CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF WESTERN RIVER STEAMERS. 



By Richard Clarke Wilson, Esq. 



[Read at the twenty-first general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, held in 



New York, December 11 and 12, 1913.] 



Since the able and comprehensive paper submitted to this Society at its Detroit 

 meeting in 1909 by Mr. Charles Ward, in which full details were given of the con- 

 struction and design of river steamers, there have been no changes from the pre- 

 vailing types of boats, so that it is unnecessary for me to go into details of con- 

 struction. I will confine myself to our handling of the boats and the business 

 as it is done to-day, and as it has been done for many years. 



With the exception of the tunnel propeller boats on the Missouri River, con- 

 sisting of one packet boat, one towboat, one private yacht and one 61-foot launch, 

 and the very successful fleet of river barges for use between the Alabama coal 

 mines and New Orleans, and a few motor yachts, there has been no improvement 

 in design with the possible exception of piping and valve gear of compound engines, 

 and the advent of one or two types of boilers yet to be tried out, since their adoption 

 by river steamers has been very recent. 



Many accidents have occurred which could have been easily prevented by 

 modern construction, and many fires have swept the boats which could have 

 been obviated by steel construction, which has proven so valuable in preventing 

 serious accidents in railroad wrecks. Many years have elapsed since the use of steel 

 for steamship hulls became universal, yet to-day we are just beginning to recognize 

 the superiority of steel over wooden hulls for river work. Many wrecks have oc- 

 curred to wooden hulls and, within the last two years, one line has lost three 

 boats and eighteen people by accidents, all of which would not have been serious 

 with vessels built of steel. This same line has just built two boats similar to the 

 three wrecked ones, with wooden hulls and houses. 



We recently, at Lake Providence, had a large and well-appointed packet boat 

 sink at the landing after running into but not damaging a wooden barge, and this 

 same line, at that time, had a similar boat on the ways being repaired after en- 

 countering a snag, sinking and being raised. They also had the misfortune to lose 

 by fire, within that same fortnight, the upper works of a steamer one year old, which 

 boat had a steel hull. 



Dozens of wrecks and accidents have occurred to such boats with "one 

 partly watertight compartment;" which begin to leak when loading commences, 

 and continue to do so until swelling of the seams that have dried out since laying 



