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IN THE ENGINE ROOM. CARE OF THE MODERN MARINE BOILER. ’ The advent of high steam-pressurein marine practice brought with it two features of note, namely the use of fresh water in the boilers, with means for replenishing the waste, and feed-water heaters. Itis true that fresh water was often used in the old practice, and feed- water heaters were not wholly unknown; but, as pres- sures rose and finally got well past the 100 mark, it be- be used in order to avoid the formation of scale on the heating surfaces, and the consequent overheating and rupture of the parts under the high pressure. used. and, further, the increase of pressure called for thicker plates and larger rivets in boiler construction, giving the boiler less flexibility and greater liability to rup- ture under unequal expansion. Many vessels, particularly those of the merchant service, can and do carry a sufficient supply of fresh water in double bottoms or in special tanks to make good the unavoidable waste. Others make use of evap- orators, the scale deposited from the sea water being more conveniently removed from evaporator tubes than from the crown sheets, tubes sheets and tubes of the boilers. The attendance of the evaporators usually - calls for the services of an extra man on each watch; and besides, there is usually a bill for packing, guage glasses and general repairs; not to mention interest or investment; so that the ship owner is not long deluded with the idea that an evaporating plant fnrnishes make-up feed free of cost. The virtues of feed heaters are very generally conceeded. Feeding a boiler with well- heated water not only dimin- - ishes the risk of leakage and fracture, but is believed to conduce to economy of fuel, even when steam from the boiler is used as the heating . agent. Heating the feed with the uptake gases is not so generally practiced at sea as it probably will be in the fu- ture, when the perfect heater shall be discovered. Now, as a matter of fact, even when evaporators are fitted to ships, their existence is often ignored by the chief gan to be given out on authority that fresh water:must. THE MARINE RECORD. freight, it became possible in 1895 to move at the same rate’ of speed from the expenditure of one pound of coal.a displacement of 3.4 tons of vessel, 60 per cent. of which may be cargo-earning freight, owing to the de- crease of weight of ‘hull from 40 to 28 per cent of the displacement and the decrease of weight of machinery fromi50 to. 12 per cent of thedisplacement.. This means that at the ‘present time. economical freight steamers have peen'so perfected that it is now possible to trans- port two: tons of'cargo earning freight at a speed of eight knots per hour on a fuel consumption of only one pound of coal, and it costs very little more to send such freight at the rate of ten knots.—Engineer. ; ES AN INGENIOUS COMPENSATING NUT. A novel arrangement brought out by Messrs. Drys- dale & Co., of ‘‘Bon-Accord”’ Engine Works, of Glasgow, for automatically taking up the wear in the crank pin or other bearings in high-speed engines, is shown in the accompanying illustration. It consists of a round nut B, having a collar H and a’separate brass cap A, inside of which is a coiled spring, one end EK coming through the cap, and the other end made suitable for going through a saw draft in’ the reduced end of the bolt inside A. Part of the nut B_projects inside. the cap and has a groove all around «it. Through the groove are passed ‘the split pins F, which thus fas- ten the nut and cap together, while allowing them to revolve independently of one another. ‘These nuts can be screwed on or off the bolts the same as ordinary nuts, the mode of operation in putting them on being as follows: Hold the cap so that the end of the spring 7 THE PROPOSED JAPANESE STEAMSHIP LINE. It is now asserted that the rumored Japanese Steam- ship Company has become a fact, in all but the con- struction of the ships. It is said that $5,000,000 bas been subscribed by Japanese, and with it they propose to construct a line of steamships that shall run to the Atlantic, and another line that shall'run to the Pacific ports of the United States. Mr. S. Asam, of Tokio, is heralded at San Francisco, as having arrived for the purpose of personally investigating American ship- yards, with the object in view of having the ships con- structed in this country. This news is reassuring. It would be more reassuring, however, if Mr. Asam had placed contracts with our shipbuilders to construct their-ships. If Mr. Asam is a wise man, he will inform his government, and his com- pany both, of the probable and early adoption of a policy in the United States, favoring protection to American ships in the foreign trade, by the policy of discriminat- ing duties. If, therefore, Mr. Asam would obtain the consent of his people to enlarge the company, and secure the co-operation of American capitalists so that the latter might preponderate in the company, and all of the ships should be built in, and at least nominally owned in the United States, the line would have an opportunity, at no distant day, of engaging in a partic- ularly lucrative trade—a trade, too, from which their ships might be either excluded, or so discriminated against, if built in another country and owned by a foreign corporation, as to make it impossible for them to operate at a profit. There ought to be an opportunity, in the proposed , Japanese steamship line, for the investment of a large amount of American capital, and the construction in Ameri- can shipyards, exclusively, of the ships that may be required to carry the growing com- merce of Japan with the United States. Mr. Asam STEAMER ARAGON. may do his company and his government an irreparable injury if he should conclude to have his ships built else- where than in the United States.