Blowing hot and cold: Reports and retorts on the status of the air-engine as success or failure, 1830-1855

History of Science

Volumn 36, Issue 114, 1998, Pages

  Marsden, Ben ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KENT   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 6344285114     PISSN: 00732753     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (244)

1. Thomas S. Kuhn, "Sadi Carnot and the Cagnard engine", Isis, lii (1961), 567-74,
2. reproduced in Philosophers and machines, ed. by Otto Mayr (New York, 1976), 139-46;
3. Eugene S. Ferguson, "John Ericsson and the Age of Caloric", United States National Museum Bulletin 228: Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology (Washington, D.C., 1961), 41-60;
4. E. E. Daub, "The regenerator principle in the Stirling and Ericsson hot air engines", The British journal for the history of science, vii (1974), 259-77;
5. Lynwood Bryant, "The role of thermodynamics in the evolution of heat engines", Technology and culture, xiv (1973), 152-65;
6. D. S. L. Cardwell, From Watt to Clausius: The rise of thermodynamics in the early industrial age (London, 1971), 152-3;
7. D. S. L. Cardwell, Technology, science and history (London, 1972), esp. pp. 124-5 (the Niepces' pyréolophorus, the Cagnard engine and others), 113-15 (Cayley's engine);
8. D. S. L. Cardwell and Richard L. Hills, "Thermodynamics and practical engineering in the nineteenth century", History of technology, i (1976), 1-20;
9. D. S. L. Cardwell, James Joule: A biography (Manchester, 1989), esp. pp. 113-15;
10. R. A. Buchanan, "Promise and disappointment: The history of the hot-air engine", Energie in der Geschichte/ Energy in history: 11th Symposium of ICOHTEC (Düsseldorf, 1984), 182-9.
11. An extensive technical account can be found in T. Finkelstein, "Air engines", The engineer, ccvii (1959), 492-6, 521-7, 568-71, 720-3.
12. J. Zarinchang, The Stirling engine (London, 1972) is a useful bibliography.
13. John M. Staudenmaier, S.J., "The politics of successful technologies", in In context: History and the history of technology. Essays in honor of Melvin Kranzberg, ed. by Stephen H. Cutcliffe and Robert C. Post (Bethlehem, London and Toronto, 1989), 150-71.
14. John M. Staudenmaier, S.J., Technology's storytellers: Reweaving the human fabric (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1989), 47, 175-6;
15. John M. Staudenmaier, idem, Technology's storytellers: Reweaving the human fabric op. cit. (ref. 2), 167.
16. Staudenmaier, Technology's storytellers: Reweaving the human fabric op. cit. (ref. 3), 5, 136, 145.
17. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, "How the refrigerator got its hum", in idem. More work for mother: The ironies of household technology from the open hearth to the microwave (New York, 1983), 127-45
18. (reprinted in The social shaping of technology, ed. by Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman (Milton Keynes, 1985), 202-18 (see esp. pp. 202-3 for failed machines)).
19. Social studies of science, xxii (1992), no. 2.
20. On methodological symmetry see David Bloor, Knowledge and social imagery (Chicago, 1991; orig. publ. 1976);
21. and for its extension to studies of technology, Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch (eds), The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1987).
22. I am grateful to R. G. A. Dolby for a formulation of this idea.
23. H. M. Collins, Changing order: Replication and induction in scientific practice (London, 1985).
24. David Gooding, Trevor Pinch and Simon Schaffer (eds), The uses of experiment (Cambridge, 1993; orig. publ. 1989), 25-26 (referring to Donald Mackenzie's work).
25. Compare Eugene S. Ferguson, "Technical journals and the history of technology", in Cutcliffe and Post (eds), The uses of experiment op. cit. (ref. 2), 53-70.
26. On provincial cultures of science and technology see Ian Inkster and J. B. Morrell (eds), Metropolis and province: Science in British culture, 1780-1850 (London, 1983).
27. See also the entries under air- and caloric-engines in the thematic Royal Society catalogue of scientific papers.
28. For Cheverton's "own experiments in the compression of air and gas" see Mechanics' magazine, 12 January 1833, 251.
29. Cardwell and Hills, Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 1), note that work could usefully be done to investigate this "mystery figure" (p. 6).
