All About Engines

All About Engines rope passing over a pulley. Water was raised in buckets attached to the other end of the rope. This method, however, was far too slow and cumbrous to be successful. Sixteen years later, in 1690, Papin tried the effect of boiling water under the piston. The steam forced the piston up, the fire was removed from beneath the cylinder, and the piston fell again. But though the apparatus worked, the slowness and the labour of moving the fire were against its success. Papin’s final attempt was made in 1704, when he undertook to construct a pump to clear the water Fig. 14.—Papin’s pump would have rapidly condensed from the mines in Westphalia. This time he used a boiler under which a fire could be kept burn- ing continuously, see Fig. 14. The steam passed into a cylin- der partly filled with water. Under ordin- ary circumstances it by contact with the water, but this was prevented by a wooden float, nearly as large in diameter as the cylinder, forming practically a piston. Cooling was also prevented by an iron box attached to the float and containing a red-hot iron ball. The steam forced the float down, driving the water into another cylinder, where it compressed air, and