This engine continued in use for about thirty-five years.
In 1803 Murdock experimented on the power of high-pressure steam
in propelling shot, and contrived a steam-engine with which he
made many trials at Soho, thereby anticipating the apparatus
contrived by Mr. Perkins many years later.
In 1810 Murdock took out a patent for boring steam-pipes for
water, and cutting columns out of solid blocks of stone, by means
of a cylindrical crown saw. The first machine was used at Soho,
and afterwards at Mr. Rennie's Works in London, and proved quite
successful. Among his other inventions were a lift worked by
compressed air, which raised and lowered the castings from the
boring-mill to the level of the foundry and the canal bank. He
used the same kind of power to ring the bells in his house at
Sycamore Hill, and the contrivance was afterwards adopted by Sir
Walter Scott in his house at Abbotsford.
Murdock was also the inventor of the well-known cast-iron cement,
so extensively used in engine and machine work. The manner in
which he was led to this invention affords a striking
illustration of his quickness of observation. Finding that some
iron-borings and sal-ammoniac had got accidently mixed together
in his tool-chest, and rusted his saw-blade nearly through, he
took note of the circumstance, mixed the articles in various
proportions, and at length arrived at the famous cement, which
eventually became an article of extensive manufacture at the Soho
Works.
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