. Appleton's dictionary of machines, mechanics, engine-work, and engineering. expended, to which the work performed ought to bear an assign-able relation. The older bucket-wheels which we encounter are constructed of wood; but that material, once ofalmost universal use in constructive mechanics, is fast giving place to iron, and in a few years hence wemay expect that a wooden water-wheel will be as rare, and as much an object of antiquarian interestto those who take pleasure in reviewing the progress of the industrial arts, as wooden geering hasalready become. Many of those wheels still contin
. Appleton's dictionary of machines, mechanics, engine-work, and engineering. expended, to which the work performed ought to bear an assign-able relation. The older bucket-wheels which we encounter are constructed of wood; but that material, once ofalmost universal use in constructive mechanics, is fast giving place to iron, and in a few years hence wemay expect that a wooden water-wheel will be as rare, and as much an object of antiquarian interestto those who take pleasure in reviewing the progress of the industrial arts, as wooden geering hasalready become. Many of those wheels still continue to exhibit in their constructive details a very su-perior style of workmanship, and an attention to durability which, in several instances within the knowl-edge of the writer, the lapse of a century has hardly conquered. The best specimens, no doubt, onlyremain of the truly old construction, while those of an inferior grade have disappeared and been replacedby wheels of modern construction, in which iron, if not the sole material, holds at least a prominentplace. Another peculiarity, not indeed uncommon in wheels of recent construction, although generally aban-doned by millwrights who make pretensions to a superior knowledge of the principles which ought togovern the transmission of hydraulic power, unless the conditions be dictated by extraneous circumstan-ces, consists in passing the water over the summit of the wheel into the buckets in the mannerrepresented in Fig. 3774. This arrangement constitutes literally an overshot-wheel; but while wehave preserved tho name, it is no longer deemed necessary to apply it literally. In the present aeeeptation of the term, nothing more is implied than that the water is received into the buckets near thesummit of the wheel; and, in ordinary practice, those wheels reckoned as overshot, by strict definitionVol. II.—54 850 WATER-WHEELS. come under the designation of high-breast wheels. One of the finest specimens of this construct
Size: 1845px × 1355px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, booksubjectmechanicalengineering, bookyear1861
