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Scientific American, Vol. XXXVII.—No. 2. [New Series.], July 14, 1877 by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . SETTING LOCOMOTIVE SLIDE VALVES. here SETTING LOCOMOTIVE SLIDE VALVES. BY JOSHUA ROSE. E. G. asks: "How can I set the slide valves of a locomotive when she is on the road?" J. H. S. asks: "What is the method of setting locomotive slide valves from marks on the slide spindle?" And F. O. asks: "How are the valves of inside cylinder locomotives set, since the back ports are out of sight and you cannot measure the lead?" Our correspondent will find these questions answered in full below. It is presumed that the lengths of the eccentric rod, reverse rod, and other parts are correct, and they are properly connected and oiled so as to be in working order. The first thing to do is to place the reverse lever in the forward full-gear notch of the quadrants, or sectors, as they are sometimes called. The next procedure is to place the crank on its forward dead center as near as can be ascertained by the eye, and loosening the set screw of the forward eccentric, that is to say, the eccentric which connects with the upper end of the link, move that eccentric round on the shaft until the valve leaves the port at the front end of the cylinder open to the amount of whatever lead it is desired to give the valve. In moving the eccentric round on the shaft, it is necessary to move it in the direction in which it will turn when in operation. This is done in order to take up any lost motion there may be in the eccentric straps, in the eccentric rod eyebolts, or other working parts or joints between the eccentric and the slide valve rod or spindle. If the eccentric was turned backward instead of forward, all the lost motion would operate to vitiate the set of the valve, because, when the eccentric begins to move, its motion will have no effect in moving the slide valve spindle, until all the lost motion in the various parts is taken up by the eccentric movement. In considering this part of the operation, we must bear in mind that, to set the valve, we must move the wheels of the engine, it being impracticable to move the piston itself. Now, in moving the wheels, we are confronted with the fact that the crank pin is pulling the connecting rod; hence, if there is any lost motion in the brasses at either end of the connecting rod, the piston will not be at the end of its stroke when the crank is on its dead center. Suppose, for instance, that we have moved the driving wheel forward until the crank stands upright at a right angle to the bore of the cylinder, the resistance to motion of the piston and crosshead has caused the crank pin to bed against the half-brass nearest to the cylinder, all the play or lost motion is then between the other half-brass and the crank pin. When, however, the engine is at work and the piston is driving the crank pin, instead of being driven by it, the lost motion will exist between the crank pin and the half-brass nearest to the cylinder, and the contact will exist between the crank pin and the other brass. The difference in the position of the piston, caused by this lost motion, may be ascertained by moving the piston back and forth until the crank pin contacts with first one and then the other half-brass. It is sometimes attempted to remedy the defect due to this lost motion by moving the crank pin past the dead center and then moving it back to the dead center, so that while on that center the play or lost motion in the connecting rod is taken up. This is all very well so far as the connecting rod and piston is concerned, and will cause them both to stand on their respective dead centers with the lost motion taken up; but, in moving the wheel back to the dead center, we have given full liberty to all the lost motion in the various parts of the valve motion or gear, as already explained, in reference to moving the eccentric upon the shaft. As there are so many more parts in the valve gear, in which lost motion may occur, it is manifestly preferable to take up that play by moving the driving wheel in a continuous direction, rather than to move the latter back to accommodate any play there may be in the connecting rod. The crank being placed by the eye upon its forward dead center, and the eccentric connected to the top of the link being moved round on the axle (in the direction in which the wheels will run when the engine is going forward) until the steam port at the front end of the cylinder is open to the amount of the lead, we fasten the eccentric to hold in that position. We then throw the reverse lever over into the last notch at the other end of the sector, lifting the link up so that the eccentric connected to the lower end of the link may be approximately adjusted, which is done by moving the eccentric round upon the axle (in the direction in which the axle will revolve when the engine is running backward) until the crank stands upon the same dead center, and the front port is open to the amount of the lead. This being done, we have the eccentrics approximately adjusted and may proceed to the final adjustment, in which the first thing to do is to find the exact dead centers of the crank. It is obvious that a line drawn through the center of the crank pin and the center of the wheel axle, will stand horizontally true and level when the crank is on either of the dead centers, but the presence of the crank pin makes it impracticable to draw such a line. We can therefore draw one which will be parallel to those centers; and to do this we draw a circle upon the end of the wheel axle (and from its center) of the same diameter as that of the crank pin, and then resting a straight-edge upon the bearing of the crank pin (taking care to avoid the round corner upon the pin, if there is one), we place the other end of the straight-edge even with the top of the circle drawn upon the axle; and then, using the straight-edge as a guide, we draw a line across the end of the axle and the wheel face. When this line is level the crank will be upon its dead center. This plan is sometimes employed, but is not a very accurate one, because the length of the line is very short as compared to the circumference of the driving wheel; hence, an error of the thickness of the line becomes one equal to several thicknesses of the line when carried out to the wheel circumference. Furthermore, if the line of the cylinder does not stand horizontally level, as is sometimes the case, the result of the whole proceeding will be inaccurate. Again, the connecting rod end and the coupling rod is in the way, rendering it awkward to both draw and level the line. A better and more accurate method to find the dead centers is as follows: Place the reverse lever into the end notch of the sector at the forward end, and then move the driving wheel forward until the guide block is within about a quarter of an inch of the end of its travel, then place a straight-edge against the end of the guide block, and draw, on the outside face of the guide bar, a line even with the end of the guide block. Bend a piece of wire (pointed at both ends) to a right angle, make a center punch mark either in the rail, under the driving wheel, or in some stationary, solid part contiguous to the wheel, or at such distance from it that when one end of the bent wire is placed in the center punch mark, the operator with the other end will be able to draw a line across the rim of the driving wheel. Here, however, arises another consideration, that it is better to set the valves with the wheel axle in its proper position in the pedestal shoes, and in order to do this the wheel should rest upon the rail with its proper proportion of the weight of the engine resting upon it. The springs will then be deflected to their proper amount, and the axle box will have passed its proper distance up the pedestals. It is obvious that if the engine is blocked up so that the driving wheels clear the rails (which is done in order to avoid having the weight of the engine to move while setting the valve), the axle boxes will drop in the pedestal and the valve will be set incorrectly, as the wheels are in a wrong position. To avoid this, and at the same time to avoid having to move the whole engine while setting the valve, the engine is blocked up from the rails, and the axle boxes of the driving wheels are wedged up so as to be lifted up into their proper position. In this case there is no very accurate means of ascertaining what is the exact proper height, save it be by first marking upon the outside faces of the shoes or pedestal a line even with the top of the axle box when the load is upon the wheels, and then, after blocking up the engine from the rails, wedging up the axle boxes till the face again comes even with the line. Whatever plan is pursued, one end of the piece of wire is rested in the fixed center punch mark, and with the other a line is drawn across the outside face of the wheel rim. The driving wheel is then revolved forward until the guide block returns, having passed to the end of its travel. When its end again stands exactly even with the mark made upon the guide bar, the piece of wire is again brought into requisition, one end being rested in the fixed center punch mark as before, and with the other end another line is drawn across the outside rim of the wheel. It is obvious that by taking a pair of compasses and finding a point exactly equidistant between the two lines thus marked upon the wheel rim, and then marking that point with a center punch mark, the crank will be upon its exact dead center, when one end of the piece of bent wire rests in the fixed center punch mark, the other end rests in the center punch mark upon the wheel rim. To find the other dead center, the wheel must be moved about halfway round and the process repeated with the motion block at the other end of the guide bars. Thus, whenever the piece of wire will stand with one end resting in the fixed center punch mark and the other end in either of the center punch marks upon the wheel run, the crank is upon a dead center. Having thus placed the crank upon either dead center, we measure the valve lead, and if in temporarily fixing our eccentrics we gave it too much lead, we mark where it stands upon the shaft by means of a line drawn on the axle and carried up on the side face of the eccentric; then move the eccentric back some little distance more than is necessary to make the adjustment, and then move it forward again a little at a time, noting when the valve has the proper amount of lead, and thus fasten the eccentric upon the axle by means of the set screw. The object of moving the eccentric too far back and then moving it forward is to make the adjustment so that the latter may be made with the lost motion of the valve gear all taken up. The next proceeding is to move the driving wheel halfway round and try the lead at that end of the stroke. If the lead at the two ends is not equal, it shows that either the slide valve spindle or the eccentric rods are not of the proper length and must be rectified; this being done, the crank must be again placed upon first one and then the other dead center, the valve lead being measured at each end. When the lead is equal at each end, the rods are of correct length, and the amount of the lead must be regulated by moving the eccentrics as already directed. If the link block does not come opposite the end of the eccentric rod when the reverse lever is in the end notch of the sector, the length of the reverse rod is wrong and should be corrected. If the link block comes right, under the above conditions, for the forward but not for the backward eccentric rod, the notches in the sector are not cut in their proper positions, or the link hanger is not of the proper length. In either case the error may be remedied by altering the length of the latter. But, as doing this would alter the amount of the valve lead, it is well, if there is any prospect of such errors, to correct them before setting the valves. Instead of measuring the lead of the valve with a rule, or by a wedge, the following plan is very often adopted: After the valve and spindle are in position, the valve is placed with the proper amount of lead upon the front port. A center punch mark is then made upon the face of the steam chest. A piece of quarter inch iron wire is then bent at right angles and each end filed to a point. One end of this wire is placed in the fixed center punch mark in the steam chest, and with the other a mark is made upon the slide spindle. Upon this latter mark a center punch mark is also made sufficiently deep to be very plainly visible when the burr raised by center punching is filed off, which is necessary to prevent this burr from cutting the packing. It follows that whenever the bent piece of wire will rest with one end in the center punch mark in the steam chest, and the other end in the center punch mark in the slide spindle, the valve is in its proper position when the crank is on the corresponding dead center. This plan is a very old one and possesses the advantage that the valve may be set without seeing it, that is to say, with the steam chest cover on. If the length of the piece of wire measured direct from point to point is known, the valve may be set when the engine is upon the road without taking off the steam chest cover. The center punch mark upon the steam chest should, however, always be placed in about the same spot, so as to avoid mistakes in case of there being other similar marks upon the chest. It should always be made deep, so as not to get filled up with paint and be difficult to find. In course of time the mark upon the slide valve spindle is apt to disappear from the wear of the spindle, hence the center punch with which it is made should have a long conical point. To mark the position of the eccentric upon the axle, it is an excellent plan, after the eccentrics are finally adjusted, to take a chisel with the cutting end ground to the form of a fiddle drill, one cutting edge being at a right angle to the other. The chisel must be held so that while one edge rests upon the axle, the other edge will bear against the radial face of the eccentric. A sharp blow with a hammer upon the chisel-head will make a clean indented cut upon the axle and the eccentric, the two cuts exactly meeting at their junction and denoting the position of the eccentrics. In setting the valves of inside cylinder locomotives, the back ports being out of sight, the amount of lead is ascertained by making a wooden wedge about three inches long, a thirty-second of an inch thick at one end and three eighths of an inch thick at the other end. The faces of this wedge are chalked, and the lead is measured by inserting it between the edge of the valve and the edge of the port until its thickness just fills the space, and then moving it edgeways so that the valve and port edges will just mark it. By measuring the thickness of the wedge at the mark, the amount of lead is ascertained. After the valves are set, it is still desirable to mark the position by center punch marks upon the outside of the steam chests and upon the valve spindles, as already described. If an eccentric should slip when the engine is upon the road, and there are no marks whereby to readjust them, it may be done approximately as follows: Put the reverse lever in the end notch of the forward gear, then place the crank as nearly on a dead center as the eye will direct, and open both the cylinder cocks, then disconnect the slide valve spindle from the rocker arm, and move the valve spindle until the opening of the port corresponding to the dead center on which the crank stands will be shown by steam blowing through the cylinder cock, the throttle valve being opened a trifle. The position of the valve being thus determined, the eccentric must be moved upon the shaft until the valve spindle will connect with the rocker arm without being moved at all. The throttle valve should be very slightly opened, otherwise so much steam will be admitted into the cylinder that it will pass through any leak in the piston and blow through both cylinder cocks before there is time to ascertain which cock gives first exit to the steam. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2012). Scientific American, Vol. XXXVII. —No. 2. [New Series.], July 14, 1877. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/38481/pg38481-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

