vO Ward’s Steam Engine. 
The Eagle sometimes flies about in the night. On one 
occasion I recollect that he was seen hovering for a con- 
siderable time, high in the air, over the flames of a_build- 
ing, the light of which was discovered at the distance of 
twenty miles. 
PHYSICS, MECHANICS, CHEMISTRY AND THE ARTS. 
——<=— 
Arr. X.—Warp’s Alternating Steam-Engine. Some ac- 
count of a Steam-Engine, called the Alternating Steam- 
Engine, invented by Minus Warp, of South-Carolina. 
In a Letter from the Inventor to the Editor. 
Cotumsia, (8. C.) June 1, 1821. 
Sir, 
Ir has long been a desideratum in Mechanics, to produce, 
by means of steam, a direct rotary motion. It has, as 
long, been the received doctrine, that to produce a rotary 
from a rectilinear motion, is attended with much loss of 
power, owing to what has been called the reciprocation of 
the moving mass: and “ it was,”’ therefore, to borrow the 
language of Mr. Sullivan,* ‘* probably perceived to be a 
great object to getrid of the reciprocating movement of 
large masses, on the well known mechanical principle, that 
it consumes power to check momentum, as well as to give 
it—to drag an inert mass into motion rapidly, in opposite 
directions,’—or, as it has been more fully expressed by 
another writer, ‘to drag the inert mass from a state of rest 
to a state of motion, and from this state of motion to a state 
of rest.” 
To obviate this disadvantage, Mr. Watts in England, 
and Mr. Curtis, after him, in this country, endeavoured to 
give to the axis of the cylinder a direct rotary movement ; 
but owing, in a great measure, to the impossibility of con- 
fining the steam by packing upon ‘corners, their attempts 
proved abortive in practice ; and Mr. Morey, at last, in- 
* Am. Journ. 8. and A. Vol. f. p. 161. 
