40 Perkins'' Steam Engine. 



Newark and extends down the creek seven or eight miles. 

 The surface of the earth is covered with quartz rock to the 

 depth of six or eight feet, and abounds in beautiful rose col- 

 ored and limpid crystals. It is full of excavations, made 

 by the aborigines in search of flints for arrow heads. At the 

 east end of the ridge, twelve miles from Zanesville, fine mill 

 stones are made of cellular quartz, equal to, or better than 

 French Burr. 



Art. VII. — Intelligence and remarks respecting High Pres- 

 sure Steam Engines, from the Franklin Journal for June, 

 1827. 



1. High Pressure Safety Steam Engine of Mr. Perkins. 

 Letter from Jacob Perkins, Esq. to Dr. Thomas P. Jones, 

 Editor of the Franklin Journal* 



London, March 8, 1827. 



My Dear Friend,-^-You must attribute my not having writ- 

 ten to you at an earlier date, not to want of inclination, but 

 to a desire of being able to communicate the information 

 which I now give you, namely, that my most sanguine expect- 

 ations are realized, and to the utmost, in the completion of 

 my high pressure, safety engine. This I should have been 

 enabled to say, long since, had it not been for the opposi- 

 tion which I have encountered from the avaricious, and inter- 

 ested individuals, by whom my course has been retarded, 

 much more than it has been by mechanical difficulties, al- 

 though these have been enough, in all conscience. 



Many of my friends, and some of them very scientific 

 men have expressed great fears, that I had attempted impos- 

 sibilities ; and were of opinion that steam engines were so 

 well understood, as to leave little that is new, on this subject, 

 to be discovered. I will ask you, and I will allow no one to 

 be a better judge, if it is not new to generate steam of all 

 elasticities, from the minimum to the maximum, without the 

 least danger? If it is not new, in the generation of steam, 

 to substitute pressure, for surface, which I consider the basis 



* The high interest and importance of these communications induce 

 us to jirive them entire. — Ed. Am. Jour. 