SETTING LOCOMOTIVE SLIDE VALVES

It's quite possible that the threats allegedly posed by AI are nothing more than campfire scaremongering (C) Illustration created with Bing. What have we learned about ourselves thanks to Artificial Intelligence? What can we learn about ourselves through interaction with ? Let's try to find, if not the answers to these questions, at least the directions in which to look for them. Artificial Intelligence What have we already learned about ourselves thanks to AI? Do not hurry to turn on the snobbery and accuse the authors of an inaccurate statement of the question. We know that true AI has not yet been created, and the widespread use of the term artificial intelligence in relation to chatbots based on Large Linguistic Models (LLM) is nothing more than a commercial moniker. By the way, here is an interesting test: Would you bet... say half of all you own, that our contention above is true? We sure wouldn't. Nor would we bet that a real AI will be exactly created and not, say, self-generated from "ingredients" that are already available. After all, the only intelligence known to us so far, according to the majority of biologists, was self-generated. Yes, we are aware that the religious have other opinions on this. But if we get away from the position taken by science, we will surely soar to the heights of philosophy, from which the topic of this article will seem utterly insignificant. So, it is better to stay with our two feet planted on solid ground. So, let us return to our starting point. Even the most superficial study of the issue shows that despite the fact that there is no real AI yet, it is already interacting with us, at least as a mirror or a lantern illuminating the dark corners of the closet in our soul. By soul, we mean the whole complex of our mind, psyche, consciousness, and subconsciousness. Cowardice as a strategy The main thing we've learned, thanks to AI, is that humans have turned into terrible cowards. In fact, we have never been cowards like we are now. Not even back in the days when we could counter all of the world’s threats with simple stone spears and axes. And that's surprising because, generally speaking, our species is characterized by curiosity over fear. Otherwise, we would not have departed the African Savanna and scattered across the planet many thousands of years ago. We will not engage here in pathos, enumerating the risky ventures and great accomplishments of our species, such as Leif Ericsson's voyage or the moon landing. Let's just say that throughout history, humans have implemented progressive innovations quickly and without much thought about the risks, even if these innovations involved risk. Let's take one example - bronze. The oldest bronze alloys contained arsenic, the vapors from which had a negative effect on the health of the masters who made metal products. Do you think that our distant ancestors were not aware of this? They were. It is no coincidence that Hephaestus, the divine blacksmith and patron of craftsmen in ancient Greece, was born with deformed legs and was sickly and frail. Observant Greeks perfectly saw what problems, including hereditary issues, faced foundry workers and blacksmiths working with bronze. But this knowledge did not stop progress or return people to the Stone Age. Humanity just invented other, safer alloys. Throughout history, much of humanity’s progress looked the same as the development of bronze. The invention of technology - the use of technology along with gathering information about its risks and pitfalls gained from practical experience - moves in parallel with the improvement of technology and the development of better technology. This was the case with sailing ships and windmills, steamships and steam locomotives, automobiles and airplanes, nuclear power plants, and spacecraft. But with AI, we suddenly broke from this pattern. Simply put, we chickened out. Without even seriously approaching the creation of true AI, we have already started to be afraid of it. Already, a huge number of fantastic works of fiction have been created in the “AI attacks humanity” genre. Among them are many real masterpieces which have almost turned the idea of an inevitable war between people and intelligent machines into an axiom. Once again, consider this point. Full-fledged AI has not yet become a reality, but we are already afraid of it! We've scared ourselves! We have infected ourselves with Frankenstein syndrome, turning it into a kind of epidemic. It looks especially strange that real gurus of technical progress, who know what risk is and know how to take it, often oppose the development of AI. Even "sober heads" who do not believe that AI poses a purely physical threat to humanity talk about the economic and psychological threats that may affect humanity. What if smart machines and AI systems put people out of work? What will happen if people find it more interesting to communicate with Artificial Intelligence and robots than with other people? In essence, all these people are suggesting that humanity should choose cowardice as a basic strategy in this matter. Some would say that putting the brakes on AI development until we have calculated all the risks and set all the limits and boundaries is not cowardice but prudent caution. But let's face it. When considering a system as complex as Artificial Intelligence, it is impossible to calculate and anticipate all the risks. If a full-fledged, self-aware AI does emerge, it is highly likely to break through any red lines we may draw - both thin and thick. So basically, the whole issue comes down to a simple choice. We either develop technologies that can lead to full-fledged AI, dealing with the risks and problems that arise along the way, or we give up and restrict progress in this direction as much as possible, as, in fact, we did with genetic modification. Once again, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that we are not calling for humanity to ignore risk; assessing and weighing the risks of AI are important. But we believe that this should be done as the technology develops, not by putting the development on pause. We do not know what mankind will choose, but we want to believe that our civilization will not turn into a community of cowards. It is the fear we have of AI that seems to be the biggest threat to humanity at the moment, rather than anything coming from intelligent machines. I want to believe that we will once again find the spirit of curiosity and adventure that made us take the first steps into the uncharted and unknown. Dark Side A less talked-about, but no less important, problem that we realized while thinking about a future with full-fledged AI is the danger of awakening in us those manifestations of human nature that are commonly referred to as "base" or "animal" instincts. All that we have managed, with great difficulty, to hide under a thin layer of societal norms and behaviors. Is there a risk that we will really use AI-equipped robots as disenfranchised slaves in hard and dangerous jobs, as sex toys, and in gladiatorial games? Could the future realities from , Westworld, or A.I. Artificial Intelligence really come true? Yes, and it's bound to happen unless we start doing something about it today. Blade Runner Why are we so sure of this? First of all, because a lot of people don't see anything wrong with the scenarios we have described. Let people "blow off steam" on robots instead of hoarding it all in themselves and taking it out on other people. The opportunities offered by a variety of digital entertainment are often cited as an example. But, most importantly, there is the second reason. Namely, the fact that there are still these mindsets of inhumanity and how people treat each other today. You are aware that slavery, forced sexual exploitation, and other forms of human cruelty still exist on planet Earth, right? Even in countries that are considered civilized. Do you want an example? Please. Two people pummeling each other with their fists in an effort to get their opponent to pass out? You are aware that knockdowns and knockouts in professional boxing, to put it mildly, do not lengthen life or improve its quality? That a knockout surely equals a concussion? And this is just one example of modern "gladiatorial games.” The fact that professional athletes receive substantial salaries does not change the essence of professional sports. At the peak of the popularity of gladiatorial games in Ancient Rome, free citizens sold themselves as gladiators for money and fame. What is there to say about citizens - some Roman emperors even entered the arena! “So what's the problem?" some readers will ask, or, "Why not eliminate the issue of brutal, forced exploitation of people by substituting smart machines? We respond: The problem is that if robots were to be equipped with true AI, they would be at least intellectually comparable to humans. Is it ethical to force intelligent creatures, albeit artificial, to become slaves, engage in prostitution, or serve as "whipping boys" for the amusement of fans of this kind of entertainment? The answer to this question should be provided by lawmakers, preferably before the emergence of a full-fledged AI. Unfortunately, it seems that the parliamentarians of the most technically developed countries of the world have not yet seriously concerned themselves with the problems of the legal basis of relations between humans and Artificial Intelligence. So far, if this issue is discussed, it is discussed by individual lawyers and futurologists as a kind of thought experiment. What is the cause for this reluctance? Is it a failure to realize the importance of the subject or an unwillingness to close the window of opportunity? Whatever the case may be, the fact that politicians ignore this problem is another important piece of the puzzle that makes up the portrait of modern humanity. New formats of communication I do not want to end on a gloomy note, so let's look for something positive in the aforementioned closet of the soul. It's something like a beautiful vintage toy or a record collection with good old jazz or rock and roll. The emergence of modern chatbots based on LLM has shown that people are quite willing to engage normally in communication with AI. It turns out that users don't limit their interaction with chatbots to asking them to find information, write text, or come up with slogans, headlines, and greeting cards. We are happy to communicate with these digital creations on a variety of topics - discussing our hobbies, personal problems, and abstract issues, and even dialoguing in the same manner as we do with people. Moreover, this dialog is often freer and more frank than interactions with people. Based on this, we can easily assume that a generation of people is already forming today for whom fear of AI will seem ridiculous, and the idea of normal partnership with intelligent machines and granting them equality is completely natural. To be continued. The article was created in collaboration with Andriy Tkachenko

AI: A Mirror on Humanity (Part 1)

