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Dunstan Times, Issue 2962, 7 April 1919, Page 4

Tests to destruction are occasionally used in engineering works t° disoQver how much ill-treatment a machine will stand and which part is really the weakest, During the war every electric power station in Great Britain has been subject to very much the same kind of treatment. Thanks to the tremendous demand for electric power m munition works (ninety-five per cent of these works were driven electrically) all the plant in the generating stations —boilers, dynamos, switch gear, transformers, and mains— was overloaded to a pitch which might wel! have meant destruction. The manner in which the plant stood up to this long and exacting ordeal is a magnificent proof of the sound design and construction of Br - tish electrical machinery and appliances. The difficulties were increased by the fact that, owing to the night and day demand, it was generally impossible to overhaul the plant. In one typical case most of the boilers m the station had not been cleaned for a year. i\ow that this tremendous strain is relaxed. British engineers realise that their electrical machinery has done better tha ever they, in their mose sanguine moments, would have expected it to do. A correspondent, writing to the Dominion, points out that the last trip of 38 days of the ship Dunsyre from San Francisco to Wellington, is probably the fastest on record, but in 1870 the barque Alice Cameron. 347 tons, of the Circular Saw Line, under the command of the late Captain Nearing, made the passage from the Golden Gate to Auckland in 31 days. The round voyage to San Francisco and back occupied only 105 days. The same vessel, while engaged in the AucklandSydney trade, made a passage from Sydney to Auckland in sdays 4 hours, and tlie round voyage under 21 days.