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

December, 1909 line engine, such an engine could not certainly give any better fuel economy than that. On page 5: it is stated that it was demonstrated that the boat could cover practically 900 miles on a ton of anthracite coal at a speed of 8 miles -per hour. Then 900 2,240 =----=-- 112.5 holfts running time. "202 8 112:5 19:9 = 19.9 Ibs. of coal per hour and ---- 29 = 0.68 lbs. of coal per B. H. P. hour, Taking the pounds of coal burned per: hour on entire trip, as given in the 15,02 tuble,..viz.. 15.32. lbs. we have 29 = 0.52 lbs. of coal per B. H. P. per hour. Taking even the larger value, it would seem from this result. that an error of formidable magnitude has found its way into this paper. It would be difficult to believe that an engine of 40 H. P. built to use gaso- line, and placed under service using producer gas could be made to give a better economy than 1% Ibs. of anthracite coal per B. H. P. per hour. | Mr. M. Lee Straub. M. Lee Straub: As the designer o1 the producer in the Marenging, and the engineer who laid out the plant and operated the boat for almost a whole summer, I probably can answer the inquiry of the last speaker. The engine was 5% in. bore, 6 in. stroke, tated at 35° BRB, i Poon' casolineg, "at 750 -R PRo Mi, for that engine at 400 turns to de- velop better than 22 to 25 B. H. P. on gasoline. We did not take any indicator cards from the engine, be- cause it was impossible, there was no connection for the indicator. The engine was installed in the boat in such manner that it would be impos- _ sible to insert a dynamometer be- tween the engine and the propeller, and all we could assume was_ prob- lematical--the mean effective pres- sures on producer gas. We triedto -get 110 lbs. compression, but that was impossible in view of the con- struction of the valve chambers in the cylinder head. We found that we got about 90 to 95 lbs. compression, and that should give a mean effective pressure, at the speed at which we were running, of somewhere between 55 and. 60 lbs. per sq, in. That would give us about 16 to 17 B.H. P. on the engine, of 400 to 425 R. P. M. I dare say if we had 32 H. P. in the hull, we would have made a speed of at least 12 miles an hour, but we did. not have it. The boat was operated It would be impossibie. cated) TAE Marine Review from last April until last month very successfully. The producer plant worked well, as other producer. plants of similar design have worked be- fore. The boat, as Mr. Aldrich has said, was brought out as an experi- ment, and Mr. Aldrich is to becom- mended on his activity in 'that re- gard. The producer was installed on the boat against my Opinion, as 1 be. lieved that a small motor boat is not the place for such an installation. The average motor boat owner has use for every square inch in the boat, and with ordinary precautions in the handling of gasoline, little or no dan- ger should be had. The motor boat Owner, as a rule, has no regard for = the fuel cost in operation,. and the only reason for the use of the pro- ducer, I 'believe,. in motor boat wotk, is on account of safety. The pro- ducer plant is undoubtedly the most safe proposition that can be installed, there is nothing to explode or blow up, and for commercial boats, of large or small powers, there is no question of the economy to be de- rived from the insertion of such plants. Take, for instance, the trip to Al- bany and return, last summer, if the figures given are correct, the cost of fuel was $1.59, at $5 per ton. I be- lieve the possibilities for producer gas on marine work are coming to the fore very rapidly, and it will be only a few years when we shall see large installations made. Mr. Henry Weston True. Henry Weston True: (Communi- There is very little in Mr. Aldrich's interesting paper to dis- cuss, and he certainly deserves great credit for his enterprise.. While no statement is made as to the horse- power, | would assume from the speed and dimensions of the boat that about 10 H. P. was developed. This is also borne 'out by the fuel consumption of about. .15...lbs: per hour, as 1° Have found by many tests that the fuel consumption to be expected in a plant of this size is about 1% Ibs. per B. H. P. hour. This comparative- ly large consumption of fuel is caused by the low efficiency of small engines on producer gas. I find a great deal of interest in the gas producer for marine work, and I sincerely hope that its intro- duction for this purpose will not be. delayed, as the stationary producer has been by the enormous prices for apparatus caused by stock promoting enterprise rather than legitimate en- gineering work. A gas producer is a very simple piece of machinery. It 499 can be built by any boiler maker without special tools, and should be built as cheaply per horsepower as a boiler. ; Adjournment was then taken for the day. ! (To be Continued.) TURBINES FOR CARGO BOATS. | Among the steamers now lying at Newcastle-on-Tyne is the steamship Vesperian, which is likely to excite a good deal of interest before long. This vessel was bought some time ago by the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Co., with the intention of running her in the Spanish trade in connection with the important naval contracts. secured by the Parsons company. She was sent on a Medi- terranean round trip with a_ special staff of engineers on board, whose duty it was to make careful note of -- the vessel's speed and coal consump- tion. Having returned from this trip, her old reciprocating engines have been removed, and in their place specially designed slow-speed tur- bines have been substituted. She is now ready for sea, and it is under- stood that the special engine room staff will again be sent out with her, in order to take notes of her perform- ances, and. compare them with the results recorded by her reciprocating engines. In this way, valuable data will be collected, and the applicability of the turbine to cargo steamers will, it is thought, be proved or disproved, just as it turns out. The new side-wheel steamer Three Rivers, which the Maryland Steel Co. is building for the Maryland, Dela- wate & Virginia Railway Co, at Sparrows Point, was successfully launched Saturday afternoon. There are still on the ways at Sparrows Point five large ships aggregating a total length of about 2,000 ft. They are the three combination freight and passenger ships for the American Ha- waiian Steamship Co., the tramp steamer for Messrs. Bull & Co., of New York, and the new United States collier, which will be the largest ship ever built at Baltimore, being about 550 ft. in length, the keel plates for which are being placed. The new schooner G. J. Cherry was launched from the yard of Frank S. Bowker & Son, at Phippsburg, Me., on Nov.. 27. The vessel is 150 ft. long, 33.7 ft. beam, 14 ft. depth of hold, and registers 533 tons gross and 468 tons net. The vessel will hail from Charleston, S. C.