Steam, Its Generation and Use by Babcock & Wilcox Company, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND USE OF STEAM here THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND USE OF STEAM While the time of man’s first knowledge and use of the expansive force of the vapor of water is unknown, records show that such knowledge existed earlier than 150 B. C. In a treatise of about that time entitled “Pneumatica”, Hero, of Alexander, described not only existing devices of his predecessors and contemporaries but also an invention of his own which utilized the expansive force of steam for raising water above its natural level. He clearly describes three methods in which steam might be used directly as a motive of power; raising water by its elasticity, elevating a weight by its expansive power and producing a rotary motion by its reaction on the atmosphere. The third method, which is known as “Hero’s engine”, is described as a hollow sphere supported over a caldron or boiler by two trunnions, one of which was hollow, and connected the interior of the sphere with the steam space of the caldron. Two pipes, open at the ends and bent at right angles, were inserted at opposite poles of the sphere, forming a connection between the caldron and the atmosphere. Heat being applied to the caldron, the steam generated passed through the hollow trunnion to the sphere and thence into the atmosphere through the two pipes. By the reaction incidental to its escape through these pipes, the sphere was caused to rotate and here is the primitive steam reaction turbine. Hero makes no suggestions as to application of any of the devices he describes to a useful purpose. From the time of Hero until the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, there is no record of progress, though evidence is found that such devices as were described by Hero were sometimes used for trivial purposes, the blowing of an organ or the turning of a skillet. Mathesius, the German author, in 1571; Besson, a philosopher and mathematician at Orleans; Ramelli, in 1588; Battista Delia Porta, a Neapolitan mathematician and philosopher, in 1601; Decause, the French engineer and architect, in 1615; and Branca, an Italian architect, in 1629, all published treatises bearing on the subject of the generation of steam. To the next contributor, Edward Somerset, second Marquis of Worcester, is apparently due the credit of proposing, if not of making, the first useful steam engine. In the “Century of Scantlings and Inventions”, published in London in 1663, he describes devices showing that he had in mind the raising of water not only by forcing it from two receivers by direct steam pressure but also for some sort of reciprocating piston actuating one end of a lever, the other operating a pump. His descriptions are rather obscure and no drawings are extant so that it is difficult to say whether there were any distinctly novel features to his devices aside from the double action. While there is no direct authentic record that any of the devices he described were actually constructed, it is claimed by many that he really built and operated a steam engine containing pistons. In 1675, Sir Samuel Moreland was decorated by King Charles II, for a demonstration of “a certain powerful machine to raise water.” Though there appears to be no record of the design of this machine, the mathematical dictionary, published in 1822, credits Moreland with the first account of a steam engine, on which subject he wrote a treatise that is still preserved in the British Museum. Dr. Denys Papin, an ingenious Frenchman, invented in 1680 “a steam digester for extracting marrowy, nourishing juices from bones by enclosing them in a boiler under heavy pressure,” and finding danger from explosion, added a contrivance which is the first safety valve on record. The steam engine first became commercially successful with Thomas Savery. In 1699, Savery exhibited before the Royal Society of England (Sir Isaac Newton was President at the time), a model engine which consisted of two copper receivers alternately connected by a three-way hand-operated valve, with a boiler and a source of water supply. When the water in one receiver had been driven out by the steam, cold water was poured over its outside surface, creating a vacuum through condensation and causing it to fill again while the water in the other reservoir was being forced out. A number of machines were built on this principle and placed in actual use as mine pumps. The serious difficulty encountered in the use of Savery’s engine was the fact that the height to which it could lift water was limited by the pressure the boiler and vessels could bear. Before Savery’s engine was entirely displaced by its successor, Newcomen’s, it was considerably improved by Desaguliers, who applied the Papin safety valve to the boiler and substituted condensation by a jet within the vessel for Savery’s surface condensation. In 1690, Papin suggested that the condensation of steam should be employed to make a vacuum beneath a cylinder which had previously been raised by the expansion of steam. This was the earliest cylinder and piston steam engine and his plan took practical shape in Newcomen’s atmospheric engine. Papin’s first engine was unworkable owing to the fact that he used the same vessel for both boiler and cylinder. A small quantity of water was placed in the bottom of the vessel and heat was applied. When steam formed and raised the piston, the heat was withdrawn and the piston did work on its down stroke under pressure of the atmosphere. After hearing of Savery’s engine, Papin developed an improved form. Papin’s engine of 1705 consisted of a displacement chamber in which a floating diaphragm or piston on top of the water kept the steam and water from direct contact. The water delivered by the downward movement of the piston under pressure, to a closed tank, flowed in a continuous stream against the vanes of a water wheel. When the steam in the displacement chamber had expanded, it was exhausted to the atmosphere through a valve instead of being condensed. The engine was, in fact, a non-condensing, single action steam pump with the steam and pump cylinders in one. A curious feature of this engine was a heater placed in the diaphragm. This was a mass of heated metal for the purpose of keeping the steam dry or preventing condensation during expansion. This device might be called the first superheater. Among the various inventions attributed to Papin was a boiler with an internal fire box, the earliest record of such construction. While Papin had neglected his earlier suggestion of a steam and piston engine to work on Savery’s ideas, Thomas Newcomen, with his assistant, John Cawley, put into practical form Papin’s suggestion of 1690. Steam admitted from the boiler to a cylinder raised a piston by its expansion, assisted by a counter-weight on the other end of a beam actuated by the piston. The steam valve was then shut and the steam condensed by a jet of cold water. The piston was then forced downward by atmospheric pressure and did work on the pump. The condensed water in the cylinder was expelled through an escapement valve by the next entry of steam. This engine used steam having pressure but little, if any, above that of the atmosphere. In 1711, this engine was introduced into mines for pumping purposes. Whether its action was originally automatic or whether dependent upon the hand operation of the valves is a question of doubt. The story commonly believed is that a boy, Humphrey Potter, in 1713, whose duty it was to open and shut such valves of an engine he attended, by suitable cords and catches attached to the beam, caused the engine to automatically manipulate these valves. This device was simplified in 1718 by Henry Beighton, who suspended from the bottom, a rod called the plug-tree, which actuated the valve by tappets. By 1725, this engine was in common use in the collieries and was changed but little for a matter of sixty or seventy years. Compared with Savery’s engine, from the aspect of a pumping engine, Newcomen’s was a distinct advance, in that the pressure in the pumps was in no manner dependent upon the steam pressure. In common with Savery’s engine, the losses from the alternate heating and cooling of the steam cylinder were enormous. Though obviously this engine might have been modified to serve many purposes, its use seems to have been limited almost entirely to the pumping of water. The rivalry between Savery and Papin appears to have stimulated attention to the question of fuel saving. Dr. John Allen, in 1730, called attention to the fact that owing to the short length of time of the contact between the gases and the heating surfaces of the boiler, nearly half of the heat of the fire was lost. With a view to overcoming this loss at least partially, he used an internal furnace with a smoke flue winding through the water in the form of a worm in a still. In order that the length of passage of the gases might not act as a damper on the fire, Dr. Allen recommended the use of a pair of bellows for forcing the sluggish vapor through the flue. This is probably the first suggested use of forced draft. In forming an estimate of the quantity of fuel lost up the stack, Dr. Allen probably made the first boiler test. Toward the end of the period of use of Newcomen’s atmospheric engine, John Smeaton, who, about 1770, built and installed a number of large engines of this type, greatly improved the design in its mechanical details. The improvement in boiler and engine design of Smeaton, Newcomen and their contemporaries, were followed by those of the great engineer, James Watt, an instrument maker of Glasgow. In 1763, while repairing a model of Newcomen’s engine, he was impressed by the great waste of steam to which the alternating cooling and heating of the engine gave rise. His remedy was the maintaining of the cylinder as hot as the entering steam and with this in view he added a vessel separate from the cylinder, into which the steam should pass from the cylinder and be there condensed either by the application of cold water outside or by a jet from within. To preserve a vacuum in his condenser, he added an air pump which should serve to remove the water of condensation and air brought in with the injection water or due to leakage. As the cylinder no longer acted as a condenser, he could maintain it at a high temperature by covering it with non-conducting material and, in particular, by the use of a steam jacket. Further and with the same object in view, he covered the top of the cylinder and introduced steam above the piston to do the work previously accomplished by atmospheric pressure. After several trials with an experimental apparatus based on these ideas, Watt patented his improvements in 1769. Aside from their historical importance, Watt’s improvements, as described in his specification, are to this day a statement of the principles which guide the scientific development of the steam engine. His words are: “My method of lessening the consumption of steam, and consequently fuel, in fire engines, consists of the following principles: “First, That vessel in which the powers of steam are to be employed to work the engine, which is called the cylinder in common fire engines, and which I call the steam vessel, must, during the whole time the engine is at work, be kept as hot as the steam that enters it; first, by enclosing it in a case of wood, or any other materials that transmit heat slowly; secondly, by surrounding it with steam or other heated bodies; and, thirdly, by suffering neither water nor any other substance colder than the steam to enter or touch it during that time. “Secondly, In engines that are to be worked wholly or partially by condensation of steam, the steam is to be condensed in vessels distinct from the steam vessels or cylinders, although occasionally communicating with them; these vessels I call condensers; and, whilst the engines are working, these condensers ought at least to be kept as cold as the air in the neighborhood of the engines, by application of water or other cold bodies. “Thirdly, Whatever air or other elastic vapor is not condensed by the cold of the condenser, and may impede the working of the engine, is to be drawn out of the steam vessels or condensers by means of pumps, wrought by the engines themselves, or otherwise. “Fourthly, I intend in many cases to employ the expansive force of steam to press on the pistons, or whatever may be used instead of them, in the same manner in which the pressure of the atmosphere is now employed in common fire engines. In cases where cold water cannot be had in plenty, the engines may be wrought by this force of steam only, by discharging the steam into the air after it has done its office…. “Sixthly, I intend in some cases to apply a degree of cold not capable of reducing the steam to water, but of contracting it considerably, so that the engines shall be worked by the alternate expansion and contraction of the steam. “Lastly, Instead of using water to render the pistons and other parts of the engine air and steam tight, I employ oils, wax, resinous bodies, fat of animals, quick-silver and other metals in their fluid state.” The fifth claim was for a rotary engine, and need not be quoted here. The early efforts of Watt are typical of those of the poor inventor struggling with insufficient resources to gain recognition and it was not until he became associated with the wealthy manufacturer, Mattheu Boulton of Birmingham, that he met with the success upon which his present fame is based. In partnership with Boulton, the business of the manufacture and the sale of his engines were highly successful in spite of vigorous attacks on the validity of his patents. Though the fourth claim of Watt’s patent describes a non-condensing engine which would require high pressures, his aversion to such practice was strong. Notwithstanding his entire knowledge of the advantages through added expansion under high pressure, he continued to use pressures not above 7 pounds per square inch above the atmosphere. To overcome such pressures, his boilers were fed through a stand-pipe of sufficient height to have the column of water offset the pressure within the boiler. Watt’s attitude toward high pressure made his influence felt long after his patents had expired. In 1782, Watt patented two other features which he had invented as early as 1769. These were the double acting engine, that is, the use of steam on both sides of the piston and the use of steam expansively, that is, the shutting off of steam from the cylinder when the piston had made but a portion of its stroke, the power for the completion of the stroke being supplied by the expansive force of the steam already admitted. He further added a throttle valve for the regulation of steam admission, invented the automatic governor and the steam indicator, a mercury steam gauge and a glass water column. It has been the object of this brief history of the early developments in the use of steam to cover such developments only through the time of James Watt. The progress of the steam engine from this time through the stages of higher pressures, combining of cylinders, the application of steam vehicles and steamboats, the adding of third and fourth cylinders, to the invention of the turbine with its development and the accompanying development of the reciprocating engine to hold its place, is one long attribute to the inventive genius of man. While little is said in the biographies of Watt as to the improvement of steam boilers, all the evidence indicates that Boulton and Watt introduced the first “wagon boiler”, so called because of its shape. In 1785, Watt took out a number of patents for variations in furnace construction, many of which contain the basic principles of some of the modern smoke preventing furnaces. Until the early part of the nineteenth century, the low steam pressures used caused but little attention to be given to the form of the boiler operated in connection with the engines above described. About 1800, Richard Trevithick, in England, and Oliver Evans, in America, introduced non-condensing, and for that time, high pressure steam engines. To the initiative of Evans may be attributed the general use of high pressure steam in the United States, a feature which for many years distinguished American from European practice. The demand for light weight and economy of space following the beginning of steam navigation and the invention of the locomotive required boilers designed and constructed to withstand heavier pressures and forced the adoption of the cylindrical form of boiler. There are in use to-day many examples of every step in the development of steam boilers from the first plain cylindrical boiler to the most modern type of multi-tubular locomotive boiler, which stands as the highest type of fire-tube boiler construction. The early attempts to utilize water-tube boilers were few. A brief history of the development of the boilers, in which this principle was employed, is given in the following chapter. From this history it will be clearly indicated that the first commercially successful utilization of water tubes in a steam generator is properly attributed to George H. Babcock and Stephen Wilcox. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Babcock & Wilcox Company (2007). Steam, Its Generation and Use. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/22657/pg22657-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND USE OF STEAM

