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this MARINE REVIEW. | . A GREAT ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP PROJECT. Several weeks ago the Yachting World of London published a com- munication from George Wilson of 55 Broadway, New York, telling of a great American corporation (the New York & European Steamship Co.), which is to build for the Atlantic trade ships of 700 ft. length and 70,000 H.P., driven by "American turbine" engines, using Texas oil for fuel, etc. The scheme seemed so visionary that little attention was given to the " communication in the London publication, but as the New York Sun has since hunted up Mr. Wilson and learned some of the details of his great record-breaking ocean liners, the letter to London as well as the interview in the Sun are reprinted for what they are worth. In his letter to the London Yachting World Mr. Wilson said: "Last summer you published a special number, containing an article on 'Steam Turbines for Yachts.' It may interest you to know that we are arranging to build six passenger and mail steamers, each 705 ft. long by 70 ft. beam by 29 ft. draught, 70,000 H.P., to be driven with the American turbine, Texas oil fuel, and deliver passengers and mails from New York both to London and to Paris in four and a half days, postoffice to post- office, and to Berlin in five and an eighth days; to average 30 knots across the Atlantic. The consumption of oil (crude Texas petroleum) will aver- age under three-quarters of a pound per horse power per hour--including auxiliary powers aboard. These vessels will have six propeller shafts, so as to keep down the power to be transmitted on each shaft below the 12,000 H.P. per shaft, ten screw propellers, viz., two on each of the four side shafts and one on each of the two central shafts. All the propellers will be fitted with quick reversing gear, to reverse without stopping the turbines, and so arranged that they may go ahead, astern or act as a drag as desired, the turbine runging full speed or standing still. With these reversing appliances, if the rudder or other part of the steering gear breaks at sea, the ship can be readily steered from the bridge with one of the pro- peller shafts and leave the others to drive the ship, so that it would reach port with very little loss of time. By reason of the six shafts and ten screws a breakage of any one or two of them is comparative unimport- ant--the ship will arrive with little delay." Following up the foregoing communication, the New York Sun pub- lishes the following as a result of an interview with Mr. Wilson: "Mr. Wilson is a Scotchman, a native of Glasgow, and has been at. work for several years, first with the general idea of producing a rotary engine and latterly with the distinct aim of an effective turbine to devise a high-speed and high-power engine for driving ships. When Mr. Par- sons' invention of the turbine, of which so much has been heard of recent years, was given to the world, it struck Mr.: Wilson as the equivalent of a quadruple reciprocating engine with several defects. These he set him- self about to remove and at the same time he devoted himself to an effort to produce a steam turbine which should be practicable for installation in ships and which could drive vessels at higher speed than any that now traverse the seas. He began his work-in Great Britain, but it was not until the discovery of the Beaumont oil gushers, recently, that he found himself able to lay out a practicable scheme for the utilization of his ideas. Although the letter to the Yachting World might suggest that the innova- tion of turbine steamships 700 ft. long for fast Atlantic service was a prospect of the immediate future, Mr. Wilson acknowledged that the pro- jected ships had not yet even been contracted for, although estimates for their building had been asked and were in hand. Several reasons, he said, made it still a matter for consideration when and where the vessels should be built. The company, he said, was incorporated under the laws of Maine, and its first movement when the time and place of building the vessels was determined would be the construction of one ship of the kind described in his letter to the Yachting World, so that the ship might demonstrate its ability by the use of his turbine invention to cross the ocean:in the time mentioned. "Mr. Wilson was so confident of the ability of such a ship to do what he promised that no attempt had been made, he said, to induce existing lines to adopt the invention, the desire being to keep all the possibilities of profit to an independent company. He said positively that the capital was at command with which to build the first ship, although he declined to publish at the present time the names of his associates in the concern. He said further that two large American ship builders had requested per- mission to use his invention and that a very large electrical manufacturing concern of this country had asked for the right to its use for land engines. He said that one of the proposed record-breaking ocean giants to be driven by his turbine could be built, according to the estimates, for be- tween $2,000,000 and $2,500,000, in perhaps eighteen months, the difference between these figures and the Deutschland's cost of nearly $4,000,000, oe the cost of the Deutschland's engines over the Wilson turbine. "Mr. Wilson exhibits a model of his invention at his office, and in explaining it draws attention to the difference in structure between it and the Parsons turbine. In the Parsons turbine the steam is admitted to the cylinder at one end, and plays against hundreds of small blades similar to propeller blades and set at angles in discs which make perhaps a thou- sand revolutions a minute, in the interval between every two discs being placed a curved bit of metal for reversing the steam which comes off one series of the small blades so as to direct it properly upon the blades of the next disc. Mr. Wilson holds that there is considerable loss of power in admitting the steam at one end of the cylinder, so that the last set of blades at the opposite end receive only a diminished thrust, and that there is a further loss at each reversal of the force of the steam between each pair of the discs or each two sets of the blades. He says also that by reason of the condensation of the steam and the settlement of the moisture at the bottom of the cylinder there is much water-friction after a time, which is material when the revolutions reach so high a number