THE CONQUEST OF NATURE 



difficulty, with the Hoffman engine. Such estimates, 

 however, are theoretical, and it remains to be seen what 

 the engine can do in practise when applied to a variety 

 of tasks, and what are its limitations. Certainly the 

 apparatus is at once ingenious and simple in principle, 

 and there is no obvious theoretical reason why it should 

 not have an important future. 



TURBINE ENGINES 



Whatever the future may hold, however, it remains 

 true that the first practical solution of the problem of 

 securing direct rotary motion from the action of steam, 

 on a really commercial scale, was solved with an ap- 

 paratus very different from any of those just described, 

 the inventor being an Englishman, Mr. C. A. Parsons, 

 and the apparatus the steam turbine, the first model of 

 which he constructed in 1884, and which began to 

 attract general attention in the course of the ensuing 

 decade. Public interest was fully aroused in 1897, 

 when Mr. Parson's boat, the Turbinia, equipped with 

 engines of this type, showed a trial speed of 32! knots 

 per hour, a speed never hitherto attained by any other 

 species of water craft. More recently, a torpedo boat, 

 the Viper, equipped with engines developing about ten 

 thousand horse-power, attained a speed of 35^ knots. 

 The success of these small boats led to the equipment 

 of large vessels with the turbine, and on April first, 

 1905, the first transatlantic liner propelled by this form 

 of engine steamed into the harbor of Halifax, Nova 

 Scotia. 



