John B. Rathbun’s Practical Hand Book of Gas, Oil and Steam Engines is shop-floor thermodynamics: how heat becomes power, how each engine type actually runs, and how to size, operate and troubleshoot them — ‘simple, thorough and practical’, as its era liked its engineering.
It is the power-plant knowledge that ran farms, factories and launches a century ago. Download the free EPUB and learn engines from the era that depended on them.