[The Steam Engine, vol. 2] The Principles and Practice and Explanation of the Machinery Used in Steam Navigation; Examples of British and American Steam Vessels; and Papers on the Properties of Steam and on the Steam Engine in its General Application

London: John Weale, 1851. Quarto (31.5cm) in two vols. In full black contemporary morocco, tooled in gold, with titles on spines, all edges sprinkled mottled red and black; yellow coated endpapers; vol I: vi, [1]-340, [ii], [1]-42, [1]-52, [1]-20, [1]-8pp; vol. II [ii], [viii]-[x], plates; 94 plates, including 9 plates intended for volume 3 (not present). With ownership stamps of Ernst Dreyer, Altona, on flyleaves and title pages. A bright and handsome set, gently rubbed at edges; hinge of vol. 2 cracked through but holding; with occasional spots of foxing but largely clean: Very Good or better.

A beautiful copy of an important manual on marine steam engines from the collection of a German shipbuilder. These two volumes form the second section of the 1850-3 edition of Tredgold's Steam Engine (parts one and three discussed locomotive and stationary engines). This volume includes illustrations or diagrams of such notable ships as HMS Megaera, one of the first iron ships ordered by the British Royal Navy; HMS Terrible; USS Susquehanna, which blockaded Charleston during the Civil War; the East India Company's first steam warship, Berenice; the New World; and the Buckeye State, a steamer on the Pittsburgh & Cincinnati Packet Line that participated in a race organized by P. T. Barnum to draw publicity for Jenny Lind.

Ernst Dreyer (1816-1899) ran shipyards in Hamburg and Altona, his hometown, from the 1840s to the 1870s. He oversaw the construction of approximately 120 ships before his retirement. The Dreyer shipyard estate helped to establish the shipbuilding collection at the Altonaer Museum. Dreyer's possession of this book demonstrates the international influence of Tredgold's widely read treatise, a "notable contribution to steam engine design and theory" (James K. Finch, Engineering Classics, 110). LOWNDES 2709.