18-13.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



205 



C. W. WILLIAMS* PATENT SMOKELESS ARGAND FURNACE. 



Sir — As the application of Mr. C. \V. Williams' Argand Furnace 

 to marine boilers has been questioned, we beg to request your giving 

 room to the accompanying tabular view of its adoption on board 

 several steamers, and to add that the apparatus continues to be applied 

 to such boilers as from their construction are susceptible of im- 

 provement. 



I am. Sir, 

 May 5, 1843. Your'a obediently, 



Dircks & Co. 



P.S. By the returns in the foregoing table it will be seen that the ad- 

 vantages are greater in some vessels than in others. This difference 

 is chiefly attributable to the construction of their boilers. In marine 

 as well as land engine boilers, the arrangement of the flues frequently 

 renders them incap.ible of improvement; such arrangement not only 

 injuring the draught, but tending to obstruct, rather than aid, the 

 natural and chemical process of the combustion of the gaseous matter 

 of the coal. In some of the boilers in the above table, there appears 

 to be a considerable saving of fuel where there had been a sufficiency 

 of steam. In others, the advantage of the apparatus is shown by ob- 

 taining a better supply of steam from the same quantity of fuel. In 

 all, the great evil of smoke is avoided. Where furnaces are properly 

 attended to, by having the bars kept thickly and uniformly covered 

 with fuel, smoke will be prevented, and more heat generated. Any 

 deviation from this, by having the fire bars too long — by improperly 

 feeding the furnaces or allowing the fuel to burn in holes or irregu- 

 larly — or by heaping the fresh coals in front, and allowing the back 

 part of the bars to be uncovered or without the full supply of fuel, 

 will be attended, either with the generation of visible smoke, or the 

 escape of the gases unbumt, though invisible, with a loss of heat, and 

 consequently a diminution of steam. It is here to be noted, that the 

 absence of visible black smoke is no test of the combustion of the 

 gases. What is called the " combustion of smoke " is not unfrequently 

 the effect of the mismanagement of the fuel, by which its inflammable 

 gases pass away in an invisible form. Smoke is the result of the 

 imperfect process of combustion of the gases, and as the process can- 

 not be twice performed in the same furnace, the " combustion of 

 smoke " is hence a chemical absurdity. Dr. Ure, writing to Mr. 

 Williams, says, "I quite agree with you in considering the prevention 

 of smoke to be the true mode of curing the nuisance; for when the 

 carbonaceous particles become deposited, it is impossible effectually 

 to burn them, so as to destroy the smoke which they occasion, or 

 rather constitute." Professor Brande says, "As to the quibble about 

 burning smoke, it is, in other words, burning what is to be presnmed 

 has already been burned, and therefore cannot be burued twice over," 

 &c. "I can see nothing that in the least invalidates your views re- 

 specting the prevention of smoke, by the combustion of that which 

 would become smoke, if you mould let it." 



NOTES ON THE USE OF SUBLIMATE OF MERCURY AND SUL- 

 PHATE OF ZINC, AS PREVENTIVES TO DECAY IN TIMBER. 



