Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-06-12
THE DAY OF BIG THINGS.

There is notable tendency in the in
dustrlH enterprises IN recent times. saws
the Engineering and Mining Journal, not
only to concentrate capital into large con-
Germs, but to have structures and machin-
cry of the largest possible kind, and to
drive it with extreme rapidity. This is
pre-eminently the day of big things, using
the word In its ordinary sense to me an
large, massive, heavy, and bulky. Ocean
steamers are growing larger and more
powerful. Locomotives, cars, railway
tracks, bridges, are all made heavier.
| Blast furnaces have increased in size, and
| their output has increased enormously, so
that a product of 800 tons day is no
more uncommon than one of 800 tons a
week was twenty years ago. A Bessemer
steel works has recently made the record
of $4,000 tons of steel in one month. Open
hearth furnaces are now erected with a
capacity of 30 tons, or three times the ca
paclty of those of ten years ago. In roll
ing mills the some progress has been
shown. A plate was rolled'in Pittsburgh 80
inches wide by IS feet long, 3 inch thick,
weighing 7,4S0 pounds.
In steam and electric engineering the
same tendency is seen. At the Home
about to be placed one of the largest Cor
tai cylinder 54x72 inches. The hy-wheel
weight of the engine will be over 100000
pounds, and it is expected to develop
$500 horsepower. The Corliss engine.
the largest in the word, was built at the
Soho iron-works, Bolton, England. 1t is
of 5 ZOO horsepower of the vertical type.
and stands 4S feet high. 1t is designed
to drive the Ferranti dynamos, As feet in
diameter, mentioned below. The West
end electric railway station in Boston is to
have thirteen engines of 1000 horsepower
each. They are to be triple compound,
with cylinders q, Sc and 50 inches diam,
eter. The power is transmitted by two
belts for each engine, each belt five feet
wide. Steam will be furnished by twenty
four water-tube boilers, each rated at 500
horsepower. The new cable railway sta
ton of the west side cable railway in
Chicago has two Greene engines, each
36x72 inches; each engine weighs $4,000
pounds and has capacity of 1900 horse
power. We recently described the large
Belpaire boilers and Leavitt hosting en-
gines at the Calumet and Hecla mine, and
now we have description of new water
tube boiler desi gned by t. F. Morrin of
Jersey City, which is located at the West
inghouse electric light station in Twenty
fourth street, New York city. 1t contains
600 three-inch water-tubes of a peculiar
bent shape, expanded at each end into an
internal cylinder forty-eight inches in
diameter. The aggregate length of the
tubes is 1900 feet, Or about a mile and
half, and the boiler has 5000 feet of heat
ing surface, and is said to be capable of
developing ZOO horsepower.
In foreign countries the same tendency
toward bigness is shown, and in electri-
cal engineering they have even surpassed
us. The Ferranti dynamos used in the
Deptford lighting stations near London
weigh 500 tons each, stand forty-f feet
high, run at sixty revolutions to the min
ute, and can each supply about 200, 900 in
candescent lights.
Two dynamos of 10,0OO-lamp capacity
are being made in Berlin, each of which
will require about | 900 horse power.
There are no data now existing which
will enable any one to predict what will
be the size of boilers, engines, dynamos,
steamships, bridges, cars, locomotives,
Office buildings, and other structures ten
years hence. Everything in the engineer
ing line seems to be changing at a more
rapid rate than at any previous period.
Certainly the limit to increase CT size does
not yet appear When the single engine
reached its limit in ship-buiiding
the compound engine came In. When
shafts and screws seemed to have grown
as large as they could be made, twin
screws and shafts were used, and at the
same time facilities for making still larger
shafts and screws were perfected So it is
in every branch of engineering; as soon as
a limit is fixed some one finds a way of
over-leaping it, and the limit is placed
farther ahead.