ABSTRACT
Anyone who has visited the engine room of a steam ship, steam train engine, or has witnessed an old steam engine at work will have seen and appreciated the beautiful brass and glass chambers sitting full of oil directly atop each major bearing point. These pioneering single point automatic lubricating devices were elegantly simple; the majority operated by incrementally opening a tapered valve to a determined point to allow oil to flow by gravity into the bearing cavity, or onto an intermediate transfer wick, or brush, in contact with the bearing surface.