Various attempts have been made by different individuals to render tim- 

 ber indestructible, both as regards fire and the hand of time, also to render 

 limbers of inferior qualities equal in hardness to those of the best descrip- 

 tion ; for the two latter purposes a solution of pyrolignite of iron and chlo- 

 ride of lime have been employed, and for the former, solutions of the sul- 

 phates of copper and iron. It has long beeu known that the saturation of 

 skins of birds and anatomical preparations, in a solution of corrosive subli- 

 mate of mercury, tended to their preservation, and it was suggested by Sir 

 H. Davy and also by Mr. Chapman, that the same solution was capable of 

 preserving timber ; but it was reserved for Mr. Kyan to bring the subject to 

 bear in practice, who, as long ago as March 4, 1828, submitted some timbers 

 to his new process, and the first examination of which took place in three 

 years afterwards, and the second in July, 1833, five years afterwards. Since 

 then the use of sublimate as a preventive of dry rot and decay has been 

 termed Kyanizing, after Mr. Kyan, who, in 1832, took out letters patent " for 

 a new mode of preserving certain vegetable substances from decay," and in 

 the same year had some specimens of timber, prepared with the solution, 

 tested in the fungus pits of Woolwich dockyard, which stood the trial satis- 

 factorily. In 1835, the paling of Regent's Park, in London, was so prepared, 

 and in the same year Sir Robert Smirke employed Kyanized timber in the 

 erection of the Oxford and Cambridge Club, and Messrs. Grissell and Peto, 



the builders, erected tanks and purchased the use of the patent, and Mr. Samuel 

 Beazley, the architect, reported, in Jan. 1831, favourably of the paling in the 

 Regent's Park, which had been submitted to the process. The above au- 

 thorities, I have no doubt, gave the system of Kyanizing an impetus of 

 which it has not yet lost the beneficial effect. Above twenty railway com- 

 panies used the patent for the preparation of the sleepers of railways, both 

 for cross and continuous bearings ; it was used on the viaducts of timber on 

 the North Shields Railway, by Messrs. Green, and also by the Honourable 

 Commission for the repair of the Menai Bridge. The Kyanizing system has 

 been introduced into Holland, where the Commissioners of the Dutch govern- 

 ment made a favourable report in May, 1838, and it has also been used for 

 the Austrian railways. A company is now using the patent in England 

 under the title of " The Anti-Dry-Rot Company." 



An improvement on mere saturation was suggested and acted upou by Sir 

 William Burnett, in Aug. 1836, and being favourably reported on by the 

 Admiralty, a tank was erected at Portsmouth, being of wrought iron, 52 ft. 

 long, and 6 ft. diameter, and another was erected by the Hull & Selby Rail- 

 road Company, 70 ft. long C ft. diameter. The Anti-Dry-Rot Company, under 

 Kyan's patent, has also a 60 ft. tank and hydraulic apparatus, at their works, 

 City Road Basin. The timber is piled inside these tanks with interstices, 

 and the air is exhausted by a pump to a vacuum of 25-J in. of mercury, and 

 the solution then admitted, and submitted to a pressure of 100 lb. by a force 

 pump, by which means the saturated solution is forced into the pores of the 

 wood. Some doubts have been expressed as to whether the proper effect is 

 obtained by this mechanical process, the action being chemical, and time for 

 saturation being required. 



The report of the Committee appointed by the Lords of the Admiralty 

 printed by order of the House of Commons, July 9, 1835, contains the fol- 

 lowing observations, founded upon some experiments made at Somerset 

 House. The solution used for preparing the timber, contains 224 lb. of 

 the corrosive sublimate to 1062 gallons of water, or about 1 lb. to 5 gal- 

 lons, and the cost of the sublimate 3s. "id. per lb., and that the solution 

 diminishes in bulk and not in strength by use. 



Professor Faraday delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution on dry rot, 

 in Feb. 1833, Dr. Birkbeck at the Society of Arts, Dec. 9, 1834, and Robert 

 Dickson, Esq., at the Institution of British Architects, April, 1837, and a 

 pamphlet was published by J. C. Adlard on Kyan's process, all approving of 

 the process, which show the prominence this subject has assumed within 

 late years. 



The following is the cost of Kyan's process as first promulgated in Janu- 

 ary, 1836 : — 



Licence per load of 50 cubic feet . . . . . . . . 5 



1 lb. of corrosive sublimate to 10 gallons of solution . . 5 



Labour to 1 load of timber, filling and emptying tank, and 



unloading . . . . , . . . . . . . . . 5 



Risk and profit, 25 per cent. . . . . . . . . 5 



Cost of a load of 50 feet . . 20*. 



Deals require to lie in the tank three days, and an extra day for every inch 

 in thickness. 



The largest tanks for mere saturation that I have any account of, were 

 erected for the Great Western Railway Company, at Bull's Bridge, near West 

 Drayton, under the direction of the engineer to the Company. These tanks 

 were 9 ft. deep, and of an oblong trough shape, the size at the top was 84 ft. 

 by 19 ft., and at bottom 60 ft. by 12 ft. 8 in. The sides were of 4 in. plank, 

 American pine, supported on sills 12 in. by 10 in., and upright framing lOin. 

 by 10 in., and with sloping diagonal braces, 8 in. by 8 in., of which framing 

 there were 9 sets in the length of the tank. The whole was sunk into the 

 ground nearly level with the surface, the uprights standing about 2 ft. above 

 the sides, to which were attached transoms to keep down the timber in the 

 solution. The tendency of the timber to float was so great, that notwith- 

 standing the bearing was only 19 ft., and the transoms loin, by 12 in., they 

 were cambered or bent upward nearly an inch and a half, and in one instance 

 the whole tank was disturbed from its seat -, the thickness of the sides being 

 only 4 in. plank, the solution escaped, and ran into a ditch which communi- 

 cated with a fish pond at a distance of about 600 yards from the tank ; and 

 notwithstanding the reduction in strength, the fish in the pond were killed. 



The sublimate was dissolved in hot water, and added to the water in the 

 tanks, the hydrometer being used to test its strength. At the end of the 

 tank a mast was erected with a traversing boom, so as to be used as a derrick 

 in filling or emptying the tank of timber. As a test whether the solution 



28* 



