66 ROUGH-AND-TUMBLE ENGINEERING 



he continues to run until the tank arrives. If the plug 

 holds, he at once begins to pump in cold water, and most 

 likely does it on a very hot sheet, which of itself, is some- 

 thing he never should do. If the plug does blow out he 

 is delayed a couple of h6urs at least, before he can put 

 in a new plug and get up steam again. Now suppose 

 he had not had a soft plug (as they are sometimes called), 

 he would not even have had a hot crown sheet, and 

 would only have lost the time he waited on the tank. 

 This is not a fancied circumstance by any means, for it 

 happens every day. The engineer running an engine 

 with a safety plug seldom stops for a load of water until 

 he blows out the plug. It frequently happens that a fusi- 

 ble plug becomes corroded to such an extent that it will 

 stand a heat sufficient to burn the iron. This is my great- 

 est objection to it. The engineer continues to rely on it 

 for safety, the same as if it were in perfect order, and the 

 ultimate result is he burns or cracks his crown sheet. I 

 have already stated that I have no objection to the plug, 

 if the engineer did not know it was there, so if you must 

 use one, attend to it, and every time you clean your boiler 

 scrape the upper or water end of the plug with a knife, 

 and be careful to remove any corrosive matter that may 

 have collected on it, and then treat your boiler exactly 

 as though there was no such a thing as a safety plug in 

 it. A safety plug was not designed to let you run with 

 any lower gauge of water. It is placed there to prevent 



