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IN THE ENGINE ROOM. WHITE METAL BEARINGS. That white metal in bearings offers a good wearing surface when properly fitted is beyond doubt, but, like most other metals, it sometimes plays tricks which are not easily accounted for. Mr. James Adamson, speak- ing in the discussion on a paper on this subject read before the Institute of Marine Engineers, related the case of asteamer at Glasgow which required to have the whole of her main bearings refilled with new white metal within nine months, having only made two sound voyages, but with the second lot of white metal she ran “nine years. He cited another case in which a vesse] had a good deal of hard running, and yet she ran for fourteen years with the same white metal that she had in when she left the builder’s yard. Another ran for eight years without her bearings requiring to be lined up, and still another for ten years. He had found from experience that a hydro-carbon oil ran better with white metal bearings than an ordinary engine oil. Mr. Adam- son gave an instance where white metal had been ap- plied to worn eccentric straps with most satisfactory results. Previously they had given trouble every voy- age; in one case the brass had worn down ,; of an inch in a six weeks’ voyage. ‘There were six of fica eccen- tric straps, and these were treated with three different kinds of white metal as an experiment. All of them had done equally well, and they had now been running four years without giving the slightest trouble. Mr. Adamson said he did not think that white metal did well asa rule, with water, especially salt water. WATER-TUBE BOILERS AND GREASE. Grease in marine boilers of the Scotch type is the terror of engineers, and, as one of them recently said to us: ‘‘ We are almost afraid to open a furnace door, tor fear that one of the furnaces may have come down onus.”’ This is by no means a matter of fancy, or an unreasonable fear, for there seems to be no way of keeping Scotch boilers absolutely free of grease so long as any is used in the cylinders. Some engineers merely swab the pisten rods occasionally, never putting any free oil into the cylinders, but even with this good filter boxes, and careful attention to them, the condensers become foul and the boilers are greased. A very small quantity of it is fatal to the furnaces, and the fact that the grease cannot be discovered, or any traces of it, in the event of disaster, lends additional uneasiness to the subject. It occurs to us that we have not yet heard of any dis- asters to water-tube boilers from this cause. We do not know of any bagged tubes from the presence of grease. Tubes have sagged over the fire from various causes, possibly defective circulation, possibly from the water being driven out by hard firing, but no cases which could be actually attributed to oil in the tubes has been reported tous. Thisimmunity from disaster may oc- cur from the rapidity of the circulation and from the presence of more or less sediment or deposit, which may exert a scouring action; whatever the cause, water- tube boilers do not seem to be as liable -to injury from grease as Scotch boilers. And yet grease must get into water-tube boilers as well as other types, for all are fed from the same source where surface condensers are used.—Engineer. OXIDIZING AND BLACKING BRIGHT STEEL. The following directions for oxidizing and black- ing the bright work of steel in lieu. of paint, to stand heat and wear well, is taken from a recent issue of the English Mechanic: ‘Take three ounces of glacial acetic acid, mix it with its weight of water; to this add half an ounce of powdered nut gall, and’ let stand for a day or two, shaking it up occasionally; then settle, then pour off the clear, then put a pint of water to the residue. When cold and settled pour off the clear and mix with the first. Now to this add a grain of nitrate of silver or sulphite of copper, or nitrate of cop- per. Dissolve whichever you use in a little hot water before mixing with the other liquid. Silver is the best process. Clean off all oil and rust or scabs, paint, etc., Clean all up with bright pumice-stone powder. Don’t use emery in any form, but the above with a piece of wood. ‘Then clean all off; dry with air-slack lime, Now go over it with the liquid with some cotton wool. THE MARINE RECORD. If you have saved your powdered galls take a little of that upon your wool, and you will find that a great ac- quisition in the first application. Let stand until dry, and give it another coat. When dry scratch-brush it, and give it another coat, etc. When you have got it to your liking give it some linseed oi] and camphor. All ‘ bright iron parts can be made like ebony polished, and with the gun metal mounting you will have a picture in black and gold. Cylinder covers, etc., can be done the same, but you must wash with hot water before oiling it. It will stand any amount of heat, the hammer and fric- tion in wiping; you have no blistering, and you will have some difficulty in eradicating it. Bicycles repairs, handle bars, etc., can be treated the same way to advantage, well washed with hot water; when dry give them a good coat of copal carriage varnish.” rE ee SKILL IN ESTIMATING ENGINEERING WORK. The skill shown by the late General Casey, chief of army engineers, in estimating in advance the cost of engineering, will be better appreciated when we recall the errors made by others in similar.calcnlations. ‘The estimated cost of the Manchester ship canal was $28,- 750,000. Nearly $80,000,000 was spent before the canal wus ready for business. The international commission reported in 1856 that the cost of digging the Suez