30. Frank A. J. L. James, "The tales of Benjamin Abbott: A source for the early life of Michael Faraday", The British journal for the history of science, xxv (1992), 229-40, p. 239. Abbott recalled Fuller sleeping through a discourse on the caloric engine given by Michael Faraday.
31. For a critical analysis of such categorizations see Staudenmaier, The British journal for the history of science, op. cit. (ref. 3), chap. 2: "Emerging technology and the mystery of creativity". Other candidates of equal interest might have been chosen, especially from French engineering cultures.
32. William Conant Church, The life of John Ericsson (2 vols, London, 1890);
33. Ruth White, Yankee from Sweden: The dream and the reality in the days of John Ericsson (New York, 1960).
34. P. W. Bishop, "John Ericsson (1803-89) in England", Transactions of the Newcomen Society, xlviii (1976-77), 41-52 deals with the early chequered history of Ericsson's fire and caloric engines in Britain;
35. for an excellent discussion of Ericsson in America see Ferguson, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, op. cit. (ref. 1);
36. Daub, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, op. cit. (ref. 1) compares him with the Stirlings.
37. Robert Stirling (1790-1878), DNB;
38. H. C. M. Edelman, "In search of Stirling", The announcer (N. V. Philips, Eindhoven), xxiii (1969), 6-12;
39. D. W. Loveridge, "Robert Stirling - preacher and inventor", Transactions of the Newcomen Society, i (1978-79), 1-10;
40. J. M. A. Lenihan and Johnston R. McKay, "Dr. Stirling and his engine", The College Courant: The journal of the Glasgow University Graduates Association, Whitsun 1974, 22-25;
41. Robert Stirling, "Parish of Galston", The new statistical account of Scotland, v: Counties of Ayr and Bute (Edinburgh and London, 1845), 178-91.
42. The patent specification of 1816 (no. 4081) is reproduced, with comments on the reappearance of the lost MS, in "The centenary of the heat regenerator and the Stirling engine", Engineer, cxxiv (1917), 516-17.
43. On James Stirling (1800-1876) see Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, xliv (1876), 221-4.
44. For another, better-resourced, thermodynamic testing station, see Mikael Hård, Machines are frozen spirit: The scientification of refrigeration and brewing in the 19th century - a Weberian interpretation (Frankfurt and Boulder, Colorado, 1994), 162-6.
45. Sir George Cayley (1773-1857), DNB;
46. George Cayley, "Description of an engine for affording mechanical power from air expanded by heat", [Nicholson's] Journal of natural philosophy, chemistry and the arts, xviii (1807), 260-2 (and Fig. 1);
47. J. E. Hodgson, "Sir G. Cayley as a pioneer of aeronautics", Transactions of the Newcomen Society, iii (1922-23), 69-89;
48. J. L. Pritchard, Sir George Cayley: The inventor of the aeroplane (London, 1961) (esp. pp. 69-91 for air-engines)
49. and Charles H. Gibbs-Smith, Sir George Cayley's aeronautics 1796-1855 (London, 1962).
50. "Description of a new method of employing the combustion of fuel as a motive power" (Ericsson's flame engine), Archives of the Institution of Civil Engineers; Mechanics' magazine, 6 October 1832, 2-7 (steam-engine and water-wheel).
51. Neil Arnott (1788-1874), DNB;
52. Neil Arnott idem, Elements of physics, or natural philosophy, general and medical, written for universal use, in plain or non-technical language, and containing new disquisitions and practical suggestions (2 vols, London, 1833), ii, 78.
53. Mechanics' magazine, 9 November 1833, 81-83.
54. [John Ericsson], The caloric engine, invented by J. Ericsson (London, 1833), 1. The pamphlet is dated 2 December.
55. Ericsson, The caloric engine, invented by J. Ericsson (op. cit. (ref. 25), 5.
56. Mechanics' magazine, 14 December 1833, 191f.
57. Athenaeum, 18 January 1834, 47 ("Our Literary Table").
58. On scale see Thomas Wright, "Scale, models, similitude and dimensions: Aspects of mid-nineteenth-century engineering science", Annals of science, lxix (1992), 233-54.
59. Ericsson, Annals of science, op. cit. (ref. 25), 11.
60. Kenneth L. Caneva, Robert Mayer and the conservation of energy (Princeton, N.J., 1993);
61. Heinz Otto Sibum, "Reworking the mechanical value of heat: Instruments of precision and gestures of accuracy in early Victorian England", Studies in the history and philosophy of science, xxvi (1995), 73-106.
