Excerpt from The Locomotive Engine and Its Development: A Popular Treatise on the Gradual Improvements Made in Railway Engines Between 1803 and 1893As some newspapers often profess to record very extraordinary rates of speed, it may be advisable to point out one possible cause of error. We should beware of speed indicators which take their motion from the driving wheels of engines, as the Author, when the train was running no more than 55 miles an hour, has seen an indicator go up to 90 miles an hour, the increase being simply due to the slipping of the driving wheels.The power of steam was known to Hero of Alexandria about 200 b.c., or fully two thousand years ago, and a book he then wrote treated of the expansive force of steam, and described the cylinder, piston, slide-valve, and common clack-valve. But although the power of steam was known, no attempts appear to have been made to turn it to useful and practical effect, even in station ary engines, until 250 years ago.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.