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MARINE REVIEW. | [April 18, DEFENSE OF THE BELLEVILLE BOILER. ENGINEERS IN ENGLAND ARE BEGINNING TO ATTACK THE INTERIM REPORT OF THE ADMIRALTY COMMITTEE--POINTS WHICH ARE WELL TAKEN-- COMMITTEE WAS CONTROLLED BY CPINIONS OF MERCANTILE MARINE ENGINEERS. Your Englishman, when it comes to a question of fair play, of hard headed sense and of a desire to give the other fellow a show, is a pretty decent sort of a chap. Latterly engineering authorities throughout Eng- land have been stirred up over the interim report of the British admiraity committee upon the Belleville boiler, because to them it presents evl- dences of palpable injustice. Singularly enough the expression of their opinions has first been given to the public through the columns of the London Times, which testifies to the high regard in which that journal is held and to the character of its circulation. There are few newspapers in America which would be selected to exploit a technical subject. The first communication in the Times is from Sir Edward J. Reed. Sir Ed- ward is not enamored of the composition of the committee, because he says the vast majority of its members have had no personal acquaintance with the working of the Belleville boiler, although many of them are undoubtedly men of the greatest experience in connection with the boilers in use in the merchant navy. These are his words: "The question at issue being essentially of such a nature as only men more or less closely acquainted with the engineer service of the royal navy could deal with thoroughly, Lord Goschen appointed one engineer, and one alone, of all the competent. royal naval engineers within his reach, the other engineering members--five in number--being men able and experienced in mercantile engineering practice beyond all doubt or question but every one of them devoid of that very special experience which is absolutely essential to a full and effective grasp of the subject. Sir Edward also calls attention to the pertinent fact that not. all Belleville boilers in the navy have failed but only some of them. It is a question therefore whether failures when they occurred have been due to the inherent defects of the boiler or to the inherent inefficiency of the engine room staff. He says: "But, great as may have been the troubles which beset this new branch of naval work from a scientific point of view, I cannot doubt that the human element have been a very grave cause of the breakdowns such as they have been. 'Certain it is that there are many ships in our own and other navies supplied with Belleville boilers in which no sort cf danger or difficulty has ever been experienced. The Japanese have had warship aiter warship of the largest classes fitted with Belleville boilers, and no complaint has ever been made of them. They are fitted in the most powerful Chilian cruiser O' Higgins and her trials out of Newcastle were made under the most disadvantageous circumstances, the English stokers striking for more pay on the very morning of the first trials. But the Chilian stokers. who happened to be on board, took the boilers in hand, and her two day's trials were completed without difficulty of any kind. That ship, during three years of service, has steamed some 30,000 miles, often at the highest speed and never has had a single tube burst or burn or prove bad. The only difficulty that has ever occurred with her boilers was a small one, which clearly arose from neglect and was in no way special to the type of boiler. Very bad accidents and very numerous injuries may readily occur when naval boilers have to be adopted on a very large scale. But experience has taught me to believe that perfect management is as necessary as a perfect machine. Bad or mistaken management may break down any machine, and it is idle, where one machine answers well and another precisely like it fails, to attribute the failure to the machine, or to anything else than the management. The Belleville boilers of the Japanese, Chilian or other foreign ships, which never break down or give trouble, are precisely like those of our ships which have broken down; and in such a case it is not difficult to conjec- ture the cause of our failure. It is even less difficult when we remember that so many of our own Belleville boilers in the royal navy are worked on service with complete success." Another engineer of authority, whose name unfortunately is withheld, discusses the interim report in a most vigorous manner. After reviewing the personnel of the committee, and excluding 'Mr. J. A. Smith, who was the one man upon the committee most thoroughly acquainted with the Belleville boiler, he says: "They are first-rate men, of the highest integrity, with much experi- ence in the mercantile marine, knowing thoroughly the requirements of its propelling machinery both from commercial and technical standpoints, and with the fullest knowledge of cylindrical or tank boilers in their vari- ous forms; but I believe I am perfectly correct in stating that no one oi them has ever constructed, or worked, or taken the responsibility of con- structing or working, a set of water tube boilers of any description for a steam vessel. Yet they are called upon to pronounce judgment and give expert opinion upon a subject of which they have no actual knowledge based upon personal experience, and in which, therefore, they must neces- sarily rely entirely upon such evidence as they have been able to gather in a somewhat limited period of time. There are many engineers, both at home and abroad (I do not include inventors or those connected com- mercially with any special type of boiler), who have spent years in con- structing and working water tube boilers, the presence of whom upon the committee is conspicuous only by their absence. I hold no brief for M. Belleville, sentimentally; indeed, I should much prefer that a British boiler should be adopted in our navy and a Briton receive whatever credit and gain are derivable therefrom. Commercially speaking, I consider M. Belleville has received more than enough money from this country to am- ply compensate him for his patents and any assistance he may have ren- dered in connection with his boiler which has now practically become common property; but, in a case of such importance as that under con- sideration, personal feelings must not be allowed to bias one's judgment. The true position can only be ascertained by calm and critical examina- tion from every point of view." REVIEW OF THE COMMITTER'S OPINIONS. Let us now take the report as it stands before parliament and the public, and I venture to think it will clearly be seen by an impartial obser- ver how the judges in this case have, unwittingly, been led into commit- ting an error of justice.. Broadly speaking, the recommendations of the committee amount to the following: (1) The committee are of opinion that the advantages