Old Times on the Upper Mississippi
The engine-room crew of a Mississippi steamer varies as the boat is a
side-wheeler or a stern-wheeler. In my day, a stern-wheeler carried
two engineers, a "first" and a "second". The former was chosen for
his age and experience, to him being confided the responsibility
of the boat's machinery. His knowledge, care, and oversight were
depended upon to keep the engines, boilers, etc., in good repair, and
in serviceable condition. The second engineer received less wages,
and his responsibility ended in standing his watch, handling the
engines, and in keeping enough water in the boilers to prevent the
flues from burning, as well as to avoid an explosion. If a rival boat
happened to be a little ahead or a little behind, or alongside, and
the "second" was on watch, the margin of water between safety and
danger in the boilers was usually kept nearer the minimum than it
would have been were the "chief" in command. It is very much easier
to get hot steam with little water than with much; and hot steam
is a prime necessity when another boat is in sight, going the same
direction as your own.
On the "Fanny Harris", the pilots always depended upon Billy Hamilton
when in a race, as he would put on the "blowers"--the forced draft,
as it is called in polite, though less expressive language--and never
let the water get above the second gauge, and never below the first,
if he could help it. Sometimes it was a matter of doubt where the
water really was, the steam coming pretty dry when tried by the
"gauge-stick"--a broom handle, which, pushed against the gauges, of
which there were three in the end of the boiler (three inches apart,
vertically, the lower one situated just above the water-line over
the top of the flues), opened the valve and permitted the steam and
water to escape into a short tin trough beneath. If a stream of water
ran from the first and second gauges when so tried, but not from
the third, there was a normal and healthy supply of water in the
boilers. If the water came from the first, but not from the second,
the "Doctor" was started and the supply increased. When it reached
the third gauge the supply was cut off. If, as I have seen it, there
was, when tried, none in the first or lower gauge, there followed a
guessing match as to just how far below the minimum the water really
was, and what would be the result of throwing in a supply of cold
water. The supply was always thrown in, and that quickly, as time
counts in such cases.
The pilot at the wheel, directly over the boilers, is in blissful
ignorance of the vital question agitating the engineer. He may at
times have his suspicions, as the escape pipes talk in a language
which tells something of the conditions existing below decks; but if
the paddle wheels are turning over with speed, he seldom worries over
the possibilities which lie beneath him. His answer to the question,
whether the water is below the safety point, comes as he feels the
deck lifting beneath his feet, and he sails away to leeward amid the
debris of a wrecked steamboat.
Probably four-fifths of the boiler explosions which have taken place
on the Mississippi River during the last eighty years--and there have
been hundreds of such--were the result of these conditions: low water
in the boilers, exposing the plates until red-hot, then throwing in
water and "jumping" the steam pressure faster than the engines or
safety-valve could release it, followed by the inevitable giving away
of the whole fabric of the boiler, wrecking the steamer, and usually
killing and scalding many of the passengers and crew.
On a side-wheel boat the make-up of the engine crew is different.
In addition to the first and second engineers there are two "cubs",
or "strikers". The stern-wheeler has two engines, but they are both
coupled to the same shaft, by a crank at each end. The throttle wheel
is in the centre of the boat. One man operates the two engines, and
assists at landings, but in a bad piece of river is helped by one of
the firemen, who is called aft by a little bell controlled by a cord
from the engine-room. This man "ships up" on the port side, while the
engineer "ships up" on the starboard. "Shipping up" was the term used
to describe the act of shifting the cam-rod from the lower pin on the
reversing lever to the upper, or _vice versa_. If done at a sudden
call, the engineer ran to one side and "shipped up", then across the
deck to the other, and then back to the centre to "give her steam".
That is all changed now by the adoption of an improved reversing
gear, similar to that on a railway locomotive, the throwing of a
lever at the centre of the boat operating the reversing gears on both
engines at once. Instead of the old-time "short-link", or "cut-off
hook", the equivalent of the "hooking-back" on a locomotive when
under way is performed by the engineer at the centre of the boat by
hooking back the reversing lever one, two, or three notches, exactly
as on the locomotive. Fifty years ago this simple device had not been
adopted on the river.
On the side-wheel boat, to get back to my subject, the engines are
independent--one engine to each wheel. One may be coming ahead while
the other is backing, or they may both be reversing at the same
time. A man is therefore required to operate each engine, hence the
necessity for a "striker", or "cub", to take one engine while the
engineer on watch takes the other. The engineer on duty, be he chief
or assistant, takes the starboard engine and controls the running
of the machinery and the feeding of the boilers during his watch;
the "cub" takes the port engine and works under the direction of
his superior on watch. As I have stated at the beginning of this
chapter, the handling of these powerful engines was hard work, even
for a grown man, when the river was low and the pilot was feeling his
way over a crossing in a dark night, with both leads going, and the
wheels doing much of the work of keeping the boat in the intricate
channel between the reefs. Then it was that the bells came thick
and fast--to stop, to back, to come ahead again, to slow, to come
ahead full steam, and again to stop and back and come ahead. Then
the cut-off hook was pulled up by a rope attached to the deck beams
overhead, and the heavy cam-rod was lifted from the lower hook to the
upper by main strength, or dropped from the upper to the lower with
scant regard for the finish on the bright work, to be lifted again at
the call of the next bell from the pilot, and all this a dozen times,
or even more, in making one crossing.
