The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-26 00:00:00

PETROLEUM FOR IV AVIGATIOIV.

The Moniteur gives an account of some interest-
ing experiments which took place some short time
back on board the small yacht the Puebla, which
the Imperial family use for their excursions on the
Seine. The Emperor and Empress were both on
board, the former having, a few months pre-
viously, recommended II 'AL Sainte Claire-
Deville and Dupuy de Lome to examine the
question of substituting petroleum for coal in
steam navigation, and being therefore desirous
of witnessing their first attempt in that direc-
tion, those made in England and America having
been practically failures. The apparatus employed
on board the Puebla was a vertical grate fixed to
the mouth of the ash-pit The door of the fire-
place was blocked up, and its horizontal grate re-
placed by a vaulted ceiling of refractory bricks rest-
ing on the floor of the ash-pit, slightly inclined
inwards. The petroleum, contained in a special re-
servoir, passes through a main tube provided with a
stop-cock, which can, at an instant's notice, cut off
the supplyof oil from the smaller tubes, 13 in number,
which terminate the bars of the vertical grate above
described, each letting out a thin jet of the inflam-
mable liquid, and being provided with a separate
stop-cock to regulate the emission. The oil flows
down each bar in the shape of a thin stratum, and
thus reaches the floor, where it has to feed the
flame. The old grate of the Puebla, measuring 23
square metres, could, when heated with coal, pro-
duce a 63-horse power with 240 turns per minute,
under a pressure of 5 atmospheres. With
petroleum, the number of turns was 242, and
the horse-power 65, the liquid consumed being
2 kilos. per hour, or 147 kilos. per hour, and
horse set down at 75 kilos. As the corresponding
consumption in coal would be 2.25 kilos., the ratio
of combustion of the petroleum to the coal is repre-
sented by 0.66. The former will turn 13 litres of
water into steam for every eight vapourised by coal.
All danger of an explosion is obviated by the cir-
cumstance that the reservoir in which the petroleum
is kept is of iron. Were it kept in a wooden tank,
it would gradually ooze through the pores, and
thus, by impregnating the air with its emanations,
prepare the way for an explosion at the slightest
contact with a flame.

DEMOLITION IN THE STRAND.--Yesterday several
of the houses on the north side of the Strand, lying be-
tween Wellington-street and Catherine-street, were closed,
prior to demolition, for the purposes of the new circus
which is to be erected there. The building known as the
Strand Music Hall is to be in a great measure rebuilt, and
yest,3rday a large body of workmen were busily engaged
on that part of it which forms a large portion of the west
side of Catherine-street. On the site which the houses
closed occupied, a grand entrance to the new circus will
be erected.

TIIE BIRMINGHAM HORSE SHOW.—Among the
prizes awarded for horses at this show in addition to
those published there aro in Class 18—stallions for getting'
hacks, &c., first to Captain Barlow, Castle Donington ;
second, to Mr. John Edwards, Sudbury Paddocks, Middle-
sex. An extra prize was awarded to the Marchioness of
Hastings for the most entire pony, " Bobby." With re-
ference to the classes for Foxhounds, " Unentered Pup"
pies," the awards were the reverse of what we gave yes-
terday. Mr. C. Colemore obtained ;the first and the Earl
of Yarborough the second prize.