The Steam-Engine

Abstract

THIS treatise is intended as an elementary text-book for technical students. In many respects it fulfils its purpose, at least better than any book of moderate size with which we are acquainted. It is clearly written; its arrangement, if not the best possible, is orderly; it is so far practical that problems arising in the actual design and use of steam-engines are not ignored, but attacked in a sufficiently elementary way; and the rationale of processes involved in the use of steam is explained adequately and correctly on the whole. o The woodcuts represent fairly good examples of construction, with the exception of one or two, like those of the injector and exhaust-ejector, which are antiquated, and one or two others so bad that they are obviously mere imaginary sketches. Nevertheless the book fails of being what a really good elementary text-book of the steam-engine might easily be—what, indeed, anyone of Mr. Holmes's competence would make it, if some experience in teaching had shown him the needs and difficulties of engineering students. It is a little to be feared that Mr. Holmes's book is marred by an attempt in part to adapt it to the requirements of some existing examinations on the steam-engine, which are more scrappy and less scientific than the worst of existing text-books. If only a really adequate practical and elementary text-book were written, it would control the examinations instead of needing to be adapted to them.

The Steam-Engine.

By G. C. V. Holmes. (London: Longmans, 1887.)