AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 5G5 



steam vessel, as to the resort on bis part to every practicnble 

 security against fire, and every available provision for it if it 

 should occur. 



Upon an engineer entering upon duty on board of a steam ves- 

 sel, it is his first care to advise himself fully as to the security 

 and provisions against fire, and the means to free the vessel from 

 water in the case of her leakage or being bilged, and if she is not 

 properly secured and provided he should forthwith report this 

 condition of affairs to the captain, and if he or her owner assumes 

 the responsibility of not noticing this report, the engineer has 

 discharged his duty, and he must abide events; if, however, it 

 should happen that human life should be sacrificed by inatten- 

 tion to his report, and the case should come fairly before the 

 public, I am of the opinion that like reports of engineers would 

 receive better attention for the future. If engineers had adopted 

 this course they not only would have eflfected a just attention to 

 their representations, but they would have saved many lives, both 

 of the public at large and of their own profession. 



Unfortunately, however, engineers as a class are the last per- 

 sons not only to assume this position, but to acknowledge its 

 propriety; for instead of guarding against the dangers which they 

 are best advised of, they appear to consider the exhibition of an 

 indifference to them a point of honor. In corroboration of this, 

 I could present many relations, clearly exhibiting that it is not 

 through the providence of engineers that the public and the 

 underwriters are to look for safety. 



Not only has it required ten years of labor and importunity to 

 introduce the independent steam fire and bilge pump into a bare 

 majority of steam vessels^, even with the support and repeated 

 exhibitions of it having saved both vessels and crew, but from 

 the almost united resistance of engineers, it is likely to require 

 a longer period than this to introduce the practice of felting 

 boilers, and protecting the wood work around them. 



In fact, the disregard of the owners of steam vessels, and the 

 neglect of the trust confided to the captains as well as engineers, 

 in not directing and requiring the proper pr.'cautions against fire, 

 is almost universal, notwithstanding vessels and lives without 

 number have been lost in consequence of this neglect, altogether 

 inexcusable and without a justification upon any one point, or 

 under any combination of circumstances. 



With them, the non-occurrence of a fire where the security is 

 imperfect is assumed to be conclusiv^e as to the sufficiency of the 



[Am. Inst.] 37 



