THE STEAM-ENGINE. 119 



should see an exact representation of that which existed at 

 the date under consideration, and I am much obliged to Mr. 

 George Eobert Stephenson for having kindly lent us the 

 model for this afternoon's purpose. 



I have already said, I think, we must look upon it that 

 Newcomen was the first man to make a steam-engine, as 

 we now understand it, an engine with a cylinder and a work- 

 ing piston. Papin, it is true, had a piston, but it was a 

 mere diaphragm acting as a non-conductor between the 

 steam and the surface of the water, and it cannot therefore be 

 regarded as the piston of a working engine. I think we can 

 very readily see why it was that we came to have the New- 

 comen engine in the form of the beam engine originally. The 

 piston was kept tight by water-packing on the surface of it ; 

 if any of the packing leaked through, it did a little harm of 

 course by cooling the steam coming to the cylinder, but not 

 very much, because the piston rose rather by the action of the 

 counterweight than by the pressure of the steam, and any 

 water which leaked through aided the injection in the return 

 (the working) stroke. But to use water-packing it was ne- 

 cessary that the cylinder should be vertical, and that the 

 piston should be pressed downwards in order that the water- 

 packing might lie on the piston. If you press the piston 

 downwards, as in those days was done, and did not work 

 with plunger pumps, but with lift pumps, it involved the use 

 of a beam, which, when the piston went down, pulled the 

 pump upwards, and in this way originated the beam 

 type of steam-engine. JSTow it is extremely difficult in 

 engineering, as in many other matters, when we have 

 once got into the habit of doing a thing, to get rid of that 

 habit. One is apt to take that which is a mere adjunct as a 

 necessity. If you will pardon me, I will tell you, as ger- 

 man to the subject, that which Mr. Eobert Lowe told the 

 Political Economy Club the other night at the Centenary 

 Festival. He quoted the novel of " Hadji Baba," by Morier. 

 where a Persian, visiting England and admiring a young 

 lady, is desirous of making her an offer, and being hospitably 

 received at the house of an English friend, he asked him : 

 " How did you propose to Mrs. Brown 1 " " Well," says the 

 friend, " the fact is, one day we v were going to church to- 

 gether and I offered her my umbrella, and under the shade 

 of that umbrella I proposed to Mrs. Brown." Now the 



