How it Works Part 24

The little cut in the upper corner represents a Pelton wheel drawn on the same scale, which, given an equal supply of water at the same pressure, would develop the same power as the Laxey monster. By the side of the giant the other appears a mere toy.

THE CREAM SEPARATOR.

In 1864 Denmark went to war with Germany, and emerged from the short struggle shorn of the provinces of Lauenburg, Holstein, and Schleswig.

The loss of the two last, the fairest and most fertile districts of the kingdom, was indeed grievous. The Danish king now ruled only over a land consisting largely of moor, marsh, and dunes, apparently worthless for any purpose. But the Danes, with admirable courage, entered upon a second struggle, this time with nature. They made roads and railways, dug irrigation ditches, and planted forest trees; and so gradually turned large tracts of what had been useless country into valuable possessions. Agriculture being much depressed, owing to the low price of corn, they next gave their attention to the improvement of dairy farming. Labour-saving machinery of all kinds was introduced, none more important than the device for separating the fatty from the watery const.i.tuents of milk. It would not be too much to say that the separator is largely responsible for the present prosperity of Denmark.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 191.--Section of a Cream Separator.]

How does it work? asks the reader. Centrifugal force[37] is the governing principle. To explain its application we append a sectional ill.u.s.tration (Fig. 191) of Messrs. Burmeister and Wain's hand-power separator, which may be taken as generally representative of this cla.s.s of machines. Inside a circular casing is a cylindrical bowl, D, mounted on a shaft which can be revolved 5,000 times a minute by means of the cog-wheels and the screw thread chased on it near the bottom extremity.

Milk flows from the reservoir R (supported on a stout arm) through tap A into a little distributer on the top of the separator, and from it drops into the central tube C of the bowl. Falling to the bottom, it is flung outwards by centrifugal force, finds an escape upwards through the holes _a a_, and climbs up the perforated grid _e_, the surface of which is a series of pyramidical excrescences, and finally reaches the inner surface of the drum proper. The velocity of rotation is so tremendous that the heavier portions of the milk--that is, the watery--crowd towards the point furthest from the centre, and keep the lighter fatty elements away from contact with the sides of the drum. In the diagram the water is represented by small circles, the cream by small crosses.

As more milk enters the drum it forces upwards what is already there.

The cap of the drum has an inner jacket, F, which at the bottom _all but touches_ the side of the drum. The distance between them is the merest slit; but the cream is deflected up outside F into s.p.a.ce E, and escapes through a hole one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter perforating the plate G. The cream is flung into s.p.a.ce K and trickles out of spout B, while the water flies into s.p.a.ce H and trickles away through spout A.

THE "HYDRO.,"

used in laundries for wringing clothes by centrifugal force, has a solid outer casing and an inner perforated cylindrical cage, revolved at high speed by a vertical shaft. The wet clothes are placed in the cage, and the machine is started. The water escapes through the perforations and runs down the side of the casing to a drain. After a few minutes the clothes are dry enough for ironing. So great is the centrifugal force that they are consolidated against the sides of the cage, and care is needed in their removal.

[35] Inventor of the lathe slide-rest.

[36] Living germs; some varieties the cause of disease.

[37] That is, centre-fleeing force. Water dropped on a spinning top rushes towards the circ.u.mference and is shot off at right angles to a line drawn from the point of parting to the centre of the top.

Chapter XIX.

HEATING AND LIGHTING.

The hot-water supply--The tank system--The cylinder system--How a lamp works--Gas and gasworks--Automatic stoking--A gas governor--The gas meter--Incandescent gas lighting.

HOT-WATER SUPPLY.

A well-equipped house is nowadays expected to contain efficient apparatus for supplying plenty of hot water at all hours of the day.

There is little romance about the kitchen boiler and the pipes which the plumber and his satellites have sometimes to inspect and put right, but the methods of securing a proper circulation of hot water through the house are sufficiently important and interesting to be noticed in these pages.

In houses of moderate size the kitchen range does the heating. The two systems of storing and distributing the heated water most commonly used are--(1) The _tank_ system; (2) the _cylinder_ system.

THE TANK SYSTEM

is shown diagrammatically in Fig. 192. The boiler is situated at the back of the range, and when a "damper" is drawn the fire and hot gases pa.s.s under it to a flue leading to the chimney. The almost boiling water rises to the top of the boiler and thence finds its way up the _flow pipe_ into the hot-water tank A, displacing the somewhat colder water there, which descends through the _return pipe_ to the bottom of the boiler.

