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JACOB PERKINS (1766-1849)

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 173 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JACOB See also:PERKINS (1766-1849)  , See also:American inventor and physicist, was See also:born at See also:Newburyport, See also:Massachusetts, in 1766, and was apprenticed to a See also:goldsmith . He soon made himself known by a variety of useful See also:mechanical inventions, and in 1818 came over to See also:England with a See also:plan for See also:engraving See also:bank-notes on See also:steel, which ultimately proved a See also:signal success, and was carried out by See also:Perkins in See also:partnership with the See also:English engraver See also:Heath . His See also:chief contribution to physics See also:lay in the experiments by which he proved the compressibility of See also:water and measured it by a piezometer of his own invention (see Phil . Trans.,1820, 1826) . He retired in 1834, and died in See also:London on the 3oth of See also:July 1849 . His second son, ANGIER See also:MARCH PERKINS (1799?-1881), also born at Newburyport, went to England in 1827, and was the author of a See also:system of warming buildings by means of high-pressure See also:steam . His See also:grandson, See also:LOFTUS PERKINS (1834-1891), most of whose See also:life was spent in England, experimented with the application to steam engines of steam at very high pressures, constructing in 188o a yacht, }t~he " See also:Anthracite," whose engines worked with a pressure of 500 rb to the sq. in .

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