Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/220

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196
THOMSON ON CARNOT'S

quently, the temperature of the water will be 140°. Now (Regnault, end of Mémoire X.) the latent heat of a pound of saturated steam at 140° is 508, and since, to compensate for each pound of steam removed from the boiler in the working of the engine, a pound of water, at the temperature of the condenser, which may be estimated at 30°, is introduced from the hot-well; it follows that 618 units of heat are introduced to the boiler for each pound of water evaporated. But the work produced, for each pound of water evaporated, was found above to be 156,556 foot-pounds. Hence , or 253 foot-pounds, is the amount of work produced for each unit of heat transmitted through the Fowey Consols engine. Now in Table II. we find 583.0 as the theoretical effect due to a unit descending from 140° to 0°, and 143 as the effect due to a unit descending from 30° to 0°. The difference of these numbers, or 440,[1] is the number of foot-

    is from 2½ to 5 atmospheres; and, therefore, as we find from Regnault's table of the pressure of saturated steam, the temperature of the water in the boiler must, in all of them, lie between 128° and 152°. For the better class of engines, the average temperature of the water in the boiler may be estimated at 140°, the corresponding pressure of steam being 3½ atmospheres.

  1. This number agrees very closely with the number