Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1903-06-25
LIFE in THE ENGINE-RooM OF A
TRANSATLANTIC STEAMSHIP.
HARD WORK DONE THERE
Engineers Must be Men of Re.
sources and Tried Bravery
Sooty Helpers DeIve in Coal
sunkers Amid Sitting Heat and
Dust.

ScrlDners Magazine.-The work of
eternally pushing the old ship on past
the meridians, the race against time
and the sun and the interest ON the
money begins in the gloomy stoke
hold. You have heard that the stoke
mold is hot and when you have clam
Dered into it over disorderly piles of
sui smoking ashes, steadying your.
self by taking incautious hold of burn
ing handrails, and stand for the first
time face to face with the furnaces.
you feel assured of the fact. But be-
Z sides being hot it is the most active,
interesting part of the ship. 1t is her
whole life. You must spend years
studying it before you can stand there
IN command of your watch with your
hand on the feed check valves your
eyes on everything in general, and
Keep the steam up where it belongs
in spite of the ravenous engines
sucking it away from you; years be-
fore you can tell, in one swift glance.
whether a fireman is burning the
greatest amount of coal per hour in
his fires with the least amount of
waste. The problem is thus: Under
g. certain large quantity of water,
Which is continually changing, build
thirty fires, and by means of them,
notwithstanding they must all be con-
tinually replenished with fresh coal
and freed from ashes, keep it at per-
fectly even temperature (within
very few degrees) day and night for
an indefinite period. The game is the
more interesting because a ship can
never afford to spare more than Just
barely enough space for her propelling
machinery-conse quently everything.
engines, boilers, furnaces-must be
worked to the very limit of their
capacity. The game goes as regularly
by turns and in cycles as progressive
whist.
Building the Fires.
Starting with a few fires first in
order, the doors are opened to admit
few shovelfuls of coal thrown
quickly into the front of the furnaces,
then closed again as soon as possible
least too much cold air should enter.
AS soon as they are closed the fires
next in order are served the same way
and then third group. Next the
green" coal in the first fires is
raked back through the furnaces to
complete its combustion. After an
other short interval it is necessary to
"slice" them-that is, probe them
with long pointed bars to lift the
clinkers from the CRATES and make
air passages. Finally it is time to
stoke again
Nobody who has not been to sea
can imagine all things that can
happen to ships machinery nor
properly estimate the cleverness and
ingenuity used up in repairs. The
youth who leaves his shop full of
wonderful and costly machines has
another complete education awaiting
him at sea in the wonderful things
that can be accomplished in time with
plain, ordinary hammer and chisel,
rather WORKOUT file and great deal
of ingenuity. l should like to have
been aboard that steamer disabled in
the Red sea where they took a boat
davit, Strengthened it out in rivet
forge, made new boiler feed pump
piston rod out of it and went on
again-or, better still, on the ship
that lost a propeller and the end of
her tail shaft off the west coast of
Africa, to replace which they were
obliged to move her cargo, pump her
forward compartments full to sing her
low and raise her stern out of water,
drag the broken shaft, several tons in
weight, out through the long alley (too
low and cramped to stand up i'm,
plug up the hole behind it, and lower
the new propeller down over the stern
all while she kicked and wallowed
in a heavy sea-fS1d finally had to
lower the chief engineer over after
the propeller, where he sat tied to
fiimsy staging making all fast and
secure while the vessel jouced him up
and down in the sea till he bled at the
nose and ears and the crew kept the
sharks at bay with pistols and boat
hooks to prevent them from eating
him up before he finished the job
That was a seventy-two hours in
which the young and aspiring en-
gineer might learn host of valuable
and interesting things!
A Perfect System.
A little army of us rose and worked
and slept again, as though our ex-
istence was timed to the revolutions
of the engine. Every man had his
place and his function as if he were
a certain cog in a certain wheel of a
clock. We were all, like Gaul, divided
into three parts or watches" The
first worked from midnight till 4 a.
M. the second from 4 till s, the third
from S till noon. Then came the first
again from noon till p. "a, and SO on
till the twenty-four hours was COM
plete-which gave each man eight
hours of work and sixteen of leisure
each day. At the end Of each four
hour period a gong was sounded and
Immediately the next crew who had
been waiting along the gloomy tween
decks gangways, knocked out their
pipes, appeared on the gratings aboVe