Water is drawn off from the flow pipe. This pipe projects some distance through the bottom of A, so that the hottest portion of the contents may be drawn off first. A tank situated in the roof, and fed from the main by a ball-c.o.c.k valve, communicates with A through the siphon pipe S. The bend in this pipe prevents the ascent of hot water, which cannot sink through water colder than itself. From the top of A an _expansion pipe_ is led up and turned over the cold-water tank to discharge any steam which may be generated in the boiler.

A hot-water radiator for warming the house may be connected to the flow and return pipes as shown. Since it opens a "short circuit" for the circulation, the water in the tank above will not be so well heated while it is in action. If c.o.c.ks are fitted to the radiator pipes, the amount of heat thus deflected can be governed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 192.--The "tank" system of hot-water supply.]

A disadvantage of the tank system is that the tank, if placed high enough to supply all flows, is sometimes so far from the boiler that the water loses much of its heat in the course of circulation. Also, if for any reason the cold water fails, tank A may be entirely emptied, circulation cease, and the water in the boiler and pipes boil away rapidly.

THE CYLINDER SYSTEM

(Fig. 193) is open to neither of these objections. Instead of a rectangular tank up aloft, we now have a large copper cylinder situated in the kitchen near the range. The flow and return pipes are continuous, and the cold supply enters the bottom of the cylinder through a pipe with a siphon bend in it. As before, water is drawn off from the flow pipe, and a radiator may be put in the circuit. Since there is no draw-off point below the top of the cylinder, even if the cold supply fails the cylinder will remain full, and the failure will be discovered long before there is any danger of the water in it boiling away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 193.--The "cylinder" system of hot-water supply.]

Boiler explosions are due to obstructions in the pipes. If the expansion pipe and the cold-water supply pipe freeze, there is danger of a slight acc.u.mulation of steam; and if one of the circulation pipes is also blocked, steam must generate until "something has to go,"[38] which is naturally the boiler. a.s.suming that the pipes are quite full to the points of obstruction, the fracture would result from the expansion of the water. Steam cannot generate unless there be a s.p.a.ce above the water. But the expanding water has stored up the heat which would have raised steam, and the moment expansion begins after fracture this energy is suddenly let loose. Steam forms instantaneously, augmenting the effects of the explosion. From this it will be gathered that all pipes should be properly protected against frost; especially near the roof.

Another cause of disaster is the _furring up_ of the pipes with the lime deposited by hard water when heated. When hard water is used, the pipes will sooner or later be blocked near the boiler; and as the deposit is too hard to be sc.r.a.ped away, periodical renewals are unavoidable.

HOW A LAMP WORKS.

From heating we turn to lighting, and first to the ordinary paraffin lamp. The two chief things to notice about this are the wick and the chimney. The wick, being made of closely-woven cotton, draws up the oil by what is known as _capillary attraction_. If you dip the ends of two gla.s.s tubes, one half an inch, the other one-eighth of an inch in diameter, into a vessel of water, you will notice that the water rises higher in the smaller tube. Or get two clean gla.s.s plates and lay them face to face, touching at one end, but kept slightly apart at the other by some small object. If they are partly submerged perpendicularly, the water will rise between the plates--furthest on the side at which the two plates touch, and less and less as the other edge is approached. The tendency of liquids to rise through porous bodies is a phenomenon for which we cannot account.

Mineral oil contains a large proportion of carbon and hydrogen; it is therefore termed hydro-carbon. When oil reaches the top of a lighted wick, the liquid is heated until it turns into gas. The carbon and hydrogen unite with the oxygen of the air. Some particles of the carbon apparently do not combine at once, and as they pa.s.s through the fiery zone of the flame are heated to such a temperature as to become highly luminous. It is to produce these light-rays that we use a lamp, and to burn our oil efficiently we must supply the flame with plenty of oxygen, with more than it could naturally obtain. So we surround it with a transparent chimney of special gla.s.s. The air inside the chimney is heated, and rises; fresh air rushes in at the bottom, and is also heated and replaced. As the air pa.s.ses through, the flame seizes on the oxygen.

If the wick is turned up until the flame becomes smoky and flares, the point has been pa.s.sed at which the induced chimney draught can supply sufficient oxygen to combine with the carbon of the vapour, and the "free" carbon escapes as smoke.

