Rotatory Steam- Engine. 37 



"would be produced in this country much more rapid and asto- 

 nishing than all that we have already witnessed. 



I am led to make these general remarks by their applicability 

 to a series of inventions which have successively appeared un- 

 der the generic appellation of Rotatory Steam-Engines. Their 

 principle has assumed various forms and modifications, and has 

 seduced, and still continues to seduce, many a bright genius from 

 the straight path of useful industry and accurate invention. I 

 have the pleasure of personal aco,uaintance with several men of 

 eminent talent, who have sacrificed the energies of great minds 

 to this ruinous fallacy. With one or two, my arguments have 

 been successful in dissuading them from a pursuit sure to end 

 in disappointment, but there still remain others of them, and 

 many beyond the sphere of my knowledge, of whose talents and 

 exertions the world is still deprived by the fallacies of the i-o- 

 tatory steam-engine. 



It is the object of this paper to shew that the whole princi- 

 ples of the rotatory engine, as an improvement upon the com- 

 mon reciprocating engine, whether condensing or nonconden- 

 sing, is radically false, and mechanically fallacious : that it is 

 false in its mathematical principles, fallacious as a mechanical 

 structure, and can never be attended with any mercantile advan- 

 tage in its application ; and thus to dissuade men of mechanical 

 talent from devoting themselves to so unworthy an object. 



Before requesting acquiescence to be given to me on any opi- 

 nion so decided as this, I ought to premise, for the purpose of ob- 

 taining the confidence of practical men, that, although the views 

 which I am about to develope were first suggested to me in the 

 course of an investigation where I found it necessary to bring the 

 battery of the higher analysis to bear upon this subject, and em- 

 ploy the powers of the calculus to raze the foundations of preva- 

 lent error in the steam-engine ; yet, as such men are apt to use 

 the word " practical experience," as antithetical to scientific skill, 

 I ought to mention that, during the last ten years, I have been 

 continually engaged in the practical solution of the most difficult 

 problems of the steam-engine, — tliat I myself invented, and had 

 constructed for me, several rotatory engines, which were suffi- 

 ciently successful to convince me tiiat the principle, and not the 

 mere appUcutwu I had made of the rotatory principle, was ra- 



