204 



SCIENCE. 



;VoL. XV. No. 373 



SCIENCE; 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



PUBLISHED BY 



N. D. C. HODGES. 



47 Lafayette Place, New York. 



Subscriptions.— United States and Canada $3.60 a year. 



Great Britain and Europe 4.50 a year. 



Communications will be welcomed from any quarter. Abstracts of scientific 

 papers are solicited, and twenty copies of the issue containing suck will be 

 mailed the author on request in advance. Rejected manuscripts will be , 

 returned to the authors only when the requisite amount of postage accom- 

 panies the manuscript. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenti- 

 cated by the name and address of the writer: not necessarily for publication, 

 but as a guaranty of good faith. "We do not hold ourselves responsible for 

 any view or opinions expressed in the communications of our correspondents. 



Attention is called to the "Wants" column. All are invited to use it in 

 soliciting information or seeking new positions. The name and address of 

 applicants should be given in full, so that answers will go direct to them. Tne 

 "Exchange " column is likewise open. 



Vol. XV. NEW YOEK, Maech 28, 1890. No. 373. 



CONTENTS: 



was moved to inquire, mildly of course, whether it was the 

 fact that he was to he ' 'treated like a pickpocket. ' ' This is 

 an interesting illustration of the ethics, the amateur engineering, 

 and the manners, accepted, as it would seem, on board at least 

 one of the ships of our great "navee. " 



QuEEN^s New Triple-Plate Toep- 



LER-HoLTZ Machine 197 



Wynne's Electric Tramway Sys- 

 tem lOS 



Water-Spouts 198 



Amended Orthography 



A. Melville Bell 199 

 Health Matters. 

 The Bacteriology of Whooping- 



Cough 201 



Sea- Water and the Nutrition of 



Marine Animals 201 



Notes and News 201 



Editorial 204 



The Sailor as an Amateur En- 

 gineer. 



Book-Reviews. 

 A Handbook of Engine and Boiler 



Trials 20S 



The Origin of the Aryans 205 



Laboratory Manual of Experi- 

 mental Physics 205 



Fort Ancient 205 



Railroad Engineers' Field-Book. 206 



Among the Publishers 206 



Letters to the Editor. 

 Means of increasing the Accu- 

 racy of locating Vessels at Sea 



Frank Waldo 207 

 Storage-Batteries 



N. B. Aldrich 209 

 Industrial Notes. 



Buffalo Blacksmith's Forge 209 



The A. B. C. Electric Motor 210 



The SAILOR as amateur engineer is not always a success. 

 ' A naval court of inquiry has recently been in session which 

 has revealed some interesting phases of the amateurishness of 

 the "Yankee tar," and of his inclination at times to play the 

 jack at all trades without much regard to consequences affecting 

 either his own reputation or the efiSciency of his vessel. It 

 seems that the commander of a naval vessel, assuming him- 

 self to be possessed of the requisite professional knowledge, 

 took charge of the engineering of his ship, and "gave the 

 engineer permission' ' to make repairs only when he (the 

 skipper) saw fit. The chief engineer had been "ordered not to 

 use salt water in the boilers," had been "told that fresh water 

 would be used in boiler No. 3." The captain had told him 

 that ' 'salt water would not be used except at sea ; ' ' but the 

 engineer, apparently thinking himself as well informed of the 

 principles and the customs of the case as was the captain, 

 actually did on one occasion fill a boiler with salt water when 

 in port, after some repairs had been made upon it, for the pur- 

 pose of testing it to ascertain if it was tight. He endeavored 

 to explain to the superior ofiicer, when called upon to defend 

 this practice, that it was for this purpose ; but the commander 

 promptly informed him that he cared nothing for his opinion, 

 and so "sat down upon" and "walked over" the junior officer 

 (figuratively speaking, if we understand aright) that the latter 



We need not here concern ourselves with the ethics of the 

 case. The court of inquiry will probably establish the code for 

 the naval service, and we may presume that the dignity of the 

 amateur-engineer commander will be properly vindicated. No 

 subordinate officer will probably be allowed with impunity to 

 protest against being "treated like a pickpocket" by his senior, 

 whatever be the altitude of the latter on a scale which meas- 

 ures in terms of good sense, good manners, and good feeling, 

 such as becomes a ' 'gentleman and an officer. ' ' We may be 

 permitted to doubt, however, that the senior officer will be 

 called seriously to account for any lack of officerlike quality 

 which may manifest itself in his treatment of his juniors — 

 unless the secretary of the navy. Gen. Tracy, who is himself 

 familiar with the accepted ethics of civil life, as well as with 

 the exactions of military "discipline,"' shall determine to act 

 in the matter. The line which separates the gentleman from 

 the officer is sometimes made so broad, in cases involving dis- 

 cipline and admonition of the junior by his senior, that the 

 latter fails to detect the fact that the two should be, and should 

 always remain, fairly coincident. We may perhaps be per- 

 mitted to mildly suggest, however, that the importation into 

 the navy of gentlemen, and the deportation of men of other 

 stripe, might apparently be carried on to considerable extent, 

 and with great advantage. The suggestion is with diffidence 

 respectfully submitted to the honorable secretary of the navy. 



On the other aspects of the case, as involving a question of 

 chemistry applied to engineering, we may, we think, be per- 

 mitted to hold an opinion without asking leave of the very re- 

 spectable, but we think too decidedly amateurish, sailor on 

 horseback who mounts his hobby to such manifest discom- 

 fiture of those over whom he is by his commission enabled 

 to ride. If it should prove that the engineer in charge was so 

 grossly ignorant as to imagine that he might safely and con- 

 tinuously employ salt water in his boilers on a long cruise, 

 even though he had surface condensers, and was not aware 

 that the result would be the precipitation of sulphate of lime 

 in large quantity, to the utter demoralization of his coal-pile 

 and the injury of his furnaces, we should say that this officer 

 was right in treating him, not like a pickpocket, to he sure, 

 but with distinct severity. Even an amatfeur engineer should 

 know better than that; a commanding officer, if fit for his 

 place, should certainly know at least so much. If it should 

 prove that the engineer desired simply to test his boilers for the 

 purpose of detecting a leak, knowing that it requires a tem- 

 perature approximating 300° F. to cause precipitation of cal- 

 cium sulphate, we should consider him to be right in using it, 

 and the commander very ignorant, even for an amateur engi- 

 neer, not to know better than to interfere. There is a popular 

 feeling — which it will probably be very difficult for the aspirant 

 amateur to remove, notwithstanding his acknowledged and un- 

 questionable ability to become a jack at these several trades 

 which go to make a cruise successful — that the commander 

 is placed on board ship to direct its general operations ; and that 

 he is given a corps of engineers to attend to details, with 

 which they only are trusted, and with which, as experts, 

 they only can deal; while the amateur-engineer captain, like 

 the amateur-naval architect, even though the latter be the ablest 

 of lawyers, had best keep himself within those lines which 

 bound his own specialty, and play the amateur only in unim- 

 portant matters, in which no great interests are involved. 



