THE WATER WHEEL 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN TYPE 

 OF WATER WHEELS. 



The inquiry as to water wheels, recently received from Turkey,, 

 has led to the question. " How do American water-wheels differ from 

 those of other countries?" The answer to this if found in the Journal 

 of the Western Society of Engineers, April, 1898, where the subject is 

 treated exhaustively by W. W. Tyler. He says: "The peculiarity of 

 American water- wheels is that they receive water on the periphery 

 and discharge it downward and toward the center, while the foreign 

 wheels receive the water on the top and discharge it below, or at the 

 center and- discharge it outward." 



O.Mr. Tyler gives the following history of American water-wheels, 

 portions of which we are obliged to omit, as we have not the cuts 

 with which to illustrate it: 



"Nearly all wheels now built in America are mounted in a wooden 

 flume, in iron or wooden penstocks. The water is carried by a flume 

 to the penstock in which the wheel rests. The wheel covers a hole 

 cut in the floor. The water flows through the wheel from the penstock 

 and thereby imparts motion to it. Below the wheel and penstock is a 

 large channel through which the water escapes. 



This type of wheel, which is peculiarly American, has been slowly 

 evolved from very imperfect forms until it has become superior to all 

 others. The history of the American turbine is an illustration of 

 American ingenuity combined with that unfaltering faith which does 

 not hesitate to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing 

 inventions. 



In the year 1859 the committee of water-works of the city of 

 Philadelphia? instituted a series of competitive tests of water-wheels 

 to enable them to select the best design for new pumping works which 

 were about to be erected in Fairmount Park, on the Schuylkill River. 

 The results of those tests were afterwards pbulished in a pamphlet 

 which gives the general condition and state of the art at that time. 

 The Jonval, or French type, gave by far the best results. This wheel 

 led those^tests with a high record of 87.77 per cent, efficiency. The 

 wheel which showed the next best record, and which afterwards re- 

 ceived the contract and was adopted by the city, was of essentially 

 the same description. 



Seven wheels of the class which takes water on the cutside and 



