STEAM BOILERS FOR WATER-WORKS.
IN water-works practice, the horizontal return tubular boiler is the favorite type for supplying steam to pumping engines, and certainly its points of value for this purpose are not to be denied. Its economy is inferior to no other class, its steam reserve is large, and the intelligent care it receives in these stations, the work of the fireman being under direct supervision of an experienced engineer, ensures a degree of safety which leaves little to be desired, if the boiler is originally of proper materal and construction.
Such boilers should show an evaporation, year in, year out, of not less than nine pounds of water into dry steam per pound of coal consumed per hour. If this record is not attained, it shows that something is at fault—either that the chimney, flue or grate proportions are not right, that there is some delect in the circulation, in the transmission of heat, or that the coal is of peculiarly poor quality. The evaporation record above mentioned can, and often is, beaten in practice, but where it is less, it is clearly a matter of original poor design and setting, or of careless management, and the steam plant should be made the subject of special, close investigation with the view of discovering and remedying the defect.
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