Scientific American Volume 22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 Part 6

A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Is the heartfelt wish conveyed in this beautiful and unusually large number, to each and all of our friends and readers This holiday number is worthy of note not only on account of its size, its rich table of contents, and profuse ill.u.s.trations, but because we publish this week the largest edition ever sent out from this office.

Our readers may be surprised at our publishing the t.i.tle page of the volume again this week but they will please observe it is the t.i.tle page of Vol XXII, which we are now commencing The t.i.tle pages will hereafter be published with the first instead of the last number of each volume, so as to bring it in its proper place for binding.

Subscriptions are pouring in from all parts of the country in the most encouraging manner. Many have already secured the prize engraving, by sending in the requisite number of names-but we feel obliged to confess that there is now a considerable want of vitality in the compet.i.tion for the cash prizes. We expect however, that as soon as the new year's greetings are fairly exchanged, that this opportunity to receive some purse money will attract the attention of our enterprising readers The times may be a little close just now, but we are confident that the spring will open joyously, and we are quite sure that the people will still want to know what is going on in the GREAT WORLD OF INDUSTRY, which, it will be our duty to chronicle.

All lists intended to compete for the cash premium must be marked "Cash prize list."

Once more we say a "Happy New Year" to all.

THE SUEZ Ca.n.a.l NOT YET A FAILURE.

The daily press is giving currency to a great many facts in regard to the present incomplete condition of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, and some journals are arguing therefrom that it is a failure. As yet, ships of heavy draft are unable to get through it. Some disasters to shipping have occurred in the Red Sea after the ca.n.a.l has been pa.s.sed, and it is not at all improbable that more troubles will arise before everything goes smoothly.

The Red Sea is comparatively unknown to navigators. It contains hidden rocks which must be charted and buoyed before its navigation can be rendered safe. Surely this ought not to take the world by surprise.

As to the ca.n.a.l itself, we are only surprised that it has reached its present state of perfection and we advise those who now make haste to prophesy ignominious defeat for one of the greatest enterprises of the century, to suspend judgment for a time. New York journalists might certainly call to mind with profit, the annual troubles attending the opening of the ca.n.a.ls in this State. Frosts heave and rats undermine, and banks annually give way, yet these things are not regarded as surprising. But upon the opening of a work, to which all the minor ca.n.a.ls in the world are like the rods of the magicians to Aaron's rod which swallowed them up, it is expected that everything shall move without difficulty, and that no oversight will have been committed.

Truly this would be to attribute a power of prevision to M. Lesseps beyond what is human. The world can afford to wait a little till this huge machine gets oiled. Great enterprises move slow at the outset. We have yet unshaken faith in the ultimate success of the Suez Ca.n.a.l.

TUBULAR BOILERS AND BOILER EXPLOSIONS.

In our description of the novel steam boiler, published on page 209, last volume, we made a quotation from several eminent writers and experimenters on the subjects of heat and steam, to the effect that the tubular system in steam boilers was wrong in theory and unsafe in practice, and although this system has. .h.i.therto been extensively used on account of some advantages which it secures, it has long been a serious question with thinking men whether these advantages were not obtained at too dear a rate.

While not prepared to admit all the force of the objections made to the tubular system, there are arguments against it that it will not do to treat lightly and which seem to us more and more forcible the more we candidly reflect upon the subject. One of the most forcible of these which occurs to us is, that in the tubular system the disruptive force of unequal expansion is far more likely to become a cause of danger than in the plain cylinder boiler. In such boilers the tension of expanded tubes is transmitted to the sh.e.l.l, which are greatly strained without doubt, often nearly to the verge of rupture. When this occurs it is evident an unusual strain, caused by sudden generation of steam, would act in concert with the expansion of the tubes, and we have no doubt these causes combined have given rise to many an explosion when the steam, acting singly, could never have produced rupture.

But while we give due weight to this argument, there is one often referred to by our correspondents, and which we often see stated in newspapers, as ridiculous as the one we have noticed is forcible. It is that when, in such boilers, water, by carelessness or otherwise, is allowed to fall below any of the tubes, the steam which surrounds them is decomposed, and becomes an explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gases, ready to explode with terrible violence whenever the temperature of the tubes shall have reached the proper point.

This argument is ridiculous, because it rests on no experimental basis.

It is a flimsy theory, entirely unsupported by any facts. Never has it been proved that hot iron, at any temperature likely to be obtained in steam boiler tubes, decomposes steam except by itself appropriating the oxygen of the steam, and leaving the hydrogen, by itself no more explosive than any other heated gas.

The sole object of the tubular boiler is to increase the heating surface, without corresponding increase in other particulars. That it is not the only means whereby this object can be secured has already been demonstrated and we believe will hereafter be shown in divers ways. We have no more doubt that the next fifty years will witness the total abandonment of the tubular system, than we have that the world will last that length of time.

AMERICAN RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.

There seems a growing opinion among railway managers that the sole end and purpose of a railroad is to line the 6 pockets of, if not its stockholders, at least its directors. In fact we not long since saw a statement in a widely-circulated journal, that, as the sole purpose of railroads is that the companies who own them should make money, it is absurd to suppose they would be content to manage them in any way whereby such a result would not be most likely to accrue.

The journal referred to, in making this statement a basis for an argument in favor of railway consolidation, entirely ignored the rights of the public from which railway corporations have obtained their charters. In these charters certain privileges were granted, not out of pure generosity, but with the understanding that certain benefits were to accrue to the public. Its safety and convenience were to be considered as well as the profits to the owners.

