Blowing Hot and Cold: Reports and Retorts on the Status of the Air-Engine as Success or Failure,1830–1855

Kuhn Thomas S. , “Sadi Carnot and the Cagnard engine”, Isis, lii (1961), 567–74, reproduced in Philosophers and machines , ed. by Mayr Otto (New York, 1976), 139–46; Ferguson Eugene S. , “John Ericsson and the Age of Caloric”, United States National Museum Bulletin 228. Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology (Washington, D.C., 1961), 41–60; Daub E. E. , “The regenerator principle in the Stirling and Ericsson hot air engines”, The British journal for the history of science, vii (1974), 259–77; Bryant Lynwood , “The role of thermodynamics in the evolution of heat engines”, Technology and culture, xiv (1973), 152–65; Cardwell D. S. L. , From Watt to Clausius: The rise of thermodynamics in the early industrial age (London, 1971), 152–3; Cardwell D. S. L. , Technology, science and history (London, 1972), esp. pp. 124–5 (the Niepces' pyréolophorus, the Cagnard engine and others), 113–15 (Cayley's engine); Cardwell D. S. L. Hills Richard L. , “Thermodynamics and practical engineering in the nineteenth century”, History of technology, i (1976), 1–20; Cardwell D. S. L. , James Joule: A biography (Manchester, 1989), esp. pp. 113–15; Buchanan R. A. , “Promise and disappointment: The history of the hot-air engine”, Energie in der Geschichte/Energy in history: 11th Symposium of ICOHTEC (Düsseldorf, 1984), 182–9. An extensive technical account can be found in Finkelstein T. , “Air engines”, The engineer, ccvii (1959), 492–6, 521–7, 568–71, 720–3. Zarinchang J. , The Stirling engine (London, 1972) is a useful bibliography.

Staudenmaier John M. s.j. , “The politics of successful technologies”, in In context: History and the history of technology. Essays in honor of Melvin Kranzberg, ed. by Cutcliffe Stephen H. Post Robert C. (Bethlehem, London and Toronto, 1989), 150–71.

Staudenmaier John M. s.j. , Technology's storytellers: Reweaving the human fabric (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1989), 47, 175–6; idem, op. cit. (ref. 2), 167.

Staudenmaier , op. cit. (ref. 3), 5, 136, 145.

Cowan Ruth Schwartz , “How the refrigerator got its hum”, in idem, More work for mother: The ironies of household technology from the open hearth to the microwave (New York, 1983), 127–45 (reprinted in The social shaping of technology, ed. by MacKenzie Donald Wajcman Judy (Milton Keynes, 1985), 202–18 (see esp. pp. 202–3 for failed machines)).

Social studies of science, xxii (1992), no. 2.

On methodological symmetry see Bloor David , Knowledge and social imagery (Chicago, 1991; orig. publ. 1976); and for its extension to studies of technology, Bijker Wiebe E. Hughes Thomas P. Pinch Trevor (eds), The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1987).

I am grateful to R. G. A. Dolby for a formulation of this idea.

Collins H. M. , Changing order: Replication and induction in scientific practice (London, 1985).

Gooding David Pinch Trevor Schaffer Simon , (eds), The uses of experiment (Cambridge, 1993; orig. publ. 1989), 25–26 (referring to Donald Mackenzie's work).

Ferguson Compare Eugene S. , “Technical journals and the history of technology”, in Cutcliffe Post (eds), op. cit. (ref. 2), 53–70.

On provincial cultures of science and technology see Inkster Ian Morrell J. B. (eds), Metropolis and province: Science in British culture, 1780–1850 (London, 1983).

See also the entries under air- and caloric-engines in the thematic Royal Society catalogue of scientific papers.

For Cheverton's “own experiments in the compression of air and gas” see Mechanics' magazine , 12 January 1833, 251. Cardwell Hills , op. cit. (ref. 1), note that work could usefully be done to investigate this “mystery figure” (p. 6).

James Frank A. J. L. , “The tales of Benjamin Abbott; A source for the early life of Michael Faraday”, The British journal for the history of science, xxv (1992), 229–40, p. 239. Abbott recalled Fuller sleeping through a discourse on the caloric engine given by Michael Faraday.

For a critical analysis of such categorizations see Staudenmaier , op. cit. (ref. 3), chap. 2: “Emerging technology and the mystery of creativity”. Other candidates of equal interest might have been chosen, especially from French engineering cultures.

