1 87 1.] Steam Boiler Legislation. 223 



with flanged joints, or hoops of T iron, or other suitable 

 section is highly approved.* In fact, it is thought that no 

 high-pressure boiler should be constructed now-a-days without 

 these appliances. In Cornwall, however, nothing can convince 

 steam users of their necessity, and Cornishmen persistently 

 adhere to the idea which the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania 

 endeavoured to dispel thirty-four years ago, viz., that a boiler 

 cannot explode as long as it is properly supplied with water. 

 They appear to believe that furnace tubes, though of great 

 length and diameter, and though worked at high pressures 

 of steam, can only collapse from the neglect of the water 

 supply, or in other words, from the neglect of the attendant, 

 and not of the owner or the maker. In Cornwall, boiler flue 

 after boiler flue collapses, simply from weakness, till the 

 Cornish boiler stands in the return of explosions as one of 

 the most dangerous." 



Proposition No. 6. 



That while it is advisable that inspection should be en- 

 forced by law, though not administered by the Government, 

 whether imperial or local, nor by private inspecting associa- 

 tions, insurance companies, or boiler makers, lest the 

 administration should be arbitrary in some cases and con- 

 tradictory and inefficient in others, yet that a system of 

 administration, competent to secure the interests of the 

 public on the one hand, without detriment to the steam 

 users on the other, might be framed on the following 

 basis : — 



To secure the efficiency of the inspection, let the adminis- 

 tration be national, so as to be above all local party or private 

 interests, and let it be undertaken not for profit, but to 

 promote the public safety. To prevent the administration 

 becoming arbitrary, stereotyped, and old-fashioned, and to 

 render it capable of adaptation to the constantly-altering 

 and growing requirements of the boiler owner, let it be ad- 

 ministered by a series of district Boards elected by the steam 

 users themselves ; the Boards having the power of making 

 such laws, rules, and regulations from time to time as might 

 be found necessary for conducting the service. Such a mode 

 of administration would, it is thought, not only secure effi- 

 cient inspection adequate to prevent explosions, but also be 

 considerate to individual steam-users, and be found not to 

 hinder but to assist engineering progress. On this system 

 the inspection would be enforced by law to render its adop- 



* For the experiments connected with this subject — the Collapse of Tubes — 

 see " Philosophical Transactions." 



