BY P. L. WESTON. B.BC, B.E. XI. 



^videly differing types of engine have been evolved for dif- 

 ferent kinds of work and the same process of evolution 

 is now taking place, and already many standard designs 

 have been produced. The largest engines at work are 

 those to be found in most modern iron smelting works in 

 America and on the Continent. In the largest of these 

 installations the power of the engines aggregates 

 150,000 horse power. The economy of using the gases 

 escaping from the l)last furnaces has in many cases re- 

 duced the cost of the production of pig-iron by 2 or 3 

 opr cent. 



The efforts of designers are now being mainly con- 

 <?entrated on the problem of adapting the internal com- 

 bustion engine in large sizes to marine work. This is a 

 matter which I think is worthy of special comment on 

 this occasion, because probably the most noteworthy en- 

 gineering achievement of the term of my presidency has 

 been the birth of the motor ship. The pioneer ship of 

 any considerable size to be fitted with internal combus- 

 tion engines Avas the Zealandia, launched early in 1912, 

 and during the same year no less than nine other ocean- 

 going ships were launched. It is perhaps a matter for 

 national regret that, though the British engineer led the 

 way in the development of the marine steam engine, and 

 later on the marine steam turbine, yet in the matter of 

 the marine internal combustion engine the pioneers have 

 "been chiefly Swedish, German, and other continental 

 •engineers. There is, however, every indication that the 

 English engineer and shipowner will before very long 

 make up the leeway, and it is pretty safe to prophesy 

 that before long the public will have to get reconciled to 

 the disappearance of the familiar funnel from the ocean 

 tramp and other low powered craft. Whether it will be 

 feasible to produce internal combustion engines of suit- 

 able size for the high powered liner and battleship is a 

 matter about which it would now be premature to ex- 

 press an opinion. It must be remembered that the work- 

 ing fluid in an internal combustion engine is actually 

 white hot flame, and when one considers the amount of 

 heat being produced in the numerous furnaces of a big 

 liner and realises that to produce the same power in an 



