Page:International Library of Technology, Volume 93.djvu/12

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
PREFACE
v

indexes are so full and complete, that it can at once be made available to the reader. The numerous examples and explanatory remarks, together with the absence of long demonstrations and abstruse mathematical calculations, are of great assistance in helping one select the proper formula, method, or process and in teaching him how and when it should be used.

This volume may be divided into the following sections: Heat, combustion and fuels, principles of the gas engine, automobile engines, marine engines, stationary gas engines, gas-engine details, and gas-engine lubrication and bearings. In the first section, the nature, properties, and effects of heat on gases and the relation between heat and work are considered; in the second section, the various gas-engine fuels are described, and their composition and heat value given; the third subject covers the principles involved in the performance of work by the gas engine. In the three succeeding sections, the construction of the principal types of automobile, marine, and stationary engines in general use is clearly explained. In the next section are described many of the various forms of details not previously mentioned; while in the last section, the subjects of lubrication and the construction and care of bearings are especially considered. The information here given will be found of the utmost practical value to the operator of any type of internal-combustion engine.

The method of numbering the pages, cuts, articles, etc. is such that each subject or part, when the subject is divided into two or more parts, is complete in itself; hence, in order to make the index intelligible, it was necessary to give each subject or part a number. This number is placed at the top of each page, on the headline, opposite the page number; and to distinguish it from the page number, it is preceded by the printer’s section mark (§). Consequently, a reference such as §16, page 26, will be readily found by looking along the inside edges of the headlines until §16 is found, and then through §16 until page 26 is found.