—Seaboard. _—_—_ oS oe Records heretofore made on the Short Line coal docks were knocked into finders by Dock This steamer is nearing conipletion at the Wyandotte shipyard, of the Detroit Dry-Dock (o., who are building her for C. R. Jones Master Hand and his workmen and others, of Cleveland. She will be the largest lumber carrier on the lakes, having.a capacity for about 1,800,000 feet. She is so ar- engineer, who is apt to 100K), sed that all hatches can be used continuously when unloading her, and has hoisting rigs that can be instantly brought into play °™ Saturday. The quick work upon the things as unmitigat- when heavy timbers are to be moved. She is built entirely of steel, but the bottom is sheathed with wood. ternal feed pipes are properly arranged, there is no’ harmful result. If the feed water, after passing the check valve, is led through say, 20 feet of internal pip- ing, and then allowed to mingle with the surface water of the boiler, we have then an arrangement which con- stitutes the boiler its own feed heater. The sulphate of lime is precipitated in the body of the water (whose temperature. with steam of 160 pounds pressure, is about 371° Fahr.) before it has time to reach any of the heating surfaces, and the result is a boiler free from leaks and scale, and absolutely clean, with the excep- tion of a little mud in the bottom, which can be blown out. Live steam heaters, with removable pans for catch- ing the scale, are sometimes fitted over marine boilers, the heated and purified feed entering the boiler by gravity. Such an arrangement is to be recommended in the case of water-tube boilers where it is incon- venient or impossible to fit internal feed pipes.—T. W. Kennedy, Engineer U. S. N., in American Machinist. ‘ 4 ed nnisances. If he wants to make up feed, he uses salt feed; and if his in- ; F : . : . a aa - ECONOMY IN FUEL. Undoubtedly the greatest triumph of marine en- gineering at the present is the saving made in fuel con- sumption. ‘The marine engineer with a given amount of coal now can do twelve times the work he did fifty years ago. An eminent authority has recently com- puted that whereas in 1840 it was possible to move at the rate of eight knots per hour from the expenditure of one pound of coal only .578 ton displacement of ves- sel, 10 per cent of which would be cargo-earning inside comes fair with the saw draft in the bolt, the pawls C being up clear; then screw on nut B. Meantime the cap A will not turn around, but will follow. up with the nut. After the nut is up, the cap is given a turn in the opposite direction to that in which the nuts was screwed, thus putting tension on the spring ‘The pawls C are now dropped into the notches G in the collar of the nut, and this completes the oper- ation. ‘The compensat- ing nuts; will now take up, without further at- tention, the wear of the brasses until they are close together. The ad- vantage claimed for the nuts are: That there is asaving of time spent in stripping worn brasses ; that silent run- ning of the parts fitted with these nuts is as- sured; that the brasses will wear longer; and that there is practically no pressure on the crank-pin. rrr The Union Trust Co., owners of the John V. Moran, badly damaged by collision with the M.B. Groyer at the Sault some weeks ago, have libeled the latter for $30,000. accomplished in loading the propeller Rappahanock and schoonér Granada is beyond the besttime ever made at any Lake Erie port in loading coal, and is equal to the modern machines now in use at some ports for handling coal with car-dumping machines. The work of loading the vessels Saturday morning was commenced shortly after 7 o’clock and at 3 o’clock in the afternoon 132 cars were placed aboard the two vessels, and the additional work in trimming the cargoes was also completed at that hour. The propeller and her consort took on 182 cars altogether, fifty cars being handled in four hours’ time on Friday afternoon. The Rappahannock and Granada came in on Friday afternoon about 2:30 o’clock and at 3 o’clock on Saturday the propeller was on her way'out, shortly afterwards followed by the Granada. Including the above eight hours’ work on Saturday, ten cars of sand were unloaded from a sand steamer. Where is the port that can equal the Short Line docks in the rapid despatch of vessels?—Sandusky Register. inthis as John Birkinbine has ascertained for the United States Geographical Survey the production of iron ore for the year 1895. The production amounted to 15,957,- 614 gross tons, against 11,879,679 tons in the year previous, an increase of 4,077,935 tons. This country’s import of iron ore amounted to 524,153 gross tons, as against 168,541 tons in 1894. The shipments of ore from Lake Superior were 7,748,932 tons in 1894, and 10,438,268 in the subsequent year. ‘The production of pig iron, including spiegeleisen and ferro manganese, was 6,657,- 388 tons in 1894 and 9,440,308 tons last year. ‘The pro- duction of coal during last year was 171,804,742 tons, an increase over the production of 1894 of 19,350,000 tons» valued at $197,572,477,