Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Steam Engine
Take a hollow cylinder (fig. 1) of indefinite height, the bottom of which is closed while the top remains open, and fill this cylinder to the height of a few inches with water.
Next cover in the water by means of a ?at plate, or piston, which fits perfectly the in terior of the cylinder, and then apply heat to the water we shall witness the following phenomena. After the lapse of some minutes the water will begin to boil, and steam will accumulate at its upper surface between it and the piston, which latter will be raised slightly in order to make room for the steam. As the boiling process continues, more and more steam will be formed, and the piston will be raised higher and higher, till the whole of the water is boiled away, and nothing but steam is contained in the cylinder. Now this apparatus, consisting of cylinder, piston, water, and fire, is an elementary form of steam engine of the simplest kind. For a steam engine may be defined as an apparatus for doing work by means of heat applied to water and it is manifest that the appliance just described, inconvenient and clumsy though it may be, perfectly answers to the definition; for the piston is a weight, and this weight has been raised to a certain height by the formation of steam from the water. Now the raising of a weight through a height is a particular form of doing work, and consequently this combination is an apparatus capable of doing work by means of heat applied to water.
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