38 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



yearning for nothing so much as a cessation of the tossing, jarring, heaving 

 motion ; and as the silence of 



A sleep, for sleep itself to rest in ; 



"We have rarely heard of a discovery so richly calculated to excruciate all 

 who come within its sphere. 



CHAMPION'S IMPROVEMENT IN STEAM BOILERS AND FURNACES. 



A patent has been recently issued to Thomas Champion of Washington, 

 D. C., for an improved mode of feeding and keeping up continuous rapid cir- 

 culation in steam-boilers, by means of a "sprinkler," and for a patent furnace 

 and direct action exhaust steam-blower, which saves all the room, expense, 

 and friction of a mechanical blower, and all the heat of the exhaust steam and 

 fuel after the engine is in motion. 



The invention consists in the arrangement of a tube, connecting with the 

 feed-pump or supply-pipe, passing through the fire-box, around which it is 

 coiled, thence onward passing into the water-space and up above the fire-box 

 or flues, where it enters or becomes a sprinkler, which extends through the 

 length of the boilers, above the furnace, or tubes, or flues. This sprinkler is 

 pierced with a series of small apertures at the proper angles to sprinkle any 

 part or the whole of the surface where the fire is acting on the opposite sides 

 of the metal when bare of water. This tube, near its point of union with the 

 supply-pipe, communicates with another pipe which intersects with the boiler 

 at or near the bottom, or with a log or water-space. It is also furnished near 

 its point of junction with the boiler-pipe with a valve hinged above the junc- 

 tion. While the pump is feeding, or the supply passing into the boiler, this 

 valve will raise with the pressure under it, closing the boiler-pipe, and the 

 feed-water will pass on through the coils, grate, tube, and sprinkler, entering 

 the boiler intensely heated ; but should the pump -fail to supply, the steam 

 and hydrostatic pressure in the boiler and the first pipe, will then open the 

 valve and admit the water from the boiler into the first pipe, and the intense 

 heat to which its coils are subjected in passing through the furnace, cause the 

 hot water and vapors to pass upward with continuous rapidity through the 

 sprinkler, jetting and spraying the plates, whether the pump is feeding or 

 not, so long as any water remains in the boilers : thus all the water may be 

 evaporated, the steam exhausted, and the engine stopped, yet no explosion 

 takes place, nor even the boiler be injured, provided the fire be extinguished as 

 soon as the engine shows signs of stopping. With one third the usual quan- 

 tity of water in the boilers, and the continuous showering of the plates, ren- 

 ders the evaporation three times more effective, and the mode of feeding cold 

 water round through the coils in contact or nearly so with the fire-box plates, 

 admirably prevents their destruction, and saves much heat and loss in replac- 

 ing burned grate bars. 



For single or double flue cjdinder boilers is also placed a drying-pipe in the 

 rear end of the fire-space, into which the exhaust steam from the engine is 

 conveyed ; the drying-pipe has exit pipes conveying the exhaust steam into 



