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Matthias W. Baldwin
Matthias William Baldwin (December 10, 1795 – September 7, 1866) was an American inventor and machinery manufacturer, specializing in the production of steam locomotives. Baldwin's small machine shop, established in 1825, grew to become Baldwin Locomotive Works, one of the largest and most successful locomotive manufacturing firms in the United States. The most famous of the early locomotives was ''Old Ironsides'', built by Matthias Baldwin in 1832. Baldwin was also a strong advocate of abolitionism. Early years Matthias W. Baldwin was born December 10, 1795, in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. He was the youngest of five children born to a prosperous carriage builder named William Baldwin. Following his father's death in 1799, executors of the Baldwin estate proved unequal to the task, however, and his widow and children were left in difficult financial circumstances owing to their poor management. Although he received a very satisfactory common school education, Baldwin's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabethtown, New Jersey
Elizabeth Township, also called Elizabethtown, was a township that existed in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, from 1664 until 1855. The area was initially part of the Elizabethtown Tract, purchased from the Lenape on October 28, 1664.Snyder, John P''The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968'' Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. p. 238. Accessed November 3, 2012. Elizabeth-Town Township was formed on October 31, 1693, while the area was still within Essex County. Elizabeth was incorporated as one of New Jersey's initial 104 townships by the Township Act of 1798 Act of the New Jersey Legislature on February 21, 1798. Portions of the township were taken to form Westfield Township (January 27, 1794), Springfield Township (April 14, 1794), Rahway Township (February 27, 1804) and Clinton Township (April 14, 1834). On March 13, 1855, the City of Elizabeth The City of Elizabeth was a local government area located in the northern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Base Metal
A base metal is a common and inexpensive metal, as opposed to a precious metal such as gold or silver. In numismatics, coins often derived their value from the precious metal content; however, base metals have also been used in coins in the past and today. Specific definitions In contrast to noble metals, base metals may be distinguished by oxidizing or corroding relatively easily and reacting variably with diluted hydrochloric acid (HCl) to form hydrogen. Examples include iron, nickel, lead and zinc. Copper is also considered a base metal because it oxidizes relatively easily, although it does not react with HCl. In mining and economics, the term base metals refers to industrial non-ferrous metals excluding precious metals. These include copper, lead, nickel and zinc. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is more inclusive in its definition of commercial base metals. Its list includes—in addition to copper, lead, nickel, and zinc—the following metals: iron and st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2-2-0
Under Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-2-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, two powered driving wheels on one axle, and no trailing wheels. This configuration, which became very popular during the 1830s, was commonly called the Planet type after the first locomotive, Robert Stephenson's ''Planet'' of 1830. Equivalent classifications Other equivalent classifications are: *UIC classification: 1A (also known as German classification and Italian classification) *French classification: 110 *Turkish classification: 12 *Swiss classification: 1/2 History Great Britain After early experience with the 0-2-2 configuration on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Robert Stephenson decided to build a locomotive with cylinders inside the frames, for which a 2-2-0 was preferable. The first such locomotive was ''Planet'', built in 1830 and the company went on to build a further eighteen examples for the railway. In 1835 five e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reading Company
The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly called the Reading Railroad, and logotyped as Reading Lines, the Reading Company was a railroad holding company for the majority of its existence and was a single railroad during its later years. It operated service as Reading Railway System and was a successor to the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, founded in 1833. Until the decline in anthracite loadings in the Coal Region after World War II, it was one of the most prosperous corporations in the United States. Competition with the modern trucking industry that used the interstate highway system for short-distance transportation of goods, also known as short hauls, compounded the company's problems, forcing it into bankruptcy in 1971. Its railroad operations were merged into Conrail i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous ( Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. Many significant coal deposits are younger than this and originate from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Coal is used primarily as a fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution. With the invention of the steam engine, coal consumption increased. In 2020, coal supplied about a quarter of the world's primary energy and over a third of its electricity. Some iron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horsepower
Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are the mechanical horsepower (or imperial horsepower), which is about 745.7 watts, and the metric horsepower, which is approximately 735.5 watts. The term was adopted in the late 18th century by Scottish engineer James Watt to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses. It was later expanded to include the output power of other types of piston engines, as well as turbines, electric motors and other machinery. The definition of the unit varied among geographical regions. Most countries now use the SI unit watt for measurement of power. With the implementation of the EU Directive 80/181/EEC on 1 January 2010, the use of horsepower in the EU is permitted only as a supplementary unit. History The development of the stea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steam Engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed, by a connecting rod and crank, into rotational force for work. The term "steam engine" is generally applied only to reciprocating engines as just described, not to the steam turbine. Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separated from the combustion products. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle. In general usage, the term ''steam engine'' can refer to either complete steam plants (including boilers etc.), such as railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to the piston or turbine machinery alone, as in the beam engine and stationary steam engine. Although steam-driven devices were known as early as the aeolipile in the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bookbinding
Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of ''signatures'', sheets of paper folded together into sections that are bound, along one edge, with a thick needle and strong thread. Cheaper, but less permanent, methods for binding books include loose-leaf rings, individual screw-posts (binding posts), twin loop spine coils, plastic spiral coils, and plastic spine combs. For protection, the bound stack of signatures is wrapped in a flexible cover or is attached to stiffened boards. Finally, an attractive cover is placed onto the boards, which includes the publisher's information, and artistic decorations. The trade of binding books is in two parts; (i) stationery binding (vellum binding) for books intended for handwritten entries, such as accounting ledgers, business journals, blank-page books, and guest logbooks, and notebooks, manifold books, day books, diaries, and portfolios. (ii) letterpress printing and binding deals with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The earliest known form of printing as applied to paper was woodblock printing, which appeared in China before 220 AD for cloth printing. However, it would not be applied to paper until the seventh century.Shelagh Vainker in Anne Farrer (ed), "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas", 1990, British Museum publications, Later developments in printing technology include the movable type invented by Bi Sheng around 1040 AD and the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The technology of printing played a key role in the development of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses. History Woodblock printing Woodblock p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
