The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-02-09
REVOLUTION PROMISED
 IN TRANSATLANTIC TRAVEL
Remarkable Improvement in Freight and Passenger Service is PromiSed-The Innovation Will
 Come in Use of Turbine Engine.

use turbine engines contains nothing rev t!utonary or impossible. The tur.s 1a engine wh.sh It will use, however. dif- fers radically from the Parsons turbine waich was used by the British Govern ment. It is known as the Wilson, or American turbine, and Is said by ex. perts to excel the Parsons macbine, as point.
 These engines are to be applied to siA gigantic passenger mail steamships, each l0O feet long. 70 feet beam and @ feet draught. Some idea of the sise of thes,s I'd that the Kaiser Wilhelm IT. 0f the North German Lloyd Company. nuw building at Stettin. which Is to be the lat gest vessel in the world, will be 707 the ships of the New York and Eurspea9 Company. The North German Lluye Company's racer Is to have a speed of M 1-2 knots and horse power of Q.0O0. power of 7o.ooo and q speed of 30 knots or better. The North German Lloyd ship will burn coal The turbine boat will consume crude oil from the Beaumont district. In Texas The least coal con- sumption of the best quairuple .xpan- sion engines of the German companys type, with their necessary auxiliary pow- CT. Is about one and half pounds of coal horse power hour, whereas with oil fuel and the Wilson turbine 1t ia
 
 kept down to oniv little more than one-third of that quantity. or q little over half . pound of oil . horse powsr hour.
 In the weight of the machinery snerp Is said to be an equal saving. for q tur- bine engine only ten feet In diameter and with ten foot "face" will give i2.000 horse power. That Is about the greatest one shaft, so that, in order to obtain the 10000 horse power advertised as tho potential of each of the new turbine vessels, each will have to be provided with six propeller shafts. so as to keep down the power to be transmitted below the 12,000 limit. Each of these shafts will have upon 1t two turbines and will be worked as a unit. The engines to bs5 used will not be greater than ten feee in diameter. and as some part of thts height will be sunk below the floor level, it can be seen that no great height will be taken up by the machinery ia the engine room,
 In the modern transatlantic passenger ships nearly half the available space ia taken up by engines. boilers and coal bunkers. In the new turbine vessels the engines will take up hardly any room. the boilers will be smaller than those of the ordinary steamships, and the coal oil fuel being carried in the ballast tanks in the bottom of the vessel.
 One of the greatest, objections to the turbine system of propulsion is that sEs engines cannot be reversed Turbiaee are really . sort of steam wind mill. the blades being fixed. and they can no more be made to run backward than can 2 windmill. To overcome this difheulty It has hitherto been necessary to mount a right and left hand turbine on each shaft--or, in other words. each propeller shaft had to- be eouipped with an ordis nary turbine for going ahead. while an- other specially constructed with reversed blades. was used for going astern In or clumsy, for when the vessel was go ing ahead and 1t was decided to stop or reverse suddenly. 1t was necessary to shut off one engine and start the other. SrhIa Ia said to have been the real cause of the destruction of the British torpedo hoat destroyer "Viper." The officers saw inc rocks ahead, but the head engipe could not be shut off and the astern one started in time to sVoid tne asci- dent.
 This difiiculty Is overcome in an ex- ceedineiy ingenious manner by the in- ventor of the Wilson turbine. He uses no reversing gear on the engine ana does not arrange for a separate turnins for going astern. In fact, the ant ad turbine does not even stop running wnen if ia desired to send thhe vessel asterns but continues to spin in the same aneaa direction. The reversal of the snip ls ac- conpllshed Ly changing the angle or tne nropeller blades In such way tnat tney Sptr,Se inc water at a reversed angie from that which sends the ship forward. By means of the same apparatus the angle of the blades can be set so as 10 pro- duce any desired range of speed. or they can he fixed at right angles when they will act aS . drag.