On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures by Charles Babbage is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Exerting Forces Too Great for Human Power, and Executing, Operations Too Delicate for Human Touch here Chapter 7. Exerting Forces Too Great for Human Power, and Executing Operations Too Delicate for Human Touch 56. It requires some skill and a considerable apparatus to enable many men to exert their whole force at a given point; and when this number amounts to hundreds or to thousands, additional difficulties present themselves. If ten thousand men were hired to act simultaneously, it would be exceedingly difficult to discover whether each exerted his whole force, and consequently, to be assured that each man did the duty for which he was paid. And if still larger bodies of men or animals were necessary, not only would the difficulty of directing them become greater, but the expense would increase from the necessity of transporting food for their subsistence. The difficulty of enabling a large number of men to exert their force at the same instant of time has been almost obviated by the use of sound. The whistle of the boatswain performs this service on board ships; and in removing, by manual force, the vast mass of granite, weighing above 1,400 tons, on which the equestrian figure of Peter the Great is placed at St Petersburgh, a drummer was always stationed on its summit to give the signal for the united efforts of the workmen. An ancient Egyptian drawing was discovered a few years since, by Champollion, in which a multitude of men appeared harnessed to a huge block of stone, on the top of which stood a single individual with his hands raised above his head, apparently in the act of clapping them, for the purpose of insuring the exertion of their combined force at the same moment of time. In mines, it is sometimes necessary to raise or lower great weights by capstans requiring the force of more than one hundred men. These work upon the surface; but the directions must be communicated from below, perhaps from the depth of two hundred fathoms. This communication, however, is accomplished with ease and certainty by signals: the usual apparatus is a kind of clapper placed on the surface close to the capstan, so that every man may hear, and put in motion from below by a rope passing up the shaft. At Wheal Friendship mine in Cornwall, a different contrivance is employed: there is in that mine an inclined plane, passing underground about two-thirds of a mile in length. Signals are communicated by a continuous rod of metal, which being struck below, the blow is distinctly heard on the surface. In all our larger manufactories numerous instances occur of the application of the power of steam to overcome resistances which it would require far greater expense to surmount by means of animal labour. The twisting of the largest cables, the rolling, hammering, and cutting large masses of iron, the draining of our mines, all require enormous exertions of physical force continued for considerable periods of time. Other means are had recourse to when the force required is great, and the space through which it is to act is small. The hydraulic press of Bramah can, by the exertion of one man, produce a pressure of 1,500 atmospheres; and with such an instrument a hollow cylinder of wrought iron three inches thick has been burst. In rivetting together the iron plates, out of which steam-engine boilers are made, it is necessary to produce as close a joint as possible. This is accomplished by using the rivets red-hot: while they are in that state the two plates of iron are rivetted together, and the contraction which the rivet undergoes in cooling draws them together with a force which is only limited by the tenacity of the metal of which the rivet itself is made. It is not alone in the greater operations of the engineer or the manufacturer, that those vast powers which man has called into action, in availing himself of the agency of steam, are fully developed. Wherever the individual operation demanding little force for its own performance is to be multiplied in almost endless repetition, commensurate power is required. It is the same 'giant arm' which twists 'the largest cable', that spins from the cotton plant an 'almost gossamer thread'. Obedient to the hand which called into action its resistless powers, it contends with the ocean and the storm, and rides triumphant through dangers and difficulties unattempted by the older modes of navigation. It is the same engine that, in its more regulated action, weaves the canvas it may one day supersede, or, with almost fairy fingers, entwines the meshes of the most delicate fabric that adorns the female form.(1*) The Fifth Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Holyhead Roads furnishes ample proof of the great superiority of steam vessels. The following extracts are taken from the evidence of Captain Rogers, the commander of one of the packets: Question. Are you not perfectly satisfied, from the experience you have had, that the steam vessel you command is capable of performing what no sailing vessel can do? Answer. Yes. Question. During your passage from Gravesend to the Downs, could any square-rigged vessel, from a first-rate down to a sloop of war, have performed the voyage you did in the time you did it in the steamboat? Answer. No: it was impossible. In the Downs we passed several Indiamen, and 150 sail there that could not move down the channel: and at the back of Dungeness we passed 120 more. Question. At the time you performed that voyage, with the weather you have described, from the Downs to Milford, if that weather had continued twelve months, would any square-rigged vessel have performed it? Answer. They would have been a long time about it: probably, would have been weeks instead of days. A sailing vessel would not have beat up to Milford, as we did, in twelve months. The process of printing on the silver paper, which is necessary for bank-notes, is attended with some inconvenience, from the necessity of damping the paper previously to taking the impression. It was difficult to do this uniformly and in the old process of dipping a parcel of several sheets together into a vessel of water, the outside sheets becoming much more wet than the others, were very apt to be torn. A method has been adopted at the Bank of Ireland which obviates this inconvenience. The whole quantity of paper to be damped is placed in a close vessel from which the air is exhausted; water is then admitted, and every leaf is completely wetted; the paper is then removed to a press, and all the superfluous moisture is squeezed out. The operation of pulverizing solid substances and of separating the powders of various degrees of fineness, is common in the arts: and as the best graduated sifting fails in effecting this separation with sufficient delicacy, recourse is had to suspension in a fluid medium. The substance when reduced by grinding to the finest powder is agitated in water which is then drawn off: the coarsest portion of the suspended matter first subsides, and that which requires the longest time to fall down is the finest. In this manner even emery powder, a substance of great density, is separated into the various degrees of fineness which are required. Flints, after being burned and ground, are suspended in water, in order to mix them intimately with clay, which is also suspended in the same fluid for the formation of porcelain. The water is then in part evaporated by heat, and the plastic compound, out of which our most beautiful porcelain is formed, remains. It is a curious fact, and one which requires further examination than it has yet received, that, if this mixture be suffered to remain long at rest before it is worked up, it becomes useless; for it is then found that the silex, which at first was uniformly mixed, becomes aggregated together in small lumps. This parallel to the formation of flints in the chalk strata deserves attention.(2*) The slowness with which powders subside, depends partly on the specific gravity of the substance, and partly on the magnitude of the particles themselves. Bodies, in falling through a resisting medium, after a certain time acquire a uniform velocity, which is called their terminal velocity, with which they continue to descend: when the particles are very small, and the medium dense, as water, this terminal velocity is soon arrived at. Some of the finer powders even of emery require several hours to subside through a few feet of water, and the mud pumped up into our cisterns by some of the water companies is suspended during a still longer time. These facts furnish us with some idea of the great extent over which deposits of river mud may be spread; for if the mud of any river whose waters enter the Gulf Stream, sink through one foot in an hour, it might be carried by that stream 1,500 miles before it had sunk to the depth of 600 or 700 feet. A number of small filaments of cotton project from even the best spun thread, and when this thread is woven into muslin they injure its appearance. To cut these off separately is quite impossible, but they are easily removed by passing the muslin rapidly over a cylinder of iron kept at a dull red heat: the time during which each portion of the muslin is in contact with the red-hot iron is too short to heat it to the burning point; but the filaments being much finer, and being pressed close to the hot metal, are burnt. The removal of these filaments from patent net is still more necessary for its perfection. The net is passed at a moderate velocity through a flame of gas issuing from a very long and narrow slit. Immediately above the flame a long funnel is fixed, which is connected with a large air-pump worked by a steam-engine. The flame is thus drawn forcibly through the net, and all the filaments on both sides of it are burned off at one operation. Previously to this application of the air-pump, the net acting in the same way, although not to the same extent, as the wire-gauze in Davy's safety lamp, cooled down the flame so as to prevent the combustion of the filaments on the upper side: the air-pump by quickening the current of ignited gas, removes this inconvenience. NOTES: The importance and diversified applications of the steam engine were most ably enforced in the speeches made at a public meeting held (June 1824) for the purpose of proposing the erection of a monument to the memory of James Watt; these were subsequently printed. Some observations on the subject, by Dr Fitton, occur in the appendix to Captain King's Survey of the Coast of Australia, vol. ii, p. 397. London, 1826. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Charles Babbage (2003). On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4238/pg4238.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

Exerting Forces Too Great for Human Power, and Executing, Operations Too Delicate for Human Touch

MODEL STEAM TURBINES.

Sources of the Advantages arising from Machinery and Manufactures

THE POLE.

