A NEW ME -HOD OF COALING STEAMSHIPS.

Colonist, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8148, 17 January 1895, Page 1

A NEW ME -HOD OF COALING STEAMSHIPS.

The question of speed in coaling steamere is an important one to shipowners. A new and ingenious method of caling has jast been successfully tested by the American Line at its per at the foot of Dey street, New York. It is tha invention of Mr Louis A. Do Mayo, the chief stevedore of the line. The invention consist, of a peculiarly constructed boat, or barge, which ha 3 seven large movable boxes or biu., each of the same widh and depth as the boat, and eaoh designed t_ oontain 5'J tons of ooal. Eaoh bos is in a separate compartment or slideway, and can be raised IG foot from tbe bottom _f the boat by mean 3of four large steel screws operated by a simple but powerful mechanical device. There is one Bcrew at eaoh corner, and th: four are geared together by means of crown whee's an j shafting, so thai all oan be turnod at once by a wheel driven by a email steam engine on the deck of the barge, the engine being supplied with steam ei>her from a boiler on the wharf or from the ship which is being ooaled. The boxes have three doors, one above the other, in their side. When the barge is alongside a ship to be coaled, tha boxes are elevated bo that their doors come euccessively, beginning with the top one, to a point opposite and to a height sufficiently above the coaling pons of the ship, for the ooal to run by its own gravitation through ohutiS extending from the doors of the boxes into foe coaling ports. At the ends of the chutes, inside the ship, ar. ro .tional chutei which may be Shortened i_ -..^thened at will, and through which the coal may be conveyed from the port 3to the parts of the ship where it is to be stowed. By the ordinary methods the ooaling speed is about IG tons an hour, with seven men at eaoh box. Under Mr De Mayo _ prooe3B coal was placed on board tbe vessels at the rate of GO tona an hour, with only, five men at each port.