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at = COUPLING BOILERS OF DIFFERENT SYSTEMS. The following is from a paper read by M. Pierre Sigaudy, Engineer-in-Chief of the Societe des Forges et des Chantiers de la Mediterranee, at the Paris meet- ing of the Institution of Naval Architects: ; g,Although water-tube boilers may offer great advan- tages, they do not seem to many people trustworthy enough to be exclusively employedin a great number of cases. The plainest manner to convince those that are frightened is, I think, to fit effectually together the old and new system of boilers on the same ship, thus giving the possibility of getting up steam quickly, which is generally of great importance. This idea has been treated lately by ngineering, with a view to navy use; and it is no longera mere project, as a trial has recently been made successfully by the Societe des Forges et Chantiers, at Havre, on the tug boat Adour No. 3, built two months ago for the Chambre de Commerce of Bayonne. In this boat steam was produced by two boilers of quite different systems—one boiler being of the common return-tube type, and the other a water- tube boiler of the Normand system. This tug has inde- pendent paddle wheels with fixed blades. The wheels may be connected or disconnected under way. The main dimensions are: Length between perpendiculars.......... MSR Bink Breadths: 2) aacest owt we Sworn D3. ato Flees ADSL PaO ULI Ss 3. a occ ssh, wath %e seu tysts'¢ 3 Pyar IE Ae Meanie OU tials a cheu ek ee gaa Bs 02 se Power of the engines. about.............. 700 h. p. { Coal in bunkers, 16 tons | Crew, tow-rope, etc.,2 tons The conditions of trial were: Speed of 11 knots dur- ing six hours, the coal consumption not to exceed 2.1 jos. per horse-power per hour; the getting up steam to bé made within 30 minutes. Of course it is most im- portant fora tug-boat to get steam up as quickly as possible, especially when employed on salvage service. This last condition has compelled us to put‘on board two difierent kinds of boilers—one of the Normand type, and one return-tube boiler ofethe ordinary type. We would rather have coupled two Normand boilers had not the owners asked that at least one of the two should be of the usual type, as they feared for the re- sults of two-water tube boilers. The principal dimen- Weight on board t 18 tons. ,-—Gions of the engines and boilers are: PPGGSSub@ i. esc ce cents 114 lbs. per sq. in. (Grate surtacesin si. 2a 34.70 sq. ft. Normand j Heating surface...... 1560.20 ‘ Boiler. _ | Steam space......... 32.82 cu. ft. | Water volume ....... S208 2 { Grate sarface .. 22202; 38.73 sq. ft. Return-tube } Heating surface...... 1232;55 apes Boiler. } Steam space.j.c. icc. . 176.45 cu. ft. | Water volume........ S45 Sak Number of engines.. 2 Type of ditto—Compound two- -cylinder inclined, the two engines being coupled together in the center of the shafting. Diameter of high-pressure cylinders. 1 ft. 1042 in. Diameter of low-pressure cylinders..3 ‘‘ 33% ‘ RIEORC ry ray Nas ee ere cia RR GV ee . ‘The wheels, with fixed blades, have an external diameter of 16 ft. 154 in. The general arrangement is avery disadvantageous one for the working together of two different boilers on the same set of engines. The whole is contained as usual in three different compart- ments, divided by two water-tight bulkheads. The boiler of the Normand type is placed in the forward compartment, with its funnel forward and stokehold. aft; the engines are in the center compart- ment; and the after compartment contains the return- tube boiler, with its stokehold placed forward. No spe- cial arrangement has been made for the steam and feed pipes, one single steani pipe making the communication between the two boilers through the engine-room, with a branch to each engine. In the same way, the feed pipe is common to both boilers, and communicates with two independent feed pumps placed on the side of the engine room, each one of which is sufficient to feed the two boilers. A single pump was working during the trials. During the preliminary as well as the official trials, the working of the boilers gave no trouble, the pressure remaining steady. No difficulty was found with the feed whether the engines were worked connected or dis- ‘cOnnected, the one ahead, the other astern, the one at ‘rest, and the other running, just as the owners, who wanted to be quite sure about the general