pig iron upon the engine until she will stick to the track, but rest assured that you will not be able to get that steam down.”  The experience with that engine proves conclusively to my mind that the general principles of steam making are the same for both stationary and locomotive practice.  The grand secret of the success of that Wootten engine was the enormous area of the grate surface, being, if I remember correctly, 7 by 9 feet, permitting thin fires to be carried and complete combustion to be obtained before the gases reached the boiler tubes.  An enormous crown sheet was presented, and that is where the bulk of the work of any boiler is done.

Thin fires accomplish this.  As already stated, a given amount of coal generates a given amount of gas, and this gas requires a given amount of air or oxygen.  This air must be supplied through the grate bars and then pass through the interstices of the mass of heated coal.  It requires about 10 cubic feet of air to consume one cubic foot of gas.  In stationary boilers we find that if we use “pea” and “dust” coal, an extremely thin layer must be used, or the 10 feet of air per foot of gas cannot pass through it; if “chestnut” coal be used, the thickness may be increased somewhat; “stove size” allows a thickness of six inches, and “lump” much thicker, if any wise man could be found who would use that coarse, uneconomical size.  Of course, I am speaking of anthracite coal.  Opinions differ about “soft coal,” but the same general principle applies as regards an unobstructed passage of air through the hot bed of coal.

Now, it will be agreed that the locomotive of the future must be improved to keep up with the times.  Fierce competition requires increased efficiency and reduced expenses.  I am told by you railroad gentlemen that the freight business of the country doubles every ten years.  Trains follow close upon each other.  What are you going to do?  Are you to double, treble, or quadruple your tracks?

It seems to me much remains yet to be done with the locomotive.  We must burn a great deal less coal for the steam we make, and after we have made steam we must use that steam up more thoroughly.  In the short cylinder required by locomotive service, the steam, entering at the initial pressure pushes the piston to the opposite end, and it then rushes out of the exhaust strong enough to drive another piston.  Of every four dollars’ worth of coal consumed, at least two dollars worth is absolutely thrown away.  Or, of every ten thousand dollars spent for fuel, five thousand dollars are absolutely wasted.  How can we save this?  It would seem obvious that if steam rushes from the exhaust of an engine strong enough to drive another engine, the common sense of the thing would be to put another engine alongside and let the steam drive it, and we should get just so much more out of our four dollars’ worth of coal.  It seems evident that we must follow the lead of the steamship men, and compound the locomotive engine, as they have done with the marine engine.