Safety of Steam Boats. 1 45 



effort in improving the means of prodacing, managing and controlling 

 steam ; and with no view to diminish, but rather to quicken those ef- 

 orts, we urge, that certainly for the present, and perhaps forever, the 

 safety of the community must depend upon one of two arrtyigements. 



1. Having two boilers* placed on the guards of the vessel over the 

 water, and separated from the passengers, not only on the side,j- hut 

 every where, excepting at the mouth of the furnace, by a bulwark made 

 of timber, and sufficiently strong to resist, not only water and steam, 

 but also the fragments that may be projected, or even the entire boil- 

 er should it be thrown from its bed. 



2. By taking a passage vessel in tow, the power being generated 

 in one vessel, and the passengers being in another. 



The first arrangement would be particularly important in such wa- 

 ters as are occasionally rough, where towing might be inconvenient 

 and at times impracticable, as on Long Island Sound, and the Chesa- 

 peake and the great lakes. To the second there seems no objection of 

 any weight, upon waters protected from storms, and which are gener- 

 ally smooth ; such as all our rivers and many of our bays, and arms of 

 the sea. The excessive speed which is now aimed at, is of no impor- 

 tance ; no reasonable man will be dissatisfied if, (sleeping and wa- 

 king) he can go ten miles in an hour, which exceeds the rate of 

 the swiftest mails in Europe, and is hardly surpassed by the fast- 

 est sailing ships of war. This degree of speed and probably 

 more is attainable in tow boats, and we have thought the important 

 suggestions of Mr. Richard Sulhvan, an experienced scientific as 

 well as practical engineer, contained in the subjoined paper, which 

 originally appeared in the Daily Advertiser of New York, worthy of 

 being preserved, as containing an excellent summary view of safety- 

 barges, towed by steam boats. With him, we greatly fear that ex- 

 plosions will never be entirely prevented ; and while several of them 

 occur every year ; while many valuable people are thus torn from 

 life and from their friends, in a manner even more agonizing than by 

 the casualties of war; while general anxiety pervades the community, 

 and we know that, (like the Parisians of late) we are reposing over 

 a volcano; no time should be lost in adopting such means of pre- 

 vention or of safety, as cannot fail to be in a good degree successful, 

 at least in preserving the lives, now so often sacrificed ; and the num- 



* See page two and three of this Number for additional remarks. 

 t Open of course towards the water. 



Vol. XIX.— No. L 19 



