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

1900] MARINE REVIEW. 23 BELL COMPOUND ENGINES. The accompanying illustration represents a fore-and-aft compound engine recently designed and built at Bell's Steam Engine Works, Buf- falo for the steamer City of Buffalo, a passenger steamer used for pleasure purposes on Lake Chatauqua, New York. Steam is furnished at 250 pounds pressure by Roberts water tube boilers. Cylinders of the engines are of 12 and 26 inches diameter, with 14 inches stroke. The bedplate is of the regular 'box type, with facing ypieces to receive the front and back columns. The crank shaft is of forged open hearth steel 6 inches diam- eter, with cast iron counterbalances bolted on, and runs in iron boxes lined with Magnolia anti-friction metal. The cylinders are supported in the back by cast iron "Y" columns, having lugs to which are bolted steel slide fbars of the a =f locomotive type. The cross- : heads are of open hearth cast steel, with brass boxes in the connecting rods, and_ these are also lined with anti-fric- tion metal. In the front the _ cylinders are supported -by wrought iron polished col- umns. The cranks being set at right angles to each other, the cylinders are provided with receiver in connection with the belt around them, giving an_ effective steam jacket. The high pressure cylinder has a_single-ported piston valve fitted with pack- ing rings, while the low pres- sure cylinder is provided with plain slide valve and both operated by Stevenson links of the double-bar type connected with steel rock shaft and re- versing lever. The piston and connecting rods are of the best opcn-hearth forged steel, and the throttle is of the balanced type. This design of engine was carefully worked out on a basis of 600 to 700 feet piston speed per minute, great care biing taken to have all the reciprocating parts accurately balanced to avoid jar. Quick delivery was required and the engine was shipped in sixty days after the order had been received; and this notwith- standing the fact that it was found, after starting the draw- ings, that the patterns which it was intended to use were not suitable and it was necessary to make new patterns for prac- tically all the parts. The en- gine is of about 200 horse power. LEGAL QUES1IONS 1N- VOLVED IN A WRECK. Buffalo, July 5.--The entire story, or even the most ab- sorbing part of it, that has to do with the case of the schooner T, H. Howland would make a decidedly good- sized volume. It involves so much that lake men ought to know, and mostly would like to know for their profit as well as for general information and amusement, that a: least a small chapter ought to be given on the proceedings. The poor schooner lies at the Buffalo breakwater with her decks out and generally forlorn. It was found that few men, not actually experts, imagined that there would be air enough in a coal cargo, or water pressure enough out- side of it to take out a sunken vessel's decks. The first diver that went down to Howland reported that her deck engine had gone down through the deck, but this statement was disbelieved. Then as to the liability of the cargo. As it was a matter of 650 tons of hard coal, some interested persons reasoned that it was worth $2,500-- no doubt more than the vessel itself, and possibly much more at a depth of 50 feet. So it was argued that the cargo ought to pay the great part of the cost of raising both, and the vessel interest strenuously resisted all effort to take the coal out before the vessel was raised. It would not be of much account to rehearse the tactics that were resorted to by the three interests that entered the war over the vessel. As she lay in Cana- dian waters some of the proposed legal proceedings had to be dropped before they were 'begun, but there were a few injunctions and counter injunctions 'got out and made to add very materially to the cost of getting the vessel. One of the things that were pretty clearly settled, for the thou- sandth time, was that it seldom pays to consult a lawyer who is not up on admiralty (business, for his advice, as it appears to have been in this case, too often turns out to ibe very expensive. Had the vessel interest the case to conduct over again, in the light of the experience obtained by the events growing out of it, the vessel would hardly have been at present in the hands of the wrecking company that raised her, and with possibly a big bill on top of her value to meet besides, for it is understood that the price agreed on for raising her was $4000. COMPOUND ENGINE, BUILT BY BELL's STEAM ENGINE WORKS, BUFFALO But the point that carried most weight of all and showed that the insurance interests knew what they were about all along in resisting the efiort to saddle on the cargo most of the cost of raising the loaded schooner, is that it is the best of law never to ask the cargo to contri- 'bute more to such a wrecking job than it would cost to raise it inde- pendent of the vessel. This point has been settled in the most positive way in Canadian admiralty litigation, and it stands to reason, of course. Now the insurance agents had let the job of raising the cargo at $2 a ton, and 150 tons had been taken out at a cost, it is said, of not over 70 cents a ton, when the vessel interest stepped in and stopped the proceeding. It was after that that so many war tactics, even to going out to the boat with a load of men to "clean out" the workmen on the schooner, only to find a bigger gang on her, were resorted to, all very ex- pensive at the time, and all very "funny 'business' as looked at now. It is not proper or at all desirable in this mention of the case to make disparaging allusions to anyone connected with it, for it was all a matter of acting on misinformation and failing to see the main point--that the cargo could not legally be made to pay more in assisting in the rais- ing of the vessel than it would cost to pump it to the top of the water. A Canadian case where this fact was affirmed over and over in original de- cision and appeal after appeal was presented to the vessel in- terest to show what ought to be done, but without making any impression. It was only when the attorney for the wrecking company, who luck- ily happened to have some ad- miralty lore in his head, came down to look the case over that some real progress was made. He at once said that the insurance was in the right and that the other side would have to yield. This was at length done and Ms, 'behold the contractor who was ; ' to raise the cargo, paying the wrecker $800 for his share of the contribution and making money 'by sitting down and \; doing nothing. At the outset the insurance | had offered $1,350 for the cargo's share of the work. So the Howland case ought to go down to pos- terity as a celebrated one, though of course it stands small chance of doing so, if cnly from the fact that it did not go through the regular proceedings of a court. For this reason I have made the effort to record some of the points of real account in it. JOHN CHAMBERLIN. A LOVING CUP TO MR, BABCOCK, Mr. W. I. Babcock, who retired from the presidency of the Chicago Ship Building Co. on July 1, was on Wednesday last the recipient of a beautiful solid silver loving cup, presented to him (by the officers and em- ployes of the company. During the ten years of Mr. Babcock's connec- tion with the company, which he organized and brought to its present standing as the best equipped plant on the lakes and one of the best in the country, he has gained the esteem of every one who has been privileged to serve under him. Fortunate is any concern whose_ affairs are characterized by the harmony and good will obtaining in the Chicago yard and which have been remarked 'by all who have had an opportunity of seeing and judging of its workings. The presentation was made by Mr. O: R. Sinclair, the efficient and debonair secretary of the company. It is safe to say that Mr. Babcock, who responded feelingly, will cherish this cup as a remembrance of his connection with the lake ship 'building inter- ests, which he has done so much to develop, and of the men who gave him their hearty co-operation. The cup bears on one of its three panels Mr. Babcock's monogram, on the second the monogram of the com- pany and on the third the inscription "presented to W. I. Babcock by the officers and employes of the Chicago Ship Building Co. on his retirement from the presidency July 1, 1900." : Following upon Mr. Babcock's retirement Mr. Henry Penton, super- intending engineer of the company, has also resigned, to take effect Aug. 1. Mr. Penton joined the company in 1896, when it was decided to establish an engine 'building plant, and that he is largely responsible for the splendid shops and equipment which have been developed since that time goes without saying.