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MARINE REVIEW. 9 Steel Steamship Harvey H. Brown. REPORT OF EXPERIMENTAL, TRIP--MODERN COARSE FREIGHT STEAMER BUILT BY DETROIT DRY DOCK COMPANY AND OWNED BY NORTHWESTERN TRANSPORTATION COMPANY, DE- TROIT, MICH.--AUGUST, 1894. Test and report by Geo. C. Shepard, Cleveland, O. {Continued from Vol. X. No. 9] An interesting feature in the machinery of this ship is found in the system of hot draft in use thereon, and the following table is a resume of the data of this feature for each test, and also for a special test with the fan shut off, and with the fan running at different rates of speed: mre 3B 4 Revolu- TEMPERATURES. Arr PRESSURE. gS Retarders. | tions of zs fan. |/Furnace.| Uptake. | Fan. | Furnace.| Uptake. 1 Out 431 273 597 2.9 A XK 2 Out 420 223 622° 2.77 Al .2125 3 In 418 182.5 470 2.75 52 ie 4 In 460 189 520 3.2 oh Ye 5 In 431 187 487 2.88 D5 ay 6 In 415 186 471 Deh 02 is uh Out 0 0 425 0 0 Ye 7 Out 467 237 570 3.4 10 zoe 7 Out 427 238 560 2.8 00 te a Out 382 238 045 2.2 45 _s During the fifteen minutes that the fan was stopped, and the attempt was made to run with natural draft, with the ash pit doors open, the steam pressure dropped from 155 to 120 pounds, and in twenty minutes from the time the fan was started again, the gage was back to 155 pounds. The air supplying the fan was drawn through the engine room and mostly through the skylight immediately above the cylinders, and to this may possibly be attributed the fact that it was impossible to get indicator cards from the H. P. cylinder without the interference of water in the in- dicator. A noticeable feature was the efficiency of the condenser and air pump, and by which, when running at half speed, a vacuum of 28 inches could be obtained, and 26 inches at full speed, and a good vacuum could be main- tained after the engines were stopped, rendering them easy of manipula- tion in port. Before leaving the lower port for this trip, 1632 net tons of freshly mined "Essen" lump coal, from near Pittsburgh, Pa., was put aboard for fuel, and the total consumption for the round trip was not over 168 tons. The amount of ashes in the coal, deduced from several tests, was 11 per cent of the coal. The water supply of the feed-water heater was taken from the sea cock, and its temperature raised about 100°; but were the piping so ar- ranged that the supply could have been taken from the hot well, the tem- perature of which was only 6 or 7° below that of the feed-water, the tem- perature of the feed-water could have been made 30° higher than it was. It was desirable to make a test with the main engines only on the main boilers, the auxilliaries taking their supply from the donkey boiler. This failed for lack of sufficient steam from the donkey boiler, and it was also rendered impossible, by the manner of piping, to take steam for any one auxilliary from this source, without shutting all the others from the main boilers. At the time of the only opportunity for testing the auxil- liaries separate from the main engines, the fan was undergoing repairs and the fires in the furnace banked, but it is seriously questioned whether running sucha light load on sucha large boiler would not have made the apparent cost of the power excessive under these circumstances. On account of the short duration of test No. 4, the results concerning the consumption of coal can not be considered strictly reliable. The test was concluded earlier than we anticipated at the outset, at the request of the officers of the ship, since the extra power and speed caused an object- ionable vibration of the ship; similar vibrations of the same period, seventy-eight per minute, were also noticed in passing through water about six fathoms deep. In more shallow water or in deeper water this was not the case. The method of making the coal tests was to start on weighed coal after the fires had been cleaned, noting the time of putting the first shovel- ful of the weighed coal on the fires, for the beginning of the test, con- tinuing the firing of weighed coal as long as desirable, and then noting the time of putting on the first shovelful of the unweighed coal, for the end of the test. Fires were cleaned every six hours and the tests gener- ally ran through one cleaning. The assistance in making observations and weighing coal, furnished by three men engaged for that purpose, was most satisfactory, and the aid and opportunities furnished by the officers and engineers were all that could be desired. The bill of lading called for 3,046 gross tons of cargo, but 1 per cent. had been deducted from the actual weight for moisture, making the actual weight 3,078.8 gross tons or 3,448 net tons. Also, had the ship not been sheathed with wood, the weight of the wood, 150 net tons, might be added to the cargo without increasing the displacement of the ship, and making the cost per ton cargo per mile, 4 per cent. less. Four sets of indicator cards, Nos. 14, 17, 19 and 26, taken during tests Nos. 3, 4,5 and 6 respectively, have been expanded, all to the same scale of volume and pressure, and coincident with the expansion curve of the H. P. diagram, an isothermal curve has been drawn. 