Royal Navy History

[froya66]

Dear fellow steamboaters.

From e-bay I just acquired a book called ”The Marine Steam Engine” 3. edition from 1855 By Thomas J. Mann and Thomas Brown. Printed in London by Herbert Cheapside.

The book is said to be written "Chiefly for the use of the Officers in her Majesty’s Navy"

Unfortunately the book was not exactly what I expected. I hoped for a lot of mechanical drawings, but instead there are only a few principal sketches, and a lot of text.

Never the less there are interesting/funny reading to be found.

For example: Quote from article 280:

The remedies to be adopted in case a shot enters the boiler.

If the shot enters the steam part of the boiler only, and the steam be only at atmospheric pressure, it will be of no consequences so far as the effect in the engine-room. The hole through the boiler may be stopped by placing a piece of wood against it, which may be kept in its place by a shore from the ships side.

Unquote:

Until now I did not realise that also at sea, engines running at a steam pressure only a little more than atmospheric were common at that time.

From what I believe is a full list of navy ships in the back of the book can be found, that at least 17 out of the approx 100 paddle wheelers in the navy operated at a boiler pressure of less than 5 psi.

The maximum pressure mentioned at all is 60 psi. This pressure relates to 5 screw vessels of different sizes. The larges being Cressy with a tonnage of 2538 tons and a nominal engine power of 400 HP.

I wonder if anyone knows this book?

Will said list of Navy ships be of interest to anyone?

The front cover leather is ruined, and some sort of square logo/picture, originally placed in the middle of the page, have been cut away. Can anyone tell what this might have been?

Best regards
Jørgen Hansen

[mcandrew1894]

I'd be interested!

"The Steam Navy of the United States" by Bennett is a good one too!

I have an original copy owned by Alfred O. Blaisdell. He was an engineer of note during the early formative years of the US Steam Navy...he has many hand written notes on the pages as he apparently was a significant source for Bennett. He is mentioned and given thanks to in the preface. I must say he had his opinions......

Dave