Canal would certainly not exceed $40,000,000. It has cost $94,500,000, to say nothing of Egypt’s gratuitous build- 4 thf ing of lighthouses, dredging of the harbors, advance of money without interest, and gift of forced labor, the whole amounting to $20,000,000 or more. Engineers spenta year collecting data for their report on the Congo railroad, which they asserted could be built for $5,000,000. They now say that the total cost will be from $12,000,000 to $13,000,000. The egregious under- estimate of the cost of the Panama canal nearly swamped that enterprise before wholesale stealing com- pleted the ruin. The forts on the Meuse River, estima- ted at $4,500,000, cost $16,000,000; the Corinth canal cost $12,000,000, instead of the estimated $6,000,000; a harbor and a railroad on the Island of Reunion cost $13,500,000, instead of $6,800,000; the Senegal Railroad, which was to be completed for $2,600,000, absorbed $9,000,000; and — the Langson Railroad in Tonkin, which was to open a conquered province for an expenditure of $500,000, bled the French treasury to the tune of $4,367,790.—Army and Navy Journal. ———_—_—_—EE ee —E According to thereturns for July, 176,721 tons used the Manchester Ship canal, the receipts being 416,602, against 126,406 tons and £12, 504 in July last year. For the seven months the total is 999,800 tons and £97,419, an increase of 273,294 tons and £22,305 over the corre- sponding period of last year. _partments at either side formed by longitudinal bulk-— NEW INVENTIONS. Mr. Sinclair Stuart, of the United States Standard Register of Shipping, has taken out another pat (No. 566,485), on his channel system of construction, now used in a number of the larger classes of lake vessels. The application has been pending since Jan 8, 1895. Theclaimis for the ‘‘combination, with the © upright frames and outside plating of a vessel, of stringers of channel form in transverse section arranged one above another in pairs lengthwise of the vessel, inside of, and with their webs against said frames, and angle-straps interposed and riveted between contiguous flanges of the two stringers of a pair, and riveted to the outside plating ; also of angle-clips riveted to sa frames and stringers.”’ A patent (No. 566,473) has been awarded to Mr. Arian W. Robinson, of Milwaukee, Wis., protecting a hy- draulic dredging apparatus. The claim is for a rig suction-pipe, the upper end whereof is at all times abo water-level, a flexible section connecting with the up end of said rigid pipe, the pipe, as a whole, having vi tical and lateral swing, a rotary excavator on the : ward end of the pipe, a steam-engine for driving the excavator located upon the upper end of the rigid pi and steam-supply pipes for the engine, having the sa centers of motion for vertical and horizontal swing be the pipe itself has. A propeller wheel of unique duaient has been protec: by patent No. 566,592, on application of KHdward Bie: stadt, Summit, N. J. The idea is best shown in th illustration, but the claim is for ‘‘a blade in a screw — propeller, having on its face grooves extending in el- liptical curves, transversely of said face and inwardl toward the axis of the propeller from a point near the taking edge of said plate, a point near the leaving e thereof, by which the water is drawn inwardly toward — the axisof the propeller by the inward curvature of said grooves. Both force and reverse faces OF blades are provided with these grooves.”’ James Bell, William C. Melville and James W. Foste: of Liverpool, Kng., have secured a patent (No. 566,44 on a wreck-raising appliance. The claim is subst tially as follows: A pontoon for raising sunken ships having a series of water-compartments extending longitudinally on cack side, a hollow-box keelson extending through said com: partments and having valved openings leading said compartments, and a flange around each open depending into the compartment. A pontoon comprising transverse wells 4 through : which the lifting-ropes are passed ; longitudinal com- partments at each side of the pontoon between said wells and the sides of the pontoon ; intermediate cham bers between the side compartments and the wells; duplex hollow boards ¢ on the deck of the pontoon z either side, and in line with the transverse wells; a hollow-box keelson 7, serving as a water-conduit, run ning though the side compartments; a valve 7 in each side of said compartments, arranged in connection with aseatin the bottom of the keelson, and having an actuating spindle extending to the top of the pontoon, A pontoon having a plurality of comparatively long and narrow transverse wells in and through it, through which the lifting-ropes are adapted to be passed vertically to the wreck at any point laterally on the pontoon, and a vertical pull or strain is put upon the rope at any point at which said rope is fastened or passed through the pontoon ; and longitudinal chambers running trans- versely to said wells at each side of the pontoon between the ends of said wells and the pontoon sides, A pontoon comprising a plurality of water-tight com- heads, /, and transverse bulkheads, 2, and wells 4 e tending between said longitudinal bulkheads tra versely, formed by transverse bulkheads running be tween said longitudinal bulkheads, Mr. Frederick D. Taylor, of Leek, England, has b awarded a patent on an anchor (No. 566,427), for w his claim is for the combination of the head having perforation, the shank, and the angle-cheeks C1 C2 join to the shank extending through the opening in the he and secured to the under side of the same. ; ET SOY Pe as Bae gE OTS The Americans are much ahead of us in the ej of submarine work, remarks the London, Eng., gineer,