Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/279

Rh On which he remarked, that the mean pressure is more than half the original pressure; also that in employing a quantity of steam equal to a quarter, it would produce an effect more than half.

Watt here supposed that steam follows in its expansion the law of Mariotte, which should not be considered exact, because, in the first place, the elastic fluid in dilating falls in temperature, and in the second place there is nothing to prove that a part of this fluid is not condensed by its expansion. Watt should also have taken into consideration the force necessary to expel the steam which remains after condensation, and which is found in quantity as much greater as the expansion of the volume has been carried further. Dr. Robinson has supplemented the work of Watt by a simple formula to calculate the effect of the expansion of steam, but this formula is found to have the same faults that we have just noticed. It has nevertheless been useful to constructors by furnishing them approximate data practically quite satisfactory. We have considered it useful to recall these facts because they are little known, especially in France. These engines have been built after the models of the inventors, but the ideas by which the inventors were originally influenced have been but little understood. Ignorance of these ideas