How It Works Dealing In Simple Language With Steam Electricity

What is steam?--The mechanical energy of steam--The boiler--The circulation of water in a boiler--The enclosed furnace--The multitubular boiler--Fire-tube boilers--Other types o...

Reciprocating engines--Double-cylinder engines--The function of the fly-wheel--The cylinder--The slide-valve--The eccentric--"Lap" of the valve: expansion of steam--How the cut-...

The meaning of the term--Action of the internal-combustion engine--The motor car--The starting-handle--The engine--The carburetter--Ignition of the charge--Advancing the spark--...

The block system--Position of signals--Interlocking the signals--Locking gear--Points--Points and signals in combination--Working the block system--Series of signalling operatio...

Longitudinal vibration--Columns of air--Resonance of columns of air--Length and tone--The open pipe--The overtones of an open pipe--Where overtones are used--The arrangement of...

Why the wind blows--Land and sea breezes--Light air and moisture--The barometer--The column barometer--The wheel barometer--A very simple barometer--The aneroid barometer--Barom...

CLOCKS AND WATCHES:--A short history of timepieces--The construction of timepieces--The driving power--The escapement--Compensating pendulums--The spring balance--The cylinder e...

What is steam?--The mechanical energy of steam--The boiler--The circulation of water in a boiler--The enclosed furnace--The multitubular boiler--Fire-tube boilers--Other types o...

Reciprocating engines--Double-cylinder engines--The function of the fly-wheel--The cylinder--The slide-valve--The eccentric--"Lap" of the valve: expansion of steam--How the cut-...

More than two thousand years ago Hero of Alexandria produced the first apparatus to which the name of steam-engine could rightly be given. Its principle was practically the same...

In the case of a steam-boiler the energy of combustion is transmitted to water inside an air-tight vessel. The fuel does not actually touch the "working fluid." In the gas or oi...

Of the ultimate nature of electricity, as of that of heat and light, we are at present ignorant. But it has been clearly established that all three phenomena are but manifestati...

Take a small pocket compass and wind several turns of fine insulated wire round the case, over the top and under the bottom. Now lay the compass on a table, and turn it about un...

In our last chapter we reviewed briefly some systems of sending telegraphic messages from one point of the earth's surface to another through a circuit consisting partly of an i...

For the purposes of everyday life the telephone is even more useful than the telegraph. Telephones now connect one room of a building with another, house with house, town with t...

In previous chapters we have incidentally referred to the conversion of mechanical work into electrical energy. In this we shall examine how it is done--how the silently spinnin...

In the early days of the railway, the pulling up of a train necessitated the shutting off of steam while the stopping-place was still a great distance away. The train gradually...

The block system--Position of signals--Interlocking the signals--Locking gear--Points--Points and signals in combination--Working the block system--Series of signalling operatio...

Light is a third form of that energy of which we have already treated two manifestations--heat and electricity. The distinguishing characteristic of ether light-waves is their e...

In Fig. 119 is represented an eye looking at a vase, three inches high, situated at A, a foot away. If we were to place another vase, B, six inches high, at a distance of two fe...

Sound differs from light, heat, and electricity in that it can be propagated through matter only. Sound-waves are matter-waves, not ether-waves. This can be proved by placing an...

Longitudinal vibration--Columns of air--Resonance of columns of air--Length and tone--The open pipe--The overtones of an open pipe--Where overtones are used--The arrangement of...

In the Patent Office Museum at South Kensington is a curious little piece of machinery--a metal cylinder mounted on a long axle, which has at one end a screw thread chased along...

Why the wind blows--Land and sea breezes--Light air and moisture--The barometer--The column barometer--The wheel barometer--A very simple barometer--The aneroid barometer--Barom...

In the last chapter we saw that the pressure of the atmosphere is 15 lbs. to the square inch. Suppose that to a very long tube having a sectional area of one square inch we fit...

A well-equipped house is nowadays expected to contain efficient apparatus for supplying plenty of hot water at all hours of the day. There is little romance about the kitchen bo...

CLOCKS AND WATCHES:--A short history of timepieces--The construction of timepieces--The driving power--The escapement--Compensating pendulums--The spring balance--The cylinder e...