Talk:Andrew Skene

Andrew Skene, R.N., Paddle wheel inventor
PADDLE WHEELS.— On the 13th March (1827, 1828?) a steam boat performed successfully her first voyage from Rotherhithe to Woolwich with improved paddle wheels constructed on a new principle of obviating resistance from fluids. By the paddle wheels hitherto used, no increase of velocity is gained by the increase of power of the steam engine, these having a maximum of velocity beyond which a vessel cannot be propelled by them whatever or however high the power may be as for instance a proportioned vessel and load with a twenty horse steam engine would be propelled by them with as great a velocity as with a thousand horse power steam engine. But by the improved paddle wheels any velocity desired is gained according to the power of the steam engine. The new paddle wheels will also avoid the loss of power and the disturbance of the water which all the others in use occasion and the unpleasant shaking or vibration caused in vessels by the working of any other paddle wheels will likewise be entirely obviated by these The ingenious inventor Lieut. Andrew Skene of the R. Navy has lately taken out a patent for his paddle wheels and we learn that the boat fitted with them lies for the inspection of scientific men at Rotherhithe and will occasionally ply between the bridges on the Thames. We understand that Lieut Skene is also the inventor of a new thermometer, the result of which is a degree of certainty impossible to be obtained by the thermometers of either Reumur, Fahrenheit, or Celsus. The new thermometer depends on two certain phenomena, namely the different temperatures at which water and mercury congeal whereas the scales of the others are graduated on one certain and one uncertain phenomenon, viz. the congelation and the vaporization of water, the latter of which that is the vaporization presents different results under different pressures of the atmosphere as was felt by Capt Parry at Melville Island in the want of agreement amongst the thermometers which he employed on the occasion a fact which is thus and can in no other manner be accounted for. 78.147.64.51 (talk) 14:33, 16 January 2018 (UTC)