JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
There is an undeniable element of techno-elegance in design and engineering the Big Heavies the last third of so of the 19th century. Sometimes the elements of holy technology comes int he form of a beautiful, nearly-overly designed chromatic steam whistle, constructed almost as a gesture to the inexorable march of metal intellect, an enriched piece of engineering as a topping to an even higher achievement. Sometimes it is in the design of the superstructure for some major piece of machinery, as in the Nasmyth hammer, a device as big as a house and heavier, decorated around its perimeter with lovely flourishes. And sometimes we are reminded of the search and discovery of the creative spirit in the reproduction of a schematic, presented in a slightly different way, to remind us of the fantastic belief in the developing technology of the Second Industrial Revolution.
This is what I'm talking about, an engraving found in the transaction of the Society of Engineers (London) for 1872 (and published in 1874), right there on page 32. It seems to me that most of the time when I see these images of a locomotive that the image is presented laterally, horizontally--this image though is vertical, and looks like a cathedral, as it well might have been.
Here is the side elevation of this locomotive:
Comments