his canal navigation experiments for four of five more years and obtaining a patent on February 2, 1844, for an improvement in the mode of propelling canal boats, he turned his attention again to pumping machinery and perfected a series of inventions between 1845 and 1855 which made him the first proposer and constructor of the direct steam pump (patent No. 13, 370). In 1859, after establishing a pump-manufacturing plant in New York, he perfected his duplex steam feed pump (patent No. 24,838) and in the following year built the first water-works engine of this kind. In the duplex system one engine actuated the steam valves of the other, and a pause of the pistons at the end of the stroke permitted the water-valves to seat themselves quietly and preserve a uniform water pressure. A distinct improvement on the Cornish engines used at the time, Worthington's pump embodied one of the most ingenious advances in engineering in the nineteenth century and its principle was widely applied. Because of their reliability and low operating cost, these pumps were greatly used thereafter in America for waterworks and for pumping oil through long pipe lines in the oil fields; they are still used (1936) for boiler feeding, tank and ballast pumping, and for hydraulic-press work. Worthington also originated a pumping engine that used no flywheel to carry the piston past the dead point at the end of the stroke. He devised, too, a number of instruments of precision, as well as machine tools which in themselves entitled him to a high place in his profession. In addition to directing his pump-manufacturing plant, which employed over two hundred men, he was president of the Nason Manufacturing Company in New York. He was a founder of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, acting as the Society's first vice-president, and was a member of other technical societies. References Bibliography Dictionary of American Biography, Volume XX, Werden - Zuner, Page 539 100 Years of Worthington, (c) 1940 by the Worthington Pump & Machinery Corp. External links Start up, Run and Shutdown of the 600 HP Snow Engine at Coolspring - June 2013 1817 births 1880 deaths American mechanical engineers People from Old Saybrook, Connecticut Businesspeople from New York City 19th-century American businesspeople Engineers from New York City