On the second steel or false bottom
of the steamer, fore and aft, are located the boilers, furnaces,
and coal-bunkers. We have fourteen double-ended boilers, fitted
longitudinally in two groups, in two water-tight compartments, and
separated by huge coal-bunkers. Each boiler is eighteen feet in diameter
and seventeen feet long. The thickness of the steel boilerplate is
1-17/32 inches. Above each group of boilers rises 130 feet in height a
funnel nineteen feet in diameter, which, if a tunnel, would easily admit
the passage of two railway trains abreast."
George saw the fires lighted, and when the furnaces required more coal,
suddenly a whistle brought fifty stokers or firemen, the automatic
furnace doors flew open, and a gleam of light flooded everything. Long
lances made draft-holes in the banks of burning coal, through which the
air was sucked with increasing roar. The round, red mouths of the hundred
craters snapped their jaws for coal, which was fed them by brawny men
whose faces were streaked with grimy perspiration, and their bodies
almost overcome by heat. The hundred furnaces are kept at almost white
heat from New York to Liverpool.
"Four hours on, and four hours off, and the best quality of food are some
of the recent improvements," said Siemens.
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