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The Steam Turbine 203 initial effort proved a pronounced success, and further installations were carried out upon these lines in other parts of the country. Meantime, needless to say, the size and output of the engines had been steadily and persistently in- creasing, until a unit of 200 horse-power, with a working speed of 4,800 revolutions per minute, and consuming 16 pounds of steam per indicated horse- power per hour, was produced. This engine differed from its predecessors in one salient respect. It was the first condensing turbine engine which had been brought to the practical stage. Although the turbine was forging ahead somewhat rapidly, new and unexpected difficulties were con- tinually cropping up, and, one by one, had to be sub- jugated. For instance, in the very early days, the steam turbine, although it was warmly espoused, was somewhat vehemently assailed because it proved a veritable glutton for steam. This drawback was maintained to be fatal in many quarters, but the inventor, once he had surmounted the initial diffi- culties of design, attacked the steam-eating problem with a view to rendering it more economical and comparative in this respect with the reciprocating engine, which naturally, in view of the century or more which had been expended upon its development, had been brought to a high degree of perfection. As the call for larger and more powerful turbines arose, the steam-eating question appeared to solve itself automatically, because it was speedily discovered that the turbine is far easier to build in large sizes, with a reasonable steam consumption, than it is in small units. In other words, as the output of the