Church William Conant , The life of John Ericsson (2 vols, London, 1890); White Ruth , Yankee from Sweden: The dream and the reality in the days of John Ericsson (New York, 1960).

Bishop P. W. , “John Ericsson (1803–89) in England”, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, xlviii (1976–77), 41–52 deals with the early chequered history of Ericsson's fire and caloric engines in Britain; for an excellent discussion of Ericsson in America see Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 1); Daub , op. cit. (ref. 1) compares him with the Stirlings.

Stirling Robert (1790–1878), DNB; Edelman H. C. M. , “In search of Stirling”, The announcer (N. V. Philips, Eindhoven), xxiii (1969), 6–12; Loveridge D. W. , “Robert Stirling — Preacher and inventor”, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, i (1978–79), 1–10; Lenihan J. M. A. McKay Johnston R. , “Dr. Stirling and his engine”, The College Courant: The journal of the Glasgow University Graduates Association , Whitsun 1974, 22–25; Stirling Robert , “Parish of Galston”, The new statistical account of Scotland, v: Counties of Ayr and Bute (Edinburgh and London, 1845), 178–91. The patent specification of 1816 (no. 4081) is reproduced, with comments on the reappearance of the lost MS, in “The centenary of the heat regenerator and the Stirling engine”, Engineer, cxxiv (1917), 516–17.

Stirling On James (1800–1876) see Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, xliv (1876), 221–4. For another, better-resourced, thermodynamic testing station, see Hård Mikael , Machines are frozen spirit: The scientification of refrigeration and brewing in the 19th century — A Weberian interpretation (Frankfurt and Boulder, Colorado, 1994), 162–6.

Cayley George Sir (1773–1857), DNB; Cayley George , “Description of an engine for affording mechanical power from air expanded by heat”, [Nicholson's] Journal of natural philosophy, chemistry and the arts, xviii (1807), 260–2 (and Fig. 1); Hodgson J. E. , “Sir G. Cayley as a pioneer of aeronautics”, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, iii (1922–23), 69–89; Pritchard J. L. , Sir George Cayley: The inventor of the aeroplane (London, 1961) (esp. pp. 69–91 for air-engines) and Gibbs-Smith Charles H. , Sir George Cayley's aeronautics 1796–1855 (London, 1962).

“Description of a new method of employing the combustion of fuel as a motive power” (Ericsson's flame engine), Archives of the Institution of Civil Engineers; Mechanics' magazine, 6 October 1832, 2–7 (steam-engine and water-wheel).

Arnott Neil (1788–1874), DNB; idem, Elements of physics, or natural philosophy, general and medical, written for universal use, in plain or non-technical language, and containing new disquisitions and practical suggestions (2 vols, London, 1833), ii, 78.

Mechanics' magazine, 9 November 1833, 81–83.

[ Ericsson John ], The caloric engine, invented by J. Ericsson (London, 1833), 1. The pamphlet is dated 2 December.

Ericsson , op. cit. (ref. 25), 5.

Mechanics' magazine, 14 December 1833, 191f.

Athenaeum, 18 January 1834, 47 (“Our Literary Table”).

On scale see Wright Thomas , “Scale, models, similitude and dimensions: Aspects of mid-nineteenth-century engineering science”, Annals of science, lxix (1992), 233–54.

Ericsson , op. cit. (ref. 25), 11.

Caneva Kenneth L. , Robert Mayer and the conservation of energy (Princeton, N.J., 1993); Sibum Heinz Otto , “Reworking the mechanical value of heat: Instruments of precision and gestures of accuracy in early Victorian England”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, xxvi (1995), 73–106.

Bergein , “The alchemists, perpetual-motion seekers, and aeronauts”, Mechanics' magazine , 29 June 1833, 205–6 (with editorial note). See also, for comments on perpetual motion, Mechanics' magazine , 25 January 1834, 287 ( Pearson William ), and 5 July 1834, 235–6 ( Cayley George (sic)). Compare Schaffer Simon , “The show that never ends: Perpetual motion in the early eighteenth century”, The British journal for the history of science, xxviii (1995), 157–89.

Pritchard , op. cit. (ref. 21), 65.

Ibid., 108.

Hodgson , op. cit. (ref. 21), 72 (quoting Cayley on ballooning), 82; Fairlie Gerard Cayley Elizabeth , The life of a genius (London, 1965), 82.

