FIREPROOF PASSENGER STEAMER. 187 



to disagree with that, because I built the steamer Adirondack in 1895, some years 

 after 1878; also several steamers between the dates mentioned were constructed of 

 wood. We gave up the use of wood finally, not because we objected so much to 

 the wood, as to the fact that we could not get the wood in proper sizes and we had 

 to go to steel. Mr. Donnelly says in the paper: "Attention is called to the de- 

 tailed design for the steel decks in which very light plates are used running across 

 the vessel, with their edges flanged and united to steel carUns. The upper surface 

 of the plating is to be covered with canvas which makes a watertight and weather- 

 proof joint where the plates meet." He does not say how Ught or how far apart 

 the carlins are to be. He says he will put some canvas on the deck, but I do not 

 know how he will put it there. I did not know any one had found out how to do 

 that as yet. There was one steel vessel constructed in Germany, in which they had 

 put down a steel deck, and tried to put canvas on it. They sewed the canvas and 

 then put it on the deck with glue, but the canvas only kept in position on the deck 

 long enough for the boat to come from Europe to America. They then put a i |-inch 

 wooden deck on top of the steel deck and fastened the canvas in the usual way. 

 I beUeved that proved satisfactory. 



As I say, Mr. Donnelly does not tell us anything as to the proposed cost of the 

 vessel, and there is no information regarding the weights, and so we cannot answer 

 any of these questions as to how much she will weigh or the probable cost. Hud- 

 son River steamers do not count for much, apparently, according to one gentleman, 

 because the Sound steamers have hotel accommodations aboard. The gentleman 

 seems to have lost sight of the fact that there are anything but excursion steamers 

 going up the Hudson River. We have some steamers on which we do carry a few • 

 passengers, say 2,000 in number, and feed them. We carry, as a matter of fact, 

 about 2,000 tons of freight in addition, in very shallow water and narrow channels. 



The statement is made in the paper that between the time the boat lies up 

 in the fall of the year and the following spring when she undertakes the excursion 

 business again, she could be laid up at some small town and furnish that town with 

 electric light and power, etc., but what will the inhabitants of that town do for the 

 four or five months during the summer when the boat is in its regular excursion 

 business and is not available for furnishing Hght to the town? My idea is that 

 they do most of the manufacturing in the summer time and are then in need of 

 this power, and not in the winter months. 



The last item in the paper goes to show that there would be a great saving 

 in coal by the adoption of the type of vessel described, that at least $9,000 could 

 be saved in coal. I would like to make a statement that the amount of coal 

 consumed by the Grand RepubUc this year for eighty days, which is her usual 

 term of service, and which is all she runs, amounted to a total of 1,920 tons, that 

 cost $5,760. That is the sum total of the entire cost of the coal, and how a man is 

 going to save $9,000 out of that, I fail to discover. 



Mr. W. L. R. Emmet, Member: — The subject of this paper is principally that 