The blower-plate used to draw up a fire (Fig. 194) performs exactly the same function as the lamp chimney, but on a larger scale. The plate prevents air pa.s.sing straight up the chimney over the coals, and compels it to find a way through the fire itself to replace the heated air rising up the chimney.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 194.--Showing how a blower-plate draws up the fire.]

GAS AND GASWORKS.

A lamp is an apparatus for converting hydro-carbon mineral oil into gas and burning it efficiently. The gas-jet burns gases produced by driving off hydro-carbon vapours from coal in apparatus specially designed for the purpose. Gas-making is now, in spite of the compet.i.tion of electric lighting, so important an industry that we shall do well to glance at the processes which it includes. Coal gas may be produced on a very small scale as follows:--Fill a tin canister (the joints of which have been made by folding the metal, not by soldering) with coal, clap on the lid, and place it, lid downwards, in a bright fire, after punching a hole in the bottom. Vapour soon begins to issue from the hole. This is probably at first only steam, due to the coal being more or less damp.

But if a lighted match be presently applied the vapour takes fire, showing that coal gas proper is coming off. The flame lasts for a long time. When it dies the canister may be removed and the contents examined. Most of the carbon remains in the form of _c.o.ke_. It is bulk for bulk much lighter than coal, for the hydrogen, oxygen, and other gases, and some of the carbon have been driven off by the heat. The c.o.ke itself burns if placed in a fire, but without any smoke, such as issues from coal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 195.--Sketch of the apparatus used in the manufacture of coal gas.]

Our home-made gas yields a smoky and unsatisfactory flame, owing to the presence of certain impurities--ammonia, tar, sulphuretted hydrogen, and carbon bisulphide. A gas factory must be equipped with means of getting rid of these objectionable const.i.tuents. Turning to Fig. 195, which displays very diagrammatically the main features of a gas plant, we observe at the extreme right the _retorts_, which correspond to our canister. These are usually long fire-brick tubes of D-section, the flat side at the bottom. Under each is a furnace, the flames of which play on the bottom, sides, and inner end of the retort. The outer end projecting beyond the brickwork seating has an iron air-tight door for filling the retort through, immediately behind which rises an iron exit pipe, A, for the gases. Tar, which vaporizes at high temperatures, but liquefies at ordinary atmospheric heat, must first be got rid of. This is effected by pa.s.sing the gas through the _hydraulic main_, a tubular vessel half full of water running the whole length of the retorts. The end of pipe A dips below the surface of the water, which condenses most of the tar and steam. The partly-purified gas now pa.s.ses through pipe B to the _condensers_, a series of inverted U-pipes standing on an iron chest with vertical cross divisions between the mouths of each U. These divisions dip into water, so that the gas has to pa.s.s up one leg of a U, down the other, up the first leg of the second pipe, and so on, till all traces of the tar and other liquid const.i.tuents have condensed on the inside of the pipe, from which they drop into the tank below.

The next stage is the pa.s.sage of the _scrubber_, filled with c.o.ke over which water perpetually flows. The ammonia gas is here absorbed. There still remain the sulphuretted hydrogen and the carbon bisulphide, both of which are extremely offensive to the nostrils. Slaked lime, laid on trays in an air-tight compartment called the _lime purifier_, absorbs most of the sulphurous elements of these; and the coal gas is then fit for use. On leaving the purifiers it flows into the _gasometer_, or gasholder, the huge cake-like form of which is a very familiar object in the environs of towns. The gasometer is a cylindrical box with a domed top, but no bottom, built of riveted steel plates. It stands in a circular tank of water, so that it may rise and fall without any escape of gas. The levity of the gas, in conjunction with weights attached to the ends of chains working over pulleys on the framework surrounding the holder, suffices to raise the holder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 196.--The largest gasholder in the world: South Metropolitan Gas Co., Greenwich Gas Works. Capacity, 12,158,600 cubic feet.]

Some gasometers have an enormous capacity. The record is at present held by that built for the South Metropolitan Gas Co., London, by Messrs. Clayton & Son of Leeds. This monster (of which we append an ill.u.s.tration, Fig. 196) is 300 feet in diameter and 180 feet high. When fully extended it holds 12,158,600 cubic feet of gas. Owing to its immense size, it is built on the telescopic principle in six "lifts," of 30 feet deep each. The sides of each lift, or ring, except the topmost, have a section shaped somewhat like the letter N. Two of the members form a deep, narrow cup to hold water, in which the "dip" member of the ring above it rises and falls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 197.--Drawing retorts. (_Photo by F. Marsh._)]

AUTOMATIC STOKING.