duce — attempted to deal quantitatively with the 

 question of economy. He had concluded that the 

 "theoretical consumption of a perfect caloric engine 

 amounted to only one-fourteenth part of the theoreti- 

 cal consumption of a Boulton and Watt condensing 

 engine." He stated he believed that this economy 

 was not practically attainable in the caloric engine, 

 but that he was hard at work on a steam engine he 

 hoped would approach the ideal.''' 



Professor Faraday recalled that he had, 20 years 

 before, believed heated air might be used as a motive 

 power, but even then he had, "with some diffidence, 

 ventured to express his conviction of the almost un- 

 conquerable practical difficulties surrounding the 

 case, and of the fallacy of the presumed advantages of 

 the regenerator." He still retained his doubts."^ 



The vice president of the Institution, Isambard 

 Kingdom Brunei, who at this time was completely 

 engrossed with the details of planning his monumental 

 ship Great Eastern, "agreed in considering the regen- 

 erator to be a mystification, and the difficulty of the 

 matter arose from its plausibility. It was extremely 

 difficult to disprove that which did not exist at all." 

 It looked like perpetual motion to him, and he was 

 "inclined to regard it just as he would any attempt to 

 produce perpetual motion." "^ 



Mr. Pole, a steam engineer, exhibiting perhaps more 

 diplomacy than wisdom, made the observation with 

 regard to the "so-called regenerator" that it would 

 be found, "as in many other disputed cases, the truth 

 lay between the extremes." '* 



The measure of the situation on both sides of the 

 Atlantic was taken by F. A. P. Barnard, professor of 

 chemistry and natural history at the University of 

 Alabama. His comments appeared in Silliman's 

 Journal of Science: ^' 



The confusion of thought which appears to prevail on the 

 subject, is probably in a great degree owing to the fact, that 

 the theory of heat, in its relation to force, has recently 

 undergone a great and important change; so that men, who 

 argue from its doctrines as taught twenty years ago, are 

 liable to commit the most serious errors. 



In 1855, when he was about to patent another 

 version of his air engine. Captain Ericsson declared: 



" Ibid., pp. 345-346. 

 " Ibid., pp. 348-349. 

 :3 Ibid., p. 349. 

 M Ibid., p. 594. 



'^ American Journal of Science and Arts {Silliman's Journal of 

 Science], 1853, ser. 2, vol. 16, p. 218. 



Figure lo. — This hot-air pumping engine, 

 patented by Ericsson in i88o, is an example of 

 the small domestic air engines, without 

 regenerators, that were manufactured in large 

 quantities from about 1 86o. The engine shown 

 here — built by the Rider-Ericsson Engine 

 Company as serial no. 18,637 — measures 66 

 inches in over-all height. (USNM 309533; 

 Smithsonian photo 3g028-A.) 



"I yet contend that a mass of wire not greater than a 

 common haystack will on this principle, some day, be 

 found to yield inore motive power than a mountain 

 of coal." '« 



When Mr. Cheverton heard of the new engine, he 

 stated his view of Captain Ericsson's work: '' 



Mr. Ericsson certainly displays great talent in devising 

 mechanical riddles wherewith to puzzle the engineering 



'" Ericsson to P. B. Tyler, January 17, 1855. Ericsson Papers; 

 see footnote 45. 



" Mechanics' Magazine, London, 1856, vol. 64, p. 82. 



58 



BULLETIN 228: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