'To the mean effect- ive pressure of all the cards has been applied the correction for the springs, and gage readings are also corrected. The main engine was in excellent condition as regards the absence of leakage of any kind, and was very quiet in operation, The main boilers were clean internally and showed no leakage. The mean result of the data taken from the calorimeter during each test made, in each case: 4.8 per cent. moisture in the steam. I have not, in this brief report, attempted to develop all the facts that the data obtained present, but only the important ones. Among the in- teresting features to be solved are those relating to the uniformity of crank effort and the operative cost of the auxiliaries. I have drawn no conclusions as to the efficiency of the different parts taken separately or as a whole, and have left the suggestions for improvement, such as might be derived from close analysis of the results, to yourselves. In General. Russian courts have reversed the assumption of the American tribu- nals that when a husband and wife are drowned in the same disaster, the wife dies first. The Russian doctors have testified unanimously that the man would be the first to die, because a woman is more agile and keeps herself longer above water. Canada's new revenue cutter Aberdeen, intendend for protection of coast fisheries, and which has been under construction for some time past at the ship yard of Messrs. Fleming and Ferguson, Paisley, Scotland, will soon be turned over tothe dominion government. She has quadruple engines and water tube boilers and developed on trial a speed of a little more than 13 knots. Another fool-hardy sailor who undertook to cross the Atlantic alone in a small boat has probably lost his life. A steamer arriving in New York, a few days ago, reports having passed a wreck that answers the descrip- tion of the little schooner-rigged boat Nina, in which Capt. A. Freitsch, the Norwegian adventurer from Milwaukee, left New York several weeks ago after a coasting trip from port to port down the lakes. The British government is testing a new plan for signalling at sea. It consists merely of an ordinary gong fastened to the bow of the ship below the water line. This acts asa transmitter, and the receivers are gongs of exactly similar tone and rate of vibration, one on each side of the ship below the water line. The receiving gony will take up and repro- duce the sound of the sending gong froma long distance. Signals already have been clearly transmitted ten miles. On six consecutive runs over the measured mile, with and against the tide, the torpedo boat destroyer Decoy, one of the latest of the big fleet of this type of war vessel being built for the British government, attained a. mean speed of 27.641 knots. During the three consecutive hours of full speed steaming the mean speed attained was 27.77 knots, and the indicated horse power developed by the engines 3,900. The Decoy is a sistership of the Daring, the fastest of these boats, and was built by John J. Thorny- croft & Co. of Chiswick, England. About 3,600 miles were covered in the trip of the new torpedo boat Ericsson from Dubuque, Iowa, where she was constructed, to Long Island sound, the place of trial. The route was down the Mississippi river to the Gulf of Mexico, touching at Pensacola; thence to Key West, Fla., and up the coast by the open sea to Charleston, S. C., from which port she went to New York and continued on her way to New London, near which place she will have her speed trial--it is expected this week. The trial will take place over a 24-knot course, and the boat will be run two consecutive hours. For every knot over 24 knots she makes on her speed trial she will earn $20,000 for her builders. Stocks of Grain at Lake Ports. The following table, prepared from reports of the Chicago board of 'trade, shows the stock of wheat and corn in store at the principal points of accumulation on the lakes on Sept. 1, 1894: Wheat, bu. Corn, bu. Chicago........ ee ee 25,385,000 1,401,000 Dan ee ee eee BTTROW. 0, Cen ee IVAN K@E ot nie ccc ts vice onstrates - 718,000 Soe Btrolh 2 oP ed nate 1,472,000 5,000 * Moled@ican tabi as tse saat 3,082,000 15,000 Biutiald an oe ee oes 1,378,000 190,000 BOGE. ae oe Ee 35,149,000 1,521,000 At the points named there is a net increase for the week of 1,725,000 bushels of wheat, and 91,000 bushels of corn.