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58 and sank. The tug was insured for $3,000. It is. not likely that !she will be raised. jet The old steamer .City. of Grand Rapids was destroyed by fire at To- bermory this week. She was' owned by. Capt. John W., Averill, of Cleve- land, and was one of the.best known old steamers on the lakes. .She was built in 1879 and was 125 ft. keel and 26 ft. beam. The Empire eae Co.. filed a certificate of inco'poration with the county clerk at Buffalo last Satur- day. The capital of the company is $195,000. The directors are: Capt. J. 1 He Brown; James B. . Rodgers; Horace FF.) Taylor, William. A.. Per- rin, James McAlpine, Jacob OnE sheimer and Fred W. Ely. Col, Charles E, L. B. Davis, govern- ment engineer at Detroit, has notified the tug Home Rule to compel all tow batees going up. the Detroit river through the east channel at the Lime- kiln crossing to take a tug, when it is deemed necessary. If a tug is re- fused the barge will be required to anchor until such time as it is consid- ered safe for it to proceed without one. He The steamer Spokane of the Wil- eon Transit Co.'s fleet, stranded on Gull rock, hake~ Superior, « on « Tues- day while out in a heavy sea. The steamer W. H. Mack tried to pull her off, but was unable to move her. The wrecker Favorite will work on the stranded boat. While the exact condition of the Spokane is not known, she is thought to be consid- erably damaged. The Lehigh Valley Transportation, Co. has filed suit against the Gilchrist Transportation Co., Cleveland, owners of the barge Angus Smith, for $5,000 as salvage charges. The steamer Wilkesbarre of the Lehigh Valley fleet picked up the Smith while she was - floating about in a helpless condition near Long Point, Lake Erie, on Oct. 27, and took her to. Buffalo. The barge is being held' at that port to satisfy the claim. The steam yacht Lurline, which the Canadian government recently pur- chased from Hiram Walker and fit- ted up for use as. a- fishing cruiser, was totally wrecked while en route from Walkersville to Georgian Bay ports to enter the service on Satur-. day last. The Lurline, while attempt- ing to enter the harbor of Goderich for shelter, ran on the submerged breakwater in course of construction at the mouth of the harbor, and be- fore she could be released she was abandoned as a total loss. "TAE. MarkiNE. REVIEW FILTRATION OF BOILER FEED WATER. BY A, EUGENE MICHEL, Many plants use spring, well, city or river water which contain in addi- tion to the chemically combined ele- ments, finely divided particles of clay, sand and organic matter held in mechanical suspension, all of which work havoc in a boiler. Some sand and other sediment will fall to the bottom in settling tanks, but clay and other finely divided matter' re- - main in mechanical suspension and if allowed to enter the boiler, bake onto its surfaces. and impair the Sminteney of heat transmission. Organic matter contained in sewage or in the water from swamps, peat bogs, etc., often becomes highly cor- rosive on heating. Internal corrosion, whether it be uniform or occurs: as pitting or grooving, is the most de- structive force to.which boilers are subjected. Wherever it is discovered, the feed water must be purified be- fore entering the _ boiler. substances also cause foaming, which makes it difficult to determine the exact level of the water and which may therefore lead to the burning of -- tubes and plates. It may cause' the boilers to prime and the engine may be. wrecked by water carried over to the cylinder. Matter held in Be tadieat suspen- sion should always be filtered out, and an efficient filter will soon balance its initial cost by saving in repairs and quantity of coal used. Distilled water represented. by the condenSation of surface condensers or the 'returns of steam heated systems in which exhaust steam is used, would make ideal feed water, were it mot {Or the accumulation of lubri- cating oils and grease from the en- gine cylinder, rods, valves, valve stems, etc., together with other dirt irom the lines. Many owners of power plants permit their engines to exhaust to atmosphere just because they fear the effects of this oil en- tering the boilers if condensed water is used. Scale corftaining grease in any form is not only detrimental to efficiency and difficult to remove, but when it accumulates on parts of the shell exposed to heat, it may cause the plates to overheat, weaken and bag, and tubes to burn out. This is one of the most prolific causes of boiler explosions. A 'coatirig of oil will also conceal a cracked plate or defective rivet. Exhaust steam contains from 90 to 95 per cent of the heat originally present in live steam, and if the ex- haust steam be not condensed or uti- Organic lized for heating, drying, heating the feed water, etc.,, this water and heat go-to waste. This involves a serious loss in the efficiency of the plant, and where water is expensive adds enormously to the cost of operation. Besides" wasting the exhaust often ne- cessitates a number of large tanks to provide ample water supply, and these must occupy space which in crowded plants or on Shipboard can be used to better advantage. All this heat and water may be utilized, the boilers 'may be protected from the entrance of oil and it is possible to dispense with clumsy tanks for feed water, all by the. use of an effective filter or grease extractor. The many methods of treating oil and the scale forming elements chem- ically combined with the feed water may'. be roughly divided into two classes, internal and external, that is, inside the boiler and outside of the boiler. : The internal method of treatment is to introduce periodically into the boiler some chemical to neutralize the acids or to change the chemical com- position of the scale forming, material, making a precipitate which may be scraped or blown out. In regard to this method Prof. Wm. Kent in his Steam Boiler Economy -has this to say: "The treatmnent of feed waters in- -side the boiler has been a practice of many years' standing, but in the light of recent progress is not to be commended. <A boiler certainly has all that it can reasonably be expected to do when it is generating steam without being called upon to perform. the function of a chemical laboratory. The external method of treating feed water, chemically or mechanically, is being adopted by many progressive plants in this country; but in' 'this Americans are far behind the Eng- lish, French, Germans, Belgians. and Austrians, in whose countries the ex- ternal treatment has been largely and most successfully practiced for many years." Feed water may be purified outside of the boiler by settling, filtering, heating and chemical treatment. The latter two methods render cer- tain elements insoluble, so that they are precipitated, after which they may be removed from the water by set-: tling and filtration. Settling or sedimentation can re- move only the mud and sand which have been carried along by the cur- rent. This method is effective only if the water is run into very large tanks and the mud allowed to sink to the bottom by gravitation. This