. The American railway; its construction, development, management, and appliances . acted mouth, F, inside of the cone ^5^. If steam isadmitted to A, it flows through the pipe and escapes at F. In doingso it produces a partial vacuum in E, and water is consequentlydrawn up the pipe C from the tank. The current of steam now carries with it the water, and theyescape at G. After flowing for afew seconds the water has a highvelocity and the steam, minglingwith the water, is momentum of the water soonbecomes sufficient to force thevalve H down against the press-ure below it, and the j
. The American railway; its construction, development, management, and appliances . acted mouth, F, inside of the cone ^5^. If steam isadmitted to A, it flows through the pipe and escapes at F. In doingso it produces a partial vacuum in E, and water is consequentlydrawn up the pipe C from the tank. The current of steam now carries with it the water, and theyescape at G. After flowing for afew seconds the water has a highvelocity and the steam, minglingwith the water, is momentum of the water soonbecomes sufficient to force thevalve H down against the press-ure below it, and the jet of waterthen flows continuously into theboiler. A very curious phenom-enon of this somewhat mysteriousinstrument is that if steam of a low pressure is taken from one boilerit will force water into another against a higher pressure. Figure19 is a section of an actual injector used on locomotives. Having explained how the steam is generated, it remains toshow how it propels a locomotive. It does this very much as aperson on a bicycle propels it—that is, by means of two cranks. Fig. 18.—Rudimentary Injector, HOW STEAM GETS INTO THE CYLINDERS. 117 the wheels are made to revolve, and the latter must then either slipor the vehicle will move. In a locomotive the driving-wheels areturned by means of two cylinders and pistons, which are connectedby rods to the cranks attached to the driving-wheels or axles. These cranks are placed atright angles to each other, so that when oneof them is at the dead-point the pistonconnected with the other can exert its maxi-mum power to rotate the wheels. This ena-bles the locomotive to start with the pistonsin any position ; whereas, if one cylinder onlywas used it would be impossible to turn thewheels if the crank should stop at one of itsdead-points. It will probably interest a good manyreaders to know how the steam gets into thecylinders and moves the pistons and thengets out again, and how a locomotive is madeto run either backward or forwar
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