Show MAN AT THE WHEEL some of the devices for favl kailai a grimit steamer let us spend an hourwich hour with capt alan daill of the american liner st iuis on the bridge in mid ocean lie first lakes s into the wheelhouse it is room ten feet wide with a curved fronts A ft heel about three feet in diameter is placed in the center of the room and you ire surprised to see that the quartermaster ter keeps turning it almost constantly st you have always thought that he had simply to keep his eye on the floating compass in the box directly in trout of him and hold tho ship steady ou her course As you look at the compass yon see the blimp veering now this way and now that as she rolls md plunge or as one screw turns faster than the other and thus pulls the ship around it is hard to make two independent screws go exactly at the same and so this man at the M heel ia busy all the time turning the ship straight lie has to fight waves and the screws and the winds at the amo time and he is a busy man this steering wheel controls the ship by means of a small column of oil in a little tube by turning the wheel this way or that the oil in the tube is forced up and down and that opens or closes certain valves in the steam steering gear feet away and the rudder is turned as easily as if a child had done it in most steamships the steam albring gear is controlled by hydraulic power that is by water but the use of a column of oil is an improvement As you look about you see fastened to the cornice directly in front of the wheelman a little scale in black with white lines marked oty on it there is a dial on it and as the ship rolls you see that this is a device to mark the degree of the roll you may notice that it takes about a second for every degree ot a roll on ewh side of the room is another long black gauge and the dials point to berain cerain figures generally between 90 and 95 these dials are little electrical devices showing exactly how many revolutions the screws are making the captain at a glance knows what is going on in the engine rooms over in the corner of the room is another curious electrical device it is a little box with a clock in it the captain tells you it is the machine that controls the whistle in time of fog the law requires a long blast of the whistle at such times every two minutes by pressing a button on this little clock apparatus and by setting the t lock in a certain manner the whistle is blown automatically for seven seconds every minute there can be no error of man in that work just aa sure as every minute comes around that whistle will blow seven scolds under the old way when a man pulled the whistle cord there was no exactness in the work when the fog is over the button is released and the whistle stops harpers hound table |