AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



387 



becomes locked through some defect, and then an explosion follows. Their 

 free working must ho often tried by the engineer. The lead plug must be 

 attended to. It should be renewed every month. 



SUMMARY. 



Boiler tested properly ; leakage stopped ; boiler clean ; two valves and 

 a lead plug to each boiler ; kept in order ; and an explosion may be said to 

 be an impossibility. A locomotive boiler on being tested for the first time, 

 at the builders', (Messrs. Sharp, Stewart & Co.,) exploded, destroying life, 

 attributed to imperfect rivets fixed by machinery, so as to reduce the 

 strength from 490 lbs. per inch to 100 lbs. 



FIRST LOCOMOTIVES IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Horatio Allen, of our Novelty Works, brought here, from England, in 

 1829, the first locomotives, one of which was used on the Delaware and 

 Hudson railroad, at Carbondale, in Pennsylvania, and was taken off, being 

 too heavy for that road. The first one made in the United States, was at 

 the West Point foundry, in 1830, for the South Carolina railroad, and was 

 called the Ph<£7iix ; a second one was called the West Point. In the 

 spring of 1831, the third one, built for the Mohawk and Hudson railroad 

 from Albany to Schenectady, was called the De Witt Clinton^ the first one 

 run in the State of New York. 



Mr. Clough, of Indiana, exhibited and explained his new steam meter. 



Mr. Meigs had examined in the large stores of Messrs. Bowen & 

 McNamee, in Broadway, Gold's method of warming buildings. Three 

 furnaces in the lower story, each about six feet high by four or five diame- 

 ter, make steam. The steam regulates, automatically, the supply of water 

 and that of air to the furnaces whose fire valves close when the steam is 

 high enough, and deaden the fires. Pipes lead the steam to radiators 

 placed where wanted in every part. The radiators ai'e plates of sheet iron 

 quilted together (by rivits) at short intervals, leaving space between them 

 for a very thin stratum of steam. Such double plates are placed within a 

 few inches of each other, in masses as required. The pipes reconduct to 

 the boilers the water of the condensed steam, these pipes being a little 

 inclined, so as to carry off all water and so prevent rust when the radia- 

 tors are unemployed. The stores have seven floors, each 150 feet long and 

 50 feet wide. So that there is space warmed equal to eighty-four rooms of 

 twenty-five feet square, and the whole warmed by sixty tons of coal per 

 annum, or each room of 25 feet square is warmed by three-quarters or 

 one ton per annum. 



Mr. Leonard had large experience in extensive factories, and had found 

 the physician's bill large when dry heat was employed, and when, he intro- 

 duced steam warmth, health rose among the people of the factories, while 

 doctor's bills fell. He attributed this salutary change to the moisture ac- 

 companying the steam heat. Such, however, was the result of experience. 



