188 NATURE 
[JUNE 19, 1902 
The average daily consumption was from 17 to 184 tons, 
whilst the same vessel when under coal used from 24 to 
25 tons. 
The economy of cost in liquid fuel does not lie entirely in its 
superior evaporative value, for several other factors are all in 
its favour, and probably the greatest of these in the marine 
service is the reduction in the stokehold staff. Potter states 
that with fourteen tubular boilers (16 feet x 5 feet) twenty-five 
men were required for stoking with coal, but on the introduction 
of liquid fuel six men sufficed. On the s.s. Mzvex, referred to 
above, whilst more than twenty stokers were required when 
under coal fires, only three were carried to attend the oil burners. 
When the cost of wages, food, &c., for the large number of 
stokers carried on an average liner are taken into consideration, 
the possibilities for economy by the adoption of liquid fuel, 
when it can be obtained at a reasonable price, are very great. 
In the Royal Navy, where the stokers carried on a battleship 
run into big numbers, not only does liquid fuel tend to economy, 
but an even more important factor—the number of lives risked 
in'an engagement—would be largely reduced. It is terrible to 
contemplate the fate of the engine-room staff in the event of one 
of our big ironclads being sunk by a torpedo or the ram of an 
adversary’s ship. 
For storage, liquid fuel has a slight advantage over coal. In 
general terms it may be said that one ton of liquid fuel will 
require 36 cubic feet of storage and steam coal from 43 to 
45 cubic feet; but it must be remembered that coal bunkers 
have of necessity to be specially arranged for the easy delivery 
of the fuel at the stokehold level, whereas liquid fuel may be 
carried in places where the storage of a solid fuel is quite out of 
the question. By the adoption of some system of removing 
water from the oil, such as that of Flannery and Boyd, where 
two settling tanks are alternately employed, liquid fuel may be 
‘stored in water-ballast tanks and the fore and aft peaks of the 
vessel. Remembering that one ton of oil fuel has such a much 
larger evaporative efficiency than the same weight of coal, and, 
further, has advantages in storage, a very much larger cargo 
space can be reserved in a vessel, or in the case of the belli- 
gerent marine, with no greater total weight of fuel on board, a 
very greatly extended radius of action can be obtained. 
A point in connection with coal as a fuel in steamships which 
is often overlooked is the large amount of inert material which 
must necessarily be carried in the bunkers ; for example, a ship 
takes into her bunkers 2000 tons of steam coal (H.M.S. Queen, 
which was recently launched, has a coal capacity of 2040 tons), 
and taking a fair estimate of the ash of this coal at 5 per 
cent., it means finding space for at least one hundred tons 
‘of non-usable mineral matter, even assuming that the ash 
and clinker do not exceed the ash of the coal.. In the case 
‘of liquid fuel, the whole amount stored. is actually available as 
fuel, and there is no trouble with ash or clinker in the furnaces, 
or solid waste of any description to be got rid of. 
On any vessel, and especially on a ship carrying passengers, 
the operation of coaling is a particularly disagreeable one.’ With 
liquid fuel there is really no. inconvenience, for the oil can be 
pumped into the tanks in much less. time than coal shipment 
takes, and, further, all the dirt associated with ‘‘ bunkering’” 
is avoided. At the present time it is well. known that the 
Admiralty is carrying out experiments in coaling war vessels at 
sea, the collier being made fast astern and the coal hauled along 
a suitable transport arrangement. It would undoubtedly be a 
much simpler operation to transfer liquid fuel through a flexible 
hose of slightly greater length than the cables made fast between 
the two vessels, providing that an oil of reasonable viscosity 
was employed. 
Even in a country possessing such splendid supplies of steam 
coal as England, liquid fuel is now making rapid headway, and 
this is not surprising when one considers the high prices reached 
for coal of all descriptions during the last two or three years. 
To be able to fall back on liquid fuel, when it can be obtained 
at a reasonable price, places the consumer in an independent 
position as regards the colliery proprietor, and the necessary 
fittings to enable this to be done are by no means costly. Coal 
at a fair price will probably always have the advantage over 
imported liquid fuel, but in countries entirely dependent upon 
mported fuel, the liquid form must in the future be the main 
upply, for bulk for bulk it is twice as efficient as any solid fuel, 
nd, moreover, its transport in suitable vessels is attended with 
far less risk than with coal cargoes shipped from a great dis- 
tance. J. S. S. Brame. 
