352 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



berg in 1562, prays for a man who " raises 

 water from fire and air," showing the early 

 application of steam power in Germany. An 

 Italian engineer, G. Branca, invented in 1629 

 a sort of steam windmill, the steam being gen- 

 erated in a boiler, which was directed by a 

 spout against the flat vanes of a wheel, which 

 was thus set in motion. In England, among 

 the first notices we have of the idea of employ- 

 ing steam as a propelling force is one contained 

 in a small volume, published in 1647, entitled 

 " The Art of Gunnery," by Nat. Nye, math- 

 ematician, in which he purposes to' "charge 

 a piece of ordnance without gunpowder " by 

 putting in water instead of powder, ramming 

 down an air-tight plug of wood and then the 

 shot, and applying a fire to the breech " till it 

 burst out suddenly." But the first successful 

 effort was that of the Marquis of Worcester. In 

 his " Century of Inventions," the manuscript 

 of which dates from 1655, he describes a steam 

 apparatus by which he raised a column of 

 water to the height of forty feet. This, under 

 the name of " Fire Waterwork," appears 

 actually to have been at work at Vauxhall in 

 1656. The first patent for the application of 

 steam power to various kinds of machines was 

 taken out in 1698 by Captain Savery. In 1699 

 he exhibited before the Royal Society a work- 

 ing model of his invention. His engines were 

 the first used to any extent in industrial opera- 

 tions. In all the attempts at pumping engines 

 hitherto made, including Savery 's, the steam 

 acted directly upon 'the water to be moved, 

 without any intervening part. To Dr. Papin, 

 a celebrated Frenchman, is due the idea of the 

 piston. It was first used by him in a model 

 constructed in 1690. The next great step in ad- 

 vance was made in 1705, in the " atmospheric 

 engine," conjointly invented by Newcomen, 

 Cawley, and Savery. This machine held its 

 own for nearly seventy years, and was very 

 largely applied to mines. The next essential 

 improvements on the steam engine were those 

 of Watt, which began a new era in the history j 

 of steam-power. His first and most important 

 improvement was the separate condenser, 

 patented in 1769. He had observed that the 

 jet of cold water thrown into the cylinder to \ 

 condense the steam necessarily reduced the j 

 temperature of the cylinder so much that a j 

 great deal of the steam flowing in at eaeh up- [ 

 ward stroke of the piston was condensed before 

 the cylinder got back the heat abstracted from 

 it by the spurt of cold water used for condens- 

 ing the steam in the cylinder. The loss of 

 steam arising from this was so great that only 

 about one fourth of what was admitted into 

 the cylinder was actually available as motive 

 power. This difficulty was overcome by Watt's ; 



invention. The principal improvements that 



have been made since Watt's time have been 



either in matters relating to the boiler, in 



details of construction consequent upon our 



increased facilities, improved machinery, and 



i greater knowledge of the strength of materials, 



j in the enlarged application of his principle of 



[ expansive working, or in the application of the 



steam engine to the propulsion of carriages and 



vessels. 



Steel, Manufacture of, Steel, which 

 is a compound of iron and carbon, was used 

 by the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Greeks. The 

 oldest method of making it is the pot-steel 

 j process, which consists at first in melting 

 wrought iroii with carbon in clay crucibles, 

 I and this process is still used to some extent. 

 J The direct process of making steel by immers* 

 ! ing malleable iron in a bath of cast-iron was 

 first invented in 1722 by Reaumur. Improve- 

 ments in this manufacture were made in the 

 I early part of this century by Mush at and Lu- 

 cas, and the eminent metallurgist, Heath, first 

 successfully melted the ingredients of cast steel 

 on the open hearth of the reverberatory furnace 

 i about 1839. He patented his process in 1845, 

 | but it was not regarded as successful until 

 I practical conditions were furnished for it by 

 ! the invention of the Siemens regenerative gas- 

 furnace in 1862. By the Bessemer process, 

 i which was first patented in 1855, and which 

 I is now the most generally used, twenfy tons of 

 crude iron have been converted into cast steel 

 in twenty-three minutes. Sir Henry Bessemer 

 has received in royalty on this process some 

 $10,000,000. The manufacture of steel has 

 been carried to the highest perfection in the 

 United States, and the output of American 

 steel works is about 600,000 tons yearly. 



Steel Pens, Invention of. During the 

 last century many efforts were made to im- 

 prove the quill pen, the great defect of which 

 was its speedy injury from use, and the conse- 

 quent trouble of frequent mending. These 

 efforts were chiefly directed to fitting small 

 metal, or even ruby, points to the nib of the 

 quill pen ; but the delicacy of fitting was so 

 great that but very little success attended the 

 experiments. At the beginning of this cen- 

 tury pens began to be made wholly of metal. 

 They consisted of a barrel of very thin steel, 

 and were cut and slit so as to resemble the 

 quill pen as closely as possible. They were, 

 however, very indifferent, and, being dear, they 

 made but little way. Their chief fault was 

 hardness, which produced a disagreeable 

 scratching on the paper. In 1820 Joseph Gil- 

 lott perfected the present form of steel pens 

 and began their manufacture at Birmingham, 

 England. The first gross of steel pens ever 



