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12 MARINE REVIEW. [December 14, ENGINEERING IN THE UNITED STATES NAVY. BY GEORGE W. MELVILLE, ? In our society, the president has the widest latitude in the choice of a subject for his annual address, and, indeed, there is scarcely an estab- lished custom as to its nature; but it always seems logical for him to choose a theme connected with the work to which his life has been de- voted, and in which he is an expert. This would make my subject "Naval _ Engineering," and there are several reasons why it is particularly appro- priate at this time. Although one other naval engineer has been pres- ident of the society, his address had a different theme, and consequently the subject, at least as a presidential address, will be new. Every Amer- ican is naturally proud of the fact that the first successful steam vessel was the work of an American engineer; but it is not so generally known that the first steam war vessel of any navy was designed by the same Amer- ican (Robert Fulton) and was built in this very city in 1814. Had the -war with England lasted a little longer there can be no doubt that the Demologos would have 'created a revolution in naval architecture; but "+ the close of the war before she was completed rendered her active service 'unnecessary; 'and she'was fiially destroyed 'by an. explosion of her niaga- 'zime in'1829, The advent ofthe Deniologes didnot 'create an engineer : Corps; nor bring any engineers into the navy, so that the real beginning of naval erigineering was when the steamer Fulton was built, andein 1836 "> Mr. Charlés'H. Haswell, the Nestor of engineering in this. cotintry, be- came the first chief engineer in our navy. "The: Fulton 'was a small vessel of only 1,200 tons displacement, or about what would now be considered asmall gunboat; but she was the beginning of what has brought about 'as great a change in navies as the invention of gunpowder did in warfare. It is really wonderful to think that the man who was the first chief en- gineer of this first steam war vessel of our navy is still alive, in full possession of his faculties, and in the active practice of his profession today. One of his contemporaries some years since said that the engi- - neer corps might consider itself very fortunate in having had for its founder such a man as Mr. Haswell, an educated gentleman and a thor- 'oughly competent engineer. From the very first his every effort was de- voted to increasing the efficiency both of the machinery and of the officers who were to care for it, and it is not going too far to say that he has left a lasting impression by his labors, the organization and scheme of ~ examinations having long remained as he made them. 'It is a little hard for the young engineers of today, whose training, ' while it may seem to them beset with difficulties in the way of intricate formulz and abstruse calculations, is nevertheless complete, and makes them masters of an immense amount of accumulated information, to realize the difficulties under which the older engineers, even of the writer's generation, and much more so of Mr. Haswell's, labored. Mr. Haswell himself was-one of the first to provide a reliable book of reference for the young engineer, where the results of experience were systematically arranged; but for Mr. Haswell himself there was nothing of this sort, and he had to create the precedents. When we look at the matter in this light, we are filled with admiration for Mr. Haswell and the men of his generation at their excellent solution of the problems which con- fronted them. Without going into a detailed sketch of the work done by Mr. Haswell, it may not be amiss to recall to your minds a famous old _ship, the machinery for which was designed by 'Mr. Haswell, who, in- deed, made all the drawings for it himself. This vessel was the Pow- -hatan, which for many years was one of the finest of our old ships and rendered most efficient service. Probably every member of this society living near our eastern coast has seen this fine old ship. She was built _in 1847, and remained in active service for forty years, a monument to those who had designed and built her. In those early days the average deck officer of the navy did not look upon the steam engine as a desir- able addition to a ship, but simply as a necessary adjunct that had to be endured. There were, of course, notable exceptions, and Captain Mat- thew C. Perry, the first commander of the Fulton, was a liberal minded man to whom engineers owe a great deal. Yet, even he hardly rose to the point of considering that engineers were.a vital part of the ship's complement, and as such should be made to feel that they were as much officers as any others, and their men were just as truly sailors. Neither Mr. Haswell, nor any of his assistants, were regarded, when first ap- _ pointed, as permanently in the nayy, and the assistant engineers were _ removable Summarily by the commandant of the station. Some years "ago Pass { t ey. ed Assistant Engineer Bennett, writing for one of the reviews, e+ in speaking of this circumstance, expressed surprise that the deck officers oui' "should not have realized the mighty force which steam brought to. them _., and have embraced every opportunity to take advantage of it. It seemed, on the contrary, to belong to a different world from. that in which, they _ had been trained, and inste ad of endeavoring to become expert engineers, _ they,r garded the machinery and 'all' connected with it as a disagreeable _ necessity and left its development 'to the separate corps, of, engineers, TRIBUTE TO BENJAMIN F. ISHERWOOD, / Among the older engineers were many men well known to all me- chanical engineers in the country, who in a quiet way did very valuable work. Time will not permit, however, of mentioning them individually in such a survey as we are making. Some years before our civil war another great marine engineer began to attract attention--Benjamin F. Isherwood. He entered the navy in 1844, so that he is really a contem- porary of Mr. Haswell. It is perhaps not exaggerating to say that he is the most brilliant marine engineer whom this country has seen, and his work has made his name known among marine engineers in all parts of the world. His fame will probably rest mainly on his record as an experimentalist, in which field there are few who have ever exceeded him, either in the amount or the excellence of the work done. The most not- able of his experiments was the series which gave the complete demon. Stration of the relation between cylinder condensation and the rate of * Address of Rear Admiral Melville as f ; : president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, read