Annual of Scientific Discovery (Volume 8); Or, Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art, for [1850]-71, Exhibiting the Most Important Discoveries and Improvements in Mechanics, Useful Arts, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Botany, M (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HUGO'S STEAM BOILER WATER GAUGE. This invention, which is highly commended, is externally a glaw tube, two inches in diameter, and eighteen inches long, which may be placed in any part of the building on the same story with the boiler, or on another. A vertical iron pipe, half an inch in diameter, is inside of the glass tube, placed by the side of the boiler; this pipe is prolonged and enters the boiler below and above the water line. In consequence of this arrangement the water takes the same level in the pipe which it has in the boiler, but this pipe being small, the water in it gets comparatively cool, so that any one may easily leave his hand against the pipe below the water level, when the part immediately above it is kept burning hot by the steam constantly condensing inside. The glass tube is placed around the iron pipe, Bo that its middle corresponds with the proper level of the water; it is elosed at both ends, and in communication with a reservoir of water placed above it. When the communication with the reservoir is opened, the water rushes into the glass tube and rises around the iron pipe, but as soon as it reaches the hot portion of the pipe it boils, and the steam thus formed, filling the glass tube, prevents by its own pressure the water from rising higher. This steam condenses slowly into water against the glass, when the water, rising in proportion, comes again in contact with the portion of the pipe which contains steam inside, and furnishes a new supply of steam. The water in the glass is thus kept on exactly the same level with the water in the pipe and that in the boiler. The gauge in the upper story is on a different principle, and is acted upon by the one below. Tho two gauges arc made to communicate by a pipe, and so much water is let in as will fill th...