[Rarebooks] fs: 1831 Philadelphia Report on Water Power

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

>From our Just Catalogued pages-
<http://www.joslinhall.com/justcat.htm>
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REPORT ON WATER POWER. Report of the Committee of the Franklin Institute
of Pennsylvania, appointed May, 1829, to ascertain by experiment the value
of Water as a Moving Power. [Philadelphia: 1831].

Well, obviously water power did have value as a means of motive power, as
a century's worth of textile and other mills will amply attest... The 14
members of the Committee spent about a year and a half designing and
constructing the apparatus to hold the trials, and running the trials,
after which this detailed report, chock full of useful tables, was issued.
As the author notes:

"The importance of accurate knowledge in relation to the effect of water
as a moving power and the defective state of information upon that
subject, induced the Franklin Institute, in the spring of 1829, to
determine that a series of experiments should be made, under its
direction, upon a force of water applied by wheels; the experiments to be
in detail, and upon a scale calculated to give confidence in the practical
nature of the results... There is perhaps no subject connected with the
extensive branch of mechanics, for which theory has done so little, as for
that which consider the effect of water upon wheels; the different
theories advanced are at variances with each other, and with practice, so
that the candid theorist confesses that the circumstances, attending the
action, are of so complicated a nature as to baffle his powers of
investigation. Experiment, then, can alone guide to results worthy of
confidence".

The Franklin Institute was founded in 1824 to encourage the propagation of
scientific and technical knowledge in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin. The
Institute sponsored a series of industrial exhibitions from 1824 to 1838
and awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals for technological innovations.
Softcover. 5.5"x8.75", 136 pages, plus 8 engraved plates, three of them
folding. Bound in new paper covers; text with some spotting and soil, some
plates with some foxing, etc. OCLC locates one copy. [05606] $750.00


Illustration-
<http://www.joslinhall.com/images/th-05606.jpg>

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