CHAPTER XII.

PNEUMATICS AND PNEUMATIC MACHINES.

The Slow March of the Human Mind.--Burke.--The Age of Mechanical Inventions not until nearly Watt’s Steam Engine.--Review of “Learning” until that Time.--Motor Engines not Produced until Seventeenth Century.--Suggested by the Bellows and the Cannon.--Huygens and Papin.--Van Helmont the Author of the Term “Gas,” 1577-1644.--Robert Boyle and the Air Pump.--Law of Gases.--Mariotte.--Abbé Hauteville, 1682.--The Heart and a Motor.--Sun Burner.--Murdock, 1798, Uses Coal Gas for Illumination.--John Barber and Carburetted Hydrogen.-- Street’s Heated Gas.--1801, Lebon Proposes Coal Gas Motor.-- Investigations of Dalton and Gay-Lussac, 1810.--Heat engines: Air, Gas, Steam, Vapor, Solar.--Explosive.--Temperature the Tie that Binds them as One Family.--1823-26, Sir Samuel Brown.-- Gunpowder and Gas Engine.--Davy and Faraday.--Gas to a Liquid State.--Wright, 1833.--Burdett’s Compressed Air Engine, 1838.-- Lenoir’s.--Hugon’s.--Beau de Rohes’ Investigations.--Oil Wells of United States, 1860.--Petroleum Engines.--Brayton, Spiel.-- Otto’s Gas Engine and Improvements.--Ammoniacal Gas Engines.-- Nobels’ Inventions.--Storm’s Gunpowder Engine.--Gas and Vapour Compared with Steam.--Prof. Jenkins’ Prediction.--Gas to Supplant Steam.--Compressed Air Engines.--Innumerable Applications of Pneumatic Machines.--A Number Mentioned.-- Their Universal Application to the Useful and Fine Arts. 182