direction. I understand that they are turning out pipe flanges from three inches in diameter upward. They are doing also a great deal of bent pipe work, and that I believe should be distributed more liberally in steam piping, to allow for expansion and contraction to be taken up on large liberal bends. By the use of this I think we will do away with a good many of the troubles that we have with the fittings to which Mr. Barron refers.

The President:-Allow me to introduce Mr. William Kent to the society.

Mr. William Kent:-I am not a member of the society but I have taken a very great interest in this subject of cast iron elbows from the fact that I had occasion to investigate the accident on the St. Paul-not officially, but unofficially, and the accident at the Edison building. In the St. Paul there were nine men killed, and the Hammerstein accident followed. After watching the newspapers I see that steam pipe explosions happen all over the country, and they are always, I believe, not pipes but fittings. I hope that nothing that Mr. Cary has said will lead anybody to think that cast iron is not so dangerous. We do not know that the cause of these explosions was water hammer. Certainly the expansion is the possible cause of nearly all these accidents we have had. In the case of the St. Paul it is more than probable that expansion had something to do with it, and possibly the two causes together, both water hammer and expansion. But I hope the alarm will be sounded all over the country that cast iron elbows are very dangerous. If you consider what expansion does in a system provided with cast iron elbows, you have something acting at a great leverage. Cast iron is not meant to bend, but steel forgings will. Steel castings, as compared with cast iron, do cost a very large amount per pound; still it is a very small fraction of the total cost of the steam pipe, and therefore every inducement should be made to put in cast steel elbows.

Mr. Cary:-I seem to have been somewhat misunderstood. I thoroughly agree with Mr. Barron and with what Mr. Kent has just said, but I merely wish to say that it was not always on account of the fittings that these accidents took place. I named a few exceptions and I only meant to put them forward as exceptions. But I think that Mr. Kent has voiced my sentiments in this matter thoroughly and I agree with him and with Mr. Barron.

Mr. Fish:-I think cast iron fittings have been very successful, and there have been comparatively few accidents due to their breaking, considering the larger use of them now. I remember twenty years ago that malleable iron fittings were quite extensively used

in steam heating practice, the original intention being, I believe, to make malleable iron fittings for water and gas fitting purposes only. It was stated by steam fitters at that time that in using malleable iron fittings on pipe the fittings stretched, and did not make good, serviceable, or tight joints, but, unlike cast iron fittings, were free from breakage and from unequal expansion and contraction. Still, I think at present, where engineers are doing high pressure work, heavy cast iron fittings are made for this purpose and can be supplied. I cite a case in point; the makers of the Baker car heater use extra heavy fittings in connection with the erection of their heaters. I think the engineer in designing work, and especially where extreme pressures are to be carried, must provide and use extra heavy pipe and fittings.

Prof. Carpenter:-My experience in the way of pipe fitting the last two or three years has been, I think, more in the line of this sort of work than in the line of lighter work, and I have found that the problem is a very serious one and that it is very difficult indeed to get a pipe that will stand high pressure steam put up properly. We are likely to be troubled with leaks and we are also likely to be troubled with the bad effects of expansion, and then in addition come these dangers that have been alluded to. I have found out from my own practical experience that where the pipe work is of rather small size, say under six inches, which I would call small size for pipe work, that the extra heavy cast iron fitting is fairly safe, used with an ordinary pipe. There is no joint in the world that will stand the strains that this high pressure piping is subjected to if the expansion is not properly taken care of. I have found that what we call the ordinary spring joint will take care of this expansion up to 100 feet. I do not like to use slip joints in this kind of work, because I have known of accidents and came myself near having a serious accident with a joint of that character. And while I have used such joints, I think I never will do so again. There are certain accidents which pertain to the class of slip joints which make them, I think, unreliable for this work. But in this class of work, where we go to pipe sizes larger than six inches, I think it unsafe to use cast iron in any form whatever. In that class of work we can usually afford to pay every cent that will be charged for the higher grade of work. We can use bent pipe and we can use steel flanges. They are now making steel roll flanges and we can use where necessary cast steel fittings. Those can now be had. They cost more, but the character of the work really demands it, because the extra cost of the fittings to the work is a very small matter compared with the cost of the en

gine. I have also in some recent work been very careful to put up duplicate pipe lines throughout. That may seem like an unnecessary precaution; but generally in the plants in which this work goes, a stop-down means more expense than two or three lines of pipe, and for that reason I believe it would pay in the way of insurance to have these two lines. Usually the two lines will not cost much more than the one line provided we design them on the principle that we will use the areas of both lines constantly, expecting to shut off one line and run at a very much higher velocity in case of any break down or accident. That is, it is expected to only cover an emergency. Our usual proportion of pipe lines is 50 feet per second of the steam. In my power plant we have proportioned the pipe for 100 feet per second, all of which, if we were obliged to carry our plant through one of these pipe lines for a short time, we could do it without having to shut down.

