Exploding Steamboats, Senate Debates, and Technical Reports by Brockmann R. John;

Author:Brockmann, R. John;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Report of the Committee of the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, on the Explosions of Steam-Boilers Made at the Request of the Treasury Department of the United States, Part II, Containing the Report of the Sub-Committee to Whom Was Referred the Examination of the Strength of Materials Employed in the Construction of Steam Boilers (1837)

Johnson was 42 when he presented Part II, Bache was 30 when he presented the General Report. Johnson was Harvard educated, lectured to mechanics at the Institute, and drew his primary salary teaching at the Institute’s High School [66, pp. 93–113]. Bache entered West Point—the premier engineering institution in the United States at that time—at the age of 15, and, once graduated, became one of its youngest instructors. He moved to Philadelphia where he accepted a professorship at the University of Pennsylvania. The Strength of Materials investigation was Johnson’s first major investigation, while Bache had preceded his Chairmanship of the steam-boiler project with investigations into water-wheels, weights and measures, and meteorology. Bear these differences in mind because the rhetoric and approach of Johnson and Bache clearly put them at odds with each other, caused friction that was determined by an ultimatum being issued by the Institute to Johnson to finish his work, and could only be worked out by making Bache and Johnson each Chair of their particular subcommittees.

Walter Johnson (see Figure 23) first made his written appearance in the steamboat reports in the longest report in Report 478, an account of 42 pages of some 173 different experiments with most of the results presented in 16 tables, some of which extend over two and three pages. Primarily, Johnson was doing “basic” research in attempting to develop a law of “action between a heated surface and water at different temperatures” [57, p. 125], but he introduced this only generally in the opening to his section of Report 478 where he stated rather generally that he wanted to find out the relationships between

1. Quantity of steam produced;

2. Weight of material;

3. Surface exposed;

4. Time of action; and

5. Period of greatest effect.

Johnson nicely applied his experimental results initiated in a very general way to six specific points:

1. The temperature of most rapid vaporization;

2. The name of the phenomena exhibited at that point and immediately above and below it;

3. Effects of lubricating the surface;

4. Influence of mechanical pressure to bring liquid in contact with hot metal;

5. Action of hot metals on other liquids; and

6. Nature of repulsion and degree to which heat is transferred from metal to liquid.

Yet Johnson’s conclusions appeared to have little application to legislation and practice, and thus his section was unique in a report which primarily conveyed very practical observation and opinion. Additionally, he weakened the ability of readers to connect his basic research to steamboat legislation by concluding with a long description of his experimental apparatus.

This example of Johnson’s rhetorical approach to report writing in Report 478 is quite similar to his approach to Part II

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