went over to the side track, jumped on top of the car, pulled open the man-hole and looked in to see how much oil was left. The result was he lost all his hair and whiskers. There was quite an explosion, but the oil did not catch fire. The gas exploded and burned the face of the man who was looking in, and another man had his hand on the man-hole and it burned his hands, but the oil did not ignite. We succeeded in drawing the oil all off. There was only about a quarter of it gone.

The storage tanks, if possible, should be buried below the surface of the ground with all the connections to it also buried. Then the tanks should always be placed so that the level of the oil in the tanks will never be higher than the fire-box. In other words, all apparatus fed by gravity are more or less dangerous. The accumulation of any amount of oil in the fire room or fire-box should be avoided, not that I should fear any trouble arising from the oil itself, but in case of accident to the pipes or apparatus we are liable to have considerable quantities of oil running about on the floor, which would neither be pleasant nor safe. I have had several interesting conversations with insurance men on the subject, among them a well-known inspector for a mutual company, and in every case the opinion was, that if these precautions. are carefully followed there is no risk attending the burning of petroleum oil for fires. With coal or wood the beginning of combustion is sparks and the end ashes and cinders, which must be disposed of.

Some objection has been raised to the use of oil on account of the unpleasant odor. There need be no trouble from this. If oil is kept in open tanks or spilled about there will, of course, be an unpleasant odor until it evaporates, but if it is handled carefully in pipes and closed tanks, without leakage, the slight odor which may be apparent will be much less objectionable than the heavy soot or smoke which arises from our numerous chimneys, and which upon the slightest provocation drops down upon us.

To close, then, I would say that I do not consider that the

great saving to a plant with a most efficient boiler service on coal is to be in the first cost of the fuel, but in the advantage derived from ease of handling, labor in the boiler house, cleanliness, absence of waste and other items which do not appear on the books.

We must bear in mind that but a very few of the steam plants are doing all that it is possible to do with coal, the average evaporation being as low as seven pounds of water to one pound of coal. Again, the efficiency of a coal fire varies greatly from one moment to another, for as soon as it to its maximum heat fresh coal must be applied, and by so doing the temperature is again reduced. On the other hand, with oil, the temperature is always at its maximum and constant.

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The principal advantages, therefore, which fuel oil has over coal for boiler work are the desirable saving in the first cost; economy in labor by dispensing with the handling of coal and ashes, and the frequent cleaning of fires and flues; the perfect control at all times without opening the fire-box; ease and quickness of lighting and extinguishing, thereby doing away with the drawing and banking of fires; the increased efficiency of the boilers; great saving of room, as the oil occupies only one-half as much space as coal and can be stored below ground; the ease, rapidity and cheapness of handling outside of the boiler house, as oil can be pumped as easily as water, and carried in pipes to any distance without loss. To be added to this, the fact that the life of the boiler must be increased by the use of oil, partly on account of the absence of sulphur and ammonia and partly by the steady temperature in the fire-box, thereby doing away with the constant expansion and contraction of the metal, also the great saving in first cost of plant, no lofty and expensive stack being required.

If it is so that all these advantages are derived from the use of oil under boilers, I must confess that I fail to discover any particular advantage left to those using coal.

The situation then, as it appears to me, is this: The use

of fuel oil under steam-boilers has ceased to be an experiment. It is demonstrated beyond doubt that it is a practical success. With reliable apparatus and good application there is both safety and economy. The oil supply of the world is equal to if not greater than the supply of coal. If the local supply should fail, to change from oil to coal is but the work of a few minutes.

The vital question, then, is one of economy. The price of crude oil is the important factor, and with this satisfactory, the introduction of oil into every mill in New England will be only a question of time.

At the conclusion of his paper Mr. FISH added : —

There is one thing here that I would like to refer back to. Reference is made to the evaporation of ninety-two pounds of water to one pound of oil. Now that has been recently done, so they say, and I don't know how they did it. I did not see the plant myself, but a good many of you were interested in it and there were a good many figures given out. In fact, there was so much interest in it that every other part but the figures was completely in the dark, and I think it would be well, with your permission, to let somebody who has investigated this let us know what he found out, and I would like to call on Mr. Manning, if you have no objection. Mr. Manning, I would like to know about that East Cambridge matter.

