THE MASTER WORKER 



the cylinder walls at a more uniform temperature than 

 is possible even with a compound engine of the old type. 

 Another advantage is that the power of the turbine 

 is applied directly to cause rotation of the shaft, where- 

 as no satisfactory means has ever been discovered hither- 

 to of making the action of the steam engine rotary, ex- 

 cept with the somewhat disadvantageous crank-shaft. 

 This fact of adjustment of the turbine blades to the re- 

 volving shaft seems to make this form of engine par- 

 ticularly adapted to use in steamships. It is also highly 

 adapted to revolving the shaft of a dynamo, and has 

 been largely applied to this use. Needless to say, 

 however, it may be applied to any other form of machin- 

 ery. It would be difficult at the present stage of its de- 

 velopment to predict the extent to which the turbine 

 will ultimately supersede the old type of engine. Its 

 progress has already been extraordinary, however, as an 

 engineer pointed out in the London Times of August 

 14, 1907, in the following words: 



"When the steam turbine was introduced by Mr. 

 Parsons some 25 years ago, in the form of a little model, 

 which is now in the South Kensington Museum, 

 and the rotor of which may easily be held stationary 

 by the hand against the full blast of the steam, who would 

 have been rash enough to predict, except perhaps the 

 far-seeing inventor himself, that a vessel 760 feet long, 

 loaded to 37,000 tons displacement, drawing 32 ft. 9 in. 

 of water, and providing accommodation for 2,500 people, 

 could be propelled at a speed of 24.5 knots per hour, 

 which it is hoped she may maintain over the 3,000 

 miles of the Atlantic voyage? 



[1273 



