Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/626

* PUMPS AND PUMPING. 546 PUMPS AND PUMPING. atmospheric iiicssure was balanced and the puinp rods fell. It is claimed that Newcomen and Calley were under no obligations to Savery, but gave him an interest in this patent to avoid threatened legal complications. However this may be, the numerous engines of the sort subse- quently built were known as Newconien atmos- pheric engines. Snieaton made great improve- ments in tbe Newconien engine, but it was James Watt who, during the second half of the eight- eenth century, transformed the atmospheric into the steam engine. (See Steam Engine.) Watt left the pump end of the mechanical device much as he found it. Toward the close of the eight- eenth century the use of the steam engine had been confined almost wholly to the raising of water, and the most notable steam pumping engines thus far develo])ed had lu'cn erected in the mines of Cornwall. From 1800 to 1840 vari- ous improvements in these machines were made and the term Cornisli engine came into use. The pump end changed from the bucket piston lift to the jdunger force pump. The ponderous beam still remained, and though in ordinary municipal water-supply practice the long and heavy pump rods were not required, the Cornish beam pump- ing engine was, at best, a cumbersome device. In 1840 Henry R. Worthington, of New York, while experimenting on the application of steam to canal navigation, invented the direct-acting steam pump to feed his boilers. In 1841 this new type, the first practical application of steam in this way, was patented. In 1845 the manufac- ture of siich pumps was begun in South Brooklyn, and in 1850 Jlr. Worthington .submitted a num- ber of small low-lift valves for the single high- lift valve previously employed. In 1855 the first direct-acting Worthington pump for water- works service was put in use at Savannah, Ga. In 1857 an unsuccessful attempt was made to secure the adojition at Brooklyn of a new departure in pumping engines, namely, the duplex puni]i; but it was not till 18(1.3 that the first duplex Worthington pmnp was erected. This was at Charlestown, Mass., and it had a capac- ity of 5.000,000 gallons a day. In 1884 the Worthington high-duty pump attachment, al- ready described, was perfected by C. C. Worthing- ton of the firm of H. R. Worthington. The original device was invented by J. D. Davis in 1879 and subsequently bought by the firm just named. The Worthington pinups are of the hori- zontal type, and the illustration shows a Worth- ington pumping machine installed at the Balti- more water-works high-service pumping station and delivering 17,500,000 gallons of water daily. A high-duty pumping engine, designed by I. P. Morris of Philadelphia, was installed at Lowell, Mass., in 1873. It was a vertical compound, having the two steam cylinders under one end of the beam and the pump and fly-wheel inider the other end. It had a daily capacity of 5,000.- 000 gallons and gave a duty of 03.000.000 foot- pounds per 100 pounds of coal. In the same year (1873) another type of high-duty piuuping en- gine, after designs by E. T>. Leavitt, ,Tr.. of Cam- bridgeport, Mass., was tested at Lynn, Mass. It showed a duty of 104.000.000 foot-pounds per 100 pounds of coal. This was the first of a series of high-duty fly-wheel engines designed by Leavitt, which changed, later on, from the com- pound, or double, to the triple expansion type. One of these pumping engines, built for the Calu- met and Heela Mining Company, in Michigan, has a daily capacity of 00,000,000 gallons. For a high-lift and high-duty pump this is believed to be unsurpassed in size. Another name coimected with the development of pumping engines is that of George H. Corliss, of Providence, R. I. He erected a compound engine, with double-acting piunp phnigers, at Pawtuckct, R. I., in 1878, which gave a duty of 127,000,000 foot-pounds per 100 pounds of coal. The pump end had annular bronze valve disks only 1-32 inch think. The diameters of the valves are 214 inches, and the lift 1 inch. The aggregate area of the valves is equal to the area of the plungers. A t_ype of fly-wheel pump- ing engine which has been very widely used in the United States is the Holly-Gaskill, invented by H. F. Gaskill, of Lockport, N. Y. The first of these was erected at Saratoga Springs, N. Y., in 1882. It had a capacity of 4,000,000 gallons a day and showed test duties ranging from 102,- 000,000 to 113,000,000 foot-pounds per 100 pounds of coal. It was a compound, horizontal, crank-and-fly-wheel engine with double-acting l^lunger pumps. xVnother class of high-duty pumping engines is commonly known as the Allis, from the makers, and is fre<[uently named from the chief engineer of the builders, Edwin Rej'uokls. The first pump of this type was built in 1880 for the city of ililwaukec. Wis. The three pumps are single-acting plunger, the engines are triple- expansion, and the cranks are placed on the axle at the angle of 120° with each other, in order to so vary the time of the stroke of each pump as to give a continuous flow of water. This pumping engine gave a test of 120,000,000 foot-pounds per 100 pounds of coal, which has been greatly exceeded by later Allis machines, one of which is shown on the accompanying plate. Municipal Pumping Plants. In 1582 a Dutchman named Peter Maurice erected a large pumping plant at London Bridge for the water supply of London. A current wheel drove 10 force pumps, each 17 inches in diameter and 30 inches long. By this means 21G gallons of water per minute, or 311,000 gallons a day, were raised to a cistern at an elevation of 120 feet, from which buildings near by were supplied through lead pipes. The earliest pumping plant in America, or at least the earliest one on record as supplying water for municipal purposes, was built at Beth- lehem, Pa., some time lictween 1754 and 1761. It is described as a five-inch lignum vitiP pump, and lifted water to a height of 70 feet, through bored hemlock logs. In 1761 three single-acting iron force pumps, of 4- inch bore and 18- inch stroke, driven by an undershot water-wheel, were substituted. Of other early American pumping plants, the Center Square and the Fair- mouth works at Philadelphia, started in 1801 and 1815 respectively, are perhaps the most notable. It is stated that about 1760 a Newconien at- mospheric pumping engine was imported from England for use at copper mines near Belle- ville, N. J. What appears to have been the first steam pumping engine to be built in the United States was erected by the city of Philadelphia in ISOO and put in operation on .lanuary 27, 1801, at the Center Square Works. One of the pumps lifted water from the river level to a second