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1 ♦ engine
♦ engine /ˈɛndʒɪn/n.1 (mecc.) motore; macchina: four-stroke engine, motore a quattro tempi; internal-combustion engine, motore a combustione interna; motore a scoppio; diesel engine, motore diesel; diesel; the invention of the steam engine, l'invenzione della macchina a vapore; to start (o to switch on) the engine, accendere il motore; to switch off the engine, spegnere il motore4 (fig.) elemento trainante: Entrepreneurs are a major engine of economic growth, gli imprenditori sono un importante elemento trainante dello sviluppo dell'economia5 (comput.) motore6 (stor.) macchina da guerra● (mecc.) engine block, monoblocco ( di motore) □ (ferr.) engine cab, cabina del macchinista □ (ferr., GB) engine driver, macchinista □ (naut.) engine hatchway, boccaporto delle macchine □ engine house, rimessa delle autopompe □ (mecc.) engine lathe, tornio parallelo per filettare □ (aeron.) engine mounting pylon, castello motore □ (ferr.) engine pit, buca per la riparazione delle locomotive □ (mecc.) engine power, potenza del motore □ (autom., mecc.) engine reconditioning, revisione del motore □ ( anche naut.) engine room, sala (delle) macchine □ (naut.) engine-room personnel, personale di macchina □ (autom., mecc.) engine size (o displacement), cilindrata ( del motore) □ (autom.) engine starter, motorino d'avviamento □ (autom., aeron.) engine trouble, guai al motore □ (autom., mecc.) engine tuning, messa a punto del motore NOTA D'USO: - motor o engine?-. -
2 ♦ invention
♦ invention /ɪnˈvɛnʃn/n.1 [uc] invenzione ( in ogni senso); storia inventata, falsa; frottola: the invention of the steam engine, l'invenzione della macchina a vapore; an invention of yesterday, un'invenzione recentissima2 [u] inventiva; immaginativa● (prov.) Necessity is the mother of invention, il bisogno aguzza l'ingegno. -
3 Savery, Thomas
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. c. 1650 probably Shilston, near Modbury, Devonshire, Englandd. c. 15 May 1715 London, England[br]English inventor of a partially successful steam-driven pump for raising water.[br]Little is known of the early years of Savery's life and no trace has been found that he served in the Army, so the title "Captain" is thought to refer to some mining appointment, probably in the West of England. He may have been involved in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, for later he was well known to William of Orange. From 1705 to 1714 he was Treasurer for Sick and Wounded Seamen, and in 1714 he was appointed Surveyor of the Water Works at Hampton Court, a post he held until his death the following year. He was interested in mechanical devices; amongst his early contrivances was a clock.He was the most prolific inventor of his day, applying for seven patents, including one in 1649, for polishing plate glass which may have been used. His idea for 1697 for propelling ships with paddle-wheels driven by a capstan was a failure, although regarded highly by the King, and was published in his first book, Navigation Improved (1698). He tried to patent a new type of floating mill in 1707, and an idea in 1710 for baking sea coal or other fuel in an oven to make it clean and pure.His most famous invention, however, was the one patented in 1698 "for raising water by the impellent force of fire" that Savery said would drain mines or low-lying land, raise water to supply towns or houses, and provide a source of water for turning mills through a water-wheel. Basically it consisted of a receiver which was first filled with steam and then cooled to create a vacuum by having water poured over the outside. The water to be pumped was drawn into the receiver from a lower sump, and then high-pressure steam was readmitted to force the water up a pipe to a higher level. It was demonstrated to the King and the Royal Society and achieved some success, for a few were installed in the London area and a manufactory set up at Salisbury Court in London. He published a book, The Miner's Friend, about his engine in 1702, but although he made considerable improvements, due to excessive fuel consumption and materials which could not withstand the steam pressures involved, no engines were installed in mines as Savery had hoped. His patent was extended in 1699 until 1733 so that it covered the atmospheric engine of Thomas Newcomen who was forced to join Savery and his other partners to construct this much more practical engine.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1706.Bibliography1698, Navigation Improved.1702, The Miner's Friend.Further ReadingThe entry in the Dictionary of National Biography (1897, Vol. L, London: Smith Elder \& Co.) has been partially superseded by more recent research. The Transactions of the Newcomen Society contain various papers; for example, Rhys Jenkins, 1922–3, "Savery, Newcomen and the early history of the steam engine", Vol. 3; A.Stowers, 1961–2, "Thomas Newcomen's first steam engine 250 years ago and the initial development of steam power", Vol. 34; A.Smith, 1977–8, "Steam and the city: the committee of proprietors of the invention for raising water by fire", 1715–1735, Vol. 49; and J.S.P.Buckland, 1977–8, "Thomas Savery, his steam engine workshop of 1702", Vol. 49. Brief accounts may be found in H.W. Dickinson, 1938, A Short History of the Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press, and R.L. Hills, 1989, Power from Steam. A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press. There is another biography in T.I. Williams (ed.), 1969, A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists, London: A. \& C.Black.RLH -
4 Watt, James
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 19 January 1735 Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotlandd. 19 August 1819 Handsworth Heath, Birmingham, England[br]Scottish engineer and inventor of the separate condenser for the steam engine.