PERKINS, Jacob, inventor, born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, 9 July, 1766; died in London. England, 80 July, 1849. In childhood he was apprenticed to a goldsmith, and at the age of fifteen he carried on the business of a goldsmith in his native town, and invented a method of plating shoe-buckles. When he was about twenty-one years of age he was employed by the state of Massachusetts to make dies for copper coinage, and three years afterward he invented a machine for cutting and heading nails at one operation. Through the mismanagement of his partners he was at this time involved in great pecuniary distress.

He made great improvements in bank-note engraving by substituting steel for copper plates. After residing for some time in Boston and in New York, he removed to Philadelphia in 1814, and became associated with a firm of bank-note engravers. In 1818 he went to England, accompanied by Mr. Fairman and several workmen, and obtained a contract for supplying the Bank of Ireland with plates. He carried on his business extensively for many years in London, and was employed in perfecting engines and machines to be worked by steam-power. He originated a process for transferring engravings from one steel plate to another.

He also invented an instrument called the bathometer, to measure the depth of water, and the pleometer, to mark with precision the speed at which a vessel moves through the water. He constructed a gun in which steam, generated at an enormous pressure, was used for propulsion instead of gunpowder, and with it passed balls through eleven planks of the hardest deal, each an inch thick, placed some distance apart. With a, pressure of only 65 atmospheres he penetrated an iron plate a quarter of an inch thick. He also screwed to a gun-barrel a tube filled with balls, which, falling into the barrel, were discharged at the rate of nearly 1,000 a minute.

Start your search on Jacob Perkins.

Unauthorized Site: This site and its contents are not affiliated, connected, associated with or authorized by the individual, family, friends, or trademarked entities utilizing any part or the subject's entire name. Any official or affiliated sites that are related to this subject will be hyper linked below upon submission and Evisum, Inc. review.

Copyright© 2000 by Evisum Inc.^TM. All rights reserved.
Evisum Inc.^TM Privacy Policy