302 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[JCLT, 



The water comes first from the snpply-pipe H, into the cylimler G G, 

 descends EE, a>ul falls on ti.e fi«.l suidecnrves F,F; from these ,t 

 r,.she9 in horizontal streams a-nirist the pa.Mle.s in the revolviog-wheel 

 D D and finallv escapes at the cirnumfer.-nce D I). 



Tl'e revolvinc wheel is connected by CC with a shaft R 15, whifh turns 

 on a pivot at its lower extremity. B B carries a main axle A A, which 

 goes up throneh the water cylinder, and is applied to tiiru the ma< liinery 



of the cotton factory. 



J J as has been explained, is the sluice which resulates the supply of 



water' The manner in which .1 J may be raised or lowered is easily seen 

 from the diagram. The arms ()..0 contain ma-rices, in which the screws 

 P !• work : these screws are at the ends of hmg rods Q, Q, lurneTl by 

 winches not shown in the diagram. It is clear that by turning Q, Q one 

 way or the other, the sluice will be either raised or lowered. 



L K, M, show the means of packing .1 J to keep it waler-tiiiht. 

 u'is a little conduit hiy which oil is conducted from a small reservoir to 

 keep the pivot R constantly lubricated. 



The main shaft and pivot are of steel, the wheel of wronght-iron, and 

 all the other parts of cast iron. Though the wheel is only 124 inches in 

 diameter it drives 8,000 water spindles, the roving frames, carding engines, 

 and all 'the accessory machinery. The number of revolutions with i of 

 an inch sluice opening, are 2,200 per minute. The available fall of water 



is 3.50 feet. 



The following is Ruhlman's account of his first impressions on examin- 



ing this machine: — r n r 



The second turbine erected by the inventor at St. Blas.en, with a fall of 

 1 17 ards, has become more important than any other. 1 can best descrihe 

 this turbine bv detailing what 1 myself saw and learned upon the spot 

 duru g be journev already referred to. Already, half an hour before a r r i - 

 in^ at the remarkable locality of St. Blasien, situated in one of the most 

 beautiful huralso of the wildest and londiest parts of the Schwartzwald of 

 Baden, a curious noise announces the uncommon spectacle, which becomes 

 more estraordinary as you approach. 



On entering into the wheel-room one learns t''"-^,. *'^'.'''''* ^l*^'.;" 

 heard at a distance about this place was not merely mystification, hot reality. 



One then feels seized with astonishment, and wonders, more than in any 

 other place, at the greatness of human ingenuity, which knows how to ren- 

 der suhiect to it the most fearful powers of Nature. , , . ■ 



At every moment the powerful pressure appears likely to ""- •" f-"^ 

 the little ^heel, and the spiral masses of water issuing from it threaten o 

 de-troy the surrounding walls and buildings. Often when I went out of the 

 wh l.room, and looked at the enormous height from which the conducting 

 Tubes bring down the water to the wheel, the idea f-™", '" rZk into 

 .- that it v.w'LS impossible," but that idea passed away when I went back into 



''Fomnejr^rhas here, for the first time, solved a P™"'-;. -';'=^,;'" [- 

 ever render his name historical in the technical and scientific world a pro- 

 blem in which he had to overcome not only the greatest ^'''•'^'l"^''"''; 

 but also disfavour and prejudices in a thousand '"'""■ ^''" •=""''' '!"'„, 7 

 other means of utilizing this existing water power ? Perhaps a water-pies- 

 sure e"L, might be applied ? Certainly not ; since even without pro ing, 

 by ca ad Uo^ low little that kind of machine is suited for rotatory triotion 

 t is only necessary to consider the very difficult and very power-destroying 

 conversion of a vertical reciprocatini; moti.m into an uniform rotatory mo- 

 tion, in order to sufliciently appreciate the difficulties. 



The conclusions arrived at respecting the general merits of the invention 

 Beem well worthy of attention, fur they are expressed by an impartial wit- 

 ness, who has taken great pains to get at the troth. „ ,. , . 



It is certainly not true that turbines are capable of totally displacing ver- 

 tic. wate wh els, as was at first asserted. The greatest obstacles to the 

 er?cti^n,corstr:.ction,audworkirgof turbines, at least in Germaiiy ari 

 frnn the fact that many years must elapse before our m.lUrigl ts will have 

 a red the necessarV theoretical knowledge an practical "penence 

 With these machines everything must be really calculated. 1 Ml not do 

 lo construct one wheel after the pattern of another, or to trust to what s 

 iiTt! P nractical shape But also the construction of these wheels, in 

 h Irk hlo e machine-maker, requires the greatest care, ohserva. on 

 td prudence, otherwise, no matter how it may be calculated, a good wheel 

 "^riluovralt'udiyadmittedlhatFourneyrondeceived himself in supposing 

 tl a h e wtel VcLmized 80 per cent, and more of the total available 

 that "«^«^ « "f ' ;™ ^„,, f„iiest expeiience has shown that they economize 

 c'^Uinlv from cot 70 per cent., wh'en those precautious are taken which 

 1 \A i.fl QftP.irlpH tn in t\ieir formation. 



