EVOLUTION OF THE BABCOCK & WILCOX WATER-TUBE BOILER

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Quite as much may be learned from the records of failures as from those of success. Where a device has been once fairly tried and found to be imperfect or impracticable, the knowledge of that trial is of advantage in further investigation. Regardless of the lesson taught by failure, however, it is an almost every-day occurrence that some device or construction which has been tried and found wanting, if not worthless, is again introduced as a great improvement upon a device which has shown by its survival to be the fittest. The success of the Babcock & Wilcox boiler is due to many years of constant adherence to one line of research, in which an endeavor has been made to introduce improvements with the view to producing a boiler which would most effectively meet the demands of the times. During the periods that this boiler has been built, other companies have placed on the market more than thirty water-tube or sectional water-tube boilers, most of which, though they may have attained some distinction and sale, have now entirely disappeared. The following incomplete list will serve to recall the names of some of the boilers that have had a vogue at various times, but which are now practically unknown: Dimpfel, Howard, Griffith & Wundrum, Dinsmore, Miller “Fire Box”, Miller “American”, Miller “Internal Tube”, Miller “Inclined Tube”, Phleger, Weigant, the Lady Verner, the Allen, the Kelly, the Anderson, the Rogers & Black, the Eclipse or Kilgore, the Moore, the Baker & Smith, the Renshaw, the Shackleton, the “Duplex”, the Pond & Bradford, the Whittingham, the Bee, the Hazleton or “Common Sense”, the Reynolds, the Suplee or Luder, the Babbit, the Reed, the Smith, the Standard, etc., etc. It is with the object of protecting our customers and friends from loss through purchasing discarded ideas that there is given on the following pages a brief history of the development of the Babcock & Wilcox boiler as it is built to-day. The illustrations and brief descriptions indicate clearly the various designs and constructions that have been used and that have been replaced, as experience has shown in what way improvement might be made. They serve as a history of the experimental steps in the development of the present Babcock & Wilcox boiler, the value and success of which, as a steam generator, is evidenced by the fact that the largest and most discriminating users continue to purchase them after years of experience in their operation.