The development of the steam pumping engine was foreshadowed by the steam fountain of Hero; the improved steam fountain of the Italian Porta, described by him in IGOE in which a separate boiler was used; and the inventions of the Marquis of Worcester, who is supposed to have been the first to put this device in practical operation for raising water intermittently. He also used a separate boiler and displaced water intermittently from a closed vessel by steam pressure. In 1663 Worcester secured patents on an improvement of this device. A separate boiler supplied steam alternately to two vessels placed over the water to he lifted and connected thereto by means of pipes. The condensation of steam in the vessel created a vacuum, whereupon atmos pheric pressure filled this chamber with water from below. :Meanwhile steam displaced the water in the other vessel. This was a forerunner of the pulsometer pump, described above.
Next in order of importance among those to whom we are indebted for the pumping engine comes Thos. Savery. who in 1698 patented the first pumping engine used to drain the mines of Corn wall. In 1702 he published a pamphlet, The Miners' Friend, in which Ile described his device and its advantages. The water-raising features of this machine were essentially the same as those of Worcester. but Savery added a surface con denser and a second or feed-water boiler. In 1690 Denis Papin suggested steam as a substi tute for gunpowder to move a piston. In 1705 Thomas Newcomen, John Calley. and Savery pat ented a pumping machine which combined a steam piston, outside condenser, balanced beam. pump rods, and a bucket piston pump. On applying the condensing jet a was created beneath the piston, whereupon atmospheric pressure forced the piston down and with its fall the steam end of the beam also fell. while the water end, with the pump rods and pump, was lifted. When steam was admitted beneath the piston, the atmospheric pressure was balanced and the pump rods fell. It is claimed that Newcomen and Calley were under no obligations to Savery, but gave him an interest in this patent to avoid threatened legal complications. However this may be, the numerous engines of the sort subse quently built were known as .Newcomen atmos pheric engines. Smeaton made great improve ments in the Newcomen engine, but it was James Watt who, during the second half of the eight eenth century, transformed the atmospheric into the steam engine. (See STEAM ENGINE.) Watt left the pump end of the mechanical device much as he found it. Toward the close of the eight eenth century the use of the steam engine had been confined almost wholly to the raising of water, and the most notable steam pumping engines thus far developed had been creel ed in the mines of Cornwall. From 1800 to 1840 vari ous improvements in these machines were made and the term Cornish engine came into use. The pump end changed from the bucket piston lift to the plunger force pump. The ponderous beam still remained, and though in ordinary municipal water-supply practice the long and heavy pump rods were not required, the Cornish beam pump ing engine was, at best, a cumbersome device.
In 1840 Henry R. 'Worthington, of New York, while experimenting on the application of steam to canal navigation, invented the direet-acting steam pump to feed his boilers. In 1841 this new type, the first practical application of steam in this way, was patented. In 1845 the manufac ture of such pumps was begun in South Brooklyn, and in 1850 Mr. Worthington submitted a num ber of small low-lift valves for the single high lift valve previously employed. In 1855 the
first direet-acting 'Worthington pump for water works service was put in use at Savannah, Ga. In 1857 an unsuccessful attempt was made to secure the adoption at Brooklyn of a new departure in pumping engines, namely, the duplex pump; but it was not till 1803 that the first duplex Worthington pump was erected. This was at Charlestown, Mass., and it had a capac ity of 5,000,000 gallons a day. In 1884 the 'Worthington high-duty pimp attachment, al ready described, was perfected by C. C. Worthing ton of the firm of H. R. Worthington. The original device was invented by J. D. Davis in 1879 and subsequently bought by the firm just named. The Worthington pumps are of the hori zontal type, and the illustration shows a Worth ington pumping machine installed at the Balti more water-works high-service pumping station and delivering 17,500,000 gallons of water daily.
A high-duty pumping engine, designed by I. P. Morris of Philadelphia, was installed at Lowell, Mass., in 1873. It was a vertical compound, having the two steam cylinders under one end of the beam and the pump and fly-wheel under the other end. It had a daily capacity of 5.000. 000 gallons and gave a duty of 93.000,000 foot pounds per 100 pounds of coal. In the same year (1873) another type of high-duty pumping en gine, after designs by E. D. Leavitt, Jr.. of Cam bridgeport. Mass., was tested at Lynn, Mass. It showed a duty of 104,000,000 foot-pounds per 100 pounds of coal. This was the first of a series of high-duty fly-wheel engines designed by Leavitt, which changed, later on, from the com pound, or double, to the triple expansion type. One of these pumping engines, built for the Calu met and Heela Mining Company, in Michigan, has a daily capacity of 60,000,000 gallons. For a high-lift and high-duty pump this is believed to be unsurpassed in size.
Another name connected with the development of pumping engines is that of George H. Corliss, of Providence, R. I. He erected a compound engine, with double-acting pump plungers, at Pawtucket, R. I., in 1878, which gave a duty of 127,000,000 foot-pounds per 100 pounds of coal. The pump end had annular bronze valve disks only 1-32 inch think. The diameters of the valves are inches, and the lift 1 inch. The aggregate area of the valves is equal to the area of the plungers. A type of Ily-wheel plump ing engine which has been very widely used in the United States is the Holly-Gaskill, invented by H. F. Gaskill, of Lockport, N. Y. The first of these was erected at Saratoga Springs, N. Y., in 1882. It had a capacity of 4,000,000 gallons a day and showed test duties ranging from 102, 000,000 to 113,000,000 foot-pounds per 100 pounds of coal. It was a compound, horizontal, crank-and-fly-wheel engine with double-acting plunger pumps.
Another class of high-duty pumping engines is commonly known as the Allis, from the makers, and is frequently named from the chief engineer of the builders, Edwin 'Reynolds. The first pump of this type was built in 1886 for the city of Milwaukee, Wis. The three pumps are single-acting plunger, the engines are triple expansion, and the cranks are placed on the axle at the angle of 120° with each other, in order to so vary the time of the stroke of each pump as to give a continuous flow of water. This pumping engine gave a test of 120,000,000 foot-pounds per 100 pounds of coal, which has been greatly exceeded by later Allis machines, one of which is shown on the accompanying plate.