62 THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF 



ON A NEW CONSTRUCTION OF FURNACE, 



PARTICULARLY APPLICABLE WHERE 



INTENSE HEAT IS REQUIRED. 



BY MR. C. WILLIAM SIEMENS, Mem. List. M.E.* 



THE high importance of the stores of combustible material 

 which are distributed upon the surface of the earth renders their 

 wasteful expenditure and rapid diminution in quantity in many 

 parts a serious subject for consideration ; and in the writer's 

 opinion there is no object more worthy of the earnest attention of 

 engineers and men of science generally than that of causing the 

 generation and application of heat to be conducted upon scientific 

 and economical principles. Our knowledge of the nature of heat 

 has been greatly advanced of late years by the investigations of 

 Mr. J. P. Joule, of Manchester, and others ; which have enabled 

 us to appreciate correctly the theoretical equivalent of mechanical 

 effect or power for a given expenditure of heat. We are enabled 

 by this new dynamic theory of heat to tell, for instance, that in 

 working an engine of the most approved description we utilise at 

 most only one-sixth to one-eighth part of the heat that is actually 

 communicated to the boiler, allowing the remainder to be washed 

 away by a flood of cold water in the condenser. If we investigate 

 the operations of melting and heating metals, and indeed any 

 operation where intense heat is required, we find that a still larger 

 proportion of heat is lost, amounting in some cases to more than 

 90 per cent, of the total heat produced. 



Impressed by these views the writer has for many years devoted 

 much attention to carrying out some conceptions of his own for 

 obtaining the proper equivalent of effect from heat : some of the 

 results he has obtained are known to the members of the Institu- 

 tion, amongst which are the regenerative steam-engine and con- 

 denser, the regenerative evaporator, and an apparatus for the 

 economic production of ice. The regenerative principle appears 

 to be of very great importance and capable of almost universal 



* Excerpt Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 

 1857, pp. 103-111. 



