opposite p. 282. 



to the lower end of the plunger; to the pendulum arm 

 ropes that could be manned with any number of men." 

 He only gave this as an illustration, for he did not 

 intend directly to take hold of the pendulum, but on 

 each side of its axis he would have a cylinder or drum, 

 whose radius should be equal to its length; on these 

 drums he would coil ropes having wooden cross- 

 handles about three feet apart, so that the rope would 



23 



