The Locomotive - Lighthouse Survival Blog

1901.]
THE LOCOMOTIVE.
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HARTFORD, JANUARY 15, 1901.
J. M. Allen, A.M., M.E., Editor. A. D. Risteen. Associate Editor.
The Locomotive can be obtained free by calling at any of the company's agencies.
Subscription price 50 cents per year when mailed from this office.
Bound volumes one dollar each. (Any volume can be supplied.)
We desire to acknowledge the Annual Register of- the Rensselaer Polytechnic Insti-
tute of Troy, N. Y., and also two other pamphlets relating to the work of the Institute.
The " Partial Record of Work of Graduates" forms a very impressive list and shows
that the Rensselaer graduates have done exceedingly well in the outside world. Men
who have done so well must have received an education that really educates.
A curious view of boiler explosious, which is often taken by persons who ought
to know better, is well illustrated by one otherwise intelligent account that we have
received of explosion No. 237, the details of which are printed in this issue in our
regular list. After admitting that the boiler steamed up until the safety-valve blew,
and that the engineer, in order to get pressure enough to run his machine, then " moved
"The only
the safety-valve weight back to the limit," the account goes on as follows :
explanation for the explosion is that part of the flues of the boiler had become so
clogged that no water could enter them. The high pressure of steam, possibly over 200
pounds, forced the water into these red-hot flues, causing them to explode." Evidently
it never occurred to the writer of these words that a pressure of 200 pounds per square
inch on an old, and presumably more or less corroded boiler, had anything to do with
the explosion, except its indirect influence in causing a little water to squirt in some-
where, through a crack in a chunk of scale. This idea that iron or steel will stand
any kind of a strain, so long as it is only wet, is something that Ave cannot comprehend.
The Metric System in Congress.
Now that the House Committee in charge of the bill to substitute the metric system
in place of our present system of weights and measures has decided to make a favorable
report, the chances of our having to think and talk in terms of meters and kilogrammes
become very real. The arguments in favor of the metric system are so many, so
reasonable, and so well known, that it is not necessary to reiterate them now. Apart from
the saving of time and labor among ourselves, there is the commercial advantage which
will be gained by abolishing a system of weights and measures that seriously hampers
us in our trade with almost all the foreign nations, and particularly with the Latin-
American republics. The English-speaking races stand alone in the use of the old and
largely discredited system; and although these races are far in the lead in manufacture
and commerce, and have the power, if they wish, to perpetuate for many a decade to
come a confessedly clumsy and antiquated system, every argument of utility and con-
venience calls for the substitution of a decimal system which, by long use, has proved