Читать книгу The Steam Engine Familiarly Explained and Illustrated - Dionysius Lardner - Страница 9

Table of Contents

(26.) In a work published at Rome in 1629, entitled "Le Machine del G. Branca," is contained a description of a machine for propelling a wheel by a blast of steam. This contrivance consists of a wheel furnished with flat vanes upon its rim, like the boards of a paddle-wheel. The steam is produced in a close vessel, and made to issue with violence from the extremity of a pipe. Being directed against the vanes, it causes the wheel to revolve, and this motion may be imparted by the usual mechanical contrivances to any machinery which it was intended to move.

This contrivance has no analogy whatever to any part of the modern steam engines in any of their various forms.