X79** the effect of waUr fin machinery. 25 j 



If, with a view to obviate ths inconvenience, we 

 ftiould think of encreasing the diameter of the great 

 wheel, so as to make the top of it rise higher than the 

 level of the water course, ai represented by the dotted 

 lines, the evil would be remedied, in as far as res- 

 pects the upper part of the wheel ; but still it ope- 

 rates with the same force in as far as respects the 

 lower part of the wheel. Where this augmentation 

 of the diameter of the wheel is even practicable 

 therefore, by reason of the moderate height of the fall, 

 there still must be a very great waste of water when 

 t-hus applied but where the height of the fall is very 

 great, as from fifty feet and upward, as no wheel 

 could be made of a diameter nearly equal to this, the 

 lofs of power that is thus incurred can scarcely ad- 

 mit of a calculation. 



From these few obvious considerations it is evi- 

 dent, tliat if we ever hope to derive the full power of 

 a small stream of water, falling from a very grea 

 height, we must abandon the idea of making that 

 water act directly on a wheel itself, and make that 

 power be applied to the wheel, by the intervention of 

 some other contrivance better adapted to the purpose 

 than a single wheel in any situation ever can be. 



One would suppose, that, when an apparatus of 

 that sort had been discovered, which was equally 

 simple in its construction as economical in its appli- 

 cation, it would have been at once universally adopt- 

 ed. But our reasoning is here fallacious ; and expe- 

 rience proves, that though man is eager to seize ad- 

 vantageous improvements when they are pointed out 

 to him, his mind is exceedingly slow at applying the 