Mr. MANNING. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: There are one or two points that I wish to discuss a little on this paper of Mr. Fish. In the first place, the question of the value of oil fuel is largely one dependent on the reliability of the apparatus to use it with. There have been a great many different schemes for using it introduced that have given more or less trouble, as he has said. The scheme that he has been using there I have watched pretty closely; I watched it ten years ago, when Archer first got it out. The scheme was all right for getting his heat at that time, but his apparatus was not reliable. I think his present apparatus

is about as reliable a piece of mechanism as I have seen. Therefore, that being settled, it comes down to a question of the cost of the fuel. In mineral oil there are from 21,700 to 21,900 heat units per pound of oil, and if we can economize all of that heat, utilize the whole of it, we can afford to pay pretty well per pound for oil.

Now, under the conditions that Mr. Fish spoke of, where he was making steam at eighty pounds from feed water, varying anywhere from 40° to 134° temperature, the average cost, taking the average feed water at 870, the total heat units required to make a pound of steam from a pound of water at 87°, the steam pressure at eighty pounds per inch, would be 11,126 units per pound. That being divided into the highest value for oil would give us nineteen and four-tenths pounds, provided that none of the heat escaped, and every particle of it went into the water. Mr. Fish has claimed nineteen and two-tenths pounds, very close to perfection.

Mr. FISH. That is for one hour?

Mr. MANNING. Of course; if you can do it for one hour you can do it for a year.

Mr. FISH. No, sir; I beg to differ with you.

Mr. MANNING. There are one or two items, though, that have been omitted from that calculation. The first is that he has used a portion of the steam made for the production of his gas. This he has made no exact measurement of, but in my opinion it would be at least five per cent. Whether it is more or less than five per cent. I do not believe he has any very definite idea; and I am certain I have not; but I think that with that process five per cent. - it may be less, it may be as low as two per cent. of the whole feed water is used in making the superheated steam for the gas, - that is, used merely as a vehicle for the oil, carrying it into the fire. The dissociation of it, in the first place, I do not believe in; in the second place, they gain nothing by it. They would lose as much as they would gain by burning the hydrogen, so that if that goes on it is of no importance. The use of the

steam is as a vehicle for oil, and undoubtedly it is the very best vehicle. It is better than air for very many reasons, and its success in this case shows it.

There is another little item that he has left out, and that is the coal burned under this superheating arrangement. It is a small item, but still in an accurate statement of an actual experiment of just what may be got from it, it should be taken into consideration, and those two items should be deducted from the final results.

He says on page 63: The same boilers running on coal gave an average evaporation of 8.55 pounds of water." I take it, under the same conditions, that it is from, the same feed water to the same pressure of steam. That is the poorest showing ever made, according to my knowledge, with these boilers. Of course I am personally interested in the matter. The boilers are of my design and I think their average showing is better than that. I do not think he has taken into consideration whether he is using dry coal or wet coal. There is no statement about that, but I know his coalshed is out-doors, and I think it is very likely that some water in that coal may have accounted partly for that. I do not want you to go away with the idea that that boiler would only average 8.55 pounds of water per pound of coal.

Now, oil fuel has been a very much greater success in iron manufacturing and in places where very high temperature has been necessary, as is spoken of in Mr. Fish's paper, where they are competing with coal at two dollars and fifty cents at ton. It would be the natural query, without any further explanation, why couldn't you compete with steam power on the same figures? It is for the reason that temperature below 2,500 or 3,000° is, for these iron-heating purposes, of no avail. With the oil, that temperature can be kept right along; with the coal fire it is impossible. It is often from 1,500° to 1,800°. All the heat made during that time, until it gets up to the temperature at which it can be utilized in the iron processes, is wasted, which waste you do not incur with the oil. A good boiler would utilize the heat down to