Chapter
III
The Manner of fixing the engine for water-mills, palaces, and gentlemen seats
and draining fence, and supplying houses with water in general.
1.
For mills.
The engine must be made proportioned according to the quantity of water to drive
the mill you would make use of. Now suppose you would make a mill on a plain
place, where will have only a pond, and a small spring of water no bigger than
a quill then you must build your millhouse thirty six foot high, in which you
may make fort of which house without, may be placed your water-wheel of thirty
four foot diameter. For the height of either house or wheel, I would confine no
more then what is common enough. Under the wheel I would have a pond, and on
the top of the house a cistern of wood, lined with lead. The engine may be
fixed in a corner of the mill-mouse, 20, 21, 22 feet or more from the level of
the pond: There two boilers must be fixed, as shown you in the draught for
fixing the engine; and round each of them it is convenient to have a Hoop of
Iron, with straps coming from them . Your clicks and pipes in the front being
supported and strengthen them.
- For palaces or the nobility or gentlemen's houses,
you may fix the engine in any remote or cut room, whose floor is not above
twenty foot from the level of your water, and you may continue your force
pipe to the top of your house, with a convenient cistern to hold your
water. Into which lay the pipes which may convey the water as you want it,
either for pleasure or common occasions. This way of cisterns on the top
of your houses or palaces, would be of singular use in case of fire, as is
said before as for in every stair case a pipe may go down the corner, or
behind the wainscot, so as to be no blemish even to the finest of stair cases.
At every floor there may be a turn cock with a screw, at the utmost end,
have like wise a small leather pipe, kept well oiled, in a cup-board or
cavity in your wall, which may not be seen, but on the opening some part
of the wainscot; or such other contrivance as the ingenious builder shall
think fit to make use of. This pipe of leather must be long enough to reach from the landing place or
stair head, in all rooms depending thereon. One end of this pipe has a
screw to fit the cock in the other pipe; and at the other end a pipe like
the nose of a pair of bellows. So that wherever, those under a bed, or the
remotest part of any room in the house, the fire breaks out, or is
discovered, any servant having screwed the pipe to the cock, stops the
nozzle with his thumbs, where till he comes to the fire, immediately extinguishes
it , being liable to be instantly used I think a house, palace, etc. that
has this invention, may be said to be morally out of danger of being
destroyed , or so far injured as Whitehall and Kensington have been within
a few years. This command of water must be allowed to be of vast advantage
to any house whatsoever. Where brewing, washing, etc. is used, The copper
standing high, may be filled as easy as if it stood low, by which means,
the hot liquor may be contrived to go to all your coolers, and other
vessels, either by a cyphon, stop-cock, etc. without the hand-labor of
pumping or bailing with buckets. But more conveniences then we cannot
present foresee, will be discovered in the use of this engine, for
palaces, houses, etc.
- For
fence, and the like, it is convenient that these engines be made very
large: For at all small heights, a small quantity of fire will deliver
prodigious quantities of water. For suppose we force but thirty foot, and
suck twenty foot, if the boiler does but fill the vessels called
receivers, with steam strong enough to counterpoise or exceed the force of
the atmosphere, or spring of the common air , it will discharge them at so
small a height as thirty foot force, in a very little time: and the steam
having very little force or spring in one of the vessels, while the other
is discharged. Now inasmuch as the fire being more or less adds nothing to
the suction, I think such lists, being seldom above thirty six foot, under
six foot, all the directions farther needful for fixing the engine for
this use, is in all lifts under twenty four foot, to place your water into
a convenient trough or lander, to be carried off at the most proper place
for its discharge. If it be any height above twenty four foot you have
nothing to do but to continue the length of your force-pipe to the height
required. It ought to have a shed or covering round it, and to be placed
at the lowest place of your Fein or Bog, as other engines designed for
that purpose commonly are.
As for fixing the engine in ships when they may be thought probably useful,
when they may be thought probably useful, I question not but we may find
convenience enough for fixing them.
In mines and coal-pits the manner of fixing the engines is this, this your pit
being sunk, and a sump or proper well or bottom cistern, made to receive the
water coming from the several feeders or springs. Supposing an engine carrying
31/4 inch bore, is to be fixed to deliver water about seventy foot high,
constant running a full bore; in your shaft or pit, which, together with your
shaft or pit is nine foot out of one side, and five out of another
perpendicular nine foot, making a small floor or platform of boards over that
part of the shaft which goes down to your sump or bottom cistern, so you have a
complete room big enough for your engine, where ten or twelve people may stand
on occasion. This floor may be about eighteen, nineteen, or twenty foot from
the water at the lowest you ever will draw the water into the sump or bottom
cistern. If your ground be loose, 'tis convenient to line this room with brick;
if rock , it may support it itself. But in this the miners judgment must direct
him. That the engine will stand best in the side of the pit, where most is
digged away, you may fee in the second figure of the engine, being fixed with
cramps of iron, wood, or such material as are convenient , to the side of the
pit or shaft, so as to make it stand as firm as the very shaft it self. Your
furnace must be so contrived, that your flame take a turn or two round each of
the boilers, which any bricklayer, used to furnaces, can do; it being
contiguous to the wall of the furnaces, and the boilers, round them both like a
screw or worm; which being contagious to the wall of the furnaces, and the
boilers, makes it as it were a worm funnel round them both; from whence you may
continue your chimney to the top of your work, which you fasten to the corners
as you please, either with iron or wood, or both according to the nature of the
ground. And wherever you make a sudden bent or hook near a right angle inthe
chimney, have a loose brick or stone, to take out the soot, if any should
settle in long workingit may do.
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