A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . THE SEA MONSTER here CHAPTER XXXI - THE SEA MONSTER Wednesday, August 19th. Fortunately the wind, which for the present blows with some violence, has allowed us to escape from the scene of the unparalleled and extraordinary struggle. Hans with his usual imperturbable calm remained at the helm. My uncle, who for a short time had been withdrawn from his absorbing reveries by the novel incidents of this sea fight, fell back again apparently into a brown study. His eyes were fixed impatiently on the widespread ocean. Our voyage now became monotonous and uniform. Dull as it has become, I have no desire to have it broken by any repetition of the perils and adventures of yesterday. Thursday, August 20th. The wind is now N. N. E., and blows very irregularly. It has changed to fitful gusts. The temperature is exceedingly high. We are now progressing at the average rate of about ten miles and a half per hour. About twelve o'clock a distant sound as of thunder fell upon our ears. I make a note of the fact without even venturing a suggestion as to its cause. It was one continued roar as of a sea falling over mighty rocks. "Far off in the distance," said the Professor dogmatically, "there is some rock or some island against which the sea lashed to fury by the wind, is breaking violently." Hans, without saying a word, clambered to the top of the mast, but could make out nothing. The ocean was level in every direction as far as the eye could reach. Three hours passed away without any sign to indicate what might be before us. The sound began to assume that of a mighty cataract. I expressed my opinion on this point strongly to my uncle. He merely shook his head. I, however, am strongly impressed by a conviction that I am not wrong. Are we advancing towards some mighty waterfall which shall cast us into the abyss? Probably this mode of descending into the abyss may be agreeable to the Professor, because it would be something like the vertical descent he is so eager to make. I entertain a very different opinion. Whatever be the truth, it is certain that not many leagues distant there must be some very extraordinary phenomenon, for as we advance the roar becomes something mighty and stupendous. Is it in the water, or in the air? I cast hasty glances aloft at the suspended vapors, and I seek to penetrate their mighty depths. But the vault above is tranquil. The clouds, which are now elevated to the very summit, appear utterly still and motionless, and completely lost in the irradiation of electric light. It is necessary, therefore, to seek for the cause of this phenomenon elsewhere. I examine the horizon, now perfectly calm, pure, and free from all haze. Its aspect still remains unchanged. But if this awful noise proceeds from a cataract—if, so to speak in plain English, this vast interior ocean is precipitated into a lower basin—if these tremendous roars are produced by the noise of falling waters, the current would increase in activity, and its increasing swiftness would give me some idea of the extent of the peril with which we are menaced. I consult the current. It simply does not exist: there is no such thing. An empty bottle cast into the water lies to leeward without motion. About four o'clock Hans rises, clambers up the mast, and reaches the truck itself. From this elevated position his looks are cast around. They take in a vast circumference of the ocean. At last, his eyes remain fixed. His face expresses no astonishment, but his eyes slightly dilate. "He has seen something at last," cried my uncle. "I think so," I replied. Hans came down, stood beside us, and pointed with his right hand to the south. "Der nere," he said. "There," replied my uncle. And seizing his telescope, he looked at it with great attention for about a minute, which to me appeared an age. I knew not what to think or expect. "Yes, yes," he cried in a tone of considerable surprise, "there it is." "What?" I asked. "A tremendous spurt of water rising out of the waves." "Some other marine monster," I cried, already alarmed. "Perhaps." "Then let us steer more to the westward, for we know what we have to expect from antediluvian animals," was my eager reply. "Go ahead," said my uncle. I turned towards Hans. Hans was at the tiller steering with his usual imperturbable calm. Nevertheless, if from the distance which separated us from this creature, a distance which must be estimated at not less than a dozen leagues, one could see the column of water spurting from the blow-hole of the great animal, his dimensions must be something preternatural. To fly is, therefore, the course to be suggested by ordinary prudence. But we have not come into that part of the world to be prudent. Such is my uncle's determination. We, accordingly, continued to advance. The nearer we come, the loftier is the spouting water. What monster can fill himself with such huge volumes of water, and then unceasingly spout them out in such lofty jets? At eight o'clock in the evening, reckoning as above ground, where there is day and night, we are not more than two leagues from the mighty beast. Its long, black, enormous, mountainous body, lies on the top of the water like an island. But then sailors have been said to have gone ashore on sleeping whales, mistaking them for land. Is it illusion, or is it fear? Its length cannot be less than a thousand fathoms. What, then, is this cetaceous monster of which no Cuvier ever thought? It is quite motionless and presents the appearance of sleep. The sea seems unable to lift him upwards; it is rather the waves which break on his huge and gigantic frame. The waterspout, rising to a height of five hundred feet, breaks in spray with a dull, sullen roar. We advance, like senseless lunatics, towards this mighty mass. I honestly confess that I was abjectly afraid. I declared that I would go no farther. I threatened in my terror to cut the sheet of the sail. I attacked the Professor with considerable acrimony, calling him foolhardy, mad, I know not what. He made no answer. Suddenly the imperturbable Hans once more pointed his finger to the menacing object: " !" Holme "An island!" cried my uncle. "An island?" I replied, shrugging my shoulders at this poor attempt at deception. "Of course it is," cried my uncle, bursting into a loud and joyous laugh. "But the waterspout?" "Geyser," said Hans. "Yes, of course—a geyser," replied my uncle, still laughing, "a geyser like those common in Iceland. Jets like this are the great wonders of the country." At first I would not allow that I had been so grossly deceived. What could be more ridiculous than to have taken an island for a marine monster? But kick as one may, one must yield to evidence, and I was finally convinced of my error. It was nothing, after all, but a natural phenomenon. As we approached nearer and nearer, the dimensions of the liquid sheaf of waters became truly grand and stupendous. The island had, at a distance, presented the appearance of an enormous whale, whose head rose high above the waters. The geyser, a word the Icelanders pronounce geysir, and which signifies fury, rose majestically from its summit. Dull detonations are heard every now and then, and the enormous jet, taken as it were with sudden fury, shakes its plume of vapor, and bounds into the first layer of the clouds. It is alone. Neither spurts of vapor nor hot springs surround it, and the whole volcanic power of that region is concentrated in one sublime column. The rays of electric light mix with this dazzling sheaf, every drop as it falls assuming the prismatic colors of the rainbow. "Let us go on shore," said the Professor, after some minutes of silence. It is necessary, however, to take great precaution, in order to avoid the weight of falling waters, which would cause the raft to founder in an instant. Hans, however, steers admirably, and brings us to the other extremity of the island. I was the first to leap on the rock. My uncle followed, while the eider-duck hunter remained still, like a man above any childish sources of astonishment. We were now walking on granite mixed with siliceous sandstone; the soil shivered under our feet like the sides of boilers in which over-heated steam is forcibly confined. It is burning. We soon came in sight of the little central basin from which rose the geyser. I plunged a thermometer into the water which ran bubbling from the centre, and it marked a heat of a hundred and sixty-three degrees! This water, therefore, came from some place where the heat was intense. This was singularly in contradiction with the theories of Professor Hardwigg. I could not help telling him my opinion on the subject. "Well," said he sharply, "and what does this prove against my doctrine?" "Nothing," replied I dryly, seeing that I was running my head against a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless, I am compelled to confess that until now we have been most remarkably fortunate, and that this voyage is being accomplished in most favorable conditions of temperature; but it appears evident, in fact, certain, that we shall sooner or later arrive at one of those regions where the central heat will reach its utmost limits, and will go far beyond all the possible gradations of thermometers. Visions of the Hades of the ancients, believed to be in the centre of the earth, floated through my imagination. We shall, however, see what we shall see. That is the Professor's favorite phrase now. Having christened the volcanic island by the name of his nephew, the leader of the expedition turned away and gave the signal for embarkation. I stood still, however, for some minutes, gazing upon the magnificent geyser. I soon was able to perceive that the upward tendency of the water was irregular; now it diminished in intensity, and then, suddenly, it regained new vigor, which I attributed to the variation of the pressure of the accumulated vapors in its reservoir. At last we took our departure, going carefully round the projecting, and rather dangerous, rocks of the southern side. Hans had taken advantage of this brief halt to repair the raft. Before we took our final departure from the island, however, I made some observations to calculate the distance we had gone over, and I put them down in my journal. Since we left Port Gretchen, we had traveled two hundred and seventy leagues—more than eight hundred miles—on this great inland sea; we were, therefore, six hundred and twenty leagues from Iceland, and exactly under England. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (2006). A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18857/18857-h/18857-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

THE SEA MONSTER

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG SIMPLY DOES HIS DUTY here CHAPTER XXX. IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG SIMPLY DOES HIS DUTY Three passengers including Passepartout had disappeared. Had they been killed in the struggle? Were they taken prisoners by the Sioux? It was impossible to tell. There were many wounded, but none mortally. Colonel Proctor was one of the most seriously hurt; he had fought bravely, and a ball had entered his groin. He was carried into the station with the other wounded passengers, to receive such attention as could be of avail. Aouda was safe; and Phileas Fogg, who had been in the thickest of the fight, had not received a scratch. Fix was slightly wounded in the arm. But Passepartout was not to be found, and tears coursed down Aouda’s cheeks. All the passengers had got out of the train, the wheels of which were stained with blood. From the tyres and spokes hung ragged pieces of flesh. As far as the eye could reach on the white plain behind, red trails were visible. The last Sioux were disappearing in the south, along the banks of Republican River. Mr. Fogg, with folded arms, remained motionless. He had a serious decision to make. Aouda, standing near him, looked at him without speaking, and he understood her look. If his servant was a prisoner, ought he not to risk everything to rescue him from the Indians? “I will find him, living or dead,” said he quietly to Aouda. “Ah, Mr.—Mr. Fogg!” cried she, clasping his hands and covering them with tears. “Living,” added Mr. Fogg, “if we do not lose a moment.” Phileas Fogg, by this resolution, inevitably sacrificed himself; he pronounced his own doom. The delay of a single day would make him lose the steamer at New York, and his bet would be certainly lost. But as he thought, “It is my duty,” he did not hesitate. The commanding officer of Fort Kearney was there. A hundred of his soldiers had placed themselves in a position to defend the station, should the Sioux attack it. “Sir,” said Mr. Fogg to the captain, “three passengers have disappeared.” “Dead?” asked the captain. “Dead or prisoners; that is the uncertainty which must be solved. Do you propose to pursue the Sioux?” “That’s a serious thing to do, sir,” returned the captain. “These Indians may retreat beyond the Arkansas, and I cannot leave the fort unprotected.” “The lives of three men are in question, sir,” said Phileas Fogg. “Doubtless; but can I risk the lives of fifty men to save three?” “I don’t know whether you can, sir; but you ought to do so.” “Nobody here,” returned the other, “has a right to teach me my duty.” “Very well,” said Mr. Fogg, coldly. “I will go alone.” “You, sir!” cried Fix, coming up; “you go alone in pursuit of the Indians?” “Would you have me leave this poor fellow to perish—him to whom every one present owes his life? I shall go.” “No, sir, you shall not go alone,” cried the captain, touched in spite of himself. “No! you are a brave man. Thirty volunteers!” he added, turning to the soldiers. The whole company started forward at once. The captain had only to pick his men. Thirty were chosen, and an old sergeant placed at their head. “Thanks, captain,” said Mr. Fogg. “Will you let me go with you?” asked Fix. “Do as you please, sir. But if you wish to do me a favour, you will remain with Aouda. In case anything should happen to me—” A sudden pallor overspread the detective’s face. Separate himself from the man whom he had so persistently followed step by step! Leave him to wander about in this desert! Fix gazed attentively at Mr. Fogg, and, despite his suspicions and of the struggle which was going on within him, he lowered his eyes before that calm and frank look. “I will stay,” said he. A few moments after, Mr. Fogg pressed the young woman’s hand, and, having confided to her his precious carpet-bag, went off with the sergeant and his little squad. But, before going, he had said to the soldiers, “My friends, I will divide five thousand dollars among you, if we save the prisoners.” It was then a little past noon. Aouda retired to a waiting-room, and there she waited alone, thinking of the simple and noble generosity, the tranquil courage of Phileas Fogg. He had sacrificed his fortune, and was now risking his life, all without hesitation, from duty, in silence. Fix did not have the same thoughts, and could scarcely conceal his agitation. He walked feverishly up and down the platform, but soon resumed his outward composure. He now saw the folly of which he had been guilty in letting Fogg go alone. What! This man, whom he had just followed around the world, was permitted now to separate himself from him! He began to accuse and abuse himself, and, as if he were director of police, administered to himself a sound lecture for his greenness. “I have been an idiot!” he thought, “and this man will see it. He has gone, and won’t come back! But how is it that I, Fix, who have in my pocket a warrant for his arrest, have been so fascinated by him? Decidedly, I am nothing but an ass!” So reasoned the detective, while the hours crept by all too slowly. He did not know what to do. Sometimes he was tempted to tell Aouda all; but he could not doubt how the young woman would receive his confidences. What course should he take? He thought of pursuing Fogg across the vast white plains; it did not seem impossible that he might overtake him. Footsteps were easily printed on the snow! But soon, under a new sheet, every imprint would be effaced. Fix became discouraged. He felt a sort of insurmountable longing to abandon the game altogether. He could now leave Fort Kearney station, and pursue his journey homeward in peace. Towards two o’clock in the afternoon, while it was snowing hard, long whistles were heard approaching from the east. A great shadow, preceded by a wild light, slowly advanced, appearing still larger through the mist, which gave it a fantastic aspect. No train was expected from the east, neither had there been time for the succour asked for by telegraph to arrive; the train from Omaha to San Francisco was not due till the next day. The mystery was soon explained. The locomotive, which was slowly approaching with deafening whistles, was that which, having been detached from the train, had continued its route with such terrific rapidity, carrying off the unconscious engineer and stoker. It had run several miles, when, the fire becoming low for want of fuel, the steam had slackened; and it had finally stopped an hour after, some twenty miles beyond Fort Kearney. Neither the engineer nor the stoker was dead, and, after remaining for some time in their swoon, had come to themselves. The train had then stopped. The engineer, when he found himself in the desert, and the locomotive without cars, understood what had happened. He could not imagine how the locomotive had become separated from the train; but he did not doubt that the train left behind was in distress. He did not hesitate what to do. It would be prudent to continue on to Omaha, for it would be dangerous to return to the train, which the Indians might still be engaged in pillaging. Nevertheless, he began to rebuild the fire in the furnace; the pressure again mounted, and the locomotive returned, running backwards to Fort Kearney. This it was which was whistling in the mist. The travellers were glad to see the locomotive resume its place at the head of the train. They could now continue the journey so terribly interrupted. Aouda, on seeing the locomotive come up, hurried out of the station, and asked the conductor, “Are you going to start?” “At once, madam.” “But the prisoners, our unfortunate fellow-travellers—” “I cannot interrupt the trip,” replied the conductor. “We are already three hours behind time.” “And when will another train pass here from San Francisco?” “To-morrow evening, madam.” “To-morrow evening! But then it will be too late! We must wait—” “It is impossible,” responded the conductor. “If you wish to go, please get in.” “I will not go,” said Aouda. Fix had heard this conversation. A little while before, when there was no prospect of proceeding on the journey, he had made up his mind to leave Fort Kearney; but now that the train was there, ready to start, and he had only to take his seat in the car, an irresistible influence held him back. The station platform burned his feet, and he could not stir. The conflict in his mind again began; anger and failure stifled him. He wished to struggle on to the end. Meanwhile the passengers and some of the wounded, among them Colonel Proctor, whose injuries were serious, had taken their places in the train. The buzzing of the over-heated boiler was heard, and the steam was escaping from the valves. The engineer whistled, the train started, and soon disappeared, mingling its white smoke with the eddies of the densely falling snow. The detective had remained behind. Several hours passed. The weather was dismal, and it was very cold. Fix sat motionless on a bench in the station; he might have been thought asleep. Aouda, despite the storm, kept coming out of the waiting-room, going to the end of the platform, and peering through the tempest of snow, as if to pierce the mist which narrowed the horizon around her, and to hear, if possible, some welcome sound. She heard and saw nothing. Then she would return, chilled through, to issue out again after the lapse of a few moments, but always in vain. Evening came, and the little band had not returned. Where could they be? Had they found the Indians, and were they having a conflict with them, or were they still wandering amid the mist? The commander of the fort was anxious, though he tried to conceal his apprehensions. As night approached, the snow fell less plentifully, but it became intensely cold. Absolute silence rested on the plains. Neither flight of bird nor passing of beast troubled the perfect calm. Throughout the night Aouda, full of sad forebodings, her heart stifled with anguish, wandered about on the verge of the plains. Her imagination carried her far off, and showed her innumerable dangers. What she suffered through the long hours it would be impossible to describe. Fix remained stationary in the same place, but did not sleep. Once a man approached and spoke to him, and the detective merely replied by shaking his head. Thus the night passed. At dawn, the half-extinguished disc of the sun rose above a misty horizon; but it was now possible to recognise objects two miles off. Phileas Fogg and the squad had gone southward; in the south all was still vacancy. It was then seven o’clock. The captain, who was really alarmed, did not know what course to take. Should he send another detachment to the rescue of the first? Should he sacrifice more men, with so few chances of saving those already sacrificed? His hesitation did not last long, however. Calling one of his lieutenants, he was on the point of ordering a reconnaissance, when gunshots were heard. Was it a signal? The soldiers rushed out of the fort, and half a mile off they perceived a little band returning in good order. Mr. Fogg was marching at their head, and just behind him were Passepartout and the other two travellers, rescued from the Sioux. They had met and fought the Indians ten miles south of Fort Kearney. Shortly before the detachment arrived, Passepartout and his companions had begun to struggle with their captors, three of whom the Frenchman had felled with his fists, when his master and the soldiers hastened up to their relief. All were welcomed with joyful cries. Phileas Fogg distributed the reward he had promised to the soldiers, while Passepartout, not without reason, muttered to himself, “It must certainly be confessed that I cost my master dear!” Fix, without saying a word, looked at Mr. Fogg, and it would have been difficult to analyse the thoughts which struggled within him. As for Aouda, she took her protector’s hand and pressed it in her own, too much moved to speak. Meanwhile, Passepartout was looking about for the train; he thought he should find it there, ready to start for Omaha, and he hoped that the time lost might be regained. “The train! the train!” cried he. “Gone,” replied Fix. “And when does the next train pass here?” said Phileas Fogg. “Not till this evening.” “Ah!” returned the impassible gentleman quietly. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1994). Around the World in Eighty Days. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/103/103-h/103-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG SIMPLY DOES HIS DUTY