62. Bergein, "The alchemists, perpetual-motion seekers, and aeronauts", Mechanics' magazine, 29 June 1833, 205-6 (with editorial note).
63. See also, for comments on perpetual motion, Mechanics' magazine, 25 January 1834, 287 (William Pearson), and 5 July 1834, 235-6 (George Cayley (sic)).
64. Compare Simon Schaffer, "The show that never ends: Perpetual motion in the early eighteenth century", The British journal for the history of science, xxviii (1995), 157-89.
65. Pritchard, The British journal for the history of science, op. cit. (ref. 21), 65.
66. Pritchard, The British journal for the history of science, Ibid., 108.
67. Hodgson, The British journal for the history of science, op. cit. (ref. 21), 72 (quoting Cayley on ballooning), 82;
68. Gerard Fairlie and Elizabeth Cayley, The life of a genius (London, 1965), 82.
69. Fairlie and Cayley, The life of a genius op. cit. (ref. 35), 113 (quoting Dionysius Lardner).
70. Patent no. 7351, 25 April 1837; Pritchard, The life of a genius op. cit. (ref. 21), 83.
71. Anon., "Sir George Cayley's air-engine", The polytechnic journal: A monthly magazine of art, science, and general literature, iii (1840), 410.
72. Fairlie and Cayley, The polytechnic journal: A monthly magazine of art, science, and general literature, op. cit. (ref. 35), 115.
73. Mechanics' magazine, 17 April 1841, 318-19 (Stirling engine patent); 27 November 1841, 416 (Dundee trials).
74. Anon., Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 20), 222.
75. James Stirling, "Description of Stirling's improved air engine", Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, iv (1845), 348-61.
76. Werner Siemens, Inventor and entrepreneur: Recollections of Werner von Siemens (London, 1966).
77. William Pole, Life of Sir William Siemens (London, 1888)
78. and Charles Turner et al., Sir William Siemens: A man of vision (London, 1993).
79. Werner Siemens, "Ueber die Unwendung der erhitzten Luft als Triebkraft", Dingler's Polytechnisches Journal, xcvii (1845), 324-9
80. (including Fig. 22 on Plate V, "Durch erhitzte Luft betriebene Maschine"). I thank Péa Eigler and Gerald Schmidt for translations.
81. See Church, "Durch erhitzte Luft betriebene Maschine" op. cit. (ref. 17), i, 185-219;
82. Steven Shapin, "The invisible technician", American scientist, lxxvii (1989), 554-63
83. and compare Steven Shapin, A social history of truth: Civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago and London, 1994), chap. 8, "Invisible technicians: Masters, servants, and the making of experimental knowledge".
84. John O. Sargent, A lecture on the late improvements in steam navigation and the arts of naval warfare, with a brief notice of Ericsson's caloric engine (New York and London, 1844), 51.
85. For an excellent account of New York events and reports of them, see Ferguson, A lecture on the late improvements in steam navigation and the arts of naval warfare, with a brief notice of Ericsson's caloric engine (op. cit. (ref. 1).
86. There were at least 19 reports in the Times between 31 May 1852 and 2 April 1853. Most were published in January 1853. There were at least four further accounts in 1854.
87. Athenaeum, 19 February 1853, 231.
88. Richard Beamish, Memoir of the life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (London, 1862), 104-5; patent no. 3384, 1 October 1810;
89. Kuhn, Memoir of the life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel op. cit. (ref. 1).
90. For the gaz engine see Beamish, Memoir of the life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel op. cit. (ref. 51), 185-7;
91. Isambard Brunel, The life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, civil engineer (London, 1870), 42-45 ("Experiments with carbonic acid gas");
92. L. T. C. Roll, Isambard Kingdom Brunel: A biography (London, 1957), 41-42;
93. Paul Clements, Marc Isambard Brunel (London, 1970), 77-78.
94. Athenaeum, 18 January 1834, 47.
95. "The Caloric Engine. By J. ERICSSON. An unpublished [sic] pamphlet", The repertory of patent inventions, and other discoveries and improvements in arts, manufactures, and agriculture, n.s., i (1834), 42-55. The Repertory had first been published in 1794.
