AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 561 



ignited coal will be forced through any openings that may exist, 

 and as it is impracticable to construct a boiler without a number 

 of insecure openings, such as those of the furnaces, ash pits and 

 flue doors, smoke-pipe joints, &c., fire is constantly being forced 

 out t]irough them, and a great number of steamers have been de- 

 stroyed from this cause, added to which, the momentary firing of 

 them from this cause is a matter of so very frequent occurrence, 

 that if the public at large were fully aware of the risk of life they 

 incurred in traveling in steamers where blowers are used, the 

 abandonment of all such vessels would be so universal that the 

 ow^ners of them would be compelled to remove this risk forthwith, 

 their interest in this inducing their attention thereto more effect - 

 ually than any law that might be enacted to reach them. So 

 opposed to all proj^riety is the use of blowers, and so essentially 

 necessary to the requirements of personal safety is the abandon- 

 ment of them, that I question if a jury, composed of intelligent 

 persons, with the facts fully before them, could be found through- 

 out the entire country, that would not decide that a vessel in 

 which they were used was unsuited to carry passengers, even on 

 a river or sound, and unseaworthy on a lake or the ocean. 



3. Covering and protection to boilers. — All boilers should be 

 covered with a hair felting, both for the purpose of indicating 

 when they are unduly heated, and as a means of preventing the 

 radiation of heat from the boiler to the wood work around it. 

 So well established are the advantages of felting boilers, both for 

 the economy of fuel, security against fire, and comfort to a crew, 

 with all engineers — and I wash to be understood as not using this 

 term to include mere drivers of engines — that in some of the 

 Atlantic, and in all naval steamers, the felting of twice and thrice 

 the ordinary thickness is used, added to which are fitted over it 

 coverings of canvass and sheet lead. 



JYeglect of Protection to Wood Work around Boilers^ their Chim- 

 neys and Smoke Pipes. 

 1 . Protection to wood work around boilers. — The wood work im- 

 mediately around a boilei*, its steam chimney or drum, should be 

 set off from it as far as may be practicable, consistent with the 

 capacity of the vessel ; thus, when a boiler is in the hold of a 

 single decked vessel, it is not practicable to afford much space 

 between its top and the under side of the deck beams above it 

 without making a break in the deck, a measure not always con- 

 sistent with the requirements of the vessel; neither is it desirable 

 when the boilers are upon the guards of a steamer to construct a 



