2-361-728 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Newcomen's steam engine for draining mines, 1956. Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729) designed his atmospheric or 'steam' engine in 1712. Water was heated in the boiler and the resulting steam was let into the cylinder, pushing up the piston. The steam was then condensed, bringing down the piston. The piston rocked the beam which worked the pump. It was safer and more effective than the earlier Savery engine and was widely used to drain water out of mines. A print from Things, a volume about the origin and early history of many things, common and less common, essential and inessential, by Readers Union, the Grosvenor Press, London, 1956.