96. Mechanics' magazine, 4 January 1834, 233-5, and 11 January 1834, 250-2 (quotation on p. 250).
97. Sargent, Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 47), 56-57.
98. Sargent, Mechanics' magazine, Ibid., 55.
99. Sargent, Mechanics' magazine, Ibid., 57-58.
100. Athenaeum, 22 February 1834, 145 (from which I quote here);
101. Mechanics' magazine, 1 March 1834, 368;
102. Repertory of patent inventions, i (1834), 195-7;
103. Literary gazette, 22 February 1834, 137;
104. Philosophical magazine, 3rd sen, iv (1834), 296;
105. Sargent, Philosophical magazine, 3rd sen, op. cit. (ref. 47), 57-58;
106. Henry Bence Jones, The life and letters of Faraday (2 vols, London, 1870), ii, 48.
107. Ferguson, The life and letters of Faraday op. cit. (ref. 1), 48, takes a minority view that Ericsson was at the meeting to witness Faraday's doubt.
108. Times, 7 August 1835.
109. Mechanics' magazine, 13 June 1835, 192.
110. Cayley, Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 21), 261.
111. Anon., Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 38).
112. Fairlie and Cayley, Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 35), 83.
113. Mechanics' magazine, 27 November 1841, 416.
114. Anon., Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 20), 222.
115. Robert Stirling, on the occasion of his brother's death on 19 January 1876, quoted in Anon., Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 20), 222-3 (my emphasis).
116. Church, Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 17), i, 195,
117. quoted in Ferguson, Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 1), 47.
118. Ferguson, Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 1), 45.
119. Times, 28 January 1853, 4.
120. Ferguson, Times, op. cit. (ref. 1), 46.
121. Ferguson, Times, Ibid., 49.
122. J. Allen Ransome to Bennett Woodcraft, 2 April 1861, Patent Office Letter Book, Science Museum Library, London.
123. See, for example, Ferguson, Times, op. cit. (ref. 1), 55f;
124. Cardwell and Hills, Times, op. cit. (ref. 1), 4-6.
125. Pritchard, Times, op. cit. (ref. 21), 77.
126. An edited transcript of the debates appears in Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, xii (1852-53), 312-51 and 558-660.
127. See also William W. Poingdestre, "Description of Sir George Cayley's hot-air engine", Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, ibid., ix (1849-50), 194-203.
128. C. W. Siemens to James Prescott Joule, 24 May 1853, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) (my emphasis).
129. P. G. Tait, "Memoir [of W. J. M. Rankine]", in W. J. Millar (ed.), Miscellaneous scientific papers of W. J. Macquorn Rankine (London, 1881), pp. xix-xxxvi;
130. Ben Marsden, "Engineering science in Glasgow: Economy, efficiency and measurement as prime movers in the differentiation of an academic discipline", The British journal for the history of science, xxv (1992), 319-46.
131. On the use of this term to characterize a North British group of energy physicists in the second half of the nineteenth century, see Crosbie Smith, The science of energy (London, forthcoming).
132. Bryant, The science of energy op. cit. (ref. 1), 157. Bryant agrees that Rankine was both critic and inventor.
133. See also Staudenmaier, The science of energy op. cit. (ref. 3), 90.
134. I hope to argue this important point in greater depth elsewhere.
135. In a striking parallel, John Robison had encouraged James Watt to donate a model of his condensing steam engine to the College half a century earlier. Robison to Watt, 3 May 1797 in Partners in science: Letters of James Watt and Joseph Black, ed. by Eric Robinson and Douglas McKie (London, 1970), 272. Watt had yet to meet this request in 1803.
136. Crosbie Smith and M. Norton Wise, Energy and empire: A biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge, 1989), 292-9.
137. William Thomson, "Notice of Stirling's air-engine", Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical Society, ii (1844-48), 169-70;
138. reprinted in William Thomson, Mathematical and physical papers (6 vols, Cambridge, 1882-1911), v, 38-39. Thomson read the paper on 21 April 1847.
139. Thomas Constable, Memoir of Lewis D. B. Gordon, F.R.S.E. (Edinburgh, 1877);
140. Ben Marsden, "'A most important trespass': Lewis Gordon and the Glasgow Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics 1840-1855", in Making space for science: Territorial themes in the shaping of knowledge, ed. by Jon Agar and Crosbie Smith (Basingstoke, 1998), 87-117.