working con- ditions of a tug-boat, gave their orders. The time for getting up steam with the Normand boiler was, in two THE MARINE RECORD trials, from 22 to 23 minutes. At the official trial for coal consumption, which lasted for six hours, the mean speed being 11 knots and fhe mean power 673 h. p. with 29.5 revolutions per minute, the consumption of coal was 1.81 lbs. per horse-power per hour, the fuel used having been briquettes d’Anzin. The engines running at full speed indicated 731 h. p. The quantity of coal burned in each boiler was pretty nearly the same on each trial. These results seemed to me worthy of notice, as they prove that itis easy to combine on board a ship water-tube boilers of the Normand system, or any other analagous type, with return-tube boilers, as it was car- ried out in the most difficult conditions—that is to say, coupled and in separate stokeholds. Therefore the dis- like which certain owners profess towards them, on ac- count of the fear they entertain of difficulties in work- ing, is unjustified. I need not otherwise enumerate here all the advantages which those new boilers present as compared with the return-tube boilers. eer EEE ee —eE NEW PATENTS. Following is a list of the patents lately awarded upon inventions pertaining to navigation or water commerce: No. 542,876, Apparatus for Ejecting or Launching Torpedoes, to Stephanie Drzewiecki; No. 542,935, Ap- paratus for Closing Bulkhead Doors on Shipboard, to Alexander W. Montgomery-Moore, London; No. 542,503, -Boom-Hitch and Loop Swing for rafting purposes, to John C. Sattes, St. Albans, W. Va.; No. 542,905, Bucket or Grip for Dredging or other purposes, to Colcord Upton, Salem, Mass.; No. 542,710, Towing’ Machine, Frederick Metcalf, Providence, R. I., assignor to the American Ship Windlass Co., same place. A full description of any of these can be obtained by applying to the Patent Office in Washington, mentioning the number of the patent, enclosing a small fee, and men- tioning the MARINE RECORD. EE eS FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. Barney McGivern has been appointed harbor master at Kenosha. Wing dams are’ being built in St. Joseph River to deepen the channel there. Stage of water at the Sault at 8:30 a. m., Thursday morning, July 25, 14 feet 3 inches. Saginaw and Bay City ’longshoremen have raised their rates from 35c. to 40c. per hour. The cave-in at the Ironwood mine last week has ex- posed an extensive body of fine ore. Mr. J. R. Oldham has extended the time for receiving bids on raising the Cayuga until next Saturday. Ashland’s ore shipments this season have reached 1,121,171 tons, of which 93,980 tons was shipped last week. Oswego gentlemen think of buying the Bon Voyage and running her between that port and the Thousand Islands. Capt. Bundy, of the gospel ship Glad Tidings, is out with a card denying that he has retired from the mis- sion work. Capt. G. H. Couvrette, who sailed the Egyptian last season, has invented a device for stopping holes in steel vessels below the water line. Owners of lumber craft want the red second-class nun buoy at the entrance to the cut in Saginaw River re- placed with a Pintsch gas buoy. Capt. H. Buckley, formerly of the schooner Eagle Wing, has bought the schooner Arctic from Capt. John Sidney, of the steamer Dominion. _ The Canadian steamer Petrel seized the nets of the fishing tugs Eschbacher and W.J. McCarter last Fri- day. Capt. Louch, of the former, has filed petition for redress, claiming that the Petrel is not using an up to- date chart, and that they were really in American waters. Capt. Hackett, who lost his life in the Torrent disas- ter, was one of the well known Amberstburg family, whose members have followed the water for generations. He was only thirty years old, and was married in 1892 to a Miss Burnett, of Cincinnati, whom he leaves in very comfortable circumstances. The Colby mine, of which control has just been secur- ed by Corrigan, McKinney & Co., produced its first ore in 1884, when its output was 1,022 tons. In 1885 it pro- duced 84,302 tons; in 1887, 257,432; and in 1888, 258,880. It fell off in 1889 to 136,000 tons. Its total output is es- timated at 1;385,574 tons. It classes with the Aurora, Ashland and other rich properties. CASUALTIES OF THE WEEK. With the exception of the accident to the tug Torrent, in the St. Clair Flats canal, which was as peculiar as it was lainentable, the