Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-09-29
SEEING THE FAIR
 IN DETAIL

Wonderful ResuIts From Liquid Diet
 Among Gas Englnes-NsW Field For
 Usefulness For the vapor Generators.
 Pumping Engines For lrrisating
 Desert Lands = Pumps That Protect
 the Exposition From Fire--The Steam
 Turbines Laid Open So One May See
 Their Seoret chambers-Extraordi-
 nary Velocity of One Type of Tur-
 bine - The Largest Engine In tho
 World-Ensines of Many Sizes.
 ESPECIAL coRRRsPoNDENCB BY
 MARK BENNITT.1
 No servant of man returns so much tor simple drink as the gas engine. Pour into it's thirsting interior given quantity of gasoline, kerosene or pe- troleum and you receive a certain re- turn of power that discounts animal brawn for cheapness and gives the en- gineer permanent holiday. Any man with recollection of the farm still lingering in his memory is certain to stop and study prime movers in the Palace of Machinery. The ingenuity of engine makers has for years been sitting out the complexity of engines until we find them adapted to the sim plest tasks that demand power and so easy to handle that any one with com mon sense enough to be a juryman in justice's court can safely be given an engineers license for limited service. The gasoline engine and the oil engine are becoming machines of the farm, as common as the hayrake or the mower. They are supplanting the windmill for pumping, they are doing the churning and saving the wood, they are shred ding the cornstalk and grinding the feed. Nothing is too menial for the gas engine, which responds Sndhngly 10 the coveted drink of real ire water and with many little hiccoughs goes on gayly with it's tasks, no matter how arduous.
 A new type of gas engine IS now to the fore having greater task than all. This form of power Is entering the vast field of irrigation, and future cit ies will, while great commonwealths may, owe their existence to the eco- nomical pumping powers of engines driven by gasoline and Noil. Engine builders are giving these new poSsibili- ties their studious attention, for the deserts that can never come under gravity irrigation are thousand times moro vast than those which can. Even the Sahara may become an empire if the supply of petroleum holds out.
 1t is the experience of practical Mri- gators that 80 per cent of the water used in irrigation seeps through the soil and returns to its natural channel. Here again the gas engine has its field, to raise to higher level once more the used water of previous irr1ga- tion.
 This must be an age of pumps. no matter what other kind of m age it may be. Here is pump for every kind of purpose that pump may be used for, from wind to water. But the greatest pumping plant in operation here is the underwriters battery of force pumps which constitute the one great protection against serious fires. No city ever had such tremendous pumping energy attached to it's fire protective system. Fourteen pumps, with steam up all the time and under slow operation, stand ready instantly to throw 14,000 gallons of water a minute in any part of the system. These pumps are set to maintain a pressure of 160 pounds to the square inch at all times, and fifty-six fire streams may be thrown at one time. In the great exhibit palaces are turret nozzles on high platforms that will throw three inch stream with force enough to sweep the buildings almost clean of exhibits if occasion demand ed, flood that would reach the high roofs and tear out the sides of the building
 The creation of the steam turbine has made demand for another kind of a pump. All steam turbines to date are condensing engines, and the condensers require steam pumps of great capacity to maintain the vacuum of the con denser and throw the water ag0in to the boiler. The pump makers are on hand with the pumps, you may be sure, and you may see them, inside and out.
 A little farther along to. the west ward among the marvellous engines we come to one such as the public has never before been privileged to see It is the steam engine of the future the steam turbine such as they are going ito put into the 800 foot Cunarder and such as are now in use in several fast boats in the English channel and else where. Here is one of them, exerting the power of GOO horses, undergoing an endurance test. 1t was started on June, 20, and when I last noted the l figures it had run more than 2,0O0 l hours without even halt for oil or 8 cooling. Here are the several parts laid open for public inspection like the two halves of an apple. A revolving cylinder covered with annular rings of vanes that suggest kernels of corn on cob or rows of brass teeth is made