Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1893 — A Nearly Automatic Steam Plant. [ARTICLE]

A Nearly Automatic Steam Plant.

A new London steam plant has been constructed of a character so largely automatic in its various mechanisms as to oppear almost independent of human attention. This is particularly marked in the case of the huge boilers, in the management of which, so long as the steam pressure is under 100 pounds, the automatic stokers keep steadily at their work feeding the furnao s, and the steam blast keeps the fires roaring. As, however, the indicator on the pressure gauge keeps up tow rd the 100 pounds, a driving belt begins to slide off one wheel on to another, and precisely at the maximum pressure the steam blast is shut off, the stokers stop dead, and the fires begin to lie down; then the driving band begins to reverse its movement, ana presently the steam blast is turned on and the fires begin to be fed again, the vast and magnificent driving wheel of thirty feet in diameter, in the center of the building, all the while revolving with the utmost possible steadiness ana regularity. The self-regulatiDg character of the different parts is pronounced one of the typical wonders of modern machinery.—[New York Sun. T. T. Bell of Independence, Mo., while chopping down a large walnut tree a few days ago found a tenpenny nail nearly ten inches beneath the surface. Mr. Bell says he remembers driving it there while fixing a swing at the beginning of the war—thirty years ago. Pern hss only thirty-six telegraph officen in the entire country and but J,SOO miles of wire.