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Most men, I fancy, would have enjoyed a talk with a civil engineer upon that ledge. I should have liked to have Shelley there, myself! It's the difference between poetry and horse-power, dithyrambics and dynamos, Keats and Kipling! What is the energy exerted by the Great Falls of the Missouri? How many horse-power did Shelley fling into the creation of his West Wind?
Allowing 2½ lb. of coal per horse-power per hour would give a total combustion of 3,500 lb. per hour and to burn this even at the maximum economic rate of 85 lb. per square foot of grate per hour would require a grate area of 41 square feet, and about 2,800 square feet of heating surface.
The writer has had small practical experience of the working of that excellent hydraulic motor, the Pelton wheel, but if by horse-power in the table given is meant nominal horse-power, it appears to be high.
The fires of life had been rekindled, and when such a thing happens to a person of Martha's horse-power, the effect is astonishing. At four o 'clock she began dressing for the coming suitor. When he arrived at seven, she was still trying to decide whether her hair looked better by itself or with augmentations.
The number of heavy guns in 1900 was 52; in 1911 it was 330. The horse-power of engines in 1900 was 160,000; in 1911 it was 1,051,000. The naval crews in 1900 numbered 28,326; in 1911, 57,353; and in 1913 the German naval personnel will consist of 3,394 officers and 69,495 men.
Sir Joseph Banks had suggested a steamer drawing four feet, with twenty-four horse-power; an admirable idea, but practical difficulties of construction rendered the "Congo" useless. Of the fifty-four white men, eighteen, including eleven of the "Congo" crew, died in less than three months.
The Newcomen engine consumed twenty-eight pounds of coal per horse-power and made not exceeding three to four strokes per minute, the piston moving about fifty feet per minute. To-day, steam marine engines on one and one-third pounds of coal per horse-power the monster ships using less make from seventy to ninety revolutions per minute. "Destroyers" reach 400 per minute.
Fortunately considerable revenue can be made through the sale of the five million horse-power obtained from the dams which will pay a large part of the carrying charges. The great value of such a public work is in the relief from congestion on the railways, particularly the American, at crop-moving time.
In the engine room are two one hundred and thirty-five horse-power engines, directly connected with dynamos having a capacity of twenty-five hundred lights, which are controlled by a switchboard in this room. The electrician is on duty every day, giving his entire time to the management of this plant. The building is also supplied with gas.
Gas especially is coming forward, and oil is freely used. For reasons before stated, it seems to the writer that, where coal is plentiful, the day is distant when steam will not continue to be the principal source of power. It will be a world surpriser that beats one horse-power developed by one pound of coal.
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