Fairlie Cayley , op. cit. (ref. 35), 113 (quoting Dionysius Lardner).

Patent no. 7351, 25 April 1837; Pritchard , op. cit. (ref. 21), 83.

Anon., “Sir George Cayley's air-engine”, The polytechnic journal: A monthly magazine of art, science, and general literature, iii (1840), 410.

Fairlie Cayley , op. cit. (ref. 35), 115.

Mechanics' magazine, 17 April 1841, 318–19 (Stirling engine patent); 27 November 1841, 416 (Dundee trials).

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 20), 222.

Stirling James , “Description of Stirling's improved air engine”, Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, iv (1845), 348–61.

Siemens Werner , Inventor and entrepreneur: Recollections of Werner von Siemens (London, 1966).

Pole William , Life of Sir William Siemens (London, 1888) and Turner Charles , Sir William Siemens: A man of vision (London, 1993).

Siemens Werner , “Ueber die Unwendung der erhitzten Luft als Triebkraft”, Dingler's Polytechnisches Journal, xcvii (1845), 324–9 (including Fig. 22 on Plate V. , “Durch erhitzte Luft betriebene Maschine”). I thank Péa Eigler and Gerald Schmidt for translations.

See Church , op. cit. (ref. 17), i, 185–219; Shapin Steven , “The invisible technician”, American scientist, lxxvii (1989), 554–63 and compare Shapin Steven , A social history of truth: Civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago and London, 1994), chap. 8, “Invisible technicians: Masters, servants, and the making of experimental knowledge”.

Sargent John O. , A lecture on the late improvements in steam navigation and the arts of naval warfare, with a brief notice of Ericsson's caloric engine (New York and London, 1844), 51.

For an excellent account of New York events and reports of them, see Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 1).

There were at least 19 reports in the Times between 31 May 1852 and 2 April 1853. Most were published in January 1853. There were at least four further accounts in 1854.

Athenaeum, 19 February 1853, 231.

Beamish Richard , Memoir of the life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunei (London, 1862), 104–5; patent no. 3384, 1 October 1810; Kuhn , op. cit. (ref. 1).

For the gaz engine see Beamish , op. cit. (ref. 51), 185–7; Brunei Isambard , The life of Isambard Kingdom Brunei, civil engineer (London, 1870), 42–45 (“Experiments with carbonic acid gas”); Rolt L. T. C. , Isambard Kingdom Brunei: A biography (London, 1957), 41–42; Clements Paul , Marc Isambard Brunei (London, 1970), 77–78.

Athenaeum, 18 January 1834, 47.

“The Caloric Engine. By J. ERICSSON. An unpublished [sic] pamphlet”, The repertory of patent inventions, and other discoveries and improvements in arts, manufactures, and agriculture, n.s., i (1834), 42–55. The Repertory had first been published in 1794.

Mechanics' magazine, 4 January 1834, 233–5, and 11 January 1834, 250–2 (quotation on p. 250).

Sargent , op. cit. (ref. 47), 56–57.

Ibid., 55.

Ibid., 57–58.

Athenaeum , 22 February 1834, 145 (from which I quote here); Mechanics' magazine , 1 March 1834, 368; Repertory of patent inventions, i (1834), 195–7; Literary gazette , 22 February 1834, 137; Philosophical magazine, 3rd ser., iv (1834), 296; Sargent , op. cit. (ref. 47), 57–58; Jones Henry Bence , The life and letters of Faraday (2 vols, London, 1870), ii, 48. Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 1), 48, takes a minority view that Ericsson was at the meeting to witness Faraday's doubt.

Times, 7 August 1835.

Mechanics' magazine, 13 June 1835, 192.

Cayley , op. cit. (ref. 21), 261.

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 38).

Fairlie Cayley , op. cit. (ref. 35), 83.

Mechanics' magazine, 27 November 1841, 416.

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 20), 222.

Stirling Robert , on the occasion of his brother's death on 19 January 1876, quoted in Anon., op. cit. (ref. 20), 222–3 (my emphasis).

Church , op. cit. (ref. 17), i, 195, quoted in Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 1), 47.

Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 1), 45.

Times, 28 January 1853, 4.

Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 1), 46.

Ibid., 49.

Ransome J. Allen to Woodcroft Bennett , 2 April 1861, Patent Office Letter Book, Science Museum Library, London.

See, for example, Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 1), 55f; Cardwell Hills , op. cit. (ref. 1), 4–6.

Pritchard , op. cit. (ref. 21), 77.