Then there is one other point I have found in which my experience has not agreed with the experience of some of the members. For the smaller sizes of pipe lines-and I would put six inches as the largest of the smaller size--I have had better success with screwed joints than with flanged joints. In fact I have had no end of trouble with flanged joints, even made metal to metal, ground and put in all sorts of ways, whereas I have had no trouble whatever with screwed joints. A flanged joint is a very expensive joint to make, if it is made well. For this class of work it must be made in the most expensive way; your lines must be perfectly aligned and the joints must be brought together. We must have metal to metal to get the best work. When packing is used of any kind it is liable to make trouble-pretty certain to make trouble; so I have preferred, as far as possible, the use of screwed joints in the smaller pipe lines. In the larger ones, of course, flanges must be added, and the larger pipes are generally lined better, and we have had less trouble from flanged joints in the larger pipes than in the smaller ones. Some of the lines we have put up have run as high as sixteen inches.

There is one thing that makes a cast iron fitting more desirable in heating work than all others, and that is the fact that it resists rust and corrosion somewhat better than these other fittings, and in steam heating work that is the principal cause of deterioration. Of course you get very poor fittings occasionally; they are thin on one sde, but that might happen with any of these kinds of fittings and they would rust out just simply that much quicker. So that what I have said with reference to the other class of fittings for power work does not apply to this other class of work. Then I think

there is one other difficulty that stands in the way of getting good pipe work in power plants, and that is the fact that the workmen. you can hire are not accustomed to that class of work. They have not had the necessary training, and actually in two plants that have been under my supervision for the last year the first piping had every bit of it to come down and be put up over again, because the workmen were careless; they did not understand the necessities of the case. That is a matter of difficulty which will be remedied after the men have had more experience.

Mr. Andrus:-In the locomotive shops at Paterson all of the fittings used on the locomotives are very heavy malleable iron. suppose, on account of the strain and jar, they have found them more serviceable than cast iron.

Mr. Fish:-I might say for the information of members that at the recent exhibition in Boston I saw some beautiful specimens of long turn elbows of wrought iron pipe with flanges, made by the Walworth Manufacturing Company, which showed that when it was necessary to make a right angle turn it is not necessary to use a cast iron fitting for that purpose.

XXI.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT.

BY WILLIAM H. MCKEEVER, NEW YORK,

(Junior member of the Society.)

You will pardon me for intruding on the valuable time of this convention by these remarks. I had intended to attend here as one of an audience and to take no part in any discussions. So far I have succeeded very well, but the feeling of the inner man has overcome my good resolutions and hence this effort.

It is not my wish to be considered in the light that any criticisms which may be manifest in my remarks are personal, but only for the well-being of the society, whose interests I have at heart.

The emanation of my remarks was caused by an utterance made by a fellow-member during the discussion of one of the papers, in which he stated that we were here to deal with facts, not theories, a remark from which I must take exception. As the objects of this society present themselves to me, facts are, measurably speaking, secondary. I am a theorist and believe in its development, for we have to assume in order to make deductions in order to form.

We should be here, firstly, to deal with new ideas and new theories, as the time allotted between our meetings is ample for solving the problems presented by such new theories or ideas. Looking at the presentation of facts, we have only, in order to keep posted on such current events, to subscribe to and read such papers as those whose efforts are in our direction. What matters it to us whether a tee is left looking up or down or out, or whether the system is single pipe or double pipe or multi-pipe? These things only resolve themselves into a question of condition and circumstance and are of too little detail to take up the time of the convention. As engineers, we will differ and hold to our own conclusions in spite of all arguments to the contrary. At the present status of the game we are all at sea, no definite standards being adopted in any application.

I might recall to you the statement made by a prominent engineer at our last annual meeting regarding the difference of the heating surface specified by two of our most prominent firms in