If your wheels slip in sand, a bundle of straw or hay, especially old hay, will be about the best thing to give them a footing.
HILLS.
In climbing hills take the same advice we have given you all along: Go slow. Nothing is gained by rushing at a hill with a steam engine. Such an engine works best when its force is applied steadily and evenly, a little at a time.
If you have a friction clutch, as you probably will have, you should be sure it is in good working order before you attempt to climb hills. It should be adjusted to a nicety, as we have already explained. When you come to a bad hill it would probably be well to put in the tight gear pin; or use it altogether in a hilly country.
When the friction clutch first came into use, salesmen and others used to make the following recommendation (a recommendation which we will say right here is bad). They said, when you come to an obstacle in the road that you can’t very well get your engine over, throw off your friction clutch from the road wheels, let your engine get under good headway running free, and then suddenly put on the friction clutch and jerk yourself over the obstacle.
Now this is no doubt one way to get over an obstacle; but no good engineer would take his chances of spoiling his engine by doing any such thing with it. Some part of it would be badly strained by such a procedure; and if this were done regularly all through a season, an engine would be worth very little at the end of the season.
[CHAPTER VII.]
POINTS FOR THE YOUNG ENGINEER.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
THE BOILER.
Q. How should water be fed to a boiler?