[br]The sixth child of James Watt, merchant and general contractor, and Agnes Muirhead, Watt was a weak and sickly child; he was one of only two to survive childhood out of a total of eight, yet, like his father, he was to live to an age of over 80. He was educated at local schools, including Greenock Grammar School where he was an uninspired pupil. At the age of 17 he was sent to live with relatives in Glasgow and then in 1755 to London to become an apprentice to a mathematical instrument maker, John Morgan of Finch Lane, Cornhill. Less than a year later he returned to Greenock and then to Glasgow, where he was appointed mathematical instrument maker to the University and was permitted in 1757 to set up a workshop within the University grounds. In this position he came to know many of the University professors and staff, and it was thus that he became involved in work on the steam engine when in 1764 he was asked to put in working order a defective Newcomen engine model. It did not take Watt long to perceive that the great inefficiency of the Newcomen engine was due to the repeated heating and cooling of the cylinder. His idea was to drive the steam out of the cylinder and to condense it in a separate vessel. The story is told of Watt's flash of inspiration as he was walking across Glasgow Green one Sunday afternoon; the idea formed perfectly in his mind and he became anxious to get back to his workshop to construct the necessary apparatus, but this was the Sabbath and work had to wait until the morrow, so Watt forced himself to wait until the Monday morning.Watt designed a condensing engine and was lent money for its development by Joseph Black, the Glasgow University professor who had established the concept of latent heat. In 1768 Watt went into partnership with John Roebuck, who required the steam engine for the drainage of a coal-mine that he was opening up at Bo'ness, West Lothian. In 1769, Watt took out his patent for "A New Invented Method of Lessening the Consumption of Steam and Fuel in Fire Engines". When Roebuck went bankrupt in 1772, Matthew Boulton, proprietor of the Soho Engineering Works near Birmingham, bought Roebuck's share in Watt's patent. Watt had met Boulton four years earlier at the Soho works, where power was obtained at that time by means of a water-wheel and a steam engine to pump the water back up again above the wheel. Watt moved to Birmingham in 1774, and after the patent had been extended by Parliament in 1775 he and Boulton embarked on a highly profitable partnership. While Boulton endeavoured to keep the business supplied with capital, Watt continued to refine his engine, making several improvements over the years; he was also involved frequently in legal proceedings over infringements of his patent.In 1794 Watt and Boulton founded the new company of Boulton \& Watt, with a view to their retirement; Watt's son James and Boulton's son Matthew assumed management of the company. Watt retired in 1800, but continued to spend much of his time in the workshop he had set up in the garret of his Heathfield home; principal amongst his work after retirement was the invention of a pantograph sculpturing machine.James Watt was hard-working, ingenious and essentially practical, but it is doubtful that he would have succeeded as he did without the business sense of his partner, Matthew Boulton. Watt coined the term "horsepower" for quantifying the output of engines, and the SI unit of power, the watt, is named in his honour.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1785. Honorary LLD, University of Glasgow 1806. Foreign Associate, Académie des Sciences, Paris 1814.Further ReadingH.W.Dickinson and R Jenkins, 1927, James Watt and the Steam Engine, Oxford: Clarendon Press.L.T.C.Rolt, 1962, James Watt, London: B.T. Batsford.R.Wailes, 1963, James Watt, Instrument Maker (The Great Masters: Engineering Heritage, Vol. 1), London: Institution of Mechanical Engineers.IMcN -
5 Gurney, Sir Goldsworthy
SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Land transport, Mining and extraction technology, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 14 February 1793 Treator, near Padstow, Cornwall, Englandd. 28 February 1875 Reeds, near Bude, Cornwall, England[br]English pioneer of steam road transport.[br]Educated at Truro Grammar School, he then studied under Dr Avery at Wadebridge to become a doctor of medicine. He settled as a surgeon in Wadebridge, spending his leisure time in building an organ and in the study of chemistry and mechanical science. He married Elizabeth Symons in 1814, and in 1820 moved with his wife to London. He delivered a course of lectures at the Surrey Institution on the elements of chemical science, attended by, amongst others, the young Michael Faraday. While there, Gurney made his first invention, the oxyhydrogen blowpipe. For this he received the Gold Medal of the Society of Arts. He experimented with lime and magnesia for the production of an illuminant for lighthouses with some success. He invented a musical instrument of glasses played like a piano.In 1823 he started experiments related to steam and locomotion which necessitated taking a partner in to his medical practice, from which he resigned shortly after. His objective was to produce a steam-driven vehicle to run on common roads. His invention of the steam-jet of blast greatly improved the performance of the steam engine. In 1827 he took his steam carriage to Cyfarthfa at the request of Mr Crawshaw, and while there applied his steam-jet to the blast furnaces, greatly improving their performance in the manufacture of iron. Much of the success of George Stephenson's steam engine, the Rocket was due to Gurney's steam blast.In July 1829 Gurney made a historic trip with his road locomotive. This was from London to Bath and back, which was accomplished at a speed of 18 mph (29 km/h) and was made at the instigation of the Quartermaster-General of the Army. So successful was the carriage that Sir Charles Dance started to run a regular service with it between Gloucester and Cheltenham. This ran for three months without accident, until Parliament introduced prohibitive taxation on all self-propelled vehicles. A House of Commons committee proposed that these should be abolished as inhibiting progress, but this was not done. Sir Goldsworthy petitioned Parliament on the harm being done to him, but nothing was done and the coming of the railways put the matter beyond consideration. He devoted his time to finding other uses for the steam-jet: it was used for extinguishing fires in coal-mines, some of which had been burning for many years; he developed a stove for the production of gas from oil and other fatty substances, intended for lighthouses; he was responsible for the heating and the lighting of both the old and the new Houses of Parliament. His evidence after a colliery explosion resulted in an Act of Parliament requiring all mines to have two shafts. He was knighted in 1863, the same year that he suffered a stroke which incapacitated him. He retired to his house at Reeds, near Bude, where he was looked after by his daughter, Anna.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1863. Society of Arts Gold Medal.IMcNBiographical history of technology > Gurney, Sir Goldsworthy
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6 Somerset, Edward, 2nd Marquis of Worcester
