2 Steam Bocds. 



that now attends it. It can however be scarcely doubted, that sci- 

 ence and mechanical skill, which have created and apphed this won- 

 derful power, will yet effectually succeed in directing and controlling it, 

 and in preventing or in parrying the effects of these terrific explosions 

 which have so often proved extensively fatal. Towing* seems to pre- 

 sent, on all quiet waters, the best preventive of disaster to passengers, 

 while those concerned with the management of the steam vessel, 

 will, of course, as they alone are concerned, exercise increased vigi- 

 lance for their own safety. This arrangement by towing, being how- 

 ever merely a transfer and not an extinction of the evil, every motive 

 for effort in the exercise of invention and skill still remains. If the 

 plan of Mr. Perkins, of creating the steam no faster than it is needed, 

 and using it as fast as created, could be rendered easily practicable 

 on a great scale, it would answer the purpose, and every improve- 

 ment by which the power actually created can be applied, with a 

 diminution of the great lossf which is now sustained, would be an ap- 

 proximation towards the desired result, because it would admit of a 

 proportionate diminution in the size of boilers, and of course in the 

 danger and mischiefs of explosion. 



The plan of having two boilers and of placing them over the sides 

 of the vessel is so great an improvement, that (unless there is some 

 very decisive objection of a practical kind, not yet made public,J) 

 all steam boats ought hereafter to be constructed in that manner. 

 The accommodation and comfort of the boat are very much increased 

 by removing the fires and the boilers, and if a separate fire for cook- 

 ing is needed, it is easily arranged, and would be attended by no pe- 

 culiar danger or inconvenience. The passengers may be screened 

 from the effects of explosion, should it happen, by a strong bulwark 

 of timber erected between the deck and the boilers, and the security 

 would be then rendered almost complete ; perhaps it would be quite 



* Particularly as recently suggested in the public prints, by Mr. John L. Sullivan, 

 ( well known as an able civil engineer,) and as now happily revived in the Lady Clin- 

 ton on the waters of the Hudson. 



t It has been, within a few years, stated in France, that only one twelfth part of 

 the power actually generated by steam is applied, the rest being wasted ; more re- 

 cent improvements may have diminished this loss, or it may have been exaggerated, 

 but if any near approximation to this statement is true, it proves, that there is a fine 

 field open for practical improvement in diminishing the size of boilers, and in apply- 

 ing the power of steam. 



t Such, for instance, as that the boilers over the sides may be less eligible in rough 

 feas, where the rolling of the vessel might be, in this manner, increased, and the 

 management of the fire be rendered more difficult. I have never however, heard 

 this stated as a difficulty. 



