Excerpt from The Design of Valve Gears for Steam Engines It is assumed that the student is already familiar with the arrangement and operation of the simple steam engine having the plain slide valve. The purpose of this first chapter is mainly to review certain definitions, to bring out certain conceptions, and to give the symbols, abbreviations and letters of reference which will be used through the text, so as to ensure a common basis of under standing before proceeding with the development of the subject. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.