This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ...held regarding the probable cost of winning the coal in it. No attempt to effect this appears to have been undertaken till the coal was leased by a company about 1758, in which year, as we have seen, two steam engines were erected here by Mr. W. Brown. These seem to have proved insufficient, a third engine of ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ...held regarding the probable cost of winning the coal in it. No attempt to effect this appears to have been undertaken till the coal was leased by a company about 1758, in which year, as we have seen, two steam engines were erected here by Mr. W. Brown. These seem to have proved insufficient, a third engine of monster size being added a few years later. This great engine is thus referred to in the local records of the district, 1763 (Richardson's Table Book, H.D., ii. 109): "A fire engine cylinder was landed at Wincomblee coal staith, on the River Tyne, for the use of Walker Colliery, which surpassed everything of the kind which had been seen in the north. The diameter of the bore measured upwards of seventy-four inches, and it was ten and a-half feet in length. Its weight, exclusive of the bottom and the piston, was six and a-half tons, containing altogether between ten and eleven tons of metal. The bore was perfectly round and well polished. It was considered a complete piece of work, and did honour to Coalbrookdale foundry, in Shropshire,1 where it was manufactured. When this engine, to which the cylinder was attached, was completed, it would have a force to raise 307 cwt. of water." When this engine had been erected it is said to have been pronounced "the most complete and noble piece of ironwork that had up to this time been produced." Dr. Smiles (Early Engineers, ed. 1874, p. 152) states that this engine was built by Brindley, but the reference which he gives seems insufficient to support the assertion. Regarding this "fire-pump," and its connections, M. Jars, a French engineer, who visited the north of England and other districts in 1765, and published an account of his travels, under the title of Voyages...
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