Abstract
ON April 21, simultaneous meetings of the Newcomen Society took place in London and New York, when two papers were read. The first of these was by Dr. A. Raistrick, and was entitled “The Steam Engine on Tyne Side, 1715–1778” and the second was by Prof. J. W. Roe on “Interchangeable Manufacture”. Dr. Raistrick's paper was based on the records preserved by the North of England Institute of Mining Engineers, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; these records consisting largely of “View books” compiled by the colliery Viewers', the forerunners of the present-day mining engineers. The reports of the ‘viewers' contain much information as to the flooding in the mines and the cost of the engines and the pumping. By means of the various papers, Dr. Raistrick has been able to trace the erection of no fewer than 104 ‘fire engines' built between 1733 and 1778, before the improved engines of Boulton and Watt came on the scene. A rough figure for the first cost of an engine with a 33 in. cylinder was about £1,200 and the annual cost of working it £400. Though 13 engines were built between 1715 and 1733, all of the Newcomen type, it has been impossible to trace any connexion with them of Newcomen or of the “Proprietors of the Invention for Raising Water by Fire” who had exploited the engine. The paper was accompanied by a valuable map of the coal field showing the sites of the engines. In Prof. Roe's paper it was shown that interchangeable manufacture had begun with firearms early in the nineteenth century and had afterwards spread to clocks, watches, sewing machines, bicycles and motor-cars. Of all the products of modern industry, the motor-car has pushed interchangeable manufacture furthest, and to the benefit of the widest public.
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The Newcomen Society. Nature 139, 748–749 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139748b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139748b0