438 Mr. Alan A. Cmnpbell Sivinton [April 19, 



regulated its performances. True, to some extent, special designs of 

 steam engines had been got out to suit the requirements of driving 

 the fast-running dynamos, as, for instance, the well-known Willan's 

 engine. As yet, however, there had been no departure from the 

 reciprocating engine. 



Early in the year 1885 the present writer had the privilege, for 

 the first time, of seeing running in the works of Messrs. Clark, 

 Chapman & Parsons, Gateshead-on-Tyne, the first true rotary engine 

 that ever gave useful results. The invention had been patented by 

 Sir Charles Parsons in April 1884, and in the interval this first 

 practical steam turbine had been constructed. Fig. 3 shows this 

 machine, which now has its appropriate abode in the South Kensing- 

 ton Museum in the congenial company of AYatt's beam engine and 

 Stephenson's " Eocket." 



As will be observed, it is a very small machine directly coupled to a 

 dynamo giving al)out six electrical horse-powei- when running at the 

 great speed of 18,000 revolutions per minute, and it is inter- 

 esting to compare its parts, as for instance its blading, with that 

 of the very large steam turbines on exactly the same principle that 

 have been constructed in recent years, as, for instance, portions of 

 blading such as is used in the turbines of the "Mauretania." 



As will be seen later, the steam turbine has now come into very 

 general use, being employed to the almost complete exclusion of 

 other heat engines where very large electrical powers are wanted. 

 At its inception, however, its inventor had many difficulties to 

 encounter, together with much prejudice. Since the days of James 

 Watt inventors up to that time had been continually trying to pro- 

 duce a successful rotary engine, and all had failed. It was natural, 

 therefore, for engineers to ask why this new inventor should succeed 

 any more than those who had gone before. They did not realize 

 that the advances that had been made in thermo-dynamics, and more 

 especially in machine tools and workshop methods, had rendered 

 things practicable which, up till that time, had not been so ; nor did 

 they understand that here at last the subject was being tackled on 

 really scientific principles by one exceptionally endowed by nature to 

 grapple with it. Another difficulty that Sir Charles Parsons had to 

 contend with was that, in the nature of things, experiments must 

 usually be conducted, in the first instance, on a small scale. More- 

 over, at that period, when the steam turbine was only employed for 

 driving dynamos, there was no demand for machines of any but 

 what at the present day would be considered of very small size. Now 

 it is one of the peculiarities of steam turbines that they are much 

 easier to make in large sizes than in small sizes to give reasonable 

 economy. Thus it was by reason of the very small powers that were 

 wanted that in these earlier days turbines earned the opprolirious 

 epithet of " steam-eaters." 



The Parsons steam turbine was first chiefly employed for the dec- 