Every charter granted to these roads involves a contract on their part to do the public a certain service, and in a large majority of cases these contracts are to-day unfulfilled. Day after day sees the power to control more and more centered in a few unscrupulous wily managers, and the comfort and safety of pa.s.sengers more and more disregarded; yet still the people submit.

But they do not submit without complaint. Now and then a newspaper correspondent grumbles, and the news of smashes that may be almost daily seen in the papers gives a text for an occasional editorial blast, as little heeded by the delinquent companies, as a zephyr is felt by an oak.

Thus the New York _Times_, on the occasion of a recent railway disaster, gives vent to a little mild denunciation. It says:

"The general rule in this country (to which there are indeed exceptions) in regard to the purchase of railway materials is simply this: buy the cheapest. First cost is the controlling and often the only question entertained. The nature of the materials and processes to be used in the manufacture of rails, for instance, are not mentioned. The buyers for some of our roads, especially new roads, never make the slightest allusion to quality, and never specify tests and inspections, but simply go about among the mills, comparing and beating down prices, and accepting the very lowest. More than one of our rail makers are to-day rolling, under protest, rails upon which they decline to put their trade-mark--rails made from the very cheapest materials, in the very meanest manner--for all that is required is that they shall stick together till they are laid. And if American makers will not roll them, Welsh makers will. The late report of the State Engineer of New York says: 'American railway managers, instead of offering anything like a reasonable price for good iron rails, have made themselves notorious by establishing as standard, a brand of rails known all over the world as "American rails," which are confessedly bought and sold as the weakest, most impure, least worked, least durable, and cheapest rails that can be produced.' The State Engineer refers, in confirmation of this opinion, to the statement of Mr. A.S. Hewitt, United States Commissioner to the Paris Exposition, a statement not yet controverted; and to a statement of Mr. Sandberg, an English engineer of note, in the London _Times_.

A leading American railway president and reformer has publicly said: 'There is a fear on my part that railway companies will themselves tempt steel makers to send a poor article by buying the cheapest--first cost only considered--_as they did with the ironmasters_.'"

This certainly is a blessed state of affairs. We have given privileges to giant corporations, which they have improved so profitably, that they now can defeat, in our Legislatures, any attempt to revoke them, and can laugh at any demand for better management.

Disguise it how we may, the railroads have got the upper hand of the people, and they seem likely to keep it, unless, indeed, their rapacity shall react against themselves.

At the moment of this writing accounts reach us of the officers of a prominent railway line intrenching themselves against the officers of the law, and employing force to resist the service of precepts calling them to account for alleged frauds upon the stockholders.

That the Legislature of this State has the power to put a stop to these disgraceful proceedings, is certain; what it will do remains to be demonstrated.

THE AMERICAN INSt.i.tUTE PRIZES AWARDED TO STEAM ENGINES.

If there is anybody satisfied with the action of the managers of the American Inst.i.tute, in the matter of awarding prizes to the competing engines exhibited at the recent fair, we have yet to meet that complacent individual. Neither the exhibitors nor the general public could be expected to accept with equanimity such a report as the managers have made, because it is inadequate to give any real idea of the relative merits of the engines tested. The exhibitors, at a large expense, took their engines to the hall of exhibition, placed them in position, and with them drove the machinery exhibited there; and now, when in return they had a right to expect a decided, manly course on the part of the managers, the oyster is swallowed and the contestants are each politely handed a sh.e.l.l.

The conditions on which the general test was to be made contained, among other specifications, these: that "the water supplied to and evaporated in the boiler will be measured by means of a meter, and the coal burned may also be weighed."

Only one of the conditions quoted was properly complied with. The coal was weighed, but though a meter was used to measure the water, tests made, we are informed, _after the trial of the engines_, showed that the meter was so inaccurate as to completely invalidate any calculation based upon its record of the water supplied. Nevertheless this has, we are credibly informed, been made the basis of calculation; and the amount of coal consumed during each trial has been rejected either as a basis of calculation or a check on the inaccuracy of the meter.

Other prescribed regulations were observed with great care. The engines were indicated in a masterly manner by a gentleman of great experience, as the cards--tracings of which we have seen--bear ample testimony. The temperature of the feedwater was 47 degrees; it should, in our opinion, have been heated, but we waive this point. The state of the barometer and temperatures of engine room and fire-room were observed; but we respectfully submit, that with coal consumption left out of the calculation, and the water consumption an unascertained quant.i.ty, the question of relative economy, the vital point to be settled, is as uncertain today as it was before the test.

In the _Tribune_ of December 20, appeared a statement of the test to ascertain the accuracy of the meter used, which showed that in an aggregate of twelve tests it varied nearly three per cent in its record from the actual quant.i.ty delivered, while at times it was so erratic that it varied in one instance over _ten per cent_.

Truly, considered in connection with this fundamental error, temperatures of engine and boiler rooms, and states of barometer, will not count for much with engineers.

An oversight like this would, however, never have been laid at the door of the managers, however it might invalidate the test; but when the utterly absurd decision announced in the papers, after a tedious delay had led the public to expect an exhaustive statement, gave rise to general disappointment and excited the utmost dissatisfaction, it became manifest that a manly, straightforward course on their part was not to be hoped for, and that any protest against the consummation of the farce would be vain.

It is not for us to decide on the merits of the engines submitted to test. It was for the judges to do this. We maintain that nothing that the public will accept as a decision has been reached, and on behalf of the public we protest that the managers have not only placed themselves in a very unenviable position by their action in the premises, but have done a lasting injury to the American Inst.i.tute, the results of which will be disastrously felt in future exhibitions.