194 AN ELECTRICALLY PROPELLED 



boat. Of course the author does not claim what the builder of that boat claimed, 

 that, having three screws, each screw would propel her 8 miles an hour, and the use 

 of the three screws would give a speed of 24 miles an hour. One screw was later 

 taken out, because they found they could handle the boat better with two screws. 

 The scheme of an electrically driven boat has been discussed in the papers presented 

 to this Society by Mr. Emmet. Fireproofing construction has been discussed as 

 far back as 1906, and, notwithstanding the author's statement that it is incompre- 

 hensible that this subject has not received more careful consideration, I will say 

 that it has received very careful consideration in the last twenty-five years to my 

 personal knowledge, and nothing but the impracticabiUty of constructing boats of 

 this type for other purposes than excursion boats has kept them from having been 

 constructed. The twin-screw steamer Ox, in this harbor for at least forty years, 

 has had pilot-house control of all machinery on board. 



So, as I say, further than a combination, there is nothing new suggested in 

 this paper; notwithstanding that, gentlemen, and notwithstanding the fact that 

 excursion boats and other boats have carried for many years biUions of passengers 

 with extraordinary safety; with far greater safety than attends the people of the 

 city of New York in traversing its streets, as has been shown by figures given in 

 the Proceedings of this Society, far greater safety than one can travel on the 

 railroads; while life on steamboats has been extraordinarily safe, we must recog- 

 nize that it is quite within the range of possibility that a passenger steamer will 

 be destroyed by fire despite all our efforts, despite the claims that I have made 

 here before you in times past that a good line, with good discipline, will not have 

 a steamer burn up in service, it may happen, and we should do everything we can 

 to make the lives of passengers still safer on baots. Anything that will tend to do 

 that, and tend to make progress, should be warmly welcomed, and earnestly, 

 seriously considered. 



Mr. Andrew Fletcher: — I want to suggest to Mr. Emmet that he is some- 

 what in error as to his statement that the boats on the Hudson River were running 

 with 40 pounds of steam. I wish to say that some of them are running with 170 

 pounds of steam, such as the Day Line steamer Hendrick Hudson. 



One of the speakers, Mr. McComb, referred to the great loss of life traveling 

 by water. I wish to state that the records show that there was a loss of one in 

 each 1,611,998 passengers carried by excursion steamers in this congested Second 

 Government District. The records of the Board of Health of the city of New York 

 show that during the period of 1899 to 191 1, inclusive, there was one Ufe lost in 

 each 1,871 of population by accident, and that when accidents, suicides, murders, 

 sunstrokes, and all other causes were taken into consideration, that there were 

 44,071 lives lost, which would make it one in 1,198 in comparison with one in 

 1,611,998 of passengers carried by water transportation in the Second Government 

 District from 1900 to 1910, inclusive. This is a startling difference in favor of 

 water transportation. 



