THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE: INCLUDING A DESCRIPTION OF ITS STRUCTURE, RULES FOR ESTIMATING ITS CAPABILITIES, AND PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON ITS CONSTRUCTION AND BY ZERAH COLBURN. New Edition. PHILADELPHIA: HENRY CAREY BAIRD & CO., INDUSTRIAL PUBLISHERS, 810 WALNUT STREET. LIBRARY OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY. 4.5-82 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. THE absence of any purely practical work on American locomotives has induced the preparation of the following pages devoted to that subject. It is believed the book will afford to the student a clear idea of the nature and mode of application of steam power, while to those engaged in the manufacture and operation of engines it will afford much useful matter connected with their construction and management. Much care has been bestowed to render plain and distinct those parts of the book which are devoted to the principles of locomotive science; and the rules and illustrations have been adapted to the wants of those who have but little time or taste for the pursuit of abstract investigations. While this feature will constitute a chief merit of the work in the hands of such persons, it will make it none the less definite and exact for the purposes of the designer and engineer. The particulars of many recent engines, and improvements connected therewith, have been presented, embracing the patterns of a majority of all the builders in the United States. For many of these we are indebted to the manufacturers of engines, while others have been procured for the purpose from the engines themselves-those machines being selected which presented some new or favourable feature in the proportions of their parts or in the arrangement of their machinery. It is therefore hoped that the book may |