The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

steel manufacturers said that they must have a little more latitude in re- gard to sulphur in supplying the gen- eral trade; however, the speaker thought there is no real antagonism between the two associations, and thought they could work together before the board of supervising in- spectors. The speaker did not agree with Mr. Bateman, who is no longer in the steel business, in the idea that we are getting at present better steel than ever before. This is not a fact. It is more difficult to get good steel now than a few years ago, owing to the tremendous wave of prosperity and the great demand upon the steel mills to turn out product which does not always result in the best quality unless you stand up for your rights and demand it. If you will insist upon tests every time you can get it, although it may be difficult; but the man who does not look out for himself in that respect will get some- thing inferior on account of the rush of business in the mills. SUDDEN STOPPAGE OF MARINE ENGINES. Discussion of topical questions sub- mitted by Mr. J. Don Smith, second vice president, Charleston, § 0. was taken up on Thursday morning, the first question being, "Is the Sudden Stopping of High Pressure Marine Engines Detrimental to. the Boiler?" As a contribution to the discussion of this question Mr. Smith requested the secretary to read a clipping from the September issue of the American Marine Engineer, in which was consid- ered the question of whether too lit- tle water, or too mach oil, was the cause of a collapsed furnace, and the writer stated that in his opinion the sudden stoppage of an engine, espe- cially a high pressure one, | has brought more crowns down than low water, or excessive use of cylinder oil. He was selected as one of two engineers to stand watch in the boiler room of a Pennsylvania railroad ferry boat for the New York Twenty-third street ferry while the boat was being conveyed to New York from a Phil- adelphi& ship yard. While in charge of some of the fitting up of the boil- ers he had placed gaskets on all manhole plates and had objected to using the common low pressure gas- kets, kept in stock by the firm, but the foreman overruled his objections, and they were used: There were four Thornycroft boilers of. large type, carrying 180 lbs. on the boiler, and cut down to 150 lbs. at the engine by a reducing valve. Each boiler had three cylindrical-shaped legs, having a manhole in each leg, in the, fire- room end of the boiler. On the trip THE Marine Review the nuts on the dogs on the plate were repeatedly screwed up, the pres- Sure being too great for the type of gasket used to stand, until the rub- ber was actually forced out, and prac- tically the bare canvas was all that remained. The plates were kept from leaking on the whole trip, but noone above gave any information of our being close to the dock in. Hoboken, and when a sudden stop was made, the instant the steam was shut off of the engines: the water and _ steam gushed out of the leg and manhole plates of all four boilers; and the writer frankly confesses that never in his whole career as an engineer had his heart and his stomach been so close together. self both being in the fire-room at the time, gingerly tackled all 12 plates and screwed them up, stopping the leaks. This experience proved that.a sudden stoppage of the flow of steam with heavy fires in operation and safety valves: unable to cope with the surplus steam will cause such a sudden shock that the crowns must stiffer,- Several years ago oné of. the ships of: the company the writer is now serving with came into port with one of her crowns buckled, not badly, but plainly enough to be seen by any- one. The ship had two boilers. and two furnaces in each boiler, and only one furnace had buckled. When a crown comes down, the first charge against the engineer is too much oil; and so the boiler maker and the as- sistant engineer stood by to see 'that the crown was not touched, after boiler was blown out and opened up, until headquarters had seen for itself the condition of the boiler. Every- thing was found in first class shape; not a trace of oil could be found, nor was there any known weakness. of the furnace tubes. In the investigation that followed it was found that the captain made a practice of stopping (without any "warning to the engineers) the ship at sea to heave the deep sea lead. Less than two minutes after a sounding the furnace came down, and the shock and nothing but the sud- den shock of stopping, brought it down, in his opinion. The chief was exonerated' and the captain was warned against a repetition of such practice. | DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. Mr. Burke thought that the sudden stopping of a high pressure marine or other engine, if the same was prop- erly constructed and working at nor- mal pressure, should not be detrimen- tal to the boiler, and gave as a rea- son that he had seen a cotton press His partner and him-. 25° at Savannah, Ga., in operation, and as the bales compressed were intro- duced and again withdrawn and the pressure relieved, the needle would fluctuate 10 or 15 lbs., and there was no bad results during the three or four years he has seen it in operation. Captain Rees stated that he had built the boilers for the compresses in question, the batteries previously in use having exploded on account of this excessive variation of pressure, and because the heads had not been properly stayed. The fall 'was some- where about 20 or 25 lbs. in pressure at every revolution of the cylinder. Mr. Kehoe thought that such sud- den stopping and starting would in- jure a boiler, and that the boiler should be built especially to with- stand the extra pressure. Mr. Fin- nigan said that he had stood on the side of a compress boiler and seen the boiler breathe or pulsate with the variation in pressure at the At- lantic Compress Co. They were car- frying from 120° lbs. to 150 Ibs He thought it detrimental to the boiler. Mr... Cole. agreed. with the Jast speaker. ae Colonel Meier thought that for such use it was about the severest. test that could be put on a boiler. Mr. Rees said that he put drums on, and instead of leaving a solitary opening he put on aedouble drum with the openings quite large so that there would not be a sudden draw in one,.-part of the boiler, He © thought that unless the boiler was built especially to stand such strain it would in time fracture the boiler. Mr. Ryan, of Duluth, thought that with a boiler built for a certain pres- sure the sudden opening of the throt- tle valve ought not to make any dif- ference. A boiler built according to standard specifications for 150 lbs. pressure ought to stand at least 1,000. Ibs. bursting pressure, and he could not understand why sucn a_ boiler properly built would vibrate as rep- resented, Ele had seen pulsation im a battery of boilers running a big Corliss engine of say %-in. to 3%-in., with steam drums on them; but he had no faith in steam drums, and thought a good dry-pipe with a large opening was as good as a steam drum. He considered the latter noth- ing but a condenser, and if 3 con- denser is wanted, let it be put on the engine. Colonel Meier thought that the wear and tear on a boiler of a cotto®™® press is much more severe than in a case of a marine or any other en- gine. He asked what is the differ- ence between cutting off at every o