MODERN STEAMSHIPS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10086, 11 July 1893, Page 2

MODERN STEAMSHIPS.

In the Leisure Hour, Mr W. J. Gordon has one of his interesting papers, fall of facts and figures, in which he sets forth some of the many wonders which are to be found on board a modern liner. He says "Speed is merely a matter of coals. Tour Clyde men will build you a ship to run forty knots an hour; but then she will have to be of 160.000 horses, and burn 2000 tons of coal a day.” A TON A MILE PEE HALF OUNCE FUEL. Mr Gordon is, however, a little premature in saying that they could build a ship to run forty knots. The consumption of coal would probably be too great. Much more must be done in the way of utilising the heat that is at present wasted before any such speed can be attempted. All the work of a steam engine is done by 15 per cent of the heat liberated, yet still, under these conditions, very astonishing results are obtained •' The Tekoa, one of the New Zealand meat boats, once ran from Teneriffe to Auckland, 12,059 knots, without a stop or slackening of speed; and over the whole journey from London to Auckland she carried her 6250 tons of cargo at a speed of 10 knots on an expenditure of 1237 tons of coal.” Or, in other words, she needed only one half ounce of coal to carry a ton of goods for a mile. WOEK DONE BT THE BOILBEB. “ But think of the work that has to be done! To begin with, one hundred and twenty tons of steam must be raised every hour. Every day the Majestic evaporates 650,000 gallons of water; in other words, two hundred and fifty Majesties would require, for steaming purposes, just the same amount of water as is supplied to the whole population of the County of London. To raise this water to the needful pressure of 1801 b or more per square inch, the boiler furnaces have to be fed with over three hundred tons of coal a day, so that, for her trip out and Home, the ship has to consume the contents of half a dozen railway trains, mustering some two hundred waggons amongst them. This is to get the water into steam; but after that the steam has to be condensed again into water, and to do this quite an ocean has to be pumped through twenty miles of condenser tubes, which it has to traverse three times before it has done its duty ; and during the six days she is crossing the Atlantic half a million tons of this water passes through the ship for condensing purposes alone!” THE CBBW AND THE SCBEW. “ A first-class express ocean liner like the Majestic, which has fifty-four engines on board, iu addition to the main ones to which we have confined our attention, requires from 160 to 170 men to .work the three watches now customary in the service. Of this number about twenty are engineers and thirty greasers, the rest of the hands being in the stokehold, either as firemen or coal trimmers. Each watch lasts four hours.

“ The Umbria has the largest propeller of all the Atlantic liners. It is 24£ft in diameter, and has four blades, each of 'which weighs seven tons, and the complete screw weighs thirty-nine tons. The boss cost £1000; the blades of manganese bronze cost £l2O a ton, or £8360 for the four; so that when the sundries are added, we get close on to the round figures. In one of the P. and 0. boats, the substitution of bronze for steel gave increased speed, required less engine-power, and saved as much as seven hundred tons of coal on one trip out and Home. " The Majestic has a shaft which,if stood on end, would overtop the Monument on Fish street Hill, and the sister shaft is only six feet shorter, and, like it, weighs over seventy tons. "But what a distance the smoke has to travel before it reaches the outer air J Though in all ships it has not to go so far as it does in the Scot, whose funnels measure a hundred and twenty feet from rim to grate-bar.”