A body unacted upon by force will continue for ever at rest

A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine by Robert Henry Thurston is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE STEAM-ENGINE OF TO-DAY CHAPTER VI. THE STEAM-ENGINE OF TO-DAY ... “And, last of all, with inimitable power, and ‘with whirlwind sound,’ comes the potent agency of steam. In comparison with the past, what centuries of improvement has this single agent comprised in the short compass of fifty years! Everywhere practicable, everywhere efficient, it has an arm a thousand times stronger than that of Hercules, and to which human ingenuity is capable of fitting a thousand times as many hands as belonged to Briareus. Steam is found in triumphant operation on the seas; and, under the influence of its strong propulsion, the gallant ship— ‘Against the wind, against the tide, Still steadies with an upright keel.’ It is on the rivers, and the boatman may repose on his oars; it is on highways, and exerts itself along the courses of land-conveyance; it is at the bottom of mines, a thousand feet below the earth’s surface; it is in the mills, and in the workshops of the trades. It rows, it pumps, it excavates, it carries, it draws, it lifts, it hammers, it spins, it weaves, it prints. It seems to say to men, at least to the class of artisans: ‘Leave off your manual labor; give over your bodily toil; bestow but your skill and reason to the directing of my power, and I will bear the toil, with no muscle to grow weary, no nerve to relax, no breast to feel faintness!’ What further improvement may still be made in the use of this astonishing power it is impossible to know, and it were vain to conjecture. What we do know is, that it has most essentially altered the face of affairs, and that no visible limit yet appears beyond which its progress is seen to be impossible.”—Daniel Webster. The Period of Refinement—1850 to Date. By the middle of the present century, as we have now seen, the steam-engine had been applied, and successfully, to every great purpose for which it was fitted. Its first application was to the elevation of water; it next was applied to the driving of mills and machinery; and it finally became the great propelling power in transportation by land and by sea. [304] At the beginning of the period to which we are now come, these applications of steam-power had become familiar both to the engineer and to the public. The forms of engine adapted to each purpose had been determined, and had become usually standard. Every type of the modern steam-engine had assumed, more or less closely, the form and proportions which are now familiar; and the most intelligent designers and builders had been taught—by experience rather than by theory, for the theory of the steam-engine had then been but little investigated, and the principles and laws of thermo-dynamics had not been traced in their application to this engine—the principles of construction essential to successful practice, and were gradually learning the relative standing of the many forms of steam-engine, from among which have been preserved a few specially fitted for certain specific methods of utilization of power. During the years succeeding the date 1850, therefore, the growth of the steam-engine had been, not a change of standard type, or the addition of new parts, but a gradual improvement in forms, proportions, and arrangements of details; and this period has been marked by the dying out of the forms of engine least fitted to succeed in competition with others, and the retention of the latter has been an example of “the survival of the fittest.” This has therefore been a Period of Refinement. During this period invention has been confined to details; it has produced new forms of parts, new arrangements of details; it has devised an immense variety of valves, valve-motions, regulating apparatus, and a still greater variety of steam-boilers and of attachments, essential and non-essential, to both engines and boilers. The great majority of these peculiar devices have been of no value, and very many of the best of them have been found to have about equal value. All the well-known and successful forms of engine, when equally well designed and constructed and equally well managed, are of very nearly equal efficiency; all of the best-known types of steam-boiler, where given equal proportions of grate to heating-surface and equally well designed, with a view to securing a good draught and a good circulation of water, have been found to give very nearly equally good results; and it has become evident that a good knowledge of principles and of practice, on the part of the designer, the constructor, and the manager of the boiler, is essential in the endeavor to achieve economical success; that good engineering is demanded, rather than great ingenuity. The inventor has been superseded here by the engineer. [305] The knowledge acquired in the time of Watt, of the essential principles of steam-engine construction, has since become generally familiar to the better class of engineers. It has led to the selection of simple, strong, and durable forms of engine and boiler, to the introduction of various kinds of valves and of valve-gearing, capable of adjustment to any desired range of expansive working, and to the attachment of efficient forms of governor to regulate the speed of the engine, by determining automatically the point of cut-off which will, at any instant, best adjust the energy exerted by the expanding steam to the demand made by the work to be done. The value of high pressures and considerable expansion was recognized as long ago as in the early part of the present century, and Watt, by combining skillfully the several principal parts of the steam-engine, gave it very nearly the shape which it has to-day. The compound engine, even, as has been seen, was invented by contemporaries of Watt, and the only important modifications since his time have occurred in details. The introduction of the “drop cut-off,” the attachment of the governor to the expansion-apparatus in such a manner as to determine the degree of expansion, the improvement of proportions, the introduction of higher steam and greater expansion, the improvement of the marine engine by the adoption of surface-condensation, in addition to these other changes, and the introduction of the double-cylinder engine, after the elevation of steam-pressure and increase of expansion had gone so far as to justify its use, are the changes, therefore, which have taken place during this last quarter-century. It began then to be generally understood that expansion of steam produced economy, and mechanics and inventors vied with each other in the effort to obtain a form of valve-gear which should secure the immense saving which an abstract consideration of the expansion of gases according to Marriotte’s law would seem to promise. The counteracting phenomena of internal condensation and reëvaporation, of the losses of heat externally and internally, and of the effect of defective vacuum, defective distribution of steam, and of back-pressure, were either unobserved or were entirely overlooked. [306] It was many years, therefore, before engine-builders became convinced that no improvement upon existing forms of expansion-gear could secure even an approximation to theoretical efficiency. The fact thus learned, that the benefit of expansive working has a limit which is very soon reached in ordinary practice, was not then, and has only recently become, generally known among our steam-engine builders, and for several years, during the period upon which we now enter, there continued the keenest competition between makers of rival forms of expansion-gear, and inventors were continually endeavoring to produce something which should far excel any previously-existing device. In Europe, as in the United States, efforts to “improve” standard designs have usually resulted in injuring their efficiency, and in simply adding to the first cost and running expense of the engines, without securing a marked increase in economy in the consumption of steam. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Robert Henry Thurston (2011). A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/35916/pg35916-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

