COAL GIVES WAY TO OIL.

Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 48, 28 January 1902, Page 4

COAL GIVES WAY TO OIL.

LIQUID FUEL ON THE OCEAN HIGHWAYS. The experimental stage in the burning of petioleum as a fuel for ship furnaces has passed, and now liners are being fitted up with storage tanks and the requisite, spraying apparatus. Russia consumes no fewer than seven million tons yearly: as fuel, and has with Italy and Germany largely adopted its use for naval purposes. In the Caspian Sea steamers have burnt liquid fuel exclusively for many years. In England the Great Eastern railway , runs the fast. Cromer service with.marked success, and burns oil in specially constructed locomotives. The fuel is also used by the Metropolitan railway, and the reports of experts show that the life of the firebox of an engine burning oil is longer than that of a locomotive burning coal. ; The China Mutual Navigation Company (Limited) is fitting up three vessels with the requisite storage tanks and spraying apparatus, and one of the vessels of the Hamburg-American line is equipped for a series of trialsand the company has contracted with Sir Marcus Samuel's firm for a supply of the oil. :.. . ' ■ '■ •' '':

Mr Benjamin Samuel has pointed out the great advantages that are gained by ships using petroleum fuel. First, there is the saving of bunker room, and this space is available for cargo. One ton of oil gives as:-.-, much power - to, a ship's engines as two tons of coal. A ship burning liquid fuel can be stoked by an automatic arrangement; it needs

*waL.'hing. "h nVever," luit the hands *iu th-i st Mti'liuJl-i are reduced to a quarter of the number employed in a vessel

"using coal. No ashes are made, and the oil flows by gravitation from the service tanks plated "above the boilers to the furnace.

Ample stores of the liquid fuel have been stored in specially-constructed tanks at ports of call from Suez to Yokohama, including all the Indian harbours.

The fuel will be brought from Texas, •ax State-yielding; more-oil-in a day than all the others do in a week. The output of Texas is not controlled by the Standard Oil Company, and London merchants have acquired huge interests in all the best properties in that State. ;

For the East, however, the thick jungle of Borneo has been explored, and oil of a character the best suitable for liquid fuel was found at the very first boring in the Sultanate of Kotie, in Dutch Borneo.

Installation tanks, to meet the leixiand of steamers fitted up for burning liquid fuel, have been erected at Madras, Bombay, and at other places in the Far East.

The facilities for landing and handling oil. differ in each port, but a great saving iii the cost of native labor is effected by vessels using oil. "When the first tank steamer arrived in China The native.Labourers were very excited when' the were told that a steamer with 1,500,000 gallons of oil would be discharged and .'ho hands were wanted.

The Shell Transport and Trading Company, of London, intend making Dover the first liquid fuel station in the English Channel. There is now a chain of these stations extending from Marseilles to China and Japan, and it is intended to set up depots at Dover, Liverpool," and Harve. .

The steamship Clam has just completed at Dover a 45day's passage from Borneo on liquid fuel, having travelled 11,000 miles.

Instead of carrying a crew of 18 or 20 firemen, as would be the case if burning ordinal y fuel, her complement of firemen numbered numbered three only.

It is proposed to erect three huge links at Dover. The liners to be supplied will take about 1500 tons each, and the shipping of the fuel, instead *>t occupying many hours with much in- <• mvenieaee, will be carried out in two or three hours.