296 EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION. 



EXPLOSIONS, BOILER. 



The narrowest strait is the Bosporus, the 

 width of which at Constantinople is about 550 

 yards. The Little Belt, between the Island of 

 Flinen and Jutland, is 880 yards wide. In the 

 Dardanelles the European shore is three quar- 

 ters of a mile distant from Asia. The sound 

 between Sweden and Zealand has a width of If 

 mile. The Calmar Sound, between Sweden and 

 the Island of Oeland, is nearly 2 miles wide ; 

 the Strait of Messina, 2 miles ; that of Jougar- 

 sky Schar, between the Island of Vaigats and 

 Russia, nearly 2 miles ; that of Yenikale 2*6 

 miles; Pentland Firth, between Scotland and 

 the Orkney Islands, 4 -3 miles. The Strait of 

 Bonifacio, between Corsica and Sardinia, has a 

 width of 7 miles ; the Great Belt, between Fli- 

 nen and Zealand, a width of 10 miles; and the 

 North Channel, between Ireland and Scotland, 

 a width of 12 miles. The Strait of Gibraltar 

 has a width of 20*4 miles at the fortress, but 

 its least width is 10-5 miles. The Strait of 

 Kara, between Nova Zembla and Vaigats, is 

 23 '8 miles wide, the English Channel 25 miles, 

 the Mineh 26-5 miles, the Strait of Taranto 

 33 '6 miles, and St. George's Channel 48 miles. 



EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION. The 

 following is a summary of the statistics of 

 the Evangelical Association, as they are pub- 

 lished in the " Christian Family Almanac " for 

 1883: 



Number of Sunday-schools, 2,OOT, with 22,- 

 126 officers and teachers, and 133,361 scholars; 

 number of baptisms during the year, 1,414 of 

 adults, and 8,485 of children ; number of local 

 preachers, 619 ; probable value of churches, 

 $3,439,502 ; number of parsonages, 475, having 

 a probable value of $480,161. Amount of 

 "conference contributions," $5,641; of con- 

 tributions for missions, $100,655 ; of contri- 

 butions for the Sunday-School and Tract Union, 

 $2,512. The tables show an increase of 3,156 

 members during the year. The mission in Ja- 

 pan returns 1 itinerant preacher, 1 local preach- 

 er, 2 chapels, 3 regular preaching-places, 51 



native members, 117 scholars and 15 officers 

 and teachers in four Sunday-schools, 72 schol- 

 ars in two day-schools, and, during the year, 

 26 baptisms of adults, and 1 infant baptized. 

 The church has a publishing house at Cleve- 

 land, Ohio, where one English and one German 

 general religious paper and papers for children 

 and Sunday schools in both languages are pub- 

 lished ; and two papers are published at Stutt- 

 gart, Germany. The Ebeiiezer Orphan Insti- 

 tute, Flat Rock, Ohio, cares for children till 

 they are sixteen years old. 



EXPLOSIONS, BOILER. EXPERIMENTS OF 

 D. T. LAWSON. In the " Annual Cyclopaedia " 

 of last year an account was given of the ex- 

 periments of Mr. Daniel T. Lawson upon the 

 explosion of boilers under conditions which 

 have heretofore been considered as insuring 

 safety. Since the writing of that account, Mr. 

 Lawson has made further tests to demonstrate 

 the value of his improvement in the construc- 

 tion of boilers. The matter was considered 

 sufficiently important by the United States au- 

 thorities to warrant the appointment of com- 

 missioners to witness and report upon the tests. 

 These reports, indorsing very fully both Mr. 

 Lawson's theory of the phenonenon and his 

 improvement in construction, are given below, 

 and furnish sufficient information of the sub- 

 ject to enable the public to judge of it: 



PITTSBURG, PA., March 23, 1862. 



Eon. Charles J. Folger, Secretary United States Treas- 

 ury, Washington, D. C. 



SIR : In an official letter from the Supervising In- 

 spector-General of Steam-Vessels, dated Washington, 

 D. C., February 10, 1882, we were informed of our 

 appointment by you to witness and report upon ex- 

 periments to be made at Munhall, near Pittsburg, 

 Pa., by Mr. D. T. Lawson, illustrating his theory of 

 steam-boiler explosions. In accordance with these in- 

 structions, we proceeded to the scene of the experi- 

 ments, February 14, 1882, three days prior to the first 

 test, for the purpose of making a careful examination 

 of the form, construction, and dimensions of the boil- 

 ers, and to ascertain the thickness and tensile strength 

 of the plates used in their construction. 



We found two cylindrical boilers, five feet and nine 

 inches in length and thirty inches in diameter, one of 

 which was a plain cylindical boiler without flues or 

 tubes, with an iron rod one inch ha diameter, which 

 served as a stay or brace, running through the center 

 and fastened at either head by means of nuts. 



The thickness of the shell was three sixteenths of 

 an inch, and the material was iron, with a tensile 

 strength of 61-449 pounds per square inch of section. 

 Two plates were used in the construction of the shell, 

 with the longitudinal seams on opposite sides above 

 the fire-line. The heads were made of the same ma- 

 terial as that of the plates in the shell, but were three 

 eighths of an inch in thickness. 



The other boiler was a duplicate of the above- 

 described boiler, with the following exceptions:!. 

 A man-head was put in one of its heads, necessitated 

 by the manner in which the boiler was constructed. 

 2. An iron plate, three sixteenths of an inch in thick- 

 ness, was flanged around its edges, and riveted along 

 the entire length of both sides of the shell and across 

 the heads on the inside of the boiler. The side 

 flanges contained seventy -four five-eighths rivets each, 

 and those across the heads contained thirteen five- 

 eighths rivets each. The plate was semicircular in form 

 and attached to the sides of the shell about the center, 

 and curving upward to within eight inches of the top 



