Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/282

258 very nearly the same effect as if the elastic, fluid had been a mixture of air and combustible gas, of air and carburetted hydrogen gas, for example. There was a sort of explosion, and a sudden dilatation of the elastic fluid—a dilatation that was utilized by making it act upon the piston. The latter may have a motion of any amplitude whatever, and the motive power is thus realized. The air is next renewed, and the operation repeated.

This machine, very ingenious and interesting, especially on account of the novelty of its principle, fails in an essential point. The material used as a combustible (it was the dust of Lycopodium, used to produce flame in our theatres) was so expensive, that all the advantage was lost through that cause; and unfortunately it was difficult to employ a combustible of moderate price, since a very finely powdered substance was required which would burn quickly, spread rapidly, and leave little or no ash.

Instead of working as did MM. Niepce, it would seem to us preferable to compress the air by means of pumps, to make it traverse a perfectly closed furnace into which the combustible had been introduced in small portions by a mechanism easy of conception, to make it develop its action in a