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MARINE REVINHW. 13 The Trouble with Belleville Boilers. The trouble encountered again during the past season with the Belleville water tube boilers in the Northern line passenger steamers North Land and North West, especially the latter boat, has been the subject of a great deal of comment among engineers on the lakes, and rumors have been circulated about new boilers being adopted. Build- ers of the steamers have disclaimed any responsibility for difficulty with the boilers, as they hold that they opposed the adoption of them at the outset. Mr. Miers Coryell, who represented the French owners of patent rights on the boilers, and who, even up to the close of the passenger season this year, has been trying to straighten out the trouble, claims that the unsatisfactory operation of the ships has been due entirely to negligence in the management of the fire rooms. He writes the Review from New York at considerable length on the subject, and in order to understand his explanation of the trouble, it will be necessary to print first a copy of fire room instructions, which he issued last spring in Duluth, before the steamers were brought out for the season. These instructions are as follows: 1. The boilers are filled by opening the blow-off cocks on mud drums; the air cocks on top of steam drums and the steam jet valves. 2. The water in the gauge glasses must show 2 inches only, when lighting fires. The heat soon raises the water in the glass. _ 38. As soon as steam shows, shut the air cocks and the steam jet valves. 4. As soon as the pipe from,the drum, which leads into the feed collector at bottom of elements, hecomes too hot for the hand, blow -- off slightly a few times to avoid the hammering. This equalizes the heat in the boiler. 5. When the pressure reaches 60 or 70 pounds, open the stop- valves slightly to warm up the steam pipes and equalize the pressure in all the boilers in use. ; ; 6. The graduating feed cocks near the fire-room floor are now to be opened and the feed engines started slowly. 7. When the main engines are started the water rises rapidly in the glass and may disappear altogether; if so, make sure that the regulating feed valves on the automatic feeders close properly and work freely. 8. After the fires are lighted charge the furnaces moderately and only one-half at a time; allow a few minutes to pass before charging the other half. Four or five small shovel fulls at a time are enough for each charge, and the intervals between the charges are to be longer or shorter according to the required speed of engines. 9. The proper manner of firing is to charge one-half only of every alternate furnace. Beginning at one end of the group, the fireman passes to the other end, and then returns charging the re- maining half of every alternate furance. This assists in regular steaming, because one half of each furnace is in full heat to consume the gases from the freshly charged coals upon the other half. Coal so charged creates but little smoke, gives out greater heat and never burns above the tubes to destroy the smoke stacks. 10. Keep the fires 3 to 4 inches thick, evenly covering the grates at all times. Make the charges quickly to keep the furnace doors open the least possible time. 11. To stop steaming, open the tube-box doors to the notch; shut the ash-pit doors, but keep the furnace doors closed to preserye the tubes from damage. 12. Be sure to set the graduating feed cock on each boiler, to be just enough open to keep the water at half glass or a little higher. This is important and assists the work of the automatic feeder. 18. The steam stems of automatic feeders must be well greased and kept in condition of easy working. When the water is at half glass the outside lever is level and the regulating valve is closed to prevent water going into the boiler; it should open when the water fallsan inch in the glass. Move the outside lever up and down by the aid of the hook every hour to insure its working. 14. Keep the ash pan full of water to preserve the grates. 15. Clean the soot and ashes off the tubes and scrape the lower halves of the two lower rows of tubes at frequent intervals, say every two hours. 16. Never suddenly open or close any cock or valve on these boilers, as that might cause leakage by creating a blow or jar that iS avoided by more easy handling. 17.. When stopping for a few hours or longer, fill the boilers not in use with water, so as to overflow at the air-cocks. When re- lighting fires draw down the water to show two inches in the glass. This cleanses the steam drum and pipes of grease and mud. Ra In a letter submitting these instructions, Mr. Coryell says: 'Disregard for paragraphs 2, 8, 4, 5, and 6 of these instructions; that is the sudden mixing of high temperature steam with the colder water in the boilers, ruptured the newly made elements before pres- sure reached them. This occurred on the North West, and her lay- up at Cleveland for a better supply of elements was so much time wasted, as the same thing was repeated at the Encampment in the Sault river ata time when she was delayed five or six hours by some sort of an obstruction to navigation. The alleged cause' was bad work on the new elements, 'because there was only half pressure on at the time.' Neglect for paragraphs 8, 9, and 10 is the cause for waste of coal, overheated smoke stacks and heavy smoke discharge. Paragraph 11 was steadily ignored, and as a result the tubes were sub= -- jected to severe strains. The same is true of paragraphs 12, 13 and 14, and paragraph 15 was not applied to the boilers with any regularity. Soot was allowed to become fairly baked on the tubes, and then chisel bars and curses did the cleaning, instead of using steam brushes for a period of five minutes at intervals of every two hours. Para- graph 16 was too much for an ordinary fireman to absorb, when his shovel was so near at hand, and 17 was in direct conflict with every- thing they had ever heard of. As a result, the boilers were often over full of water. But the engineer said it made no difference, as no water went over into the boilers, and their ways (the firemen's ways) were different from instructions. I want to say that at the beginning of the voyages these printed instructions were demonstrated to be useful and needful, and with the extra fire-room force that was allowed were to be enforced. If they had been enforced a limited number of boilers would supply the necessary steam. Little if any smoke need be seen coming out of the stacks and the combustion of gases in the stacks would neyer occur with thin fires as directed and the tubes clear of soot. "Among some of the practices which prevailed, and which the engineers claimed they could not prevent, were the following: Heavy fires, brought on by charging the furnaces with lumps of coal that were limited in size only by the dimensions of furnace doors; ash pans full of dirt and clinker; furnace doors wide open half the time; damper doors kept wide open; boilers too full at times and again al- lowed to run scant of water, thereby damaging them; fire room force cleaning a number of furnaces ata time, and in fact, conducting work of this kind at their leisure, allowing the steam pressure to drop as much as 1U0 pounds; then further delay by fires too thick to allow a passage of air through them, and a consequent discharge of clouds of black smoke instead of kindling fires in the furnaces. Then, too, the discharge pumps for disposal of ashes were run without a mixture of water with the cinder, which was equivalent to rotating them in emery. It would seem that they were purposely rendered useless, im a spirit of destruction and wickedness. Asa result ot this, the boats would reach port with fire rooms 18 inches deep with ashes. The only answer made by engineers to remonstrances against bad management of this kind was: 'They will do it (meaning the firemen) and we can't help ourselves.' I call this incompetency. I would like to give it a more un- complimentary term. No engineer should submit to anything of this kind, and as I have informed myself by personal investigation, there are competent engineers on the lakes, and plenty of firemen, too, who are willing to do work as they are told to do it.,"' Stocks of Grain at Lake Ports. The following table, prepared from reports of the Chicago board of trade, shows the stocks of wheat and corn in store in regular eleva- tors at the principal points of accumulation on the lakes, Sept. 26,1896: Wheat, bushels. Corn, bushels. CU Ca Os riser etree eae 13,549,000 4,855,000 Duluth oy eee eee 4,940,000 11,000 Milwathee: ceo fo ear gee 409,000 3,000 Detroit sock recta, steam 414,000 9,000 Poled Os: sx: pgp ae, verano 656,000 50,000 Buffalo. oo a ee eee 2,324,000 310,000 Total 22,292,000 5,238,000 As compared with a week ago, the above figures show at the sey- eral points named a decrease of 695,000 bushels of wheat, and an increase of 143,000 bushels of corn.