Abstract
ONE of the most interesting chapters in the history of the steam engine is that relating to the Cornish pumping engine. Early in the eighteenth century, Newcomen engines were installed for pumping at the Cornish mines, and in 1777 these began to be superseded by the low-pressure condensing engines of Boulton and Watt, which required much less coal. While the mines gained greatly by the use of the latter, the all-embracing patent of Boulton and Watt prevented other inventors from putting their ideas into practice. The expiry of this patent in 1800 was a boon to the whole county and through the work especially of Woolf and Trevithick, the pumping engine of the nineteenth century proved as superior to the Boulton and Watt engines as the latter had been superior to the Newcomen engines. Of Trevi-thick's work a great deal will be said at the forthcoming centenary celebrations, while of Woolf's work a review was given in a paper entitled A Cornish Engineer, Arthur Woolf, 1766–1837, read to the Newcomen Society by Mr. Rhys Jenkins on January 18. The first great improvement due to Woolf and Trevithick was the use of steam pressures up to 40 lb. per sq. in., while Woolf was one of the pioneers of the compound engine. Like all their contemporaries, these engineers worked at a time when the caloric theory still held sway, and they were quite ignorant of the true theory of heat. Carnot, however, in his famous essay of 1824, referred to Trevithick and Woolf as being among the veritable creators of the steam engine, and it is as such they will be remembered.
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Arthur Woolf, 1766–1837. Nature 131, 124 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131124b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131124b0