LOCOMOTION' BY EIVER AND RAILWAY. 



a good vacuum is always sustained behind the piston by means of 

 the condenser. 



19. The steam navigation of the Mississippi is conducted in a 

 manner entirely different from that of the Hudson and the eastern 

 rivers. Every one must be familiar with the lamentable accidents 

 which happen from time to time, and the loss of life from explosion 

 which continually takes place in those regions. 



These accidents, instead of diminishing with the improvements 

 of art, appear rather to have increased. Engineers, disregarding 

 the heart-rending narratives continually published, have done 

 literally nothing to check the evil ; and it may be almost said to 

 be a disgrace to humanity, that the legislature of the Union has 

 not ere this interposed its authority to check abuses, which are 

 productive of such calamities. 



riSSISSIPPI STEAMBOAT. 



In a Mississippi steam-boat the cabins and saloons provided for 

 the accommodation of the passengers, though less magnificently 

 furnished, are as spacious as those already described in the boats 

 on the Hudson. They are, however, erected on a flooring or 

 platform, six or eight feet above the deck of the vessel. Upon this 

 deck, and in the space under the cabins and saloons allotted to the 

 passengers, are placed the engines, which are of the coarsest 

 structure. They are invariably worked with high-pressure steam 

 without condensation ; and in order to obtain that effect, which, in 

 the boats on the Hudson, is due to the vacuum, the steam is worked 

 at an extraordinary pressure. I have myself frequently witnessed 

 boilers of the most inartificial construction worked with steam of 

 the full pressure of 120 Ibs. per square inch; but more recently 

 this pressure has been increased, the ordinary working pressure 

 30 



