Proceedings of tue Polytechnic Association. 993 



and used by liiin and several of his pupils, and by others. The 

 npriglit boilers of the dnmniy locomotives of the Hudson river rail- 

 way, built in 1858 and 1859, have cylinders arotfnd the tubes to 

 separate the downward from the upward currents ; the down flow of 

 solid water is between tlie shell and tlie insulating cylinder, and the 

 upflow of foam is among and around the tubes. This arrangement 

 was directed by Mr. A. F. Smith, then superintendent of the Hud- 

 son river railway. He had also put circulating plat&s in the legs of 

 locomotive fire-boxes, and experimented with adjusting screws, by 

 which the plates were put nearer to or further from the heating sur- 

 faces ; and lie found considerable advantage wdien the circulating 

 plates were well adjusted. Field's tubes, now much used in Eng- 

 land, are Perkins' tubes improved by shaping their upper ends like 

 bells ; they catch the solid water more freely. Mr. Joseph Nason, 

 of this city, a pupil of Perkins, has more effectually improved these 

 tubes by elbowing their upper ends, so that they take solid water 

 from the lowest level above the tube-sheet. The Seneca Falls fire 

 engines have Perkins tubas, and work well ; but all these pendent 

 tube-boilers require stays between the tube-sheet and the head-sheet 

 of the boiler ; and, like other fire-engines, td make it easy to raise 

 steam quickly, tlie Seneca engines have little water in them — that 

 is, their tubes are small ; they would be better, for common use, if 

 the tubes were twice as large. 



Mr. G. H. Babcock remarked that the boiler of Mr. Hicks, described 

 by the Chairman, was a good one for upright boilers, but was not 

 original with Mr. Hicks. It was used some years before Mr. Hicks' 

 patent, and was placed upon the steam-tug Montauk in 1862*, and he 

 had himself used it in many boilers before tlie date of Mr. Hicks' 

 patent. It is similar to Perkins' apparatus. Mr. George H. Corliss^ 

 has invented a boiler which consists of seven vertical boilers in a nest, 

 six filled with tubes surrounding a center one without tubes, and con- 

 necting thereto at top and bottom. The fire is in a circular furnace 

 the whole size of the nest. These boilers were ]>ut on board of the , 

 steamships Nightingale and Weybosset, but foamed so when the 

 water became salted as to give trouble. This was also the case in 

 Providence, where it was found tlit^t these boilers were defective, and 

 Mr. Corliss advised the engines to be changed ; but this appeared to 

 make but little difference. At the Wamsutta Mills there was six* of 

 these boilers, and they are spoken of very highly, and say they do 

 not want anything else. The old English boilers in which the water- 

 [Inst.] 63 



