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Steam Engine


            Steam Engine Fitzgerald.
             Thomas Newcomen was not the first person to be fascinated by boiling water and by the steam that came from the spout of a kettle. People had watched this happen for centuries, and occasionally some had tried to put this steam to use.
             Hero of Alexandria, a Greek scientist, had made a little steam engine in about the 1st century A.D. But at that time, there was nothing for the engine to do. There was so much slave labor that there was little use for laborsaving machinery. Hero's invention was regarded as just an amusing toy.
             Century's later, other people made steam type engines. An Italian, Giovanni Branca, an Englishman, Edward Somerset, and a Frenchman, Denis Papin, had all devised steam engines, but none were used very successfully.
             When Thomas Newcomen was a boy he dreamed of succeeding where the others had failed. When he grew up, Newcomen was able to make that dream come true. In 1720 he invented an "atmospheric" engine that worked differently from the engines of today.
             Newcomen's engine consisted of an upright cylinder with a piston at the top. Steam was forced into the bottom of the cylinder. This pushed out the air, leaving only steam in the cylinder. A jet of cold water was shot into the cylinder, condensing the steam into water. When this water was drawn off, a vacuum remained in the cylinder. Atmospheric pressure on the top of the piston forced it down into the vacuum. When the piston reached the bottom of the cylinder, weights attached to a crossbar pulled it back.
             Although slow an inefficient, Newcomen's steam engine was the first useful engine. It replaced human power in pumping out England's flooded coalmines, enabling miners to dig deeper than they ever had before. The engine was costly to operate, however, using almost as much coal as it helped to mine.
             Because Newcomen's engine led to the practical use of steam power, he is hailed as one of the great inventors of all time.


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