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. 1601d. 3 April 1667 Lambeth (?), London, England[br]English inventor of a steam-operated pump for raising water, described in his work A Century of…Inventions.[br]Edward Somerset became 6th Earl and 2nd Marquis of Worcester and Titular Earl of Glamorgan. He was educated privately and then abroad, visiting Germany, Italy and France. He was made Councillor of Wales in 1633 and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire in 1635. On the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commissioned to levy forces against the Scots in 1640. He garrisoned Raglan Castle for the King and was employed by Charles I to bring troops in from Ireland. He was declared an enemy of the realm by Parliament and was banished, remaining in France for some years. On the Restoration, he recovered most of his estates, principally in South Wales, and was able to devote most of his time to mechanical studies and experiments.Soon after 1626, he had employed the services of a skilled Dutch or German mechanic, Caspar Kaltoff, to make small-scale models for display to interested people. In 1638 he showed Charles I a 14 ft (4.3m) diameter wheel carrying forty weights that was claimed to have solved the problem of perpetual motion. He wrote his Century of the Names and Scantlings of Such Inventions as at Present I Can Call to Mind to have Tried and Perfected in 1655, but it was not published until 1663: no. 68 describes "An admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire", which has been claimed as an early steam-engine. Before the Civil War he made experiments at Raglan Castle, and after the war he built one of his engines at Vauxhall, London, where it raised water to a height of 40 ft (12 m). An Act of Parliament enabling Worcester to receive the benefit and profits of his water-commanding engine for ninety-nine years did not restore his fortunes. Descriptions of this invention are so vague that it cannot be reconstructed.[br]Bibliography1655, Century of the Names and Scantlings of Such Inventions as at Present I Can Call to Mind to have Tried and Perfected.Further ReadingH.Dircks, 1865, The Life, Times and Scientific Labours of the Second Marquis of Worcester.Dictionary of National Biography, 1898, Vol. L, London: Smith Elder \& Co. (mainly covers his political career).H.W.Dickinson, 1938, A Short History of the Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press (discusses his steam engine invention).W.H.Thorpe, 1932–3, "The Marquis of Worcester and Vauxhall", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 13.RLHBiographical history of technology > Somerset, Edward, 2nd Marquis of Worcester
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7 Smeaton, John
SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 8 June 1724 Austhorpe, near Leeds, Yorkshire, Englandd. 28 October 1792 Austhorpe, near Leeds, Yorkshire, England[br]English mechanical and civil engineer.[br]As a boy, Smeaton showed mechanical ability, making for himself a number of tools and models. This practical skill was backed by a sound education, probably at Leeds Grammar School. At the age of 16 he entered his father's office; he seemed set to follow his father's profession in the law. In 1742 he went to London to continue his legal studies, but he preferred instead, with his father's reluctant permission, to set up as a scientific instrument maker and dealer and opened a shop of his own in 1748. About this time he began attending meetings of the Royal Society and presented several papers on instruments and mechanical subjects, being elected a Fellow in 1753. His interests were turning towards engineering but were informed by scientific principles grounded in careful and accurate observation.In 1755 the second Eddystone lighthouse, on a reef some 14 miles (23 km) off the English coast at Plymouth, was destroyed by fire. The President of the Royal Society was consulted as to a suitable engineer to undertake the task of constructing a new one, and he unhesitatingly suggested Smeaton. Work began in 1756 and was completed in three years to produce the first great wave-swept stone lighthouse. It was constructed of Portland stone blocks, shaped and pegged both together and to the base rock, and bonded by hydraulic cement, scientifically developed by Smeaton. It withstood the storms of the English Channel for over a century, but by 1876 erosion of the rock had weakened the structure and a replacement had to be built. The upper portion of Smeaton's lighthouse was re-erected on a suitable base on Plymouth Hoe, leaving the original base portion on the reef as a memorial to the engineer.The Eddystone lighthouse made Smeaton's reputation and from then on he was constantly in demand as a consultant in all kinds of engineering projects. He carried out a number himself, notably the 38 mile (61 km) long Forth and Clyde canal with thirty-nine locks, begun in 1768 but for financial reasons not completed until 1790. In 1774 he took charge of the Ramsgate Harbour works.On the mechanical side, Smeaton undertook a systematic study of water-and windmills, to determine the design and construction to achieve the greatest power output. This work issued forth as the paper "An experimental enquiry concerning the natural powers of water and wind to turn mills" and exerted a considerable influence on mill design during the early part of the Industrial Revolution. Between 1753 and 1790 Smeaton constructed no fewer than forty-four mills.Meanwhile, in 1756 he had returned to Austhorpe, which continued to be his home base for the rest of his life. In 1767, as a result of the disappointing performance of an engine he had been involved with at New River Head, Islington, London, Smeaton began his important study of the steam-engine. Smeaton was the first to apply scientific principles to the steam-engine and achieved the most notable improvements in its efficiency since its invention by Newcomen, until its radical overhaul by James Watt. To compare the performance of engines quantitatively, he introduced the concept of "duty", i.e. the weight of water that could be raised 1 ft (30 cm) while burning one bushel (84 lb or 38 kg) of coal. The first engine to embody his improvements was erected at Long Benton colliery in Northumberland in 1772, with a duty of 9.45 million pounds, compared to the best figure obtained previously of 7.44 million pounds. One source of heat loss he attributed to inaccurate boring of the cylinder, which he was able to improve through his close association with Carron Ironworks near Falkirk, Scotland.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1753.Bibliography1759, "An experimental enquiry concerning the natural powers of water and wind to turn mills", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.Towards the end of his life, Smeaton intended to write accounts of his many works but only completed A Narrative of the Eddystone Lighthouse, 1791, London.Further ReadingS.Smiles, 1874, Lives of the Engineers: Smeaton and Rennie, London. A.W.Skempton, (ed.), 1981, John Smeaton FRS, London: Thomas Telford. L.T.C.Rolt and J.S.Allen, 1977, The Steam Engine of Thomas Newcomen, 2nd edn, Hartington: Moorland Publishing, esp. pp. 108–18 (gives a good description of his work on the steam-engine).LRD -
8 Diesel, Rudolph Christian Karl
