A Study On Early Texts On Knowledge Transfer Of Steam Engine Into China

The steam engine originated in Britain in the late 18th century and was a product of the development of the western industry. It initiated the Industrial Revolution of the whole world. In 1930s, steamboats began to appear on Chinese seas. Accompanied with the steam engine technology transfer was the transfer of the texts about steam engine knowledge. Before the first Chinese monograph systematically describing the steam engine Manual of Steam Engine was published, there had been several texts (including early modern Chinese newspapers and books) that introduced the steam engine in detail. These texts were of some help for the Chinese people to know about and learn the steam engine technology, and provided an important reference and direction for Xu Shou and his fellows to produce the first steam engine and the first steamboat in China without the aid of any systematic technology monographs.So far, there has been a lack in the systematic research on early Chinese documents of the steam engine in the academic circle. The paper intends to search for, file and analyze these texts on the steam engine, in order to comb out a clue of the spread of the knowledge of steam engine in China in the early period, and to examine the characteristics and impacts of these early documents.This paper first gives an outline of the background of the knowledge transfer of the steam engine to China, then it investigates the six early texts on the steam engine that have been found (Eastern Western Monthly Magazine, Xiyang huolunche huolunchuan tushuo from Yanpaotushuo jiyao, Huolunchuan tushuo from Jingjinglingchi, huolunzhouchetushuo from haiguotuzhi, huolunjizhishulve from Chinese Serial, and Relun from Bowuxinbian), making use of film-printed version of the newspapers published recently, and citing the research results in recent years; finally, it makes an careful analysis and vertical comparison on the knowledge of steam engines in these texts, and makes a comparison with the development of steam engines in the West; thus, it combs out a clue of the development of the spread of the knowledge of the steam engine in China in the early period.Besides the traditional text research methods, interpreting and analyzing the mechanical graphs as a particular and outstanding research method is adopted in this paper. By interpreting each of the mechanical graphs, this paper analyses the structural characteristics and types of the steam engines. For the convenience of explanation, tables are also used.This paper formulates conclusions that the knowledge of the steam engine in these six historical texts has the following characteristics: 1) all of them describe double-acting steam engines, more importantly, they all contain engineering graphs; 2) the introductions of the steam engines in these texts are not completely arranged in the order of time; 3) there are differences in the accuracy and the extent of detail of the introductions of the steam engines; 4) there is no uniform terminology that is used to describe the steam engines and their working principles; 5) the difference between the texts written by missionaries and those by the Chinese authors is that they contain introductions of scientific theory and working principles.Furthermore, this paper analyses the positive roles and impacts of these texts on the Chinese people for them to know about, accept, study and produce the steam engines.