[51] WORK OF STEAMER ALBATROSS. 655 



LIFE-TIME OF LAMPS. 



For the past two years we have kept the lamps in the engine-room 

 alone in circuit all the time, that we might obtain a correct estimate of 

 the average duration of the lamps. 



The total lamp hours was 27,987 hours and 31 minutes, and the total 

 number of lamps expended was 30, so that the mean life-time of the 



(27987 31 \ 

 — = ) 932 hours and 



54 minutes. Lamp No. 92 is included in the above average, though it 

 was broken after 701 hours of incandescence. 



In recording the great life-time of these lamps, it is proper to state 

 that they were in circuit all the time, and were lighted and extinguished 

 daily with the starting and stopping of the dynamo, and were, conse- 

 quently, never suddenly heated nor cooled. 



VENTILATION. 



The ventilating fan has been in use, during the warm weather, for 

 several hours each night when at sea. The wastefulness of the Wise 

 motor, which drives the fan, is so great, that the writer does not feel 

 justified in using it a great deal. The new arrangement of boilers will 

 displace the present fan and motor, and I recommend that a pair of 

 Sturtevant's No. 5 monogram exhaust fans and an orthodox steam- 

 engine be put in place thereof. They can be placed in the donkey- 

 boiler room conveniently. To exhaust some of the heated air from the 

 space over the working platform of the engine-room I recommend that 

 two wrought-iron chimneys be run from this point to the open deck 

 above. 



The four proposed ventilators to the new fire-room, which will extend 

 8 feet above the deck, will doubtless be much more efficient than the 

 present two, having the same (IS inches) diameter, and which are only 

 3 feet above the deck. The movable cowls of the new ventilators will 

 be of copper, to prevent affecting the standard compass. 



WARMING. 



The usual trouble from breaking of heater valves has continued. 

 It is impossible to say when or by whom these valve-steins are twisted 

 off or threads stripped ; it is a contest between small brass valves and 

 muscle, in which the latter appears to triumph. The large heater, 

 which was removed from the berth-deck last year, has been replaced. 



The steam traps (Chapman's) have never been satisfactory ; water 

 accumulates in the heaters if we trust to the automatic action of the 

 traps, and if we attempt to regulate the drain by adjusting the by-pass, 

 we find steam blowing through at times. 



The writer designed a valve (Fig. 2, Plate VIII) and improvised a 

 trap by screwing the valve into a cast-iron cylinder we had been using 