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1858 Paris, Franced. 1913 at sea, in the English Channel[br]German inventor of the Diesel or Compression Ignition engine.[br]A German born in Paris, he was educated in Augsburg and later in Munich, where he graduated first in his class. There he took some courses under Professor Karl von Linde, pioneer of mechanical refrigeration and an authority on thermodynamics, who pointed out the low efficiency of the steam engine. He went to work for the Linde Ice Machine Company as an engineer and later as Manager; there he conceived a new basic cycle and worked out its thermodynamics, which he published in 1893 as "The theory and construction of a rational heat motor". Compressing air adiabatically to one-sixteenth of its volume caused the temperature to rise to 1,000°F (540°C). Injected fuel would then ignite automatically without any electrical system. He obtained permission to use the laboratories of the Augsburg-Nuremburg Engine Works to build a single-cylinder prototype. On test it blew up, nearly killing Diesel. He proved his principle, however, and obtained financial support from the firm of Alfred Krupp. The design was refined until successful and in 1898 an engine was put on display in Munich with the result that many business people invested in Diesel and his engine and its worldwide production. Diesel made over a million dollars out of the invention. The heart of the engine is the fuel-injection pump, which operates at a pressure of c.500 psi (35 kg/cm). The first English patent for the engine was in 1892. The firms in Augsburg sent him abroad to sell his engine; he persuaded the French to adopt it for submarines, Germany having refused this. Diesel died in 1913 in mysterious circumstances, vanishing from the Harwich-Antwerp ferry.[br]Further ReadingE.Diesel, 1937, Diesel, derMensch, das Werk, das Schicksal, Hamburg. J.S.Crowther, 1959, Six Great Engineers, London.John F.Sandfort, 1964, Heat Engines.IMcNBiographical history of technology > Diesel, Rudolph Christian Karl
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9 Benz, Karl
[br]b. 25 November 1844 Pfaffenrot, Black Forest, Germanyd. 4 April 1929 Ladenburg, near Mannheim, Germany[br]German inventor of one of the first motor cars.[br]The son of a railway mechanic, it is said that as a child one of his hobbies was the repair of Black Forest clocks. He trained as a mechanical engineer at the Karlsruhe Lyzeum and Polytechnikum under Ferdinand Redtenbacher (d. 1863), who pointed out to him the need for a more portable power source than the steam engine. He went to Maschinenbau Gesellschaft Karlsruhe for workshop experience and then joined Schweizer \& Cie, Mannheim, for two years. In 1868 he went to the Benkiser Brothers at Pforzheim. In 1871 he set up a small machine-tool works at Mannheim, but in 1877, in financial difficulties, he turned to the idea of an entirely new product based on the internal-combustion engine. At this time, N.A. Otto held the patent for the four-stroke internal-combustion engine, so Benz had to put his hopes on a two-stroke design. He avoided the trouble with Dugald Clerk's engine and designed one in which the fuel would not ignite in the pump and in which the cylinder was swept with fresh air between each two firing strokes. His first car had a sparking plug and coil ignition. By 1879 he had developed the engine to a stage where it would run satisfactorily with little attention. On 31 December 1879, with his wife Bertha working the treadle of her sewing machine to charge the batteries, he demonstrated his engine in street trials in Mannheim. In the summer of 1888, unknown to her husband, Bertha drove one of his cars the 80 km (50 miles) to Pforzheim and back with her two sons, aged 13 and 15. She and the elder boy pushed the car up hills while the younger one steered. They bought petrol from an apothecary in Wiesloch and had a brake block repaired in Bauschlott by the village cobbler. Karl Benz's comments on her return from this venture are not recorded! Financial problems prevented immediate commercial production of the automobile, but in 1882 Benz set up the Gasmotorenfabrik Mannheim. After trouble with some of his partners, he left in 1883 and formed a new company, Benz \& Cie, Rheinische Gasmotorenfabrik. Otto's patent was revoked in 1886 and in that year Benz patented a motor car with a gas engine drive. He manufactured a 0.8hp car, the engine running at 250 rpm with a horizontal flywheel, exhibited at the Paris Fair in 1889. He was not successful in finding anyone in France who would undertake manufacture. This first car was a three-wheeler, and soon after he produced a four-wheeled car, but he quarrelled with his co-directors, and although he left the board in 1902 he rejoined it soon after.[br]Further ReadingSt J.Nixon, 1936, The Invention of the Automobile. E.Diesel et al., 1960, From Engines to Autos. E.Johnson, 1986, The Dawn of Motoring.IMcN -
10 dawn
1. intransitive verb1) dämmernday[light] dawned — der Morgen dämmerte
2) (fig.) [Zeitalter:] anbrechen; [Idee:] aufkommensomething dawns on or upon somebody — etwas dämmert jemandem
2. nounhasn't it dawned on you that...? — ist dir nicht langsam klar geworden, dass...?
[Morgen]dämmerung, diefrom dawn to dusk — von früh bis spät
* * *[do:n] 1. verb((especially of daylight) to begin to appear: A new day has dawned. See also dawn on below.) dämmern2. noun2) (the very beginning of something: the dawn of civilization.) der Anbruch•- academic.ru/18544/dawning">dawning- dawn on* * *I. nat [the break of] \dawn bei Tagesanbruch, im Morgengrauen[from] \dawn to dusk von morgens bis abends\dawn breaks der Tag bricht anII. via new age \dawned with the invention of the steam engine mit der Erfindung der Dampfmaschine nahm ein neues Zeitalter seinen Anfangit suddenly \dawned on me that... auf einmal fiel mir siedend heiß ein, dass...* * *[dɔːn] (Morgen)dämmerung f, Morgenröte f (liter); (no art: time of day) Tagesanbruch m, Morgengrauen ntat dawn — bei Tagesanbruch, im Morgengrauen
it's almost dawn — es ist fast Morgen, es dämmert schon bald
2. vi1)the day dawned rainy — der Tag fing mit Regen an
3) (inf)it dawned on him that... — es wurde ihm langsam klar, dass..., es dämmerte ihm, dass...
* * *dawn [dɔːn]A v/i1. tagen, dämmern, grauen, anbrechen (Morgen, Tag)2. fig (herauf)dämmern, aufgehen, erwachen, anfangenthe truth dawned (up)on him ihm ging ein Licht aufB s1. (Morgen)Dämmerung f, Tagesanbruch m, Morgengrauen n:at dawn beim Morgengrauen, bei Tagesanbruch;the dawn chorus das Vogelkonzert bei Tagesanbruch2. fig Morgen m, Erwachen n, Anbruch m, Beginn m, Anfang m:the dawn of hope ein erster Hoffnungsschimmer* * *1. intransitive verb1) dämmernday[light] dawned — der Morgen dämmerte
2) (fig.) [Zeitalter:] anbrechen; [Idee:] aufkommensomething dawns on or upon somebody — etwas dämmert jemandem
2. nounhasn't it dawned on you that...? — ist dir nicht langsam klar geworden, dass...?
