534 Miscellaneous Implevnenis ^Exhibited at Wanvich, 
evidence in a remarkable manner to the energy and attention 
which are now being devoted to the development of this type of 
engine. Without speculating in any way as to the limit of 
power which these engines may attain, there can be no doubt 
that they possess special features which must commend them 
for farm purposes. 
Not the least important of these is the advantage they offer, 
where work is intermittent, as is frequently the case in dairy 
work and the like, of being capable of starting at a few minutes’ 
notice, without the delay and attendance necessary in getting up 
steam in a boiler. Similarly, at stopping, there is no waste the 
moment the supply of oil is turned off from the engine. 
Arranged as a portable engine, there need be none of the 
continual daily expenses of carting fuel or water, as in the case 
of a steam engine. The oil engine may go into the field, carry- 
ing a sufficient supply of oil for an ordinary week’s work, 
together with its supply of water for circulating round and 
cooling the cylinder, it only being necessary to make good 
occasionally the small quantity lost by evaporation. 
There is no more risk of explosion than in the case of a 
steam boiler — if as much, while all risk of fire from sparks from 
the chimney is eliminated. 
In the report on the trials made at Plymouth (Journal, 
Vol. I., 3rd Series, 1890, p. 580) a very clear statement of the 
fuel consumption and its cost is made. Since that time other 
reliable tests of a similar engine have been made in which even 
better results were obtained. What the results of a compe- 
titive trial of the several engines might be, it would not be safe 
to conjecture. Sufiice it to point out that the engine which 
obtained the prize at Plymouth has not been allowed to 
stand still, modifications in details having been effected with 
the view of increasing its efficiency ; and, further, competitors 
have now come into the market with engines from which great 
things are hoped, and upon the relative merits of which it is 
impossible fairly to judge without a sufficient trial. 
Adhering to the order in the Catalogue, the first oil engines 
met with were those of Messrs. Robey & Go., Lincoln (Stand 249), 
who exhibited two petroleum engines, one (Art. 4021) mounted 
as a portable engine, the other (Art. 4022) as an undertype 
engine, both most attractive as regards the appearance of their 
general arrangement, approximating as they do very closely to 
that of steam engines of the same class. 
In the portable type the engine (fig. 4) is mounted on the 
top of a cylindrical vessel resembling very much the boiler of 
the steam engine. This cylindrical vessel is divided into two 
