The Steam Engineer's Handbook - A Convenient Reference Book, for All Persons Interested in Steam Boilers, Steam Engines, Steam Turbines, and the Auxiliary Appliances and Machinery of Power Plants #218295

The Steam Engineer’s Handbook is volume that began for tradesmen in the early 20th century. Small, straightforward and satisfactory to requirements. It begins with practical mathematical guidance which could benefit any elementary student of applied mathematics. Volumes of cylinders, cubes and oblongs and equations for the measurement of pressure within a pipe or boiler. The contents hardly stop there however, and the reader can expect a practical guide to relevant chemistry, a construction brief on the major types of furnace and stern directive on how to obtain quality steam. It is likely this comprehensive approach that kept this book in use for engineers until later in the century and keeps it relevant to this day.<br> <br>This book was intended to be, in its author’s words, ‘A convenient reference book for all persons interested in Steam Boilers, Steam Engines, Steam Turbines and the other Auxiliary appliances and Machinery of Power plants’. Calculated to be a handbook in the literal sense this book is academic without the faintest trace of elitism and optimistic about the possibility of solving just about any steam engine, boiler or auxiliary system problem. The scope was ambitious from the start but it keeps this book fascinating. <br> <br>At the time of writing these technologies did not simply heat homes, baths or meals for society. It pushed steamships across the Atlantic and powered cross continental trains to cut through the unbroken landscape. This technology was reaching the world and bringing it within our grasp. This book stowed away in the pockets of the engineers as they went.