An edited transcript of the debates appears in Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, xii (1852–53), 312–51 and 558–660. See also Poingdestre William W. , “Description of Sir George Cayley's hot-air engine”, ibid., ix (1849–50), 194–203.

Siemens C. W. to Joule James Prescott , 24 May 1853, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) (my emphasis).

Tait P. G. , “Memoir [of W. J. M. Rankine]”, in Millar W. J. (ed.), Miscellaneous scientific papers of W. J. Macquorn Rankine (London, 1881), pp. xix–xxxvi; Marsden Ben , “Engineering science in Glasgow: Economy, efficiency and measurement as prime movers in the differentiation of an academic discipline”, The British journal for the history of science, xxv (1992), 319–46.

On the use of this term to characterize a North British group of energy physicists in the second half of the nineteenth century, see Smith Crosbie , The science of energy (London, forthcoming).

Bryant , op. cit. (ref. 1), 157. Bryant agrees that Rankine was both critic and inventor. See also Staudenmaier , op. cit. (ref. 3), 90.

I hope to argue this important point in greater depth elsewhere.

In a striking parallel, John Robison had encouraged James Watt to donate a model of his condensing steam engine to the College half a century earlier. Robison to Watt, 3 May 1797 in Partners in science: Letters of James Watt and Joseph Black, ed. by Robinson Eric McKie Douglas (London, 1970), 272. Watt had yet to meet this request in 1803.

Smith Crosbie Wise M. Norton , Energy and empire: A biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge, 1989), 292–9.

Thomson William , “Notice of Stirling's air-engine”, Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical Society, ii (1844–48), 169–70; reprinted in Thomson William , Mathematical and physical papers (6 vols, Cambridge, 1882–1911), v, 38–39. Thomson read the paper on 21 April 1847.

Constable Thomas , Memoir of Lewis D. B. Gordon, F.R.S.E. (Edinburgh, 1877); Marsden Ben , “‘A most important trespass’: Lewis Gordon and the Glasgow Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics 1840–1855”, in Making space for science: Territorial themes in the shaping of knowledge, ed. by Agar Jon Smith Crosbie (Basingstoke, 1998), 87–117.

Gordon Lewis to Thomson William , 27 April 1847, Kelvin Papers, Cambridge University Library. Unless otherwise stated, letters between Thomson, Forbes and Joule cited here come from this collection.

Thomson William to Forbes J. D. (copy), 11 January 1848; Forbes to Thomson, 28 November 1848; Thomson to Forbes , 7 December 1848; Forbes to Thomson , 8 December 1848; Smith Wise , op. cit. (ref. 83), 298.

The discussion is reported in James Thomson's notebook A14(A), April 1848, Queen's University Belfast. I am grateful to Crosbie Smith for this reference: See idem, “Natural philosophy and thermo-dynamics: Patterns of thought in mid-nineteenth century physics”, Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1975, 106–10.

Thomson William , “Account of Carnot's theory of the motive power of heat”, Mathematical and physical papers (ref. 84), i, 113–55, pp. 149–50.

Joule to Thomson , 6 October 1848.

Cardwell D. S. L. , “Science and technology: The work of James Prescott Joule”, Technology and culture, xvii (1976), 674–87, esp. p. 678.

Joule to Thomson , 19 and 21 October and 6 November 1850.

Joule to Thomson , 19 December 1850.

Joule to Thomson , 17 January 1851.

Joule to Thomson , 6 February 1851.

Joule to Thomson , 11 March 1851; Joule's “On the air engine” (draft), UMIST.

Joule to Thomson , 28 April 1851; Joule's draft paper “On an air engine” (sic) was received on 13 May 1851: See PT.43.4, Library of the Royal Society of London (RSL).

Gordon Alexander , Results of experiments made with the fumific impeller, tending to supersede the steam-engine for navigation (London, 1847).

Herapath John , Mathematical physics (2 vols, London, 1847), i, pp. xxxix–xl.

PT.43.4 (on p. 6 and omitted from the printed version), RSL.

Joule to Thomson , 28 January 1852.

Referees' Reports, n.d. ( Moseley ), and 16 January and 29 May 1852 ( Miller ), RR.2.128–30, RSL; Joule to Thomson , 28 January 1852 (advice on Gordon's fumific propeller); experiments on specific heat of atmospheric air, 12–23 February 1852, recorded in Joule notebook for 1843–58, UMIST.