NO. 1703, VOL. 66] 
THE MURCHISON FALLS. 
HE new Government road from the capital of Uganda to 
Butiaba on the Albert Nyanza will shortly cause the exist- 
ing caravan track, which crosses the Nile at Fajao, to be aban- 
doned. The latter place obtained some notoriety during the 
Uganda mutiny 1897-8, but, not being exactly a health resort, 
the station was soon after given up, and a few Sudanese of the 
Uganda Rifles now guard the ferry. 
On an isolated mass of rock overlooking the Nile, the Euro- 
pean quarters are (or were when I passed through on my way 
from East Afriva to the Sudan in October last) still marked by 
a couple of thatched huts in dilapidated condition, a flower- 
garden, and a flag-staff from which fluttered the remains of a 
“Union Jack.” From the station a beautiful view of the 
Murchison Falls, about a mile distant, can be obtained. 
Close to the station are two more isolated masses of biotite 
gneiss, and undoubtedly the river, which is here confined ina 
deep caiion, has carved its way eastward for one-and-a-half miles 
to the present falls, leaving these masses as ‘‘ witnesses.” 
On arrival, I was struck by the peculiarly irregular sound of 
the falls ; at night it is especially noticeable. 
The track to the falls, used by native fishers, at the foot of 
the cliffs on the south side, follows close to the water's edge, 
and the sight of five crocodiles with wide-opened mouths on the 
opposite shore suggested unpleasant possibilities. | Usually 
crocodiles can be seen in hundreds. 
Scrambling along the slippery track, much overgrown in 
places, and glittering with disintegrated mica flakes, we passed 
several naked Wanyoro fishers in their canoes, and the decaying 
remains of fish, chiefly a species of perch, showed their favourite 
landing places. 
Arriving at the 200-foot basin into which the fall takes its 
final plunge, one notices how the constant spray from the falls, 
ascending in clouds like steam, allows the luxuriant vegetation 
to grow over even the vertical cliffs surrounding the basin on 
three sides, except where the soft mica schist has caved in by 
weathering. A double rainbow added to the; beauty of the 
scene, but the near view of the falls is distinctly disappointing. | 
The peculiar intermittent roar could now be accounted for ; 
a mass of water tumbling headlong into the pool is immediately 
followed by an enormous broken wave, then comes a lull, and 
the process is repeated. 
As this phenomenon was inexplicable from below, I suggested 
that a climb to the top of the falls was advisable; and after 
much discussion our Nubi guide extracted from an airily clad 
Mnyoro the information that a track did exist to the top of the 
south cliff. It proved to be a most trying 200-foot climb up a 
steep slope covered with dense grass, and it could only have 
been made by an energetic European. A short downward 
scramble led to a rock plateau with potholes, the largest of 
which was 15 feet in diameter and 10 feet deep, filled with 
water, marking the level of the former bed of the river when it 
swirled round a mass of gneiss in its centre. This being gradu- 
ally worn away on the south side, apparently exposed a softer 
vein, and the river has cut its way through, ina deep vertical 
cleft from 20 to 30 feet wide and of unknown depth. A well- 
known officer in the Uganda Rifles whom I met two days later 
informed me that he had measured the narrowest portion acces- 
sible and found it only 18 feet wide. 
Now the Nile above this is a succession of falls, and, after a 
sharp bend to the north-west, turns again west when 200 feet 
wide and, gradually narrowing, tumbles 10 feet over a rock 
ridge spanning the river and then over a 5-foot ridge. For 
50 feet it rushes with increasing velocity and finally enters the 
extraordinary cleft. Down this, for 150 feet, the river ‘‘slithers,” 
a solid mass of water, as if through a sluice. Suddenly it meets 
with an obstruction, a harder layer of gneiss through which it is 
undercutting its way, and with terrific force strikes this, and re- 
bounds, sometimes with a huge shower of spray. Meanwhile 
the body cf water behind has to find an outlet, and, still confined 
between high walls, is forced over the ridge with irresistible 
force ere, 250 feet further on, it tumbles over the last fall into 
the large basin below, and the back wave, now a vast boiling 
mass, follows hard after it. This explains the peculiar sound of 
this fall. 
The pent-up power of the Nile as it leaps the barrier is 
extremely impressive, but from an engineering point of view it 
is regrettable that such enormous power is running to waste. 
I returned to Fajao at sunset, in time to see the Nile tinged a 
