Engineering reminiscences contributed to "Power" and "American machinist"

Chapter 2: PREFACE

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About This Book

The author offers first-person technical memoirs recounting education, early mechanical projects, and the design, manufacture, and commercialization of control devices and measuring instruments for steam engines, including centrifugal governors and a steam-engine indicator. It chronicles collaborations and conflicts with contemporary firms, engineering experiments, exhibition displays abroad, and practical refinements to engine beds, condensers, and testing apparatus. Interleaved observations address workshop practice, instrument testing, patent dealings, and the evolution of high-speed stationary and marine engines, while diagrams and case studies illustrate performance, manufacturing challenges, and lessons learned.

PREFACE

A word of explanation seems due to both the reader and myself.

The idea of writing these reminiscences did not originate with me. I was invited to write them by Mr. F. R. Low, the editor of Power. This invitation I declined, saying that I felt averse to writing a story in which I must be the central figure. Mr. Low replied that I should regard it as a duty I owed to the profession. Engineers demanded to know the origin and early development of the high speed system of steam engineering. I was the only person who could meet this demand; no one else possessed the necessary information.

I felt obliged to yield to this view, and can only ask the reader to imagine that I am writing about somebody else.

C. T. P.

Montclair, N. J.,
December, 1907.