141. Lewis Gordon to William Thomson, 27 April 1847, Kelvin Papers, Cambridge University Library. Unless otherwise stated, letters between Thomson, Forbes and Joule cited here come from this collection.
142. William Thomson to J. D. Forbes (copy), 11 January 1848; Forbes to Thomson, 28 November 1848;
143. Thomson to Forbes, 7 December 1848; Forbes to Thomson, 8 December 1848; Smith and Wise, Making Space for Science: Territorial Themes in the Shaping of Knowledge, op. cit. (ref. 83), 298.
144. The discussion is reported in James Thomson's notebook A14(A), April 1848, Queen's University Belfast. I am grateful to Crosbie Smith for this reference: see Smith and Wise, idem, "Natural philosophy and thermo-dynamics: Patterns of thought in mid-nineteenth century physics", Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1975, 106-10.
145. William Thomson, "Account of Carnot's theory of the motive power of heat", Mathematical and physical papers (ref. 84), i, 113-55, pp. 149-50.
146. Joule to Thomson, 6 October 1848.
147. D. S. L. Cardwell, "Science and technology: The work of James Prescott Joule", Technology and culture, xvii (1976), 674-87, esp. p. 678.
148. Joule to Thomson, 19 and 21 October and 6 November 1850.
149. Joule to Thomson, 19 December 1850.
150. Joule to Thomson, 17 January 1851.
151. Joule to Thomson, 6 February 1851.
152. Joule to Thomson, 11 March 1851; Joule's "On the air engine" (draft), UMIST.
153. Joule to Thomson, 28 April 1851; Joule's draft paper "On an air engine" (sic) was received on 13 May 1851: see PT.43.4, Library of the Royal Society of London (RSL).
154. Alexander Gordon, Results of experiments made with the fumific impeller, tending to supersede the steam-engine for navigation (London, 1847).
155. John Herapath, Mathematical physics (2 vols, London, 1847), i, pp. xxxix-xl.
156. PT.43.4 (on p. 6 and omitted from the printed version), RSL.
157. Joule to Thomson, 28 January 1852.
158. Referees' Reports, n.d. (Moseley), and 16 January and 29 May 1852 (Miller), RR.2.128-30, RSL; Joule to Thomson, 28 January 1852 (advice on Gordon's fumific propeller); experiments on specific heat of atmospheric air, 12-23 February 1852, recorded in Joule notebook for 1843-58, UMIST.
159. Joule to Thomson, 11 November 1852. Recipients included Christie, Groves, Moseley, Playfair, Scoresby, Wheatstone, Graham, Hopkins, Miller, Potter, Sabine, Stokes and "our local Savans". Joule to Thomson, 6 December 1852.
160. Referee's Report, n.d. (Moseley), RR.2.128, RSL. Joule was still being quoted in favour of air as a replacement for steam in the 1860s. See Robert Hunt (ed.), Ure's dictionary of arts, manufactures, and mines (6th edn, 3 vols, London, 1867), i, 37-39 (art. "Air-engine").
161. Joule to Thomson, 15 March 1853.
162. C. W. Siemens to Joule, 24 May 1853, UMIST.
163. Ericsson, Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, op. cit. (ref. 25), 4 (my emphasis).
164. Times, 7 August 1835.
165. Sargent, Times, op. cit. (ref. 47), 10.
166. Sargent, Times, Ibid., 17.
167. Sargent, Times, Ibid., 48.
168. Sargent, Times, Ibid., 51.
169. Sargent, Times, Ibid., 59. 114.
170. Sargent, Times, Ibid., 61-62.
171. Athenaeum, 19 February 1853, 232 (my emphasis).
172. See W. J. M. Rankine and J. R. Napier, "Engines worked by heated air and other elastic fluids", patent no. 1416, 9 June 1853; MSS relating to the engine in DC90/3/3, Napier Collection, Glasgow University Archives (GUA);
173. Ben Marsden, "Engineering science in Glasgow: W. J. M. Rankine and the motive power of air", Ph.D. thesis, University of Kent at Canterbury, 1992, chap. 5.
174. Rankine to James Robert Napier, 7 February 1853, Napier Collection, GUA.
175. For the concept of an inscription in which nature "writes itself in scientific experiments (and by extension, human-made artefacts do likewise), see Bruno Latour, Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society (Milton Keynes, 1987); indicator diagrams for the Napier and Rankine experimental air-engine for March 1857, DC90/3/14, Napier Collection, GUA.
