Page:Lowell Hydraulic Experiments, 4th edition.djvu/23

 these turbines be seventy-eight per cent. of the power of water expended, the Appleton Company to pay me twelve hundred dollars for my services, and patent rights for the apparatus for these mills; and if the power derived be greater than seventy-eight per cent., the Appleton Company to pay me, in addition to the twelve hundred dollars, at the rate of four hundred dollars for every one per cent. of power, obtained above seventy-eight per cent." In accordance with the contract, two of the turbines were tested, a very perfect apparatus being designed by Mr. Boyden for the purpose, consisting, essentially, of a Prony dynamometer to measure the useful effects, and a weir to gauge the quantity of water expended.

5. A great improvement in the mode of conducting hydraulic experiments was here adopted, in making each set of observations continuous, the time of each observation being noted; thus, the observer who noted the height of the water above the wheel, recorded regularly, say every thirty seconds, the time and the height; and so with the other observers, the recorded times furnishing the means of afterwards identifying simultaneous observations.

6. The observations were put into the hands of the author, for computation, who found that the mean maximum effective power of the two turbines tested, was eighty-eight per cent. of the power of the water expended.

According to the terms of the contract, this made the compensation for engineering services, and patent rights for these three wheels, amount to fifty-two hundred dollars, which sum was paid by the Appleton Company without objection.

7. These turbines have now been in operation about eight years, and their performance has been, in every respect, entirely satisfactory. The iron-work for these wheels was constructed by Messrs. Gay and Silver, at their machine shop at North Chelmsford, near Lowell; the workmanship was of the finest description, and of a delicacy and accuracy altogether unprecedented in constructions of this class.

8. These wheels, of course, contained Mr. Boyden's latest improvements, and it was evidently for his pecuniary interest that the wheels should be as perfect as possible, without much regard to cost. The principal points in which one of them differs from the constructions of Fourneyron, are as follows.

9. The wooden flume, conducting the water immediately to the turbine, is in the form of an inverted truncated cone, the water being introduced into the upper part of the cone, on one side of the axis of the cone {which coincides with the axis of the turbine) in such a manner, that the water, as it descends in the cone, has a gradually increasing velocity, and a spiral motion; the horizontal component of the spiral motion being in the direction of the motion of the wheel. This horizontal motion is derived from the necessary velocity with which the water enters the truncated cone; and the arrangement is such that, if perfectly proportioned, there would be no loss of power between the nearly still water in the principal