THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE PRIZES AWARDED TO STEAM ENGINES.
If there is anybody satisfied with the action of the managers of the American Institute, in the matter of awarding prizes to the competing engines exhibited at the recent fair, we have yet to meet that complacent individual. Neither the exhibitors nor the general public could be expected to accept with equanimity such a report as the managers have made, because it is inadequate to give any real idea of the relative merits of the engines tested. The exhibitors, at a large expense, took their engines to the hall of exhibition, placed them in position, and with them drove the machinery exhibited there; and now, when in return they had a right to expect a decided, manly course on the part of the managers, the oyster is swallowed and the contestants are each politely handed a shell.
The conditions on which the general test was to be made contained, among other specifications, these: that "the water supplied to and evaporated in the boiler will be measured by means of a meter, and the coal burned may also be weighed."
Only one of the conditions quoted was properly complied with. The coal was weighed, but though a meter was used to measure the water, tests made, we are informed, after the trial of the engines, showed that the meter was so inaccurate as to completely invalidate any calculation based upon its record of the water supplied. Nevertheless this has, we are credibly informed, been made the basis of calculation; and the amount of coal consumed during each trial has been rejected either as a basis of calculation or a check on the inaccuracy of the meter.
Other prescribed regulations were observed with great care. The engines were indicated in a masterly manner by a gentleman of great experience, as the cards--tracings of which we have seen--bear ample testimony. The temperature of the feedwater was 47 degrees; it should, in our opinion, have been heated, but we waive this point. The state of the barometer and temperatures of engine room and fire-room were observed; but we respectfully submit, that with coal consumption left out of the calculation, and the water consumption an unascertained quantity, the question of relative economy, the vital point to be settled, is as uncertain today as it was before the test.
In the Tribune of December 20, appeared a statement of the test to ascertain the accuracy of the meter used, which showed that in an aggregate of twelve tests it varied nearly three per cent in its record from the actual quantity delivered, while at times it was so erratic that it varied in one instance over ten per cent.
Truly, considered in connection with this fundamental error, temperatures of engine and boiler rooms, and states of barometer, will not count for much with engineers.
An oversight like this would, however, never have been laid at the door of the managers, however it might invalidate the test; but when the utterly absurd decision announced in the papers, after a tedious delay had led the public to expect an exhaustive statement, gave rise to general disappointment and excited the utmost dissatisfaction, it became manifest that a manly, straightforward course on their part was not to be hoped for, and that any protest against the consummation of the farce would be vain.
It is not for us to decide on the merits of the engines submitted to test. It was for the judges to do this. We maintain that nothing that the public will accept as a decision has been reached, and on behalf of the public we protest that the managers have not only placed themselves in a very unenviable position by their action in the premises, but have done a lasting injury to the American Institute, the results of which will be disastrously felt in future exhibitions.
The studied ambiguity of the report which awards two first prizes to the competing engines, is no less apparent than the desire to shun responsibility.