Annual Report of the Council. 299 



each with a flange having a radius of one inch to one and a 

 quarter inches in the bend. Between the two flanges a 

 hoop of flat plate is placed, and the seams are riveted up by 

 rivets passing through the flange of one ring, the hoop and 

 the flange of the next ring. The seam thus formed not 

 only adds enormously to the strength of the tube in resist- 

 ing collapse, but it also completely overcame the difficulties 

 which had been previously experienced through the effect 

 of the expansion of the flue tubes bulging the end plates 

 Adamson in 1852 patented this device, which in later years 

 has been generally adopted, and still forms one of the 

 features of Lancashire boilers. 



Adamson early recognised the part which steel was 

 destined to play in engineering construction, and success- 

 fully carried through its application in the manufacture of 

 boilers. It appears that his application of steel began about 

 1857 {Proceedings Iron and Steel Institute, 1879, p. 113) 

 in making a locomotive for Messrs. Talabot, of Paris, to 

 haul iron-stone from the Bonner mines in Algeria to the 

 coast. Only puddled steel could then be got sufficiently 

 ductile, and that was produced at the Mersey Steel and 

 Iron Company's works at Liverpool. About that time 

 Mr. Bessemer patented his famous process of steel manu- 

 facture, and Mr. Adamson at once prepared to use the new 

 material for boiler making, and in i860 he made the first 

 Bessemer steel boilers for Messrs. Piatt Bros., of Oldham. 

 These boilers were 30 feet long by 7 feet 6 inches diameter, 

 and were made of plates only A inch thick for a working 

 pressure of 8olb. ; no better proof of the thoroughness with 

 which Mr. Adamson completed his task can be given than 

 the fact that these identical boilers have remained in use 

 to this day. But in spite of Adamson's strong advocacy of 

 the new material, it was very little used by others for many 

 years, chiefly because it was found too unreliable, owing 

 to want of knowledge in the choice and treatment of 



