Engineering Precedents for Steam Machinery: Embracing the Performances of Steamships (Classic Reprint)
(In the course of a late cruise on the southern and easter...)
In the course of a late cruise on the southern and eastern coasts of A sia, I made many examinations of the Gun-boats employed by theB ritish in the capture of Canton, and in other hostilities against the Chinese during the years 1851 and 1858. These Gun-boats were some of those constructed in 1856, by the A dmiralty, for a projected attack upon the fortifications of Cronetadt ;as this attack was not made, their adaptation for such a purpose was not tested ;but those sent to China proved of indispensable service in the military operations on that coast, and fully established the great value of this descriiition of vessel for iittoral warfare. By the courtesy of their engineers, I examined them both in dock and afloat; took the dimensions of their hulls and machinery, inspected their log-book-i, obtained many indicator diagrams from their engines, and received a candid account of their performance and general efB ciency, in the varions circumstances under which tbey had been tried. These Gun-boats were of three classes, and were known as gun boats of 40, 60, and 80 nominal horses power. The CO horses power class was the original type, and the other two classes were merely variations on it. The hulls were of wood, plainly finished, and did not possess more than the nsual strength given to naval steamers of their tonnage. The 40 horses power class was rigged ns two-masted fore-and-aft schooners ;the 60 horses power class was ried as three-masted fore-and-aft schooners ;tho 80 horses power class was rigged as three-masted fore-topsail schooners.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
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Benjamin Franklin Isherwood was an engineering officer, who served as a ship's engineer during the Mexican–American War, and after the war did experimental work with steam propulsion. Rising to the rank of rear admiral, as Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy during the Civil War, he helped to found the Navy's Bureau of Steam Engineering.
Background
Benjamin Franklin was born on October 6, 1822 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Benjamin and Eliza (Hicks) Isherwood, and a descendant of Benjamin Isherwood of Cheshire, England, who came to the United States shortly after the Revolution and of Robert Hicks who came to New England in the Fortune in 1652. His father was a physician.
Education
The boy, Benjamin, was sent to the Albany (New York) Academy when he was nine, but after five years there he was returned to his home (1836) because of "serious misconduct. "
Career
After Academy Isherwood was placed in the mechanical department of the Utica & Schenectady Railroad under the instruction of David Matthews, master mechanic. Upon the completion of the road, he worked for a time in the office of his stepfather, John Green, a civil engineer on the construction of the Croton Aqueduct.
Later, he entered the employ of the Erie Railroad, under Charles B. Stuart, later engineer-in-chief of the navy, who was at that time division engineer at Susquehanna. Following this engagement, he served as engineer on the construction of lighthouses for the United States Treasury Department, in which connection he designed a new and efficient type of lighthouse lens and was sent to France by the department to supervise the manufacture of an order of the lenses. After a short time spent in the Novelty Iron Works, New York, acquiring the experience required for admission to the newly established Engineer Corps of the United States Navy, he became in 1844 a first assistant engineer, in the original group of appointees.
During the war with Mexico, he served aboard the Princeton, the first screw-propeller boat of the navy, and then aboard the Spitfire, which took part in every naval action of the war. He served at the Pensacola Navy Yard in 1844-45 and on board the General Taylor in 1846-47. He was promoted to the rank of chief engineer in 1848. In 1852-53 he was stationed at the Navy Department in Washington, and there designed the paddle-wheels for the Water Witch, the first feathering paddlewheels used in the United States Navy. He then served four years, 1854-58, as chief engineer on the San Jacinto, off the coast of Africa and in the East Indies.
In 1859 he returned to Washington, where he directed the design of a class of gunboats for the Russian government. In this year (1859) he published Engineering Precedents, in two volumes, which set forth the results of his investigations of the distribution of energy and work throughout the motive-power system of a steam vessel. These investigations, carried on in the twelve years of his active service, were the first systematic and sustained attempts to ascertain the distribution of energy and losses in engines and boilers, by actual measurements under practical, operating conditions.
In 1863 and 1865 he published the first and second volumes of Experimental Researches in Steam Engineering. His work was soon confirmed by the independent work of Tyndal and Mayer, however, and Engineering Researches, translated into six foreign languages, became a standard engineering text and remained for many years a basis and a pattern for further experimental research.
In 1861 Isherwood was appointed engineer-in-chief of the navy and in 1862 became the first chief of the bureau of steam engineering.
When the Civil War began, the steam navy consisted of six frigates of low power, six sloops of war, nine gunboats, two dispatch boats, and five sidewheel vessels of small power. At the end of the war there were 600 steam vessels of all descriptions in commission. Isherwood personally directed the design and construction of the machinery necessary to accomplish this expansion.
His work was the target of much criticism, however, of which The Navy of the United States (1864), by E. N. Dickerson, and A Brief Sketch of Some of the Blunders in the Engineering Practice of the Bureau of Steam Engineering in the U. S. Navy, by an Engineer (1868) are typical.
After being relieved as chief of the bureau, he spent the remainder of his active service largely in the study of foreign navies and naval bases, and in the direction of experimental naval researches as the presiding officer of special naval boards. His work at the Mare Island Navy Yard (1869 - 70) included a series of propeller experiments, the results of which were notable contributions to knowledge in this field (details of his experiments are given in A. E. Seaton, The Screw Propeller, London 1909).
He was retired June 6, 1884, as a chief engineer, the highest permanent rank in the engineer corps, with the relative rank of commodore, and made his home in New York where he wrote many articles for the Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers. He died in 1915.
(In the course of a late cruise on the southern and easter...)
Views
Isherwood concluded that for every actual steam engine there is a limiting ratio of expansion, beyond which economical expansion is impossible. He determined the limit of efficient expansion for the engines of the Michigan, and because it occurred at such an early point in the stroke his results were immediately attacked.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"He was the handsomest man in Washington in those days, " according to R. H. Thurston (in Cassier's Magazine); "his curling black hair set off to great advantage rarely excellent features, and while men were interested in his always entertaining conversation - he was a great conversationalist - the ladies and the photographers agreed in a more aesthetic view of the man. "
Connections
Isherwood was married in Baltimore to Mrs. Anna Hansine (Munster) Ragsdale, shortly after the death in 1848 of her first husband.