A Description and a Draught of a New-Invented Machine

£450 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

As explained in a MS note on the first blank this is one of a Limited Edition of thirty-nine copies, this being one of twelve Small 4to. on “old paper”, the rest 12mo. “size of the original edition”. “Hulls is remembered principally for having patented the application of the atmospheric steam engine to marine propulsion. A communication from M. de Quet on mechanical propulsion of ships, published in 1734 in Volume VI of the Abridgement of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society , may have spurred Hulls to attempt to apply the Newcomen engine for this purpose. The means to do so eluded him until a neighbour at nearby Batsford Park, Mr. Freeman, contributed about £160 to finance a patent application, granted to Hulls on 21 December 1736. As was required by the grant, Hulls published within three months [the present work]. He proposed a stern-wheeled paddle towboat carrying a boiler coupled to a vertical steam cylinder. Atmospheric pressure depressed a piston towards the bottom of the cylinder when the steam beneath it was suddenly condensed. Through a linkage of ropes over pulleys, this movement turned an adjacent layshaft and simultaneously raised a counterweight, the subsequent descent of which reversed the rotation of the layshaft as fresh steam was admitted beneath the piston. Friction ratchets on the layshaft converted this alternating motion to continuous rotation of the adjacent paddle-shaft mounted on a framework over the stern. When the water was sufficiently s

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