' Fma 1 as to the cl oice between vertical wheels and turbines, in any par- 

 .. -'p it is decidedly to lie considered that in every case where an 



Vnrwi;eel or a whee \..i,h tolerably high breast, and what are termed 

 refill slu^eolbre ted. such is to be preferred to the turbine ; since 

 llefomrw,;™ carefully constructed, easily economizes more than 70 p^r 

 ient of the puwer. Yet in cases, as in cornmills, where the horizontal mo- 

 " a lb turbine may be immediately made use of, or where there is much 



hack water to contend against, this assertion may require to he modified, 

 since, as mentioned already, the turbine may be sunk to a considerable dei.th 

 in the back water, without losing any material proportion of its po-.ver. 



In every ca'.e of a fall, eilber higher or lower than that ^u.talile for an 

 overshot v^-bcd, the turbine deserves decidedly the preference, and th.-ir not 

 being erected in all such localities can only arise from "ant of knowledge, 

 the apprehension of their being badly made, or of their cost being greater 

 than that of the vertical wheel, which it should not really be. 



The share which Sir Hubert Kane has in this work as translator is by do 

 means an unimportant one. He ha? reduced all the German and French 

 measures to the English standard, and has interspersed the test with useful 

 notes. Hi? introduction is also valuable, for it directs the inquiries of 

 those who require more iuformalion than that given in the present treatise, 

 and h.s undertaking is, on the whole, a very valuable coutribulion to the 

 literature of engineering. 



The principal practical objection to the use of the turbine is, we believe, 

 the difficulty of preventing the smaller parts of the machine from being 

 stopped up by impurities in the water. The velocity with which the 

 water is required to be discharged from the wheel renders it difficult to 

 strain or filler the water sufficiently without impeding the current. 



It may be useful to observe that in order that the full effect of the water 

 may be obtained, it ought, when issuing from the circumference of the 

 wheel, to be moving with the same linear velocity as the point from which 

 it issues. For this is clear, that if the water be moving with gieater ve- 

 locity than the extremity of the channel between the paddles from which 

 it issues, then, had the length of the channel been greater, the water would 

 have co'utinued to impinge on the paddles, and would have done more 

 work. Again, if the vyater be moving at l^ss velocity than its point of 

 exit, it is obvious that, for some distance before the exit, tlie channel has 

 been urging the water forward, instead of the water impelling the channel. 

 But iu°the°case where the velocities of the water and its point of exit are 

 equal neither acts on the other: the water no longer impels the channel, 

 which shows that all the work is got out of it; and the channel does 

 not urge the water, which sho«3 that the motion is not impeded. This is 

 the reason why turbines are made to revolve with so great velocity as that 



stated above. 



Very similar reasoning will show that the end of the channel ought to 

 be a lan-ent to the circum'erence of the wheel ; for in that case neither 

 does the'water act on the wheel nor the wheel on the water at the point of 

 exit- whereas, had the channel been more or less oblique, either the 

 wate'r must have been pressing on the paddles, or the paddles on the 

 water, at the moment of issuing. 



It may be useful to some of our readers to know that there is a model of 

 Fourneyron's turbine in the model-room of the Museum of Economic 

 Geoh.gy in Cr,,ig's-court, Charing-cross-a museum little visited, be- 

 cause, we suppose, it is one of the most interesting in Loudou, and is per- 

 fectly open to the public. 



Wealv/s QiiARTiiRLY PAPERS ON ENGINEERING, for Christmas, 1S45 ; 

 part X., published June \st, 184G. Weale, pp. 204, 16 PlaUs. 



The present part contains four papers: the first, a continuation of the 

 "History of the IMachinery and Manufactures of Great Britain," occupies 

 137 pages; the "Memoir on the Thames Tunnel," 29 pages ; " an ac- 

 count of the Construction and Statistics of the liailway from Frankfort to 

 Wisbaden," 27 pages with 15 plates ; " a description of the proposed Wet 

 Dock on the Wear at Sunderland," 11 pages, with one plate. 



The first paper is devoted to the manufactures and improvements lO 

 machinery during the seventeenth century, and displays considerable an- 

 tiquarian research. It contains, among other subjects of interest, an ac- 

 count of the efforts of Parliament to remedy the abuses arising from the 

 royal privilege of granting patents. That wise and revered monarch, 

 kin- James I., seems, lo use a common phrase, to have made a good thing 

 of l°is power of protecting inventors, for he frequently managed lo share 

 the profits, without bearing any part in the risk of the speculation, ror 

 example, in 1612 was granted "a patent to Simon Siurlevaut for diver, 

 mechanic arts aud mysteries of his own invention, whereby all kinds of 



metal woikes now made after the ordinaric course with wood- 



fuel and charcoal, may bee as well made and wroughte with sea coale, 

 pit coale, earth coale, and brush fewel." The agreement was this- the 

 profits were to be divided into thirty-three parts, ten of which were to go 

 to the King, five to Prince Henry, two to the Uuke of York, and one to 

 Viscount Rochester: the remaining ./?/tec« shares were to be the property 

 of the patentee, who was to find all the money and run the "■''"*'■;»*■•• 

 Fortunate Simon Sturtevant - The paper contains also a copy of the Mar- 