Joule to Thomson , 11 November 1852. Recipients included Christie, Groves Moseley Playfair Scoresby Wheatstone Graham Hopkins Miller Potter Sabine , Stokes and “our local Savans”. Joule to Thomson, 6 December 1852.

Referee's Report, n.d. ( Moseley ), RR.2.128, RSL. Joule was still being quoted in favour of air as a replacement for steam in the 1860s. See Hunt Robert (ed.), Ure's dictionary of arts, manufactures, and mines (6th edn, 3 vols, London, 1867), i, 37–39 (art. “Air-engine”).

Joule to Thomson , 15 March 1853.

Siemens C. W. to Joule , 24 May 1853, UMIST.

Ericsson , op. cit. (ref. 25), 4 (my emphasis).

Times, 7 August 1835.

Sargent , op. cit. (ref. 47), 10.

Ibid., 17.

Ibid., 48.

Ibid., 51.

Ibid., 59.

Ibid., 61–62.

Athenaeum, 19 February 1853, 232 (my emphasis).

See Rankine W. J. M. Napier J. R. , “Engines worked by heated air and other elastic fluids”, patent no. 1416, 9 June 1853; MSS relating to the engine in DC90/3/3, Napier Collection, Glasgow University Archives (GUA); Marsden Ben , “Engineering science in Glasgow: W. J. M. Rankine and the motive power of air”, Ph.D. thesis, University of Kent at Canterbury, 1992, chap. 5.

Rankine to Napier James Robert , 7 February 1853, Napier Collection, GUA.

For the concept of an inscription in which nature “writes itself” in scientific experiments (and by extension, human-made artefacts do likewise), see Latour Bruno , Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society (Milton Keynes, 1987); indicator diagrams for the Napier and Rankine experimental air-engine for March 1857, DC90/3/14, Napier Collection, GUA.

Rankine W. J. M. , “On the means of realising the advantages of the air-engine”, BAAS Report 1854 , Part 2, 159–60, p. 159; “Napier and Rankine's patent hot-air engine”, Mechanics' magazine, 21 October 1854, 385–9; Rankine W. J. M. , “On the means of realising the advantages of the air-engine”, Edinburgh new philosophical journal, i (1855), 1–32.

Cardwell D. S. L. , “Power technologies and the advance of science, 1700–1825”, Technology and culture, vi (1965), 188–207 (esp. p. 206); idem, “Some factors in the early development of the concepts of power, work and energy”, The British journal for the history of science, iii (1966–67), 209–24; idem, From Watt to Clausius (ref. 1); idem, op. cit. (ref. 91) says surprisingly little about Joule's practical investigations into heat engines.

Cardwell Hills , op. cit. (ref. 1), 3; Cardwell , “Technology, science and history” (ref. 1), 136–8 draws attention to Carnot's enthusiasm for air.

Cardwell , Technology, science and history (ref. 1), 163.

Cardwell D. S. L. , The Fontana history of technology (London, 1994), esp. chap. 19, “Notes towards a philosophy of technology”; Cardwell , “Power technologies” (ref. 120), 189.

For the notion of flat and round characters see Forster E. M. , Aspects of the novel (Harmondsworth, 1976; orig. publ. 1927), 73–81.

Kerker Milton , “Sadi Carnot and the steam engineers”, Isis, li (1960), 257–70 (on p. 269; reprinted in Mayr (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 1), 125–38).

See, for example, Bowler Peter J. , The invention of progress: The Victorians and the past (Oxford, 1989).

Arnott , op. cit. (ref. 23), i, 403, concluding a section on the steam engine (pp. 391–403).

Ericsson , op. cit. (ref. 25), 4.

Babbage Charles , Economy of machinery and manufactures (1832), quoted in Cardwell , op. cit. (ref. 123), 272–3.

Later , compound and high-pressure engines would make such assumptions questionable once more.

Barnard Frederick A. P. , “On the elastic force of heated air, considered as a motive power”, American journal of science and arts, 2nd ser., xvii, no. 50 (March 1854), 153–68, p. 153.

Barnard Frederick A. P. , “On the comparative expenditure of heat in different forms of the air-engine”, American journal of science and arts, 2nd ser., xviii, no. 53 (September 1854), 161–76.

