| 释义 |
† ˈscoggan Mech. Obs.
Also 8 scoggen.
[Of obscure origin; as it was a quasi-personal name, it may have been an application of scoggin.
Commonly alleged to be from a dialect verb scog, to idle, loiter; but no such sense of the verb is known to exist. Desaguliers, the sole authority for the ‘Humphrey Potter’ story, does not say that the boy invented ‘Scoggan’ to save himself labour; he merely substituted one automatic contrivance for another less efficient. But the truth of the whole story has been questioned: see the art. Newcomen in Dict. Nat. Biog.]
An automatic contrivance for opening valves in Newcomen's steam engine c 1713. (See quot. 1744.)
1719Plate repr. Newcomen's engine (Dict. Nat. Biog. art. Newcomen), Scoggen and his mate that do more work than the boy [? = buoy]. 1744Desaguliers Exper. Philos. II. 533 They used before to work with a Buoy in the Cylinder.., which Buoy rose when the Steam was strong, and open'd the Injection,..thereby they were capable of only giving six, eight, or ten Strokes in a Minute, 'till a boy, Humphry Potter, who attended the Engine, added (what he call'd Scoggan) a Catch that the beam Q always open'd: and then it would go 15 or 16 Strokes in a Minute. |