176. W. J. M. Rankine, "On the means of realising the advantages of the air-engine", BAAS Report 1854, Part 2, 159-60, p. 159;
177. "Napier and Rankine's patent hot-air engine", Mechanics' magazine, 21 October 1854, 385-9;
178. W. J. M. Rankine, "On the means of realising the advantages of the air-engine", Edinburgh new philosophical journal, i (1855), 1-32.
179. D. S. L. Cardwell, "Power technologies and the advance of science, 1700-1825", Technology and culture, vi (1965), 188-207 (esp. p. 206);
180. D. S. L. Cardwell, idem, "Some factors in the early development of the concepts of power, work and energy", The British journal for the history of science, iii (1966-67), 209-24;
181. D. S. L. Cardwell, idem. From Watt to Clausius (ref. 1);
182. D. S. L. Cardwell, idem, From Watt to Clausius op. cit. (ref. 91) says surprisingly little about Joule's practical investigations into heat engines.
183. Cardwell and Hills, From Watt to Clausius op. cit. (ref. 1), 3;
184. Cardwell, Technology, science and history (ref. 1), 136-8 draws attention to Carnot's enthusiasm for air.
185. Cardwell, Technology, science and history (ref. 1), 163.
186. D. S. L. Cardwell, The Fontana history of technology (London, 1994), esp. chap. 19, "Notes towards a philosophy of technology";
187. Cardwell, "Power technologies" (ref. 120), 189.
188. For the notion of flat and round characters see E. M. Forster, Aspects of the novel (Harmondsworth, 1976; orig. publ. 1927), 73-81.
189. Milton Kerker, "Sadi Carnot and the steam engineers", Isis, li (1960), 257-70 (on p. 269;
190. reprinted in Mayr (ed.), Isis, op. cit. (ref. 1), 125-38).
191. See, for example, Peter J. Bowler, The invention of progress: The Victorians and the past (Oxford, 1989).
192. Arnott, The invention of progress: The Victorians and the past op. cit. (ref. 23), i, 403, concluding a section on the steam engine (pp. 391-403).
193. Ericsson, The invention of progress: The Victorians and the past op. cit. (ref. 25), 4.
194. Charles Babbage, Economy of machinery and manufactures (1832),
195. quoted in Cardwell, Economy of machinery and manufactures op. cit. (ref. 123), 272-3.
196. Later, compound and high-pressure engines would make such assumptions questionable once more.
197. Frederick A. P. Barnard, "On the elastic force of heated air, considered as a motive power", American journal of science and arts, 2nd ser., xvii, no. 50 (March 1854), 153-68, p. 153.
198. Frederick A. P. Barnard, "On the comparative expenditure of heat in different forms of the air-engine", American journal of science and arts, 2nd sen, xviii, no. 53 (September 1854), 161-76.
199. e Congrès International d'Histoire des Sciences (Barcelona-Madrid, 1959), 530-5;
200. e Congrès International d'Histoire des Sciences op. cit. (ref. 1);
201. comments thereon in Charles Coulston Gillispie, Lazare Carnot: Savant (Princeton, 1971), passim;
202. and a response to Kuhn in E. Mendoza, "Sadi Carnot and the Cagnard Engine", Isis, liv (1963), 262-3.
203. Sadi Carnot, Reflexions on the motive power of fire, transl. and ed. by Robert Fox (Manchester, 1986), 63.
204. See, for example, Stephen Brush, "Thermodynamics and history", The graduate journal, vii (1967), 477-565, p. 494;
205. Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll W. Pursell, Jr (eds), Technology in Western civilization (2 vols, New York, 1967), i, 336-49, p. 341 (wherein John B. Rae states: "thermodynamics grew out of the need to find a method of calculating the efficiency of a steam engine").
206. Pietro Redondi, L'accueil des idées de Sadi Carnot et la technologie française de 1820 à 1860 (Paris, 1980).
207. Carnot, L'accueil des idées de Sadi Carnot et la technologie française de 1820 à 1860 op. cit. (ref. 134), esp. p. 11 (Fox's introduction).
208. On this pressure group of "scientists of energy" see Smith, L'accueil des idées de Sadi Carnot et la technologie française de 1820 à 1860 op. cit. (ref. 79).