THE STEAM-ENGINE OF TO-DAY

Zossimov Was a Tall, Fat Man With a Spectacle

To those who got to play this mod, the Cinders mod for Dark Souls III is often considered to be the best mod for Dark Souls III. There are a number of questions that this guide will attempt to answer in intricate detail How can I install and play the Cinders mod? Where can I download this mod? What does the Dark Souls 3 Cinders mod do? For those not in the loop by now of what exactly Dark Souls is,Dark Souls is part of FromSoftware’s Soulsborne series of games. These games take place in a dying series of worlds with little to no explanation for what is going on beyond the premise of the First Flame. The first flame was lit by Gwyn, the original Lord of Cinder, in an effort to stay off the Dark Age of Man, after defeating the Dragons with help from dragon-traitor Seath the Scaleless - all described in Dark Souls. As to how Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin fits into the plot of the 3rd game, don't worry. I’m here to help. Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin  has the classic Link the flame or allow the flame to fade ending choice. To get this, simply beat Nashandra as normal and maybe Aldia if the conditions are met (Speaking to Aldia at EVERY possible Bonfire results in a subsequent battle against Aldia, but ONLY IF Vendrick is killed in the Undead Crypt!) This finally leads us to Dark Souls III. Prince Lothric abdicated his duties to watch the flame fade. After defeating Soul of Cinder and returning Lothric to the throne by force prior, players can attempt to link the fire, summon the Fire Keeper to extinguish the flame and begin an age of Dark, or kill her. A fourth ending consists of the Ashen One taking the flame for their own and becoming the Lord of Hollows. As to what happens from there? It’s left to you and you alone. Installing the Dark Souls III Cinders mod: A Comprehensive Guide There’s a YouTube guide that is comprehensive when it comes to providing instructions for downloading and then installing the Cinders mod for Dark Souls III. This guide is working as of version 2.09. The folks at also showcase a comprehensive guide to downloading and installing the mod. https://gamesbustop.com/cinders-mod-for-dark-souls-3/#:~:text=How%20to%20Get%20the%20Cinders%20Mod%20for%20Dark,Download%20the%20Cinders%20Mod%20Pretty%20self-explanatory%20step.%20 Here’s the complete guide, in full comprehensive detail. Before installing the mod to begin with, make sure there are no other Dark Souls III mods on your computer. Go to Nexus Mods ( ). This is where you can find mods for a lot of games. https://www.nexusmods.com/mods/ Use the search bar to search for the Cinders mod for Dark Souls III. Install 7Zip/WInRar (your preference). Go to steam and find the game’s files by “Browsing” the local files. It should be something like /steamapps/common/DARK%20SOULS%20III/Game/ IF done correctly, of course. The file name may be different depending on the drive used. Finally, you extract the contents of the Cinders mod files into the “game folder” of Dark Souls III. If asked to replace the files or use administrator functions, simply click “yes.” After that, if everything was installed/replaced correctly, then congratulations! The mod is successfully installed, and you can begin playing the Cinders mod to enrich your Dark Souls III experience. Features and changes made in the Cinders Mod Dark Souls III Cinders Mod makes a bunch of changes and adds a lot of new features. Here is an overview of the changes: Unique game modes, such as Gauntlet, where you faces the bosses in various orders. Progression is much less linear. There are now options to travel between different routes in-map, linking up the world. Enemies and bosses have been changed, in strength, abilities and placement. New bosses have been added. New classes and gifts have been added. Mechanics have been altered, such as reinforcement, which has been removed. Numerous new features have been added, such as new options at bonfires, new covenant offering system, Curse and Mark system, etc. Many weapons and armor sets have been added and placed in the world is a sensible fashion. Magic has been redesigned to operate in a more fluid way. FP naturally regenerates and casting is designed around this. New movesets and weapon arts have been added to make several weapons more interesting. Poise is now passive and active 100% of the time, rather than specifically during weapon swings. New friendly merchants and hostile NPC enemies have been added. Companions that can now be summoned to act as persistent summons for struggling players. FAQ - common questions and more answered Why isn't text displaying correctly? The mod only supports English localization, so you need to switch your in-game language to English for text to appear correctly. Why isn't X character working properly? Due to the new progression options, it's easier to end the character questlines accidentally. Take note of this and speak tohe the characters you need early and refrain from entering the later areas out of order if you want to complete a character's questline. Are there additional steps to take to install it? You'll need to create a vanilla save game before installing Cinders. Without doing this, you'll get the "Save Data is Corrupted" message. Make sure you have 7zip﻿ installed and use it to open the Main and Models ZIP file. Roll back your Dark Souls III executable to the working version as noted in the Compatibility section. Extract the contents of the Main and Models ZIP files in your Dark Souls III Game directory: ~\steamapps\common\DARK SOULS III\Game\ Is there a guide for Uninstallation? Delete the dinput8.dll to remove Lazy Loader and delete the Cinders folder to remove the files. Can I get banned for doing this? If you enable it online after it’s disabled by default, then yes, you could most likely get banned. CONCLUSION Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this article, then be sure to read some of our other articles on Mods. If you have any further questions not covered in this article, feel free to email me, or - most preferably - leave a comment on this article. I’ll see you next time.

How to Install The Dark Souls 3 Cinders Mod

Thirty-five years ago I made a voyage to the Arctic Seas in what Chaucer calls

ST. JAGO, IN THE CAPE DE VERDE ARCHIPELAGO

THE PURPLE PILEUS

Disclaimer: This is not intended as financial advice. Hi there. This might be a bit of a controversial topic, and I understand why. So, first of all, I might say, I do not hate Bitcoin. These are merely my observations and the conclusions I’ve come to over time, and I’m certainly liable to change my mind. Everybody knows what Bitcoin is. It has been (and looks to remain) the leading cryptocurrency for over a decade. It is a digital payment system that also doubles as a decentralized currency, and it was created by an anonymous individual or group of people, known by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. While Bitcoin wasn’t the first cryptocurrency, it was the first to be widely adopted. In his/their whitepaper, Satoshi Nakamoto foresaw a future where payments could be made wirelessly and anonymously. That future has become our present, believe it or not. And it all started with Bitcoin. History of Bitcoin It was 9th January 2009 when the person or group known as Satoshi Nakamoto added the first block of code, the genesis block, to the blockchain. In the aforementioned whitepaper, Nakamoto outlined a new means of payment, referred to as a peer-to-peer version of electronic cash. The idea behind Bitcoin was that it would be a currency that could be used without banks or intermediaries, making transactions less expensive and more secure. Consensus and security would be achieved through the proof-and-work system where miners (as they are called) have to solve math puzzles using computing, in a process that both creates new bitcoin and accepts previous transactions. To maintain scarcity and keep inflation in check, Bitcoin is created in batches at predictable rates by the nodes (the computers running the software). The number of bitcoins is limited to 21 million and the reward for mining Bitcoin is halved every four years. The Early Days On January 12, 2009, Hal Finney received 10 BTC from Nakamoto for mining a block, the first-ever block reward, and the world changed forever. Satoshi Nakamoto first discussed his new invention on his cryptography mailing list. This mailing list included names that have become legendary, such as Laszlo Hanyecz, Hal Finney, and Gavin Andresen. Initially, this groundbreaking technology was only discussed in cryptography circles. In this part of its history, Bitcoin was some kind of obscure joke that only a certain clique of nerds could get or at least, pretended to get. The friends we made along the way This was the golden age of Bitcoin, as far as I am concerned. Sure, there was limited adoption but there were also no artificial price hikes or shady exchanges. No one harbored any secret notions of making a killing from Bitcoin. It was a group of people having fun and playing around with exciting technology. Bitcoin was working. It was serving its intended use, but it still needed widespread adoption. That was where crypto evangelists came in. They spread the gospel of Bitcoin to their friends, families, and complete strangers on the internet, either for the promise of personal gain or because they really believed in the technology. Platforms like Twitter and Reddit became home to Bitcoin communities. Exchanges like Bitcoin Market and Mt. Gox opened up. The infamous Silk Road marketplace was founded in 2011 in the dark corners of the Web and operated until 2013 when it was shut down by the FBI. Regardless, Bitcoin was becoming more accessible and acceptable in the real world. What changed? After the financial crisis of 2008, Bitcoin received a boost in public recognition as people lost faith in the traditional financial system. More people were willing to take a gamble on the new technology. Bitcoin’s value went through certain ups and downs and then in December 2017, it surged to a peak of about $20,000 although it would later fall to about 14,000. We now know that this sudden hike was mostly the result of direct price manipulation by a finance professor at the University of Texas, John Griffin, and an assistant professor at the Ohio State University, Professor Amin Shams. Tether was used to purchase BTC during critical moments to maintain artificial stability and keep the price up. , Griffin said, "It was creating price support for bitcoin, and over the period that we examined, had huge price effects. Our research would indicate that there are sophisticated people harnessing investor interest for their benefit." In a statement to CNBC However, this rise wasn't entirely the work of bad actors. Traditional investors had taken an interest in the cryptocurrency. A futures market was created for Bitcoin, allowing investors to buy and sell bitcoin at a set price in the future. Banks, governments, universities, and corporations were reported to be looking for ways to work with Bitcoin. This marked a dramatic shift for Bitcoin from a medium of transactions to an investment class that was “going to make everybody rich.” Unfortunately, Bitcoin was never designed with volatility in mind. It was never intended as a store of value. It was created to facilitate fast, anonymous transactions. But, that didn’t matter to the vast majority of people interested in crypto. They were being pushed to HODL through a combination of fear of missing out and influencer marketing from parties that stand to gain a lot. Bitcoin would have worked better if it was a financial system intended for a conclave of mindless machines. Unfortunately, it was created by humans and it is in our nature to eff things up. There are several forks that made several promises to be better than the original but none of them have exactly picked up steam. A lot of people are still attached to the numero uno, Bitcoin. What is Bitcoin useful for? This is more of an attribute than a use case, but it is worth mentioning. Bitcoin has always been and will be decentralized, i.e no government or agency can shut down the network. You don't need to trust anyone to use Bitcoin, and that in itself is amazing. Decentralization: This is Bitcoin’s main use case, as of today, because that’s what most people see it as, a high-risk, high-reward gamble. It is ironic because what a lot of people came onboard the crypto train for is exactly what makes Bitcoin unusable for normal transactions. High-risk speculative investments: : You can carry out local and international remittances using Bitcoin, for much less than traditional options. However, it is important that you keep volatility and exchange fees in mind. This is, as far as I’m concerned, the single most practical application of Bitcoin, especially in countries (like mine) where MTOs are either not present or are simply too expensive. It is worth noting that stablecoins may be better for this purpose though. Remittances Bitcoin introduced the blockchain, the digital ledger that ushered in a new age of finance. It established the foundation for a trustless, digital economy and it paved the way for the hundreds of cryptocurrencies that followed. Innovation: What is Bitcoin not useful for? That's not exactly true. You can use Bitcoin to pay for pizza. It's just not worth it, with the high fees and slow speeds associated with Bitcoin transactions. You’ll end up spending more on transaction fees than the pizza itself. You may want to look into a cryptocurrency like Litecoin for making payments or opt for Layer-2 scaling solutions. Buying Pizza: : The El Salvador experiment has ended and regardless of what some crypto enthusiasts will tell you, it ended badly. If you ask me, it was more of a popularity stunt than a well-thought-out fiscal policy. Bitcoin is ill-suited to serve as legal tender, due to (but not solely because) of its volatility. Legal tender Bitcoin transactions are no longer as untraceable as they used to be. Centralized exchanges and KYC stipulations have made it possible to trace Bitcoin transactions. It is even possible to find out the IP addresses of active nodes by observing network activity. So, Bitcoin is not all that secure, especially compared to tokens like Monero. Anonymous transactions: This is a supposed advantage of Bitcoin but it doesn’t hold true under close examination. Bitcoin is too volatile to provide a hedge against inflation. It has dropped more than 52% of its price this year alone. Not even currencies of third-world countries like Nigeria experience such drastic drops in value. A hedge against inflation: Conclusion Bitcoin has become that decentralized, digital currency that grew up and left the hood. It has become slow, clunky, and expensive to use. It is not useful as a store of value. It is not very useful for day-to-day transactions. Bitcoin is, however, not a failed experiment. It has opened the way for other better cryptocurrencies with more utility and stability, such as Ethereum, Ripple, Monero, Steller Lumens, and Binance USD. So, the new age of cryptocurrency owes a lot to Satoshi and their invention, but it may be time to let the old dog die. What do you think? Are there other use cases of Bitcoin I have not considered? Do you still hold out hope for the cryptocurrency? Do let me know in the comments.

