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

50 felt competent to handle the machinery under service conditions and we had no question of our ability to carry on our work. If Mr. Fletcher desires to co-op- erate with us in the future in making tests on any machinery installed by him I have no doubt that satisfactory arrangements can be made and in such case I am confident that we can con- vince him that our results are reliable and valuable. COMMUNICATED DISCUSSION. Walter S. Leland: It is much to be regretted that the authors of this paper were not present to reply ver- bally to the discussion, and to point out the one or two alleged discrep- which furnished the ground- ancies work for a few severe criticisms. Nevertheless these are all so sim- ple and manifest on the face of it that I wonder how any engineer or layman either should fail to place on them the proper interpretation. One of the general charges against this paper seems to be that it is misleading; and yet although I have carefully been over the discussion I fail to find a single point definitely mentioned as misleading excepting the statement of horsepower and results dependent thereon. In preparing the paper the authors assumed that everyone would know the fundamental difference between the determination of power on a tur- bine and on a reciprocating engine but for the benefit of those unfamiliar with engine tests let me say that the power of a reciprocating engine is universally indicated and everyone so understands it unless otherwise stated; but no one has yet been suc- cessful in "indicating" the power of a turbine. -- To make this point absolutely sure however, Capt. Hovgaard, at the re- quest of the authors, made this point clear when he read the paper. | Those who sent written criticisms were perhaps justified in asking the question, but how in the world any one who was present could fail to understand it, I do not see, and yet Mr. Wheeler, after assuming an im- proper auxiliary consumption for the Nantucket compares 16.5 pounds of steam per I. H. P. for the Nantucket with 19.74 pounds per B. H. P. for Hiemcobo, and then he says, "It isa pity that these figures are not more complete, because they are very mis- leading." Mr. Wheeler is right, it is a pity that his figures are so mis- leading. : Had Mr. Wheeler carried his guesses further and assumed a ratio _ 15 per cent as he says. "turbine particulars," THE MarRINE REVIEW of 85 pen cent between indicated and brake horsepower he could have com- 16.5 pared. = 19.41 pounds for the 0.85 et Nantucket with 19.74 pounds for the Cobb. But what is the use of guessing, and where did Mr. Wheeler get the 15 per cent for auxiliaries? The re- ported data show a little less than 11.2 per cent for the Cobb and not If the auxil- jary consumption on the Nantucket was a like per cent, then he should have compared 20.28 pounds for the Nantucket with 19.74 pounds for the Cobb. The authors failed to draw any such misleading comparisons because it is all founded on assumption and they preferred to let every member do his own assuming. The auxiliary con- sumption for the Nantucket was not given because we had no accurate means of determining it as we had for the Governor Cobb. After reading the discussions of this paper one is likely to get the impression conveyed in the words of Mr. Platt, "that this paper is abso- lutely misleading, certain data has evidently not been taken, and the data which has been taken is not correct in very many particulars, and in the parttculars in which it has been taken 1s so far from cerrect, so muuchmeso. that. ledo not think this paper ought to be printed in the proceedings of this society." This is a pretty broad statement - and one 'that is absolutely untrue, evidently uttered with the intention of throwing discredit on the paper. To characterize it more concisely would be a violation of parliamentary lan- guage. The only reply I need make, is to say that John Platt Esq. was not on board the Governor Cobb at the time of the test, at any rate he was not in the engine room, and 'there- fore has no knowledge of our work in any particular. I cannot help won- dering at the assurance of a man who, under those conditions, says that our data are not correct. The paper contains no false state- ments and therefore cannot be as misleading, for instance, as his own remarks. He says the paper is incomplete and yet the only omission he defi- nitely refers 'to are "turbine particu- lars" and "turbine pressures." By I presume he means dimensions, etc. This data fortunately, the Parsons Co. do not seem to be inclined to give out and the turbine pressures would be of lit- tle value of themselves. As Mr. Speakman says in his admirable ar- ticle in the Transaction of the Insti- tute of Engineers and Ship Builders of Scotland, Vol. 49, "Being, how- ever, based on long and costly experi- ments, much reticence is observed in their publication." On -reading Mr. Anderson's dis- cussion one finds the cause for much of the alleged misleading character of the paper. He quotes, "The best run was made . under the most fa- vorable conditions of weather and sea" and then goes on to prove that this could not possibly be so because the boilers were dirty, the boat hav- ing left Boston eight hours before it left Portland. This was really an unexpected line of attack and one for which the authors were entirely un- prepared. I have looked into his ar- gument carefully, but have not yet discovered how to answer a man who infers that dirty boilers have a detri- mental effect upon the weather and sea. If the paper was not sufficiently clear I trust that this explanation will not be misleading. For Mr. Anderson's information I would say that the 2 in. air pressure was because of dirty fires and not dirty boilers. At the very top of the advance copy of the paper one may read, if he chooses, these words. "This paper having been received by the secre- Caivenate dee vVeli~ tate date. a .9e. , has been sent to members of the society without proof reading, in order to Save time," and yet apparently no one saw them. For instance, Mr. An- derson made a great point of the fact that the revolutions of the center shaft were stated as 400 in the paper while the curves on Plate III did not go anywhere near 400. Mr. Anderson cer- tainly ought to have seen that 'this was clearly a clerical or typograph- ical error and should have read 450, as distinctly shown on the curves he referred to. The correct revolutions are 475, 460 and 450 as stated in the paper and not those assumed by him. His failure to comprehend explicit statements in the paper is again shown by his assumption of 440 for the average revolutions of the center- shaft, when it is definitely stated that the 4,100 horsepower is based on max- imum revolutions, which the 'curve clearly shows 'to be 450. Then he says, "the horsepower as calculated by the formula given at the top of page Z shows a discrepancy as the revolu- tions for the center shaft were taken at 400 instead of 440, so that 4,100