[Morgen]dämmerung, die* * *(of day) n.Grauen - n. n.Anbruch des Tages m.Beginn -e m.Dämmerung f.Morgendämmerung f. v.dämmern v. -
11 dawn
at [the break of] \dawn bei Tagesanbruch, im Morgengrauen;[from] \dawn to dusk von morgens bis abends;\dawn breaks der Tag bricht an;the day was just \dawning as the ship landed es dämmerte gerade, als das Schiff einlief;a new age \dawned with the invention of the steam engine mit der Erfindung der Dampfmaschine nahm ein neues Zeitalter seinen Anfangit suddenly \dawned on me that... auf einmal fiel mir siedend heiß ein, dass... -
12 Menzies, Michael
[br]b. end of the seventeenth century Lanarkshire, Scotland (?)d. 13 December 1766 Edinburgh, Scotland[br]Scottish inventor and lawyer.[br]Menzies was admitted as a member of the Faculty of Advocates on 31 January 1719. It is evident from his applications for patents that he was more concerned with inventions than the law, however. He took out his first patent in 1734 for a threshing machine in which a number of flails were attached to a horizontal axis, which was moved rapidly forwards and backwards through half a revolution, essentially imitating the action of an ordinary flail. The grain to be threshed was placed on either side.Though not a practical success, Menzies's invention seems to have been the first for the mechanical threshing of grain. His idea of imitating non-mechanized action also influenced his invention of a coal cutter, for which he took out a patent in 1761 and which copied miners' tools for obtaining coal. He proposed to carry heavy chains down the pit so that they could be used to give motion to iron picks, saws or other chains with cutting implements. The chains could be set into motion by a steam-engine, by water-or windmills, or by horses gins. Although it is quite obvious that this apparatus could not work, Menzies was the first to have thought of mechanizing coal production in the style that was in use in the late twentieth century. Subsequent to Menzies's proposal, many inventors at varying intervals followed this direction until the problem was finally solved one century later by, among others, W.E. Garforth.Menzies had successfully used the power of a steam-engine on the Wear eight years beforehand, when he obtained a patent for raising coal. According to his device a descending bucket filled with water raised a basket of coals, while a steam-engine pumped the water back to the surface; the balance-tub system, in various forms, quickly spread to other coalfields. Menzies's patent from 1750 for improved methods of carrying the coals from the coalface to the pit-shaft had also been of considerable influence: this device employed self-acting inclined planes, whereon the descending loaded wagons hauled up the empty ones.[br]Further ReadingThe article entitled "Michael Menzies" in the Dictionary of National Biography neglects Menzies's inventions for mining. A comprehensive evaluation of his influence on coal cutting is given in the introductory chapter of S.F.Walker, 1902, Coal-Cutting byMachinery, London.WK -
13 McCoy, Elijah
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1843 Colchester, Ontario, Canadad. 1929 Detroit, Michigan (?), USA[br]African-American inventor of steam-engine lubricators.[br]McCoy was born into a community of escaped African-American slaves. As a youth he went to Scotland and served an apprenticeship in Edinburgh in mechanical engineering. He returned to North America and ended up in Ypsilanti, Michigan, seeking employment at the headquarters of the Michigan Central Railroad Company. In spite of his training, the only job McCoy could obtain was that of locomotive fireman. Still, that enabled him to study at close quarters the problem of lubricating adequately the moving parts of a steam locomotive. Inefficient lubrication led to overheating, delays and even damage. In 1872 McCoy patented the first of his lubricating devices, applicable particularly to stationary engines. He assigned his patent rights to W. and S.C.Hamlin of Ypsilanti, from which he derived enough financial resources to develop his invention. A year later he patented an improved hydrostatic lubricator, which could be used for both stationary and locomotive engines, and went on to make further improvements. McCoy's lubricators were widely taken up by other railroads and his employers promoted him from the footplate to the task of giving instruction in the use of his lubricating equipment. Many others had been attempting to achieve the same result and many rival products were on the market, but none was superior to McCoy's, which came to be known as "the Real McCoy", a term that has since acquired a wider application than to engine lubricators. McCoy moved to Detroit, Michigan, as a patent consultant in the railroad business. Altogether, he took out over fifty patents for various inventions, so that he became one of the most prolific of nineteenth-century black inventors, whose activities had been so greatly stimulated by the freedoms they acquired after the American Civil War. His more valuable patents were assigned to investors, who formed the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company. McCoy himself, however, was not a major shareholder, so he seems not to have derived the benefit that was due to him.[br]Further ReadingP.P.James, 1989, The Real McCoy: African-American Invention and Innovation 1619– 1930, Washington: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 73–5.LRD -
14 Ford, Henry
[br]b. 30 July 1863 Dearborn, Michigan, USAd. 7 April 1947 Dearborn, Michigan, USA[br]American pioneer motor-car maker and developer of mass-production methods.[br]He was the son of an Irish immigrant farmer, William Ford, and the oldest son to survive of Mary Litogot; his mother died in 1876 with the birth of her sixth child. He went to the village school, and at the age of 16 he was apprenticed to Flower brothers' machine shop and then at the Drydock \& Engineering Works in Detroit. In 1882 he left to return to the family farm and spent some time working with a 1 1/2 hp steam engine doing odd jobs for the farming community at $3 per day. He was then employed as a demonstrator for Westinghouse steam engines. He met Clara Jane Bryant at New Year 1885 and they were married on 11 April 1888. Their only child, Edsel Bryant Ford, was born on 6 November 1893.At that time Henry worked on steam engine repairs for the Edison Illuminating Company, where he became Chief Engineer. He became one of a group working to develop a "horseless carriage" in 1896 and in June completed his first vehicle, a "quadri cycle" with a two-cylinder engine. It was built in a brick shed, which had to be partially demolished to get the carriage out.Ford became involved in motor racing, at which he was more successful than he was in starting a car-manufacturing company. Several early ventures failed, until the Ford Motor Company of 1903. By October 1908 they had started with production of the Model T. The first, of which over 15 million were built up to the end of its production in May 1927, came out with bought-out steel stampings and a planetary gearbox, and had a one-piece four-cylinder block with a bolt-on head. This was one of the most successful models built by Ford or any other motor manufacturer in the life of the motor car.Interchangeability of components was an important element in Ford's philosophy. Ford was a pioneer in the use of vanadium steel for engine components. He adopted the principles of Frederick Taylor, the pioneer of time-and-motion study, and installed the world's first moving assembly line for the production of magnetos, started in 1913. He installed blast furnaces at the factory to