as a thousand a minute. "His own invention is wholly different in design and in the method of applying the steam power. His turbine is a cylinder around the center of which runs a mid-feather or band set at right angles to the face of the cylinder; from this band there branch out on either side other bands also set perpendicular to the cylinder, which make with the mid-feather a continuous series of V's on either side of the mid-feather all around the center of the cylinder. A short distance from the mid-feather, at what would be the broad or open end of a long V, these radiate bands cease to be straight and continue in parallel zig-zag courses, with equal angles of about fifteen degrees, which courses are so designed that the bands reach the ends of the cylinder after traversing half its circumference. The steam is let inside the casing, which incloses this cylinder, through several inlets opening at different points just over the mid-feather and, splitting on the mid-feather, the steam takes its way through the channels between the radiate bands, delivering its thrust upon each opposing arm of the zig-zag, and thence being shunted to the next or alternate one. The channels deliver it at the ends of the cylinder against cycloidal blades set on the cylinder ends, where it spends its last power and exhausts around the axle, the condensation being drained off below. Mr. Wilson says that this enables a direct as against an oblique thrust of the steam power, dis- tributes the power equally to all parts of the turbine simultaneously, and obviates the loss by reversing and also that by water friction. He intends to put 140 of these channels on a 10-ft. cylinder, the diameter and length of the cylinder being equal. And this is the steam turbine with which he expects to equip the ships mentioned in his letter. He says that oil fuel is no longer an experiment in ocean vessels, that the Shell Transportation & Trading Co. of London is now operating its own ships with oil fuel and is establishing a line of oiling stations all around the world; that it has ordered six 12,000-ton ships, which it will operate with oil fuel; that among the oiling stations it has already established and is feeding, partly with Texas oil, are stations at Cape Town and Durban, and that the ships of the Union and Castle lines between London and Cape Town are run by oil. The Texas or Beaumont oil which he plans to use for its turbine ships, he says, is so economical a fuel in the sense of force yielded for bulk carried that four-sevenths of a ton of it does the work of one ton of coal. Mr. Wilson said that the plan of his company was to capture the passenger business by quick service and do little freight carrying." SPECIAL MECHANICAL INDUCED DRAFT FAN. In the accompanying engraving is illustrated a special steam-driven steel-plate fan, designed for mechanical induced draft by the Buffalo Forge Co. of Buffalo, N. Y. Details of the construction of this apparatus pre- sent some interesting features. This direct-connected fan is one of two similar pieces of ap- : paratus which, to- gether, form a duplex induced draft plant installed: in a large electric power estab- lishment of northern England, Each fan is capable of hand- ling the gases from four Galoway boilers, each 8 ft. 6 in. in di- ameter and 28 ft. long with a grate area of 48 sq. ft. The capacity of the fans- was calculated on a basis of a coal con- sumption of 20 lbs. per square foot of grate surface, using a Durham coal, locally known. 'as ©-"smiall bean." The" steain pressure carried is about 140 lbs. per square inch. These boilers are arranged in conjunction with two econo- mizers, so that the gases are cooled to about 450° Fahrenheit. The fans in this instance are 100 in. in diameter and are driven at a speed of about 400 revolutions per minute, equivalent to a pressure of 2 in. of water at the fan outlet. All the gaseous products of combustion from the boilers, after passing through the economizer, are drawn to the fans, which are situated on a platform above the boilers and discharged upward into the short steel stack. The fans themselves are of the full housing, upblast steel-plate construction, rigidly braced with angle irons. The fan wheel is built of steel-plate blades bolted to wrought-iron spider arms and provided with conical side pieces to lend rigidity to the whole. In order to insure cool running while handling the hot gases for long periods, the fan wheel shaft is supported in a water-cooled bearing, and in addition the main bearing of the engine on the side next the fan is likewise provided with a water-cooling device. The blast wheel, which is over hung, is driven by a Buffalo vertical cross-compound engine, sup- ported upon a sheet steel base integral with the fan casing. The engine as designed has cylinders of 4 and 6 in. diameter with a common stroke of 5 in. and running non-condensing on a steam pressure of 180 Ibs., de- velops 17 H.P. The various rotating and reciprocating parts work within the cast iron frame, which, by the addition of a removable side-plate, is rendered oil-tight and dust-proof. The engine is arranged to run in oil, and in this way all the bearing surfaces within the frame are copiously supplied with a lubricant. The crank shaft is carried in bearings of ample length affixed to the frame. The low-pressure cylinder is fitted with a slide valve, driven from a fixed eccentric on the crank shaft within the bed, and hence its cut-off is fixed. Steam distribution in the high-press- ure cylinder, however, is controlled by a balanced and adjustable piston valve which is itself actuated by the swinging eccentric of a sensitive shaft governor. In this way the fan is maintained at a uniform speed when serving one or all of the boilers without any alteration in the position of the dampers. : a Excellent steam economy is attained for an engine of this size, and by the automatic oiling arrangement frictional losses are reduced to a minimum. The feature of tightly enclosing the engine will be appre- ciated when the environment in which the engine operates is recalled. The many advantages resulting from the application of induced draft to boiler plants cannot be dwelt tipon here, but it may be well to note the marked saving effected by such apparatus, in that the lowest grades of fuel may be burned with facility. lpi Rails of the Cape Breton Railway Co.'s proposed line between Sydney and St. Peter's and between Sydney and Louisburg will be provided by the Dominion Iron & Steel Co., Sydney, C. B.