THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1912. 
PROGRESS OF THE STEAM TURBINE. 
Steam Turbine Design. With especial reference 
to the Reaction Type, including chapters on 
Condensers and Propeller Design. By Dr. J. 
Morrow. Pp. viii+471+chart. (London: Ed- 
ward Arnold, 1911.) Price 16s. net. 
Marine Steam Turbines. (Forming the Supple- 
mentary Volume to ‘‘Marine Engines and 
Boilers.”) By Dr. G. Bauer and O. Lasche; 
assisted by E. Ludwig and H. Vogel. Trans- 
lated from the German and edited by M. G. S. 
Swallow. Pp. xvi+214+ entropy chart. (Lon- 
don: Crosby Lockwood and Son, 1911.) Price 
tos, 6d. net. 
The Steam Turbine. The Rede Lecture, 1911. By 
Sir Charles A. Parsons, K.C.B. Pp. iti+57. 
(Cambridge: University Press, 1911.) Price 
Is. 6a5 net. 
Be literature of steam turbines grows apace. 
This growth is seen to be natural enough 
when one considers the immense developments 
which have taken place in prime movers of the 
type during recent years, as well as their varied | 
applications for land and marine purposes. On 
land, steam turbines are now almost universally 
preferred to reciprocating engines for electric 
generating stations; while low-pressure turbines 
are largely utilised—as auxiliaries to reciprocating 
engines—in iron works, factories, and engineering 
establishments. One of the most notable develop- 
ments in modern mechanical engineering consists 
in the adoption of methods for utilising heat which 
had previously been wasted in carrying on manu- 
facturing processes. In this endeavour to secure 
increased economy the steam turbine has played 
a great part, although its successful applications 
have unquestionably been greatly assisted by the 
work of electrical engineers. The fundamental 
principle of this increased economy is found in the 
capability of steam turbines, especially those of the 
“reaction” type, to carry the expansion of steam 
much further than is practically possible with re- 
ciprocating engines. Superheating, higher vacuums 
and greatly improved arrangements for condensing 
steam have necessarily had to be devised in order 
that the full efficiency of turbines might be 
realised; and it worth noting that these 
advances have not only produced beneficial results 
in association with the use of steam turbines. 
Their range of usefulness has been much wider, 
and has affected the economical use of earlier 
types of reciprocating engines, both afloat and 
ashor 
1S 
re. 
NO. 2216, VOL. 89| 
vid 7 Chee 
ate 159 
Marine engineering has benefited quite as much 
as, if not more than, mechanical engineering on 
| land from the introduction of steam turbines. It 
is indeed a simple statement of fact to assert that 
| steam navigation could not have reached its 
present position had not steam turbines been in- 
| troduced. This statement applies to the largest 
and swiftest ocean passenger steamers, to the 
latest battle-ships and battle-cruisers, to fast cross- 
channel and coasting steamers, and to the won- 
derful little craft classed as the “torpedo flotillas ” 
of modern war-fleets. When such a revolution 
has been effected, and further advances are in 
progress, it is, as was said above, quite natural 
that text-books and treatises on steam turbines 
| should be multiplied in number, and multiplication 
has been attended by greater specialisation of 
treatment in successive publications. 
The first and second of the three volumes now 
under notice have been issued with the distinct 
| intention of serving as text-books for men actually 
engaged in the design of steam turbines. In 
' both these books is contained a clear, yet brief, 
| statement of thermo-dynamical principles under- 
| lying designs of turbine machinery; 
but the 
authors have assumed that readers desiring to 
master these principles will turn to existing text- 
books in which the subject has been treated 
thoroughly, and in a fashion adapted to the needs 
| of students. 
Dr. Morrow is lecturer in engineering at the 
Armstrong College, Newcastle-on-Tyne; and, as 
| everyone knows, the Tyne was the birthplace of 
the Parsons type of turbine. In the hands of Sir 
Charles Parsons and his licensees in the Tyne 
district, this type of machinery has been manu- 
factured on a gigantic scale; but it is right to 
add that the Tyne district in no sense stands alone 
in its acceptance and use of steam turbines. In 
the circumstances it is natural to find the author 
devoting by far the greater portion of his book to 
the “‘reaction”’ type of steam turbines, and to the 
Parsons type in particular. “Impulse” turbines 
| are also dealt with briefly, but students must turn 
to other works for full details of their designs. 
The characteristic features of Dr. Morrow’s book 
are clearness of description, excellence of illustra- 
tion, a wealth of examples of methods and details 
of design, and a strict regard for fundamental 
principles. Dr. Morrow concludes his preface 
with the remark that “in a work containing so 
| much original matter, the author cannot but feel 
_ that errors of judgment and mistakes in details 
will be found”; and he invites readers to favour 
him with corrections and suggestions. This is the 
attitude which an author ought to assume in such 
H 