of water tube boilers for naval purposes are so great that, provided a satisfactory type of water tube boiler be adopted, it will be more suitable for use in the navy than the cylindrical boiler. (2) The committee do not consider that the Belleville boiler has any such advantage over other types of water tube boilers as to lead them to recommend it as the best adapted to the requirements of the navy. I always understood that the committee were requested to discover, if possible, a better boiler than the Belleville, which is a very different thing from the expression of an opinion that the Belleville is no better than others. The Belleville has now been adopted very widely; manufac- turers throughout the country have been placed to great expense in erect- ing plant for the purpose of constructing it, much trouble and time have been spent in educating the engine room ratings in its proper manage- ment and working, and all this is to be thrown away because the com- mittee are of opinion, not that it is worse than other types, but that it is no better! Concerning paragraph three and the recommendations con- tained therein I have nothing to say. In paragraph four the committee select four types of boilers, namely, the Babcock & Wilcox, the Niclausse, the Diirr and Yarrow large tube boiler, and state that if a type of water tube boiler has to be decided on at once for use in the navy some or all of these types should be adopted to the exclusion of the Belleville. In paragraph five so uncertain are the committee of their ground that they urge the rapid completion of the two sloops and second-class cruiser fitted with Babcock & Wilcox boilers and the sloop and cruiser fitting with Niclausse boilers in order that they may have some idea as to the value of these types for naval purposes. Moreover in paragraph six they desire that boilers of the Diirr and modified Yarrow types be made at the earliest possible date under their supervision and fitted in two compara- tively small cruisers in order that they may ascertain their value as steam generators and their applicability to the services required of them, In paragraph ten they agree that the admiralty were justified in regarding the Belleville as the most suitable type of water tube boiler for the navy by reason of its long and satisfactory service at sea. GREAT NUMBER OF BELLEVILLE BOILERS AFLOAT. Now, how does the action of the committee, in the light of the fore- going paragraphs, appear to the ordinary observer? In 1894, or, say, seven years ago, the Belleville boiler was considered the most suitable for adoption upon a large scale in our navy, owing to the fact that it had then been working at sea, both in the mercantile and military marine, for a considerable number of years with satisfactory results. 1 fail to see how the committee can prove that in this year of 1901 the Belleville boiler does not hold precisely the same position with regard to its competitors. There are certainly more of them afloat, not counting our own navy, than water tube boilers of any other type, and when it comes to years of service and continuous work at sea the committee must know perfectly well that no other water tube type of boiler can show one-tenth of the Belleville record. They have now been working seven years longer than they had in 1894; consequently, if the arguments of seniority, or of exten- sive adoption, or long experience in working hold good, then the Belle- ville boiler still holds the palm. But no, the committee ienore all this. and recommend, in a hazy kind of way, the adoption of all or sundry of four other types of boilers (pick them out where you like, so to speak, all the same price), tacitly admitting at the same time they have not had the opportunity of investigating the various merits or disadvantages of these boilers, and consequently urging the admiralty to fit some of them on board a vessel as rapidly as possible in order that they may have an opportunity of learning a little more about them. Be it noted, too, that the committee take no direct responsibility in the matter; some one else has to do that--admiralty engineers, to wit. This seems a very extraor- dinary recommendation, and one, I should say, that the admiralty of this or any other country would hesitate in following. AN INDIFFERENT WORKMAN COMPLAINS OF HIS TOOLS. In paragraph six they account for the course they have taken by stat- ing that their opinion has been expressed after a personal examination of the boilers of his majesty's ships Diadem, Niobe, Europa, Hermes, Powerful, Furious and Ariadne, upon the evidence placed before them, and the statements of the chief engineers of those vessels and others of the engineering staff of the admiralty and dock yards. Let us tesard this paragraph for a moment: Nearly ail the vessels they mention have given considerable trouble with their boilers. Such troubles, it is an open secret, have arisen partly from bad workmanship and partly from bad management, and the evidence upon which the committee base their opinion has been obtained from the chief engineers of these vessels, who, by virtue of their position, are held to a great extent responsible for the boilers' failure. Is it likely that these men are going to throw too much blame upon themselves in the matter? Is it not human nature that they should put as much blame as they reasonably can upon the boilers? An indifferent workman always complains of his tools. Not that for one moment I desire in the least to condemn the engineers, for they were very largely victims of circum- stance. They were 'placed in charge of immense cruisers fitted with a system of steam gerierating plant entirely new so far as their experience was concerned; they had to find out the way to work it as best they could, and I know for a fact that in many cases the cost of buying that experi- ence was very great indeed. Did the committee take evidence from the chief engineers of successful vessels which have been running at sea and doing excellent work for the past ten to twelve years? As for extra skill being required, these boilers are worked by men of every nation in the world, and surely we can do as well. If the engineers were not made acquainted with the simple instructions connected with the working and preservation of boilers, most of the difficulties are easily accounted for. On the score of excessive coal expenditure with the water tube boiler for distilling and other auxiliary purposes the committee have undoubt- edly been misinformed. Our vessels fitted with Belleville boilers should not now consume more coal for auxiliary purposes than those fitted' swith the cylindrical type. The first-class cruisers were generally understood to be burning somewhere about eight tons a day for auxiliary purposes. On board a cruiser of the same class it was found that about three tons were sufficient to supply the necessary steam for certain auxiliaries. Steps