make his own steel, and he also promoted research and the cultivation of the soya bean, from which a plastic was derived.In October 1913 he introduced the "Five Dollar Day", almost doubling the normal rate of pay. This was a profit-sharing scheme for his employees and contained an element of a reward for good behaviour. About this time he initiated work on an agricultural tractor, the "Fordson" made by a separate company, the directors of which were Henry and his son Edsel.In 1915 he chartered the Oscar II, a "peace ship", and with fifty-five delegates sailed for Europe a week before Christmas, docking at Oslo. Their objective was to appeal to all European Heads of State to stop the war. He had hoped to persuade manufacturers to replace armaments with tractors in their production programmes. In the event, Ford took to his bed in the hotel with a chill, stayed there for five days and then sailed for New York and home. He did, however, continue to finance the peace activists who remained in Europe. Back in America, he stood for election to the US Senate but was defeated. He was probably the father of John Dahlinger, illegitimate son of Evangeline Dahlinger, a stenographer employed by the firm and on whom he lavished gifts of cars, clothes and properties. He became the owner of a weekly newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, which became the medium for the expression of many of his more unorthodox ideas. He was involved in a lawsuit with the Chicago Tribune in 1919, during which he was cross-examined on his knowledge of American history: he is reputed to have said "History is bunk". What he actually said was, "History is bunk as it is taught in schools", a very different comment. The lawyers who thus made a fool of him would have been surprised if they could have foreseen the force and energy that their actions were to release. For years Ford employed a team of specialists to scour America and Europe for furniture, artefacts and relics of all kinds, illustrating various aspects of history. Starting with the Wayside Inn from South Sudbury, Massachusetts, buildings were bought, dismantled and moved, to be reconstructed in Greenfield Village, near Dearborn. The courthouse where Abraham Lincoln had practised law and the Ohio bicycle shop where the Wright brothers built their first primitive aeroplane were added to the farmhouse where the proprietor, Henry Ford, had been born. Replicas were made of Independence Hall, Congress Hall and the old City Hall in Philadelphia, and even a reconstruction of Edison's Menlo Park laboratory was installed. The Henry Ford museum was officially opened on 21 October 1929, on the fiftieth anniversary of Edison's invention of the incandescent bulb, but it continued to be a primary preoccupation of the great American car maker until his death.Henry Ford was also responsible for a number of aeronautical developments at the Ford Airport at Dearborn. He introduced the first use of radio to guide a commercial aircraft, the first regular airmail service in the United States. He also manufactured the country's first all-metal multi-engined plane, the Ford Tri-Motor.Edsel became President of the Ford Motor Company on his father's resignation from that position on 30 December 1918. Following the end of production in May 1927 of the Model T, the replacement Model A was not in production for another six months. During this period Henry Ford, though officially retired from the presidency of the company, repeatedly interfered and countermanded the orders of his son, ostensibly the man in charge. Edsel, who died of stomach cancer at his home at Grosse Point, Detroit, on 26 May 1943, was the father of Henry Ford II. Henry Ford died at his home, "Fair Lane", four years after his son's death.[br]Bibliography1922, with S.Crowther, My Life and Work, London: Heinemann.Further ReadingR.Lacey, 1986, Ford, the Men and the Machine, London: Heinemann. W.C.Richards, 1948, The Last Billionaire, Henry Ford, New York: Charles Scribner.IMcN -
15 Maxim, Sir Hiram Stevens
[br]b. 5 February 1840 Brockway's Mills, Maine, USAd. 24 November 1916 Streatham, London, England[br]American (naturalized British) inventor; designer of the first fully automatic machine gun and of an experimental steam-powered aircraft.[br]Maxim was born the son of a pioneer farmer who later became a wood turner. Young Maxim was first apprenticed to a carriage maker and then embarked on a succession of jobs before joining his uncle in his engineering firm in Massachusetts in 1864. As a young man he gained a reputation as a boxer, but it was his uncle who first identified and encouraged Hiram's latent talent for invention.It was not, however, until 1878, when Maxim joined the first electric-light company to be established in the USA, as its Chief Engineer, that he began to make a name for himself. He developed an improved light filament and his electric pressure regulator not only won a prize at the first International Electrical Exhibition, held in Paris in 1881, but also resulted in his being made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. While in Europe he was advised that weapons development was a more lucrative field than electricity; consequently, he moved to England and established a small laboratory at Hatton Garden, London. He began by investigating improvements to the Gatling gun in order to produce a weapon with a faster rate of fire and which was more accurate. In 1883, by adapting a Winchester carbine, he successfully produced a semi-automatic weapon, which used the recoil to cock the gun automatically after firing. The following year he took this concept a stage further and produced a fully automatic belt-fed weapon. The recoil drove barrel and breechblock to the vent. The barrel then halted, while the breechblock, now unlocked from the former, continued rearwards, extracting the spent case and recocking the firing mechanism. The return spring, which it had been compressing, then drove the breechblock forward again, chambering the next round, which had been fed from the belt, as it did so. Keeping the trigger pressed enabled the gun to continue firing until the belt was expended. The Maxim gun, as it became known, was adopted by almost every army within the decade, and was to remain in service for nearly fifty years. Maxim himself joined forces with the large British armaments firm of Vickers, and the Vickers machine gun, which served the British Army during two world wars, was merely a refined version of the Maxim gun.Maxim's interests continued to occupy several fields of technology, including flight. In 1891 he took out a patent for a steam-powered aeroplane fitted with a pendulous gyroscopic stabilizer which would maintain the pitch of the aeroplane at any desired inclination (basically, a simple autopilot). Maxim decided to test the relationship between power, thrust and lift before moving on to stability and control. He designed a lightweight steam-engine which developed 180 hp (135 kW) and drove a propeller measuring 17 ft 10 in. (5.44 m) in diameter. He fitted two of these engines into his huge flying machine testrig, which needed a wing span of 104 ft (31.7 m) to generate enough lift to overcome a total weight of 4 tons. The machine was not designed for free flight, but ran on one set of rails with a second set to prevent it rising more than about 2 ft (61 cm). At Baldwyn's Park in Kent on 31 July 1894 the huge machine, carrying Maxim and his crew, reached a speed of 42 mph (67.6 km/h) and lifted off its rails. Unfortunately, one of the restraining axles broke and the machine was extensively damaged. Although it was subsequently repaired and further trials carried out, these experiments were very expensive. Maxim eventually abandoned the flying machine and did not develop his idea for a stabilizer, turning instead to other projects. At the age of almost 70 he returned to the problems of flight and designed a biplane with a petrol engine: it was built in 1910 but never left the ground.In all, Maxim registered 122 US and 149 British patents on objects ranging from mousetraps to automatic spindles. Included among them was a 1901 patent for a foot-operated suction cleaner. In 1900 he became a British subject and he was knighted the following year. He remained a larger-than-life figure, both physically and in character, until the end of his life.