at the New York meeting of the society, Dee. 5, 1809, expansion. Until these experiments, most engineers believed that the law of Mariotte, that the product of pressure and volume is constant, was strictly applicable to steam as well as to permanent gases, and that a very large ratio of expansion with low pressures of steam would be profitable. Isherwood's experiments on the Michigan demonstrated con- clusively that under the conditions there obtaining, of a slow-moving en- gine and a low steam pressure, a ratio of expansion was soon reached: beyond which any increase would cause an absolute diminution of econ- omy, instead of an increase thereof, as would have been predicted from a strict adherence to 'Mariotte's law. Every young engineer knows this thoroughly today, and is cautioned about it in his text-books; but so far from its being readily accepted when Isherwood's experiments had dem- onstrated the true facts, many will remember that he was assailed in the public prints as being guilty either of hopeless ignorance or wilful waste of the government money. Mr. Isherwood was not only a splendid ex- perimentalist, but a designer of the first rank, and an executive engineer who has not been surpassed. He was engineer-in-chief of the navy dur- ing the: whole of the War of the Rebellion, and during that time was responsible for a large number of designs. » Here again he was criticised from the academic point of viéw, and yet the very faults for which he is criticised only appear, on proper analysis, the more praiseworthy as ex- cellent details of sound designing. He was accused of building engines which were inordinately heavy, which accusation he has never denied. To the mere office engineer this was true, but he realized what they did _ not, that these engines had to go into the hands of men who were largely untrained and unfamiliar with machinery. The ordinary formule for de- sign assume reasonably decent handling, and do not provide for the stresses due to ignorance and carelessness. Isherwood knew that the point of first importance was to build engines which would not break down, and, in fact, could not be injured by ignorant and careless handling. The result of this policy was engines very much heavier than would ordi- narily be built; but they did not break down, and they carried our ships to victory. To my mind this was the highest proof of his talent as a sound designer. :He had' the courage to invite criticism from the book engineer in order that' hé might insure success for the country. You all know the story of the Alabama, and how she and her sister commerce de- stroyers drove our merchant marine off the ocean. The navy department felt it important to get a class of vessels that would be faster than the Alabama, or any other vessel likely to be built, so that they could sweep the seas of all these commerce destroyers. A number of designers were concerned in projecting both hulls and engines to accomplish this result, but although the great Ericsson was one of his rivals, Isherwood's ships were the only ones which really accomplished what was intended. The Wampanoag was the first of Isherwood's ships to be tried, and she was a magnificent success in every way--really in many ways the greatest suc- cess as a steam war vessel that the world has ever known, because she dis- tanced everything that had preceded her so much more than has ever been accomplished before or since. The Wampanoag was given a trial lasting 37% consecutive hours between Sandy Hook and Cape Hatteras, and for the whole run averaged nearly 17 knots per hour. During several 6-hour periods her speed was over 17 knots, and for several single hours she made over 17%. It should be noted also that this was not a smooth weather run, as the trial was ended prematurely owing to a gale, and for seme time previous the weather was heavy. The speed made by the Wampanoag was at least 4 knots more than that of any other ship--either mercantile or naval--of her period, and, in fact, it remained the record speed for many years. Even the first fast cruisers of modern navies, like ' the Esmeralda and Naniwa, while nominally credited with a higher speed, only made it over the measured mile, or for a short spurt, while the Wampanoag's record was, as stated, for more than 37 hours. Another of the Isherwood ships, the Ammonoosuc, was given only a short trial, but showed qualities equal to those of the Wampanoag. The best 'of the rival ships made a speed of about 15 knots for less than an hour, and the other vessels fell below the Wampanoag even more than this. It is not perhaps generally known that in calling the Wampanoag an "Isherwood" ship the designation is more inclusive than might be supposed at first glance, for Mr. Isherwood was responsible for those features of the hull design which affect speed. The design of the hull as a whole was worked out by Naval Constructor Delano, an accomplished naval architect, but he simply took the form of hull as. designed by Mr. Isherwood and worked out the structural. details necessary to carry out his ideas: It would be supposed: that Isherwood's brilliant achievements would. have brought him only gratitude and thanks; but, on the contrary, his vigorous 'methods 'had 'aroused 'a® great': many enemies, so that at the end of his second tern: 'as 'chief ofthe buteau of steam engineering there was suffi- cient influence to prevent his reappointment to the office which he had so 'well filled, and he was banished to the Mare Island navy yard; but this only gave him an opportunity for some of his best experimental work, andthe famous propeller experiments, which are still a mine of valuable information for designers, were conducted there with the assistance of Mr. William R. Eckart, a former engineer of the navy and an honored member of this society. After these experiments, and until his retire- ment, Mr. Isherwood conducted many others which have given valuable information to engineers, and it may be well in passing to remark that his reports of experiments are models to which all young engineers can refer with great profit to themselves. The thoroughness with which the apparatus under experiment is described and its dimensions given, the elegance and lucidity of the language, and the admirable arrangement, are all models of what such a report should be, just as Macaulay's style is so justly commended to all young writers. ~ From a remark which has just been made as to the qualifications of many of the engineers who came into the navy during the War of the Rebellion, it might perhaps be inferred that there were few men of real ability; but this would be unwarranted, and would be an entire mistake.