Some Peculiarities. We
learn by the Glasgow Daily Mail that a new steamer, for the Glasgow and
Dublin Steam Packet Co., has recently been launched on the Clyde, and
has Borne peculiarities about her which are well worthy the attention of
our engineers. Let us point them out.
She is the first of her class there, having a spacious salon on deck.
The engines are of the kind known as side-levers, the levers being each
formed of two plates of malieable iron connected together with studs and
eyes.
Considerable weight is saved by this substitution of wrought for cast
iron, and the possibility of fracture obviated.
The cylinders are 60 inches diameter, with five feet stroke. The paddles
have feathering floats, actuated by an eccentric on the inner side of a
panel. The mechanism for producing this feathering motion is very
strong, and yet simple. The floats are larger than usual, being 8 feet
9, by 3 feet 6; but they are fewer in number, as there are only 14 in a
wheel of 23 feet in diameter.
This is the "Morgan Paddle Wheel." She is free from all tremor and runs
at the rate of 17 knots per hour at 25 strokes per minute.
The two boilers are tubular, and fired from both ends, each pair of
furnaces communicating at the centre with an upright box, from which the
tubes proceed at a small angle towards the end of the boiler, where the
vapour is received into a chamber, and conveyed at once to the chimney.
The tubes are 6½ feet long, and 3½ inches diameter. Air is admitted
through the ash-pit to the fire bridge, where it meets the smoke and
converts it into vapour. The result is, that no smoke is visible at the
funnel head, and a serious nuisance to passengers, as well as a heavy
loss to the owners in unconsumed carbon, is obviated.
The principal dimensions of the Herald are,
Length over all 200 feet.
Beam 25 feet.
Depth of hold 15 feet.
Measured tonnage 650 tons
Deck flush, fore and aft, with a top-gallant forecastle. The steering
wheel is on the platform amidships.
Her hull was built by Reid, of Port Glasgow, her engines by Messrs.
Thompson, Engineers, Glasgow. The steering wheel on the platform is
taken from the American river boats. |