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsChevalier de la Légion d'Honneur 1881. Knighted 1901.Bibliography1908, Natural and Artificial Flight, London. 1915, My Life, London: Methuen (autobiography).Further ReadingObituary, 1916, Engineer (1 December).Obituary, 1916, Engineering (1 December).P.F.Mottelay, 1920, The Life and Work of Sir Hiram Maxim, London and New York: John Lane.Dictionary of National Biography, 1912–1921, 1927, Oxford: Oxford University Press.See also: Pilcher, Percy SinclairCM / JDSBiographical history of technology > Maxim, Sir Hiram Stevens
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16 Fowler, John
SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering[br]b. 11 July 1826 Melksham, Wiltshire, Englandd. 4 December 1864 Ackworth, Yorkshire, England[br]English engineer and inventor who developed a steam-powered system of mole land drainage, and a two-engined system of land cultivation, founding the Steam Plough Works in Leeds.[br]The son of a Quaker merchant, John Fowler entered the business of a county corn merchant on leaving school, but he found this dull and left as soon as he came of age, joining the Middlesbrough company of Gilkes, Wilson \& Hopkins, railway locomotive manufacturers. In 1849, at the age of 23, Fowler visited Ireland and was so distressed by the state of Irish agriculture that he determined to develop a system to deal with the drainage of land. He designed an implement which he patented in 1850 after a period of experimentation. It was able to lay wooden pipes to a depth of two feet, and was awarded the Silver Medal at the 1850 Royal Agriculture Show. By 1854, using a steam engine made by Clayton \& Shuttleworth, he had applied steam power to his invention and gained another award that year at the Royal Show. The following year he turned his attention to steam ploughing. He first developed a single-engined system that used a double windlass with which to haul a plough backwards and forwards across fields. In 1856 he patented his balance plough, and the following year he read a paper to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers at their Birmingham premises, describing the system. In 1858 he won the Royal Agricultural Society award with a plough built for him by Ransomes. Fowler founded the Steam Plough Works in Leeds and in 1862 production began in partnership with William Watson Hewitson. Within two years they were producing the first of a series of engines which were to make the name Fowler known worldwide. John Fowler saw little of his success because he died in 1864 at his Yorkshire home as a result of tetanus contracted after a riding accident.[br]Further ReadingM.Lane, 1980, The Story of the Steam Plough Works, Northgate Publishing (provides biographical details of John Fowler, but is mostly concerned with the company that he founded).AP -
17 Clerk, Sir Dugald
[br]b. 31 March 1854 Glasgow, Scotlandd. 12 November 1932 Ewhurst, Surrey, England[br]Scottish mechanical engineer, inventor of the two-stroke internal combustion engine.[br]Clerk began his engineering training at about the age of 15 in the drawing office of H.O.Robinson \& Company, Glasgow, and in his father's works. Meanwhile, he studied at the West of Scotland Technical College and then, from 1871 to 1876, at Anderson's College, Glasgow, and at the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds. Here he worked under and then became assistant to the distinguished chemist T.E.Thorpe, who set him to work on the fractional distillation of petroleum, which was to be useful to him in his later work. At that time he had intended to become a chemical engineer, but seeing a Lenoir gas engine at work, after his return to Glasgow, turned his main interest to gas and other internal combustion engines. He pursued his investigations first at Thomson, Sterne \& Company (1877–85) and then at Tangyes of Birmingham (1886–88. In 1888 he began a lifelong partnership in Marks and Clerk, consulting engineers and patent agents, in London.Beginning his work on gas engines in 1876, he achieved two patents in the two following years. In 1878 he made his principal invention, patented in 1881, of an engine working on the two-stroke cycle, in which the piston is powered during each revolution of the crankshaft, instead of alternate revolutions as in the Otto four-stroke cycle. In this engine, Clerk introduced supercharging, or increasing the pressure of the air intake. Many engines of the Clerk type were made but their popularity waned after the patent for the Otto engine expired in 1890. Interest was later revived, particularly for application to large gas engines, but Clerk's engine eventually came into its own where simple, low-power motors are needed, such as in motor cycles or motor mowers.Clerk's work on the theory and design of gas engines bore fruit in the book The Gas Engine (1886), republished with an extended text in 1909 as The Gas, Petrol and Oil Engine; these and a number of papers in scientific journals won him international renown. During and after the First World War, Clerk widened the scope of his interests and served, often as chairman, on many bodies in the field of science and industry.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1917; FRS 1908; Royal Society Royal Medal 1924; Royal Society of Arts Alber Medal 1922.Further ReadingObituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, no. 2, 1933.LRD -
18 Ridley, John
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 1806 West Boldon, Co. Durham, Englandd. 1887 Malvern, England[br]English developer of the stripper harvester which led to a machine suited to the conditions of Australia and South America.[br]John Ridley was a preacher in his youth, and then became a mill owner before migrating to Australia with his wife and daughters in 1839. Intending to continue his business in the new colony, he took with him a "Grasshopper" overbeam steam-engine made by James Watt, together with milling equipment. Cereal acreages were insufficient for the steam power he had available, and he expanded into saw milling as well as farming 300 acres. Aware of the Adelaide trials of reaping machines, he eventually built a prototype using the same principles as those developed by Wrathall Bull. After a successful trial in 1843 Ridley began the patent procedure in England, although he never completed the project. The agricultural press was highly enthusiastic about his machine, but when trials took place in 1855 the award went to a rival. The development of the stripper enabled a spectacular increase in the cereal acreage planted over the next decade. Ridley left Australia in 1853 and returned to England. He built a number of machines to his design in Leeds; however, these failed to perform in the much damper English climate. All of the machines were exported to South America, anticipating a substantial market to be exploited by Australian manufacturers.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsIn 1913 a Ridley scholarship was established by the faculty of Agriculture at Adelaide University.Further ReadingG.Quick and W.Buchele, 1978, The Grain Harvesters, American Society of Agricultural Engineers (includes a chapter devoted to the Australian developments).A.E.Ridley, 1904, A Backward Glance (describes Ridley's own story).G.L.Sutton, 1937, The Invention of the Stripper (a review of the disputed claims between Ridley and Bull).L.J.Jones, 1980, "John Ridley and the South Australian stripper", The History ofTechnology, pp. 55–103 (a more detailed study).——1979, "The early history of mechanical harvesting", The History of Technology, pp. 4,101–48 (discusses the various claims to the first invention of a machine for mechanical harvesting).AP -