Kuhn Thomas S. , “Engineering precedent for the work of Sadi Carnot”, in Actes du IX^e Congrès International d'Histoire des Sciences (Barcelona-Madrid, 1959), 530–5; Kuhn , op. cit. (ref. 1); comments thereon in Gillispie Charles Coulston , Lazare Carnot: Savant (Princeton, 1971), passim; and a response to Kuhn in Mendoza E. , “Sadi Carnot and the Cagnard Engine”, Isis, liv (1963), 262–3.

Carnot Sadi , Reflexions on the motive power of fire, transl. and ed. by Fox Robert (Manchester, 1986), 63.

See, for example, Brush Stephen , “Thermodynamics and history”, The graduate journal, vii (1967), 477–565, p. 494; Kranzberg Melvin Pursell Carroll W. Jr (eds), Technology in Western civilization (2 vols, New York, 1967), i, 336–49, p. 341 (wherein John B. Rae states: “thermodynamics grew out of the need to find a method of calculating the efficiency of a steam engine”).

Redondi Pietro , L'accueil des idées de Sadi Carnot et la technologie française de 1820 à 1860 (Paris, 1980).

Carnot , op. cit. (ref. 134), esp. p. 11 (Fox's introduction).

On this pressure group of “scientists of energy” see Smith , op. cit. (ref. 79).

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 38).

Cayley approached John Marshall, director of the Leeds railroad, on 1 August 1839. Pritchard , op. cit. (ref. 21), 84.

Domb C. , “James Clerk Maxwell in London, 1860–1865”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxxv (1980), 67–103, pp. 73–74; Smith Wise , op. cit. (ref. 83), 297 (William Thomson's air-engine class lecture of 15 January 1850).

Tait P. G. , Sketch of thermodynamics (Edinburgh, 1868), 80.

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 38).

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 38) (quotation); Rankine to Napier James Robert , 7 February 1853, Napier Collection, GUA.

Cayley , op. cit. (ref. 21), 261; Hodgson , op. cit. (ref. 21), 71.

Times, 18 December 1857 (my emphasis).

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 38).

Reulaux Franz (1875) quoted in Klemm Friedrich , A history of Western technology (London, 1959), 340–1.

Strandh Sigvard , Machines: An illustrated history (London, 1979), 138.

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 38).

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 29).

Ferguson Eugene S. , Engineering and the mind's eye (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1992).

The new locus classicus on these issues is Gooding Pinch Schaffer , op. cit. (ref. 10); and see Shapin Steven Schaffer Simon , Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985), esp. pp. 60–65.

Collins Compare Harry , “Public experiments and displays of virtuosity: The core-set revisited”, Social studies of science, xviii (1988), 725–48. Many of the “experiments” I refer to are more like Collins's “demonstrations” but it remains the case that my actors used the word “experiment”. It is, however, illuminating to see the public “experiments” of Ericsson, Stirling and Cayley — And especially Ericsson's New York trials — As cases in which, in Collins's terminology, the core-set was deliberately over-extended: closure was sought from a general public, rather than from a group of technological experts. I am grateful to Jon Agar for pointing me to this valuable article.

Sargent , op. cit. (ref. 47), 55.

Ericsson in Mechanics' magazine, 4 January 1834, 234.

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 38); Rennie George (1791–1866), DNB and Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, xxviii (1868–69), 610–15; Shapin Steven , “Pump and circumstance; Robert Boyle's literary technology”, Social studies of science, xiv (1984), 481–520.

Gibbs-Smith , op. cit. (ref. 21), passim.

Pritchard , op. cit. (ref. 21), 77.

Babbage Charles to Cayley George Sir , 1 March 1853, reprinted in Pritchard , op. cit. (ref. 21), 212.

Robert Stirling on the occasion of his brother's death on 19 January 1876, quoted in Anon., op. cit. (ref. 20), 222–3.

Norton W. A. , “On Ericsson's hot air, or caloric engine”, American journal of science and the arts, 2nd ser., xv, no. 45 (May 1853), 403.

On the completion of such trials in another context, see Galison Peter , How experiments end (Chicago, 1987).

Arnott , op. cit. (ref. 23), 78.

Cayley to Babbage , quoted without further attribution in Pritchard , op. cit. (ref. 21), 82.

Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 1), 46.

For the context of Rankine's practical proof see Marsden , op. cit. (ref. 78).

Buchanan R. Angus , The power of the machine: The impact of technology from 1700 to the present day (London, 1992), 22.

Cowan , op. cit. (ref. 5), 202, speculates on the high ratio of failed to successful patented machines.