209. Anon., L'accueil des idées de Sadi Carnot et la technologie française de 1820 à 1860 op. cit. (ref. 38).
210. Cayley approached John Marshall, director of the Leeds railroad, on 1 August 1839. Pritchard, L'accueil des idées de Sadi Carnot et la technologie française de 1820 à 1860 op. cit. (ref. 21), 84.
211. C. Domb, "James Clerk Maxwell in London, 1860-1865", Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxxv (1980), 67-103, pp. 73-74;
212. Smith and Wise, Notes and records of the Royal Society, op. cit. (ref. 83), 297 (William Thomson's air-engine class lecture of 15 January 1850).
213. P. G. Tait, Sketch of thermodynamics (Edinburgh, 1868), 80.
214. Anon., Sketch of thermodynamics op. cit. (ref. 38).
215. Anon., Sketch of thermodynamics op. cit. (ref. 38) (quotation); Rankine to James Robert Napier, 7 February 1853, Napier Collection, GUA.
216. Cayley, Sketch of thermodynamics op. cit. (ref. 21), 261;
217. Hodgson, Sketch of thermodynamics op. cit. (ref. 21), 71.
218. Times, 18 December 1857 (my emphasis).
219. Anon., Times, op. cit. (ref. 38).
220. Franz Reulaux (1875) quoted in Friedrich Klemm, A history of Western technology (London, 1959), 340-1.
221. Sigvard Strandh, Machines: An illustrated history (London, 1979), 138.
222. Anon., Machines: An illustrated history op. cit. (ref. 38).
223. Wright, Machines: An illustrated history op. cit. (ref. 29).
224. Eugene S. Ferguson, Engineering and the mind's eye (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1992).
225. The new locus classicus on these issues is Gooding, Pinch and Schaffer, Engineering and the mind's eye op. cit. (ref. 10);
226. and see Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985), esp. pp. 60-65.
227. Compare Harry Collins, "Public experiments and displays of virtuosity: The core-set revisited", Social studies of science, xviii (1988), 725-48. Many of the "experiments" I refer to are more like Collins's "demonstrations" but it remains the case that my actors used the word "experiment". It is, however, illuminating to see the public "experiments" of Ericsson, Stirling and Cayley - and especially Ericsson's New York trials - as cases in which, in Collins's terminology, the core-set was deliberately over-extended: closure was sought from a general public, rather than from a group of technological experts. I am grateful to Jon Agar for pointing me to this valuable article.
228. Sargent, Social studies of science, op. cit. (ref. 47), 55.
229. Ericsson in Mechanics' magazine, 4 January 1834, 234.
230. Anon., Mechanics' magazine, op. cit. (ref. 38);
231. George Rennie (1791-1866), DNB and Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, xxviii (1868-69), 610-15;
232. Steven Shapin, "Pump and circumstance: Robert Boyle's literary technology", Social studies of science, xiv (1984), 481-520.
233. Gibbs-Smith, Social studies of science, op. cit. (ref. 21), passim.
234. Pritchard, Social studies of science, op. cit. (ref. 21), 77.
235. Charles Babbage to Sir George Cayley, I March 1853, reprinted in Pritchard, Social studies of science, op. cit. (ref. 21), 212.
236. Robert Stirling on the occasion of his brother's death on 19 January 1876, quoted in Anon., Social studies of science, op. cit. (ref. 20), 222-3.
237. W. A. Norton, "On Ericsson's hot air, or caloric engine", American journal of science and the arts, 2nd ser., xv, no. 45 (May 1853), 403.
238. On the completion of such trials in another context, see Peter Galison, How experiments end (Chicago, 1987).
239. Arnott, How experiments end op. cit. (ref. 23), 78.
240. Cayley to Babbage, quoted without further attribution in Pritchard, How experiments end op. cit. (ref. 21), 82.
241. Ferguson, How experiments end op. cit. (ref. 1), 46.
242. For the context of Rankine's practical proof see Marsden, How experiments end op. cit. (ref. 78).
243. R. Angus Buchanan, The power of the machine: The impact of technology from 1700 to the present day (London, 1992), 22.
244. Cowan, The power of the machine: The impact of technology from 1700 to the present day op. cit. (ref. 5), 202, speculates on the high ratio of failed to successful patented machines.