mishaps of the past week have not been very frequent or very serious. The wreck of the Torrent has attracted a good deal of attention, as it is the first accident in that canal for a long time. The schooner Yukon, in tow of the Sitka, bound down with ore, met a steamer, supposed to be the Parnell, at the upper entrance to the canal. It is stated that the Parnell, was increasing her speed as she left the canal, and was dragging considerable water after her, which caused the Yukon to sheer badly and graze the west bank, from which she rebounded and started toward the east bank, cutting off the passage of the tug Torrent, which happened along just then, bound up. From this point statements differ. The tug men say that Capt. Ralph H. Hackett, who was in command of the tug, re- versed her but could not get out of the way of the tow line, which slipped up over the tug’s stem and swept her decks of pilot house and a part of the engine and boiler room. The wheelsman on the tug states that Capt. Hackett shouted to the hands on the schooner to cut the tow line, but that this was not done. The men on the Yukon corroborate most’ of these statements, but say the tug was backing at no time; that Capt. Hackett shouted to them to cut the tow line, and they replied that they had no ax; that he then shouted that he knew a way to cut it, and started the tug forward at full speed. The Yukon is so big that she was being towed with aten-inch line, which successfully resisted the efforts of the tug; although according to the men on the Yukon, whose statement is corroborated by the amount of damage done, the tug made a considerable bight in the line, tightly stretched as it was between steamer and schooner. ‘The schooner then began to come around, and the tug was borne towards the Yukon by the strain on the line. As she came nearer the higher vessel, the tow line slipped higher up on the tug’s stem and the bluff of her port bow, until suddenly it slipped over the rail with force enough to instantly kill Capt. Hackett, and to tear off the house with such force as to fatally injure watchman David Kanary, of Port Huron, and to throw overboard wheelsman John Cat- tanach, of Marine City, whose body has not been found. It thus seems that Capt. Hackett was using his best judgment as to the action necessary to get the tug out of a bad hole, and to avoid a collision which was cer- tain to prove disastrous to the tug. The fact that be- low decks were eight men, besides his wife, whose lives were in his keeping, certainly would not tend to make him any cooler. It is, of course, a debatable question whether he could have avoided a collision by backing, but Capt. Hackett certainly did not think he could. It is an instance where it is very hard to attach blame anywhere, but it is certainly an argument for a wider cut at that point. The whaleback steamer A. D. Thomson got ashore Saturday night on the head of Beaver Island, 14 miles west of the light. She had ore from Escanaba. She was released Monday by the favorite, after jettisoning 200 tons. She has a large hole in one of her forward compartments. The other accidents of the week were mere grounding cases. The Wetmore fetched up on asunken crib in Buffalo harbor. ‘The Roanoke stranded while trying to enter Dunkirk, but was not injured. The Maryland, Maruba and Malta were blown ashore by a squall at St, Clair, but no damage is reported. The Mahoning got on at the Neebish, and had to lighter. By her collision with the Northern King in the Sault, the Nyanza’s damages consist of a hole in her star- board side 11 feet long and 3 feet wide, but no frames were broken. She patched up and continued her trip. DD ee ee H. B. WEAVER, of Baltimore, an artist, owns what is probably the smallest practical steam launch in the world. It is 9 feet long by 32 inches beam, and will carry three persons. ‘The propelling power is the smallest marine engine in the world. It is patterned after those used on large steamers, but weighs only 65 pounds. The hull of the launch is oak and cedar, and its complete weight, with all equipments, is 175 pounds. Mr. Weaver, who is 70 years old, is an expert mechanic as well as an artist, and has spent his spare time for 20 years, building the launch and her machinery. He has named her the Lizzie Weaver, in honor of his wife. He says he is not afraid to go to sea in her, and contem- plates a coasting trip. Regie panies