PUMPING ENGINE, an engine especially designed for pumping. A pump may he driven by 'an ordinary steam-engine which also drives other machinery, but in the pumping-engine the pump and steam-engine are inseparably connected, and are confined to the act of There are a good many small machines of this kind which only pump, but they. are not commonly called pumping-engines, that term being applied only to large works. The first stew-engines were pumping-engines; that of Newcomer, which was driven by atmospheric pressure (steam being used only to create a vacuum), and Watt's, and the Cornish engine, which used steam as the motive-power. See S•EAM ENGINE. There has been much improvement in the duty of pumping engines since the Newcomen engine. Estimating the work done by the number of pounds raised one foot by a bushel of Welsh coal (94 lbs.), the following shows the improvement which has been made: Newcomen engine 1769, 5,500,000: do. improved by Smeaton 1772, 9,500, 000. Watt's engine 1778 to 1815. 20,000.000. Improved Cornish engine 1820, 28,000, 000; do. 1826, 30.000.000; do. 1828, 37,000,000; do. 1829. 41,000,000; do. 1839, 54,000, 000; do. 1850, 60,000,000. Consolidated mines, highest duty 1827, 67,000,000. Fowey consols, Cornwall, highest duty 1834, 97,000,000. United mines, highest duty, 1842, 108.000,000. Among time largest pumping-engines in the world are the three which were employed in the drainage of Haarlem lake in Holland. , Each engine worked sev pumps, and had an average duty of 75.000.000 lbs.. raised one foot by 94 lbs. of Welsh coal. One of time engines is described as follows: Two steam cylinders are placed concentrically, the diameters being 144i and 841 inches. They are united at the bottom,
but there is a space of 1+ in. between the inner cylinder and the top. The areas of the pistons are as 1 to 2.85, and are connected to it common cross-head or cap by one prin cipal and four small piston-rods. This engine works 11 pumps, each of 63 in. (4 ft.) diameter. The measured delivery of all the 11 pumps at each stroke is 63 tons. The steam is cut otr in the small cylinder at from one-quarter to two-thirds the stroke, and after expanding through the remainder it is further expanded in the large cylinder. A good example of a pumping-engine is the Holly pumping-engine, for a description of which see WATER SUPPLY. See also STEAM-PUMP.
PUN is the name given to a play upon words. The wit lies in the equivocal sense of some particular expression, by means of which an incongruous and therefore ludicrous idea is unexpectedly shot into the sentence. One or two examples will make the matter clearer than any definition. Two persons looking at a beggar-boy with an extraordi nary big head—" What a tower I" cried the first. " Say, rather," replied the second, " what a fort o' lice" (fortalice).—A noted punster was once asked, with reference to Mr. Carlyle's writings, if he did not like " to expatiate in such a field." "No," was the feli citous rejoinder; " I can't get over the style" (stile).—A Massachusetts lady complaining to a friend that her husband (whose business had taken him to the far west) constantly sent her letters filled with expressions of endearment, but no money, was told, by way of comfort, that he was giving her a proof of his unremitting affection!