October 10, 1872. ] 



JOUENAL OF HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



289 



sizes, one of which, 3 feet long, was entered for competition. 

 The boiler, as fig. 1 shows, is made in the form of one saddle 

 boiler over another. It is made of welded wrought iron, and 

 has in connection with it a front sole-plate, wrought-iron tubular 

 fire-bars, and a hollow terminal back. These connections have 

 an independent circulation of their own, and are fitted with 



A (fig. 2) Wrousht-iron saddle boiler. 

 A A (fig. 1) Double saddle boiler. 

 b Hollow dead plate, 

 c Wrought-iron hollow fire-tubes. 



'd Hollow back, forming side flueF. 

 E Side flues. 

 f Flow connections. 

 G Return connections. 



separate flow and return sockets, so that they can either be 

 worked separate from the boiler (see fie/. 2) or in connection 

 with it. This set of sole-jjlate,' tubular fire-bars, aud terminal 

 i>ack can be fixed to any existing boiler, so as to increase its 

 power. This boiler is made so that the products of combustion, 

 .after passing through the upper saddle, are passed, by means of 



side flues, round the outside of the boiler as well, and as the 

 two saddle boilers are continuously welded together, there is a 

 - very perfect circulation. In our opinion, for the price of the 

 boilers, they were as efficient and useful as any exhibited, and 

 as they are fed from underneath by an ordinary f urnace door, 

 they will burn slack and ashes, and any kind of coal. 



The next boiler was Stand 48, a large Trentham Improved 

 •Cornish boiler, fully 8 feet long, which seemed big enough to 

 heat a ten-horse steam engine. Another boiler, a saddle and 

 flue, shown on the same stand by Mr. Gray, of* Chelsea, seemed 

 a much better form and more serviceable, and we regret it was 

 not entered for competition. ~°°l - 



The next stand we come to is Stand 49, where Mr. Cannell 

 exhibited his boilers, of which the horticultural world has heard 

 so much lately, and if they were all that Mr. Cannell says of 

 them in his circulars, we need not go any further for boilers, or 

 "trouble our heads about any more improvements. 



Now, we are under the impression (it may be an erroneous 

 one), that something was known about the make of boilers even 

 before Mr. Cannell turned his mind to the subject, and we are 

 equally sure that many of the merits he claims for his boiler 

 are purely imaginary, and many of the so-called improvements 

 are based on a wrong principle. The interior of the circulator, 

 as represented in Mr. Cannell's engravings, is not much differ- 

 ent from the Witley Court boiler, but instead of being made of 

 wrought iron and connected together at the sides, the boiler is 

 cast in_different parts, and connected together by small syphon 



bends, screwed on with indian-rubber rings on the outside. Mr. 

 Cannell seems at once to settle the vexed question with regard 

 to cast and wrought iron by referring to the greater durability 

 of cast iron over wrought ; but then he forgets that a greater 

 amount of iron has to be heated before the water is heated. 

 However, we will not enter upon the comparative merits of 

 cast or wrought iron, but deal with the boiler itself. Now the 

 circulation in the boiler is so much impeded by the water having 

 to traverse so many horizontal surfaces only connected by small 

 syphon pipes, and this throughout the whole boiler, that the 

 circulation must necessarily be slow; and owing to the junctions 

 with indian-rubber rings on the outside, the products of com- 

 bustion are not passed round the outside of the boiler. If Mr. 

 Cannell thinks he can extract all the heat from the ignited fuel 

 before it passes out of the flues from the inside of his boilers, 

 he is utterly mistaken ; and a flue round the outside of the boiler 

 will always be more economical than packing with non-conduct- 

 ing materials, as hair and sand, which Mr. Cannell recommends. 

 As for the simplicity of the castings making them less liable to 

 crack from unequal expansion, that will require the test of 

 time ; but Mr. Cannell says in one part of his circular that his 

 boiler is even more lasting than the common saddle, many of 

 which have stood the test of thirty years' experience. We are 

 perfectly certain from their construction that there will be too 

 much difference of temperature between the flow and return 

 pipes, and that when any range of houses is heated by the " 

 return pipes a great additional amount of piping will be re- 

 quired. One advantage Mr. Cannell's boiler has, and that is, 

 that it contains a great amount of water, and would be a good 

 reservoir for heat after the fire is out; b it there are many 

 other boilers that fulfil these conditions, a"^d we can see no 

 advantages which this boiler possesses over the Witley Court, 

 or Hartley & Sugden's, or Mee's, or Ormson's. 



The Stands 50 and 51 were respectively Mr. Harlow's and Mr. 

 Truss's, whose boilers we have already alluded to; and next, 



in Stand 52, came Messrs. 

 Jones & Eowe, of 21, Broad 

 Street, Worcester, who ex- 

 hibited the Witley Court 

 boiler, which obtained the 

 silver medal from the 

 Judges as the best boiler 

 exhibited not for compe- 

 tition. It has all the ad- 

 vantages of the circulator 

 without its disadvantages. 

 It is a modification of the 

 flued saddle with check 

 bridge and a water-way 

 back, and being made all 

 of wrought iron, it has less 

 expansion. As there are 

 no small connecting sy- 

 phon pipes outside, the 

 flues 'can be taken out- 

 side the boiler, so as to 

 exhaust the heat from 

 the products of com- 

 bustion. Owing to the 

 whole of the parts being 

 connected together, so 

 as to form a continuous 

 water way, the circu- 

 | lation will be good. We 

 - give illustrations of it 

 (see figs. 3 and 4), and 

 do not hesitate to recom- 

 mend it as an efficient 

 and economical boilerj 

 which will burn almost 

 any kind of fuel. The next stand, No. 53, contained the spiral 

 pipe boiler of Mr. Deard's to which we have already alluded. 



A Natural Hothouse. — About a century ago a coalpit near 

 Sheffield took fire and had to be walled up, but still continued 

 to burn. " It is an ill wind that blows no one any good," and 

 the farmers found that their crops over this pit were accele- 

 rated in growth by the heat. This acceleration has, however, 

 ceased, and it is thought that the hundred years' fire has at 

 last burnt itself out. 



tendency to crack from uneven 



E.LEVATIQN 

 Kg. 4. 



Mushroom Power. — The offices attached to our factory have, 

 until the month of March last, been occupied as a dwelling 

 house. Since that time the room which had previously been 

 used as a kitchen and general living-room, with a fire in it 

 every day, has been a lumber-room without fire, and has be- 

 come very damp. Moving aside a piece of furniture, we dis- 

 covered that a length of skirting at the side of the chinrney 



