A NEW MOTIVE POWER.

Evening Star, Issue 3272, 15 August 1873, Page 3

A NEW MOTIVE POWER.

As steam is used at present, there is confessedly a great waste of energy. Even in the best constructed furnaces a large qnanity of fuel is pretty certain to escape by the chimney unconsumed. If the fuel is well burned, no small amount of the heat generated is sure to be wasted. Obviate both of those evils, and there still remains the fact that no use whatever is made of the power resulting from the hydrodgen of the coal passing from a solid to a gaseous state, or of the expansive force attendant on the combustion of such hydrogen in atmospheric air. That this latter force may he rendered available is shown by the circumstance that one proposed new motor owes its pow r er to an application of this very principal. In the so-called gas engines there is used as the motive force neither the electricity of the gas itself, nor steam or air expanded by heat generated by combustion of the gas, but the latter being mixed with atmospheric gas, is ignited, w’hen the explosion either acts upon a piston, or by forming a vacuum causes a piston subsequently to descend by atmospheric pressure. Such engines have not been as yet very generally imported into this part of the world. Some years since, however, one arrived at Ballarat, and recently Messrs Ferguson and Mitchell, the lithographers, of Great Collins street, have had one fitted up for the purpose of driving their presses. Their engine in question presents a somewhat different appearance to an ordinary steam-engine. There is neither boiler, furnace, crank, nor connecting rod ; nor at first sight does there appear to bo a cylinder eit her, in the ordinary acceptance of the terra. But in reality the whole engine is one entire cylinder of extra large proportions. The mechanism is somewhat more complicated than in a common steam-engine and easily explained. A certain amount of ordinary gas and atmospheric air, and in the proportion of about one part of the former to eleven parts of the latter, is admitted below the piston where tho mixture is ignited. The explosion forces up a light piston, and consequent upon the immediate recondensation of the vapors formed by the union of the hydrogen of the gas with the oxygen of air, a vacuum is formed, and the piston is forced down by the pressure of the air above it. As the motion of the piston in its upward stroke is necessarily a rapid one, whilst the downward motion is proportionately slow, a crank is altogether dispensed with. '1 he piston-rod, in fact, Is a simple rack, which works into a pinion placed loosely on the fly-wheel shaft. During the upward stroke the pinion revolves altogether free of the shaft, but on the return stroke a series of balls in connection with it jam it into a sort of clutch, so that the downward stroke of the piston imparts motion to the shaft, such motion being continued during the succeeding up stroke by means of a larger than ordinary fly-wheel. The capabilities of the engine have not as yet been practically tested, hut wo understand that in Paris the same class of engines are much used. It is said that they consume about fifty or sixty cubic feet of gas per hour, for each horse power. This expense is probably ssmewhat in excess of the cost of fuel of an ordinary steam engine ; hut then, on the otjier band, the services of a stoker are altogether dispensed with. The engineer, who may have other duties to perform, simply turns on the gas, ignites a small jet. which, by an ingenious arrangement, explodes the mixed gasps at eq,ch stroke of the piston, and, if necessary, adjusts the governor regulating the motion. At a moment's notice the eutirp machinery can be set ip fpll motion, ready to do any amount of work withip its capabilities. There is clearly, therefore, no waste of time or fuel. Every inch of gas supplied does its allotted work, and the work over, by the simple turning of a cock the motion not only ceases, but the fires are put out, and no further fuel need be consumed until a fresh starting of the machinery is necessary. Whether economical or not, there is no question whatever as to the great convenience of engines constructed on such a principle, and where many stoppages of machinery are unavoidable, and no great power is required, this or similar engines would seem to be worthy of a trial.— Age.