Is Bitcoin a failed experiment?

The cryptocurrency and blockchain skeptics are having a field day. Ever since the TerraUSD collapse in May, they’ve been lining up to write crypto’s eulogy, goaded on by the woes experienced by , , , and other firms. And with bitcoin and altcoins remaining far below all-time highs, there’s every chance other dominoes will fall in the coming weeks, as overleveraging and risk comes back to bite the market. Celsius Three Arrows Capital Voyager Digital BlockFi It’s hard to deny that the cryptocurrency industry is going through a crisis right now. That said, an argument needs to be made that the crypto critics have gone too far in declaring the end of the industry, and yes, some are talking as if the entire industry is about to die: https://twitter.com/JohnReedStark/status/1542506752456896518 Sure, there’s little doubt some platforms and companies are going to disappear in the next few months, but the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector will continue. Why? Well, because its potential for extracting wealth from (retail) investors makes it far too lucrative to ignore. Yes, in contrast to those who claim crypto will survive mostly because it promises a revolution in technology and money, this article will play Devil’s advocate and take a more cynical view of its survival. Meeting the growing chorus of crypto skeptics halfway, it will -- for the sake of argument -- run with the claim that crypto is all-but useless, but still affirm it’s here to stay because it’s a great vehicle for ripping off the public. precisely Not only that, but crypto’s capacity for wealth extraction makes it a perfect fit for the mainstream financial system, which in the past few decades has increasingly revolved around using fees, penalties and arcane instruments to siphon money away from its customers. ‘Finance’ Means Transferring Wealth to Already Rich Creditors It’s worth acknowledging that the crypto skeptics -- of which David Gerard, Amy Castor, Jacob Silverman (and Ben McKenzie), Nicholas Weaver and Stephen Diehl are some of the most prominent -- may be right about many things. This includes their concerns regarding Tether and its unaudited reserves, about how blockchain has yet to find a significant use case outside of crypto, about how Bitcoin consumes a prodigious amount of electricity, and so on. Yet the skeptics’ principal failing is that they talk about cryptocurrency as if it’s an anomaly, as if it's some kind of freakish alien entity that has descended from another dimension to infect an otherwise sane financial system. On the contrary, it’s merely the latest outgrowth of an economic and financial system that has been becoming more antisocial, lawless and self-serving since at least the ‘70s. Exhibit A: , meaning overdraft fees, ATM fees and maintenance charges. To provide some figures, , while JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, to name only three, respectively $1.5 billion, $1.3 billion and $1.1 billion in overdrafts in 2020. banks have been generating a greater share of their respective revenues from service fees over the past several years overdraft fees collected in the United States amounted to $15.47 billion in 2019 collected As everyone reading this article remembers, 2020 was the year the outbreak of Covid-19 became a pandemic, marking a period during which . And as many people can guess, overdraft fees disproportionately impact the less financially advantaged, with from 2016 showing that 18% of account holders pay the vast majority -- 91% -- of all such fees. What’s more, 67% of frequent overdrafters earn less than $50,000 a year, with these overdrafters being overrepresented among the lower income brackets they inhabit. some eight million Americans slipped into poverty Pew Research Center data The point of all this is that mainstream banks are in no way averse to becoming even richer off the backs of making the general public poorer. When you couple the imposition of fees with that of interest (which ), a picture emerges of a morally questionable industry, one which is based around monopolizing money in order to make more money. accounted for $44.5 billion of JPMorgan’s net income last year Indeed, with , and , it’s hard to argue that the banks have any compunction about profiting from hardship. That much should be evident from the financial crisis of 2007-8, which stemmed from reckless speculation and profiteering, and which resulted in bailouts for banks and a recession for the rest of us. US credit card debt currently standing at $930 billion with inflation and the cost-of-living crisis driving more people into debt This brings us back to crypto. Let’s just assume, for the sake of argument, that crypto is useful only for making money off retail investors (either via charging the latter fees or by dumping bags onto them). This would still make it a prime vehicle for the banking and finance sector. In fact, banks have steadily begun introducing various cryptocurrency brokerage and custody services, with a from April reporting that Bank of New York Mellon, U.S. Bancorp, State Street, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America are among the major financial institutions that have started “to capitalize on the popularity of cryptocurrencies to offer related services to clients.” Reuters article Many of these names have begun enabling their clients to trade cryptocurrency (in exchange for a fee, of course), highlighting their willingness to use cryptocurrency as another source of profit. They do not care whether crypto or blockchain represents a meaningful technology; they simply care whether they can tap into it as yet another source of income. And given their sheer size and , their embrace of crypto may be decisive in pushing it onto the rest of us. lobbying clout Crypto Is The Tip of the Iceberg It also can’t be overstated just how comfortable major banks are with financial instruments that have little or no basis in reality, that are there purely for the sake of speculation and creaming fees/interest off of clients. Just remind yourself of credit default swaps and synthetic CDOs (collateralized debt obligations), which were instrumental in the 2007-8 financial crisis. Basically, these derivatives were bets on other financial instruments, with only the most tenuous link to the real economy. Taking credit default swaps first, the latter were a kind of ‘insurance’ contract whereby an investor (or more often, a short seller) would pay a regular premium for the right to collect a large payout if some mortgage bond(s) collapsed in value (usually because of mortgage defaults). Here’s author Michael Lewis describing credit default swaps in explaining how they existed purely as sources of income/profit for investors and banks: The Big Short, “On its surface, the booming market in sidebets on subprime mortgage bonds seemed to be the financial equivalent of fantasy football: a benign, if silly, facsimile of investing [...] When Mike Burry bought a credit default swap based on a Long Beach Savings subprime-backed bond, he enabled Goldman Sachs to create another bond identical to the original in every respect but one: There were no actual home loans or home buyers. Only the gains and losses from the side bet on the bonds were real.” Not only were said gains real, but they eventually resulted in the near-collapse of the banking system, imposing hardship on millions. The same goes for synthetic CDOs, which were piles of credit default swaps packaged into one big bond, with the sole purpose of generating more premiums and -- potentially -- a huge payout. On the long end of such CDOs were investors who collect regular payments from the investors on the short end, who in turn were basically betting that a bunch of subprime mortgage bonds would become worthless. Here’s Michael Lewis again, describing the reaction of investor Steve Eisman to synthetic CDOs. Eisman famously purchased a large quantity of credit default swaps in the runup to the 2007-8 crisis, yet even he reported being dumbfounded by the sheer scale of the financial sector’s lust for meaningless (yet income-generating) schemes: “Now he got it: The credit default swaps, filtered through the CDOs, were being used to replicate bonds backed by actual home loans. Wall Street needed his bets in order to synthesize more of them.” There weren’t enough Americans with shitty credit taking out loans to satisfy investors’ appetite for the end product. Admittedly, synthetic CDOs have become pretty scarce since the Great Recession. However, , with globally in 2021. other dubious products have risen in prominence in the years since collateralized loan obligations reaching a value of $1 trillion Some researchers have warned that such products “ .” If that weren’t enough, there’s also research which suggests that the finance sector as a whole is a net drain on wider society, extracting more wealth than it provides. could cause the next global financial crisis For instance, in a 2016 research paper titled, “ ,” Professor Gerald Epstein of the University of Massachusetts and Juan Montecino of Columbia University calculated that “the financial system will impose an excess cost of as much as $22.7 trillion between 1990 and 2023, making finance in its current form a net drag on the American economy.” Overcharged: The High Costs of High Finance Epstein and Montecino based their calculations on an analysis of three things: rents and excess profits; misallocation costs, meaning the opportunity costs of diverting capital and resources away from potentially more constructive (non-financial) endeavors; and crisis costs, in this case the impact of the 2007-8 financial crisis. Along with the University of Sheffield’s Andrew Baker, in 2018, finding that the net cost of the British finance sector to the UK between 1995 and 2015 was £4.5 trillion. “This total figure amounts to roughly 2.5 years of the average GDP across the period.” they conducted a similar study focused on the UK Without multiplying examples, it should be fairly clear by now that the global financial sector is less interested in social utility, and more interested in exploiting the public for its own gain. In other words, it wouldn’t really care if cryptocurrencies are worthless technologically, so long as they can be used to generate “rents and excess profits.” This is why they have begun turning to crypto, with . It’s also why the aforementioned Steve Eisman had the following to say about the sector, as quoted by Michael Lewis: French banking giant BNP Paribas being the latest to enter the crypto custody game “That’s when I decided the system was really, ‘Fuck the poor.’” This system now includes cryptocurrencies. The embrace of the latter by the banking industry will be enough for crypto to continue its controversial existence, even if it never develops any ‘significant’ use cases. Banks will increasingly offer crypto-related services, because as exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase have found out, the real money in cryptocurrencies is to be had in charging people to trade and hold them. Just witness the fortunes amassed by such luminaries as Changpeng Zhao, Sam Bankman-Fried and Brian Armstrong, all of whom helm exchanges, and all of whom . rank among the sector’s richest individuals Why Investors Will Continue Turning to Crypto One obvious counterargument to this analysis is that it ignores the question of why investors will continue trading cryptocurrencies, particularly if we spend another five, ten or twenty years without crypto producing a ‘killer app.’ That is, surely the hype train will run out of steam if crypto spends another decade without impinging on the real world in a tangible way? And just because banks would want to sell crypto to their clients doesn’t mean these clients will actually want to buy it, does it? Such reasoning is naive. Crypto has done a good job over the past decade or so of coming up with new trends, concepts and/or buzzwords in order to keep the hype cycle revolving, from DeFi and NFTs to Web3 and the metaverse. So why would it run out of ideas in the future, particularly when many of them can hide behind clever marketing and celebrity endorsements? More importantly, such sub-sectors within crypto are incidental to what the space is really about: speculation, or gambling. If you want to know why retail investors will continue pumping money into crypto, you need only look at the lottery. In the United States, , up from $89.6 billion in 2020. In the UK, , representing its best year ever. And in Germany, . state lotteries sold tickets worth $105 billion in 2021 the National Lottery generated just over £8 billion in sales in 2021/22 lottery sales equalled €7.9 billion in 2021 There’s the market for crypto, right there. Then you have figures for the gambling industry, which . Again, this is a big figure, indicating the huge demand there is among the general public for the rush that comes from opening oneself up to the extremely remote possibility of becoming rich. This , and it’s what will keep the sector going for many years to come, regardless of its size or real importance. generated a record $44 billion in revenue in the US in 2021 is exactly what crypto taps into Of course, all of the above is not to say that cryptocurrencies and blockchain are without merit. Rather, it’s to say that crypto can survive even without merit, which seems to be something most skeptics are claiming it can’t. They’re wrong, as is anyone else who claims that the demise of the cryptocurrency sector is somehow ‘inevitable.’ Yes, it has suffered a few bankruptcies in the past few weeks, but nothing short of outright prohibition will stop it from being picked up again (and again) as a tool for vacuuming money from the public. Let’s just hope it develops more use cases than this in the not-too distant future.

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