"The Engine of the Future." from the October 6, 1882 Weekly Expositor Independent
THE ENGINE OF THE FUTURE.
In his address at the recent opening of the British Association Dr. Carl Siemens, its president, pointed out the probable vast future of the gas engine. Instead of steam this engine is worked by a combustible mixture of air and hydro-carbon. In the condensing steam engine the waste of heat is very great. Adding to the heat loss by imperfect combustion of coal, that carried away in the chimney and that communicated to the condensing water, the losses by friction and radiation in the engine, the best steam engine yet constructed does not yield in mechanical effect more than one-seventh of the heat energy residing in the fuel consumed. In the gas engine a reduction from the theoretical efficiency must be made on account of the serious loss of heat by absorption in the working cylinder, which has to be cooled artificially down to a point at which lubrication is possible. But after allowing for this, together with frictional and other loss, the actual efficiency is reduced only to one-fourth. "It follows from these considerations," he says, "that the gas or caloric engine combines the conditions most favorable to the attainment of maximum results, and it may reasonably be supposed that the difficulties still in the way of their application on a large scale will gradually be removed." In his view, before many years steamships and factories will be run by engines with a fuel consumption not exceeding one pound per hour. The advent of such engines will solve the problem of rapid transit on the ocean, and mark, as Dr. Siemens says, a new era of material progress at least equal to that inaugurated by steam in the early part of our century. In the case of ocean transit it seems, however, most probable that the next great advance will be in the construction of ships which can both avail themselves fully of an artificial power more economical than steam and also utilize the maximum motive power of the winds.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
Charles Martin, the editor when this was published, also wrote an 1881 history of Door County: https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_Door_County_Wisconsin/9Fo0AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
The author is not stated.
Articles relating to vehicles:
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/vehicles