PETROLEUM AS A MOTIVE POWER.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7525, 27 August 1886, Page 3

PETROLEUM AS A MOTIVE POWER.

At the Royal United Service Institution on June 18tn a paper was read by Colonel Ci E. Stewart, of the Bengal Staff Corps, on the use of petroleum as fuel in steamships and locomotives, based on its employment in the Caspian Sea and TransCaspian region. The lecturer pointed out that great efforts iiad been made to burn either crude petroleum or else astatki, which was the refuse left after the more volatile oils had been distilled off the crude petroleum, and said that in England great ignorance appeared to prevail on the subject. The first efforts in this direction were not successful, but all difficulties had now been overcome, and for the last twelve years astatki had been burnt in most of the steamers running on the Capian Sea or the Volga river. He recommended its use iv our service, because it required less room than coal for stowage, and it could be placed in vessels in spaces that could not possibly be available for coal, viz., between the inner and outer bottom of a ship. Besides this, it was cleanly in use, there being no cinders or ashes. It also did away with the necessity of a fire crew beyond the necessary number for cleaning the machinery 1 and superintending the steam, a circumstance which anyone who had watched stokers at work in the hold of a coal-burning ship in the lied Sea would appreciate. Again, the great facility of loading was an enormous advantage, and the absence of smoko by no moans its least good quality. He thought the supply of petroleum was practically inexhaustible, as, in addition to that which could be obtained from Russia, there was an unlimited supply to be obtained from America, Upper Burmah, aud tuc country surrounding the Persian Gulf. He contended that, in case of war; a fast war vessel having on board, say, 1500 tons of petroleum, could keep at sea for a very long period, and do our shipping interests incalculable mischief. She would probably be captured when her supply of petroleum fuel was exhausted, bnt it would be well worth our enemy's while to lose a ship after all the mischief she could accomplish during the time her supply of fuel was available. Vessels burning coal would have a very bad chance of capturing her as long as her fuel lasted, as they would require to replenish their supply long before she would require to do so ; and it is not even quite certain that she would bo helpless when her supply of astatki came to an end, for it would be quite possiblo if she could procure a supply of coal to alter her furnaces in a day or

two so as to burn that fuel. There would be great advantage obtained by torpedo boats burning astatki over torpedo boats burning coal. In these small vessels a hydrocarbon like astatki, whose steamgenerating power is nearly double that of coal, would jjivo the boats using^ it an immense superiority, to say nothing of the advantage gained by their power of ap- , proaching an enemy unseen in consequence of the almost entire absence of smoke. It should he our object to have a supply of astatki stored for tho uso of our vessels at different points in tho Red and Mediterranean Seas and Indian Ocean. If wo had large reservoirs containing astatki in Cyprus, at Malta, Gibraltar, Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, and -Hong Kong, our vessels, both of tho mercantile marine and Royal Navy, which need that fuel, would have an immense advantage over the ships of any nation burning coal.