And all the time the "cub" was in deadly fear of getting his engine
caught on the centre, a calamity in both material and moral sense,
as a "centre" might mean the disablement of an engine at a critical
moment, throwing the steamer out of the channel, and hanging her up
for hours, or even for days, on a sand-bar. It might even have a
more calamitous sequence, by running her on the rocks or snags and
sinking her. Hence, for pressing reasons, the most acute alertness
was necessary on the part of the "striker". The moral obloquy of
"centring" an engine was so great among river men, especially
among engineers, that no "cub" ever again held his head high after
suffering such a mischance; and it was a proud boast among the
embryo engineers if they could honestly claim that they had never
"centred" their engine. On general principles they always boasted
of it as a fact, until some one appeared who could testify to the
contrary. I enter that claim here and now without fear of successful
contradiction. All my confederates in that business are now out of
commission.
One of the beauties of the puppet-valve engine, with its long
stroke[A] and consequent "purchase" on the shaft-crank, was that by
the aid of a billet of wood, about two and a half inches square, with
a handle whittled off on one end, and with a loop of cord to hang
it up by, or to hang it on one's wrist (where it was usually found
when the boat was navigating a crooked piece of river), an increase
of fifty per cent of steam could be let into the cylinder by the
simple device of inserting the club between the rocker-arm and the
lever which lifted the inlet valve, as graphically described in the
paper by Mr. Holloway, quoted in this chapter. If the valve were
normally lifted four inches by the rocker-arm, the insertion of the
club would increase the lift by its thickness. This additional power
fed to the cylinder at the right moment would drive the wheel over
the centre when reversed with the boat going upstream at a speed of
eight or ten miles an hour, against a four-mile current, with almost
absolute certainty. With a ten-foot wheel, and three buckets in the
water, one submerged to its full width of three feet, and the other
two perhaps two feet, it can readily be understood by an engineer
that to turn such a wheel back against the current required a great
expenditure of power at just the right time. The "club" of the
Western steamboat engineer solved the question of additional power
at the critical moment. No short-stroke engine would respond to such
a call. While this service tried the cylinders to their utmost--many
times a little beyond their utmost, with a consequent loss of a
cylinder head, and worse yet, a scalded engineer--the use of the club
was justified by experience; and results which, with finer and more
perfect machinery would have been impossible, were, day after day,
made possible by reason of the crudeness and roughness of this usage.
[A] The "stroke" of an engine is the distance traveled by
the cross-head of the piston in making a complete revolution
of the wheel--equal to twice the length of the crank on the
water-wheel shaft. If the crank is three feet long, the
stroke will be six feet. The stroke of the "Grey Eagle" of
the Minnesota Packet Company was seven feet; that of the "J.
M. White", lower river boat, was eleven feet. The cylinders
of course equaled the full stroke in length. The longer the
crank the greater the purchase, but at a consequent loss in the
number of revolutions of the wheel per minute.
The great steamers plying on Long Island Sound attain a speed of
twenty miles an hour, or even more. It is said that when under full
speed it is possible to turn the wheels back over the centre within
half a mile after steam has been shut off. Under ordinary conditions
it is not necessary that they should be handled any faster. But think
of the conditions under which a Mississippi River steamboat must
stop and back, or suffer shipwreck. And imagine, if you can, the
remarks a river pilot would make if the wheel were not turning back
within thirty seconds after the bell was rung. I think five seconds
would be nearer the limit for reversing and giving steam. In fact,
on all side-wheel boats, the levers controlling the steam valves are
attached to small tackles, and these are controlled by one lever, by
which the steam levers may be raised in an instant, without closing
the throttle at all, and the steam allowed to pass out through the
escape pipes while the engine remains passive.
Two ends are attained by this device: steam can instantly be shut
off, or as quickly given to the cylinders, thus making a saving in
time over the usual opening and closing of the steam ports by the
throttle wheel. Another advantage is, that this device acts as a
safety-valve; for, were the steam to be entirely shut off, and the
safety-valve fail to work, an explosion would certainly follow. By
opening all the valves at once, and permitting as much steam to
escape through the exhaust pipes as when the engine is in motion,
the danger of an explosion is minimized. At the call of the pilot
the levers can instantly be dropped and full steam ahead or reversed