186 REPORT—1868. 
up to its work. Instead of attaching this lanyard to a fixed point, it may run 
over a pulley, and have a weight hanging from it. 
Where found necessary, a strut, arranged with a view to simple adjustment, 
may be applied to support or guide either the riveters, the chippers, the caulkers, 
or the hammers, and be substituted for the hand supporting. 
Mr. Gray also employs a combined steam-boiler and rivet-hearth, with furnace 
common to both, to be used in conjunction with the several modifications of the 
apparatus just described; such combined steam-boiler and rivet-hearth or forge 
serving the twofold purpose of generating the steam for working such apparatus, 
and of heating rivets to be operated upon thereby. 
In the modification of the apparatus, when mounted and fitted for hammering 
copper pipes, a saddle-piece of wood is bolted to a flange, the saddle being curved 
to fit the pipe to be hammered. A balance-weight is also suspended es the 
curved arm attached to the apparatus, in order to keep the same erect whilst it is 
at work operating upon the copper pipe. 
Novel Arrangement of Direct-acting Steam Engines. By W. Suaru, CLE. 
This system of direct-acting steam-engines is the invention of Messrs. Jackson 
and Watkins, engineers, of Millwall, who, instead of employing a guide-block and 
guides, or any of the usual methods of guiding and supporting the outer end of the 
piston-rod at its junction with the connecting-rod, and instead also of working a 
pump by a lever, or from off the crank by an excentric, or other means of commu- 
nicating motion, effect these two objects of guiding the piston-rod and work- 
ing the pump by placing the pump-barrel with its longitudinal axis in, or nearly in, 
a line with the cylinder, and between the cylinder and the crank-shaft, and the 
pwmp-plunger or piston is connected to the piston-rod and the end of the connect- 
ing-rod of the engine by a fork end or any other suitable means; thus the pump is 
worked direct, and forms also the guide for the piston-rod. In condensing-engines 
the air-pump is the pump employed in this manner. The piston or plunger of the 
pump is of sufficient diameter to allow of a trunk large enough to permit of the con- 
necting-rod vibrating within it; and where the distance between the cylinder end 
and the crank-shaft is limited, as is generally the case in marine engines, the inven- 
tors prefer to employ, a single-acting and single trunk-pump, the capacity of the 
pump-chamber or barrel being regulated by the dimensions of the annular space, 
or the difference between the exterior diameter of the trunk and the interior dia- 
meter of the pump-barrel. 
In inverted direct-acting screw engines the valves may be placed at the bottom 
of each pump in direct communication with the condenser. ie every case the con- 
necting-rod works within the trunk of a pump placed between the cylinder of the 
pump and the packed end or ends thereof; or the piston and the eland alone are the 
means of guiding the piston-rod, and of taking the thrust due to the angular mo- 
tion of the connecting-rod. For working the back slide or cut-off slide of double- 
slide valve engines, it is connected to the backward excentric or its rod directly 
through a weigh-shaft, or by any other of the well-known means, and the amount 
of expansion regulated by changing the positions of the slides by means of a 
screwed valve-rod or other suitable means. 
The rod of the main slide-valve and the expansion-valve rod pass through a 
gland in the slide-chest, and are moved together by the excentric gear; and the 
expansion-valve rod is not connected to the link-block, but, by means of a rod or 
bar, to a stud or pin projecting from the face of the backward excentric strap or rod. 
On the upper end of the valve-chest the rod of the expansion-slide passes through 
a gland, and has a hand wheel or cross fitted thereon for the purpose of turning it, 
and thereby changing the position of the expansion-slides or cover-plates in rela- 
tion to the steam passages or openings through the main slide-valve; the expan- 
sion-valve rod is screwed with a right- and left-hand thread, and the lower end of 
the rod is made to turn or swivel when it is required that the degree of cut-off 
shall be changed. 
In adapting this invention to horizontal or other forms of direct-acting pumping- 
engines for raising or forcing, or raising and forcing water, a trunk-pump 1s applied 