19 Smith, Sir Francis Pettit
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 9 February 1808 Copperhurst Farm, near Hythe, Kent, Englandd. 12 February 1874 South Kensington, London, England[br]English inventor of the screw propeller.[br]Smith was the only son of Charles Smith, Postmaster at Hythe, and his wife Sarah (née Pettit). After education at a private school in Ashford, Kent, he took to farming, first on Romney Marsh, then at Hendon, Middlesex. As a boy, he showed much skill in the construction of model boats, especially in devising their means of propulsion. He maintained this interest into adult life and in 1835 he made a model propelled by a screw driven by a spring. This worked so well that he became convinced that the screw propeller offered a better method of propulsion than the paddle wheels that were then in general use. This notion so fired his enthusiasm that he virtually gave up farming to devote himself to perfecting his invention. The following year he produced a better model, which he successfully demonstrated to friends on his farm at Hendon and afterwards to the public at the Adelaide Gallery in London. On 31 May 1836 Smith was granted a patent for the propulsion of vessels by means of a screw.The idea of screw propulsion was not new, however, for it had been mooted as early as the seventeenth century and since then several proposals had been advanced, but without successful practical application. Indeed, simultaneously but quite independently of Smith, the Swedish engineer John Ericsson had invented the ship's propeller and obtained a patent on 13 July 1836, just weeks after Smith. But Smith was completely unaware of this and pursued his own device in the belief that he was the sole inventor.With some financial and technical backing, Smith was able to construct a 10 ton boat driven by a screw and powered by a steam engine of about 6 hp (4.5 kW). After showing it off to the public, Smith tried it out at sea, from Ramsgate round to Dover and Hythe, returning in stormy weather. The screw performed well in both calm and rough water. The engineering world seemed opposed to the new method of propulsion, but the Admiralty gave cautious encouragement in 1839 by ordering that the 237 ton Archimedes be equipped with a screw. It showed itself superior to the Vulcan, one of the fastest paddle-driven ships in the Navy. The ship was put through its paces in several ports, including Bristol, where Isambard Kingdom Brunel was constructing his Great Britain, the first large iron ocean-going vessel. Brunel was so impressed that he adapted his ship for screw propulsion.Meanwhile, in spite of favourable reports, the Admiralty were dragging their feet and ordered further trials, fitting Smith's four-bladed propeller to the Rattler, then under construction and completed in 1844. The trials were a complete success and propelled their lordships of the Admiralty to a decision to equip twenty ships with screw propulsion, under Smith's supervision.At last the superiority of screw propulsion was generally accepted and virtually universally adopted. Yet Smith gained little financial reward for his invention and in 1850 he retired to Guernsey to resume his farming life. In 1860 financial pressures compelled him to accept the position of Curator of Patent Models at the Patent Museum in South Kensington, London, a post he held until his death. Belated recognition by the Government, then headed by Lord Palmerston, came in 1855 with the grant of an annual pension of £200. Two years later Smith received unofficial recognition when he was presented with a national testimonial, consisting of a service of plate and nearly £3,000 in cash subscribed largely by the shipbuilding and engineering community. Finally, in 1871 Smith was honoured with a knighthood.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1871.Further ReadingObituary, 1874, Illustrated London News (7 February).1856, On the Invention and Progress of the Screw Propeller, London (provides biographical details).Smith and his invention are referred to in papers in Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 14 (1934): 9; 19 (1939): 145–8, 155–7, 161–4, 237–9.LRDBiographical history of technology > Smith, Sir Francis Pettit
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20 Ericsson, John
[br]b. 31 July 1803 Farnebo, Swedend. 8 March 1899 New York, USA[br]Swedish (naturalized American 1848) engineer and inventor.[br]The son of a mine owner and inspector, Ericsson's first education was private and haphazard. War with Russia disrupted the mines and the father secured a position on the Gotha Canal, then under construction. He enrolled John, then aged 13, and another son as cadets in a corps of military engineers engaged on the canal. There John was given a sound education and training in the physical sciences and engineering. At the age of 17 he decided to enlist in the Army, and on receiving a commission he was drafted to cartographic survey duties. After some years he decided that a career outside the Army offered him the best opportunities, and in 1826 he moved to London to pursue a career of mechanical invention.Ericsson first developed a heat (external combustion) engine, which proved unsuccessful. Three years later he designed and constructed the steam locomotive Novelty, which he entered in the Rainhill locomotive trials on the new Liverpool \& Manchester Railway. The engine began by performing promisingly, but it later broke down and failed to complete the test runs. Later he devised a self-regulating lead (1835) and then, more important and successful, he invented the screw propeller, patented in 1835 and installed in his first screw-propelled ship of 1839. This work was carried out independently of Sir Francis Pettit Smith, who contemporaneously developed a four-bladed propeller that was adopted by the British Admiralty. Ericsson saw that with screw propulsion the engine could be below the waterline, a distinct advantage in warships. He crossed the Atlantic to interest the American government in his ideas and became a naturalized citizen in 1848. He pioneered the gun turret for mounting heavy guns on board ship. Ericsson came into his own during the American Civil War, with the construction of the epoch-making warship Monitor, a screw-propelled ironclad with gun turret. This vessel demonstrated its powers in a signal victory at Hampton Roads on 9 March 1862.Ericsson continued to design warships and torpedoes, pointing out to President Lincoln that success in war would now depend on technological rather than numerical superiority. Meanwhile he continued to pursue his interest in heat engines, and from 1870 to 1888 he spent much of his time and resources in pursuing research into alternative energy sources, such as solar power, gravitation and tidal forces.[br]Further ReadingW.C.Church, 1891, Life of John Ericsson, 2 vols, London.LRD
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