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A CATECHISM OF THE STEAM ENGINE

IN ITS VARIOUS APPLICATIONS TO MINES,
MILLS, STEAM NAVIGATION, RAILWAYS,
AND AGRICULTURE.

WITH

PRACTICAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE MANUFACTURE
AND MANAGEMENT OF ENGINES OF EVERY CLASS.


BY

JOHN BOURNE, C.E.


_NEW AND REVISED EDITION._


[Transcriber's Note: Inconsistencies in chapter headings and numbering
of paragraphs and illustrations have been retained in this edition.]


PREFACE

TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

For some years past a new edition of this work has been called for, but I
was unwilling to allow a new edition to go forth with all the original
faults of the work upon its head, and I have been too much engaged in the
practical construction of steam ships and steam engines to find time for
the thorough revision which I knew the work required. At length, however, I
have sufficiently disengaged myself from these onerous pursuits to
accomplish this necessary revision; and I now offer the work to the public,
with the confidence that it will be found better deserving of the favorable
acceptation and high praise it has already received. There are very few
errors, either of fact or of inference, in the early editions, which I have
had to correct; but there are many omissions which I have had to supply,
and faults of arrangement and classification which I have had to rectify. I
have also had to bring the information, which the work professes to afford,
up to the present time, so as to comprehend the latest improvements.

For the sake of greater distinctness the work is now divided into chapters.
Some of these chapters are altogether new, and the rest have received such
extensive additions and improvements as to make the book almost a new one.
One purpose of my emendations has been to render my remarks intelligible to
a tyro, as well as instructive to an advanced student. With this view, I
have devoted the first chapter to a popular description of the Steam
Engine--which all may understand who can understand anything--and in the
subsequent gradations of progress I have been careful to set no object
before the reader for the first time, of which the nature and functions are
not simultaneously explained. The design I have proposed to myself, in the
composition of this work, is to take a young lad who knows nothing of steam
engines, and to lead him by easy advances up to the highest point of
information I have myself attained; and it has been a pleasing duty to me
to smooth for others the path which I myself found so rugged, and to
impart, for the general good of mankind, the secrets which others have
guarded with so much jealousy. I believe I am the first author who has
communicated that practical information respecting the steam engine, which
persons proposing to follow the business of an engineer desire to possess.
My business has, therefore, been the rough business of a pioneer; and while
hewing a road through the trackless forest, along which all might hereafter
travel with ease, I had no time to attend to those minute graces of
composition and petty perfection of arrangement and collocation, which are
the attribute of the academic grove, or the literary parterre. I am,
nevertheless, not insensible to the advantages of method and clear
arrangement in any work professing to instruct mankind in the principles
and practice of any art; and many of the changes introduced into the
present edition of this work are designed to render it less exceptionable
in this respect. The woodcuts now introduced into the work for the first
time will, I believe, much increase its interest and utility; and upon the
whole I am content to dismiss it into circulation, in the belief that those
who peruse it attentively will obtain a more rapid and more practical
acquaintance with the steam engine in its various applications, than they
would be likely otherwise to acquire.

I have only to add that I have prepared a sequel to the present work, in
the shape of a Hand-Book of the Steam Engine, containing the whole of the
rules given in the present work, illustrated by examples worked out at
length, and also containing such useful tables and other data, as the
engineer requires to refer to constantly in the course of his practice.
This work may be bound up with the "Catechism," if desired, to which it is
in fact a Key.

I shall thankfully receive from engineers, either abroad or at home,
accounts of any engines or other machinery, with which they may become
familiar in their several localities; and I shall be happy, in my turn, to
answer any inquiries on engineering subjects which fall within the compass
of my information. If young engineers meet with any difficulty in their
studies, I shall be happy to resolve it if I can; and they may communicate
with me upon any such point without hesitation, in whatever quarter of the
world they may happen to be.


JOHN BOURNE.
9 BILLITER STREET,
LONDON,

_March 1st, 1856_.




PREFACE

TO THE FIFTH EDITION.

The last edition of the present work, consisting of 3,500 copies, having
been all sold off in about ten months, I now issue another edition, the
demand for the work being still unabated. It affords, certainly, some
presumption that a work in some measure supplies an ascertained want, when,
though addressing only a limited circle--discoursing only of technical
questions, and without any accident to