Mr. Mignault. In what part of the vessel is it placed?
Mr. Frank. This particular experimental tank is being placed aft. Of course the tanks in practice would be placed wherever the soil pipes happened to be built.
Mr. Tawney. Is this a freight vessel?
Mr. Frank. Yes. The cost of the operation, I think, will be almost negligible. We had this experimental device installed in the sewage pumping station in Washington, where we had a steam pressure of about 100 pounds per square inch and boilers of about 100 horsepower. It was impossible at any time to observe any effect whatever on those boilers when this device was receiving steam at its maximum flow, and I simply mentioned that to indicate that there would be no observable, even temporary, effect upon the steam supply for the engines in the vessels. There is no such great consumption of steam. I can explain to you steamboat people when I say that a half or three-quarter inch pipe will carry all the steam you need.
As regards the cost of operation, I have not the figures with me just now, but I computed, theoretically allowing 100 per cent additional cost for radiation, and I got 13 per cent for everything, including the amount by which the steam had already condensed in the pipe lines. I think the cost of operation goes away down to point zero something. If you figure it out upon the theoretical heat units that are known absolutely to be in the steam, there is no other conclusion but that the cost of operation of the device is negligible, and that the only thing which really need concern you is the cost of installation of the device. However, as regards operation, I think it would be better to wait for confirmation after the device is tried.
Mr. Tawney. Is the only contamination of the water by steamboats that which is discharged from closets?
Mr. Frank. I think it can safely be assumed that the only part of steamboat discharge which has a pathogenic significance is that coming from the closets and urinals. I do not think any other particular discharge need concern us.
Mr. Tawney. The meats, or anything of that kind, can not become affected, being thrown into the water? Would that not have some effect?
Mr. Frank. I do not know, but I think that the frequency of occurrence of infected meats upon vessels would be so low that any infection of the waters due thereto would be negligible and would be dissipated quickly.
Mr. Powell. You could take care of that as a separate problem; give it a dose of steam.