The Sun.
London, England, 1867-08-22 00:00:00

PETROLEUM AS FUEL.

Public attention in the United States has recently
been directed to generating steam by means of
petroleum. Colonel HENRY R. FOOTE, of Ten-
nessee, has patented a process by which this new
steam generator may be used for ships. A board
of three chief engineers, appointed by the United
States Navy Department, examined the patent and
reported favourably. The gunboat Palos was fitted
up, and after several trials in Boston harbour the
system was declared to be successful. The new
apparatus consists of a small iron box placed on the
grate bars, having burners. Beneath it are burners,
by which it is kept hot. The oil is carried to the
box by a small iron pipe and becomes gas as
it enters. Steam is then introduced through a
coil of iron pipe filled with filings placed over the
burners, and its gases enter the retort, into which air

is forced, and the whole forms a gas which supplies
a multitude of burners with a clear blue flame, fill-
ing the furnace, and extending through the flues,
emitting an intense beat. There is no smoke, and
' -

the fire is entirely at command, instantaneously in
creased or decreased, or extinguished, by merely
turning a stopcock. Any man of ordinary intelli-
gence, after an hour's instruction, can superintend
the furnace. Any mechanic can repair the appara-
tus if broken. The labour saved in coalheavers, in
taking in fuel, in discharging ashes, and keeping the
fires going, though enormous, is but a portion of
the economy. The inventor believes, when his
apparatus is perfect, that one-tenth the weight or
bulk of the anthracite coal required will be sufficient
in this fuel. Ships can with ease carry enough
to steam round the world. Although of lesser
interest, SPENCE'S burner for adapting this fuel
to the locomotive is likely to prove of great utility.
It was lately tried on the Warren and Franklin
Railroad with the most encouraging success. The
apparatus consists of a pan covering the bottom of
a fire box in the locomotive and taking the place of
grates. On the pan are placed heaters or gas gene-
rators, six in number, consisting of inclined plates
of cast iron, supported at an angle of 45 degrees ;
opposite to each heater is an injector conveying the
oil to the heater, where it is instantaneously con-
verted into gases, oxygen being also furnished to
the gases in their nascent state for combustion.
The oil is contained in a tank on the tender,
from which it is conveyed by feed pipes to the
injectors, each pair of injectors being con-
trolled by a throttle, by means of which the
fire is regulated as readily as the light of a lamp.
" After a whistle to clear the track," says the writer
in the Titus-ville Herald, " we backed down the road,
the velocity of speed gradually increasing, and with
about 85 pounds of steam, running the distance of
four miles in less than eleven minutes, or at the
rate of twenty miles an hour ; the experiment ex-
ceeded all expectations, and has suggested such im-
provements to the parties, as will before long bring
petroleum into general use on all railroads, it being
estimated by a careful comparison that oil will be
a much cheaper fuel at sixteen dollars a barrel than
wood or cod, even in this region." There are few
subjects of more wide importance than these simple
experiments which have hitherto attracted so little
attention. The prodigious and increasing consump-
tion of coal has caused fears on the part of scientific
men lest the supply should be exhausted, and the bare
idea has raised a feeling of horror as to the fate of
coining geneptiono, It is the undoubted duty of