4 
00 ‘ W ard’s Steam Engine. 
Eagle sometimes flies about in the nigtit. On one 
sion I recollect that he was seen hovering for a con- 
ere ble t time, high in the air, over the flames of a build- 
ing, the light of which was discovered at the distance of 
twenty miles. 
PHYSICS, MECHANICS, CHEMISTRY AND THE ARTS. 
—— 
Arr. X.—Wanp’s Alternating Steam-Engine, Some ac- 
count of a Steam-Engine, called the Alternating Steam- 
ngine, invented by Minus Warp, of South-Carolina. 
In a Letter from the Inventor to the Editor. 
ae Cotumaia, (8. C.) June 1, 1821. 
Sir, | 
Ir has long been a ésbaericar’ in in Mechanics, to pce: 
by means of steam, a direct rotary motion. 
long, been the received doctrine, that to produce a Policy 
from a rectilinear motion, is attended with much loss of 
power, owing to what has been called the reciprocation of 
the moving mass: and “ it was,” therefore, to borrow the 
language of Mr. Sullivan,* ‘ probably perceived to be a 
great object to getrid of the re reciprocati ng movement of 
large masses, onthe well known m inciple, that 
it consumes pewsig check mom ll as to gin 
it—to d inert mass into motion rapidly, in opposite 
directions Pie as it has been more fully expressed by 
another writer, “to drag the inert mass from a state of rest 
toa state of motion, and from this state of motion to a state — 
of rest.” 
To obviate this disadvantage, Mr. Watts in England, 
and Mr. Curtis, after him, in this country, endeavoured to 
give to the axis of the cylinder a direct rotary movement ; 
ut owing, ina great measure, to the impossibility of con- 
ni the steam by packing upon corne ir attempts 
ved abortive in practice ; and Mr, Morey, at last, in- 
— a. S. and A. Vol. f. p. 161. 
xe 
