to 1/2 in. It will be noticed that as this distance
increases we have augmented pressures, and these are
not due, as might be supposed, to increase of head,
which is practically nothing, but they are due to the
recoil of a portion of the stream, which occurs increasingly
as it becomes more and more broken up. These
alterations in pressure can only be eliminated when
care is taken to measure that only due to impact, without
at the same time adding the effect of an imperfect
reaction. Any stream that can run off at all
points from a smooth surface gives the minimum of
pressure thereon, for then the least resistance is
offered to the destruction of the vertical element
of its velocity, but this freedom becomes lost when
a stream is diverted into a confined channel.
As pressure is an indication and measure of lost velocity,
we may then reasonably look for greater pressure on
the scale when a stream is confined after impact than
when it discharges freely in every direction.
Experimentally this is shown to be the case, for when
the same oblong jet, discharged under the same conditions,
impinged vertically upon a smooth plate, and gave a
pressure of 71 units, gave 87 units when discharged
into a confined right-angled channel. This result
emphasizes the necessity for confining streams of
water whenever it is desired to receive the greatest
pressure by arresting their velocity. Such streams
will always endeavor to escape in the directions of
least resistance, and, therefore, in a turbine means
should be provided to prevent any lateral deviation
of the streams while passing through their buckets.
So with screw propellers the great mass of surrounding
water may be regarded as acting like a channel with
elastic sides, which permits the area enlarging as
the velocity of a current passing diminishes.
The experiments thus far described have been made with
jets of an oblong shape, and they give results differing
in some degree from those obtained with circular jets.
Yet as the general conclusions from both are found
the same, it will avoid unnecessary prolixity by using
the data from experiments made with a circular jet
of 0.05 square inch area, discharging a stream at
the rate of 40 ft. per second. This amounts to
52 lb. of water per minute with an available head
of 25 ft., or 1,300 foot-pounds per minute. The
tubes which received and directed the course of this
jet were generally of lead, having a perfectly smooth
internal surface, for it was found that with a rougher
surface the flow of water is retarded, and changes
occur in the data obtained. Any stream having
its course changed presses against the body causing
such change, this pressure increasing in proportion
to the angle through which the change is made, and
also according to the radius of a curve around which
it flows. This fact has long been known to hydraulic
engineers, and formulae exist by which such pressures
can be determined; nevertheless, it will be useful
to study these relations from a somewhat different