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Admiral CONE. One of them, of 6,000 horsepower, had three cylinders. Others have been projected, but only one cylinder has been built to experiment with before proceeding further. In one country they have taken the port engine and part of the boilers out of one of their old cruisers and have designed and started to construct and develop an oil engine to take its place. I know that they have had difficulties with this engine, but do not know the details. They have not yet placed it in the cruiser. The three-cylinder 6,000 horsepower engine first mentioned is for another country which is experimenting with a double-acting engine to develop 2,000 horsepower in each cylinder, an engine with three cylinders, making 6,000 horsepower. This engine was constructed and ran for a considerable time in the shop and exploded after it had been running for some considerable time, killing several men. I know also that after this accident this company has gone right to work on the further development of this engine.

Mr. HOBSON. For its own power purposes?

Admiral CONE. No, sir; a marine engine. I think the Government is financing this development by private individuals. The CHAIRMAN. Experimental work?

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir. I know another concern that is building an engine of 6,000 horsepower, 3 cylinders. One cylinder of this engine was built and set up for test, and the test was said to be successful. I have been unable to get any details as to that, but I do know that the engine up to date has not been operated in a ship.

Mr. HOBSON. Do we understand that you want to have authority to use any money that is available out of this appropriation to build or to develop?

Admiral CONE. To build an engine. My plan was this: We have appropriated for now two oil-carrying vessels, to be built at a navy yard. I propose that one of these vessels be built at the New York Navy Yard. We have an officer abroad who is investigating progress and keeping us in touch with all of the developments over there. If I get this authority we propose to go over the different types and decide which is the best engine for our purpose, then I propose to buy from this concern the detail plans and a license to build and also to secure the technical services of one of their engineers. Then I propose to bring that all over to the navy yard and start to build one engine. Mr. GREGG. That could be brought in free of duty?

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir. The duty would not amount to much. The actual work of construction will be done by us. I know we will run into trouble and I know it will be an expensive undertaking. It will be so expensive that we could not undertake it if it is to be charged to the limit of cost of the ship. I want the privilege, if we find that we can not do that, to spend some money this year

Mr. HOBSON (interposing). Would it be possible to carry on this valuable experimental work at your station?

Admiral CONE. No, sir. It would cost too much; it is removed. from the place of construction of the ship, too far, and it is not desirable to undertake this class of development at the experiment station as it is proposed to build this engine for use in the fuel ship. I am convinced that we can get a design that would be suitable for installation in this ship, an engine of about 2,500 horsepower, which is as large as I think it wise for us to undertake now.

Mr. GREGG. That is the fuel ship?

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir. If we await foreign development, we are bound to be behind. I do not believe there is any concern in this country that is going to undertake to develop this type of engine, a large engine for large ships for the Navy.

Mr. BATHRICK. What will be the advantage when you do get it; in the matter of speed and in the matter of operation?

Admiral CONE. It possesses great advantages in those particulars. As to the first cost, I believe it will be fully as expensive to construct as a steam plant, but it will operate on less than half the amount of fuel and when fully developed it will take much less supervision Mr. HOBSON. Less than half the amount of fuel compared with the oil-burning boiler?

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BATHRICK. Will you use the same oil without any treatment? Admiral CONE. Yes, sir; instead of burning oil under the boiler and heating the water, making steam at great expense to get the power, we take the oil in small quantities and spray it into the cylinder. In other words, it is the most direct application of heatproducing energy that we know of at this time.

The CHAIRMAN. And dispenses with the intermediary of water? Admiral CONE. Exactly; the heating of water into steam.

Mr. HOBSON. And there is no inherent obstacle?

Admiral CONE. No, sir; it is running in some 50 ships at this time in small installations.

Mr. ROBERTS. Have you any data as to the explosion of the engine which you spoke of?

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir; we have data as to the cause. It was not caused by anything that would attack the integrity of the principle on which they are working.

Mr. ROBERTS. The weakness of parts?

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir. It was caused by an accident happening to one little part of the engine which opened a valve at the wrong time and caused a disastrous fire in the shop. The greater part of the damage was caused by the fire.

Mr. ROBERTS. Really, carelessness?

Admiral CONE. No; you could not call it carelessness, but it had nothing to do with the principle on which the engine was designed. Mr. GREGG. You spoke awhile ago of coaling at sea.. Would the use of oil obviate that?

Admiral CONE. Absolutely. I personally have pumped water from one torpedo destroyer to another in a seaway; it is very simple.

Mr. GREGG. That would do away with that trouble?

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir; entirely. Of course, there are many other things that would be saved. You would save in the handling of fuel. It does not cost much to handle oil.

Mr. HOBSON. Do you not think that the general development in the Navy will be for the oil engine rather than the oil boiler?

Admiral CONE. For certain classes of ships I think eventually it will be.

Mr. HOBSON. It is very fortunate, then, that we have not gone into the oil-boiler matter too deep?

Admiral CONE. It is very fortunate that we have gone into the oilburning ships. One of the large problems is the handling of oil—the

placing of oil in the ship so that it can be protected in case of battle, the safety rules in the handling and distribution of oil and in the care of it-and we are learning all that now with oil-burning ships.

Mr. HOBSON. I was under the impression that we had been slow about the development of oil as fuel. If we can go along with its development to the oil engine, there will be an advantage.

Admiral CONE. I think the oil-burning boiler is a natural step to the oil engine. The large number of problems we are now solving, having burned and used oil aboard ship, will be problems that others will have to solve when they get to the oil engine. Fire protection. is one of the large questions.

Mr. ROBERTS. Will the oil-burning engines run the turbines as well?

Admiral CONE. No, sir. That seems to be one of the lines of development for the future. We will probably have an oil turbine, but I do not make any predictions at this time. The oil engine being developed is a reciprocating engine, resembling very closely a steam engine.

Mr. BATHRICK. Have you made any estimate of the probable cost of purchasing the designs and the rights and the possible cost of the development?

Admiral CONE. I have made some rough estimates. I know about the probable cost of the rights and design, etc., which would not be very much, comparatively, but as to the cost of the development, I can not give you any estimate on that at all.

Mr. BATHRICK. What would be the probable cost of the purchase of the rights and designs?

Admiral CONE. I have some figures, but that is not the big cost, the big cost is in the development.

Mr. HOBSON. Will that engine be double acting?

Admiral CONE. I do not believe the present double-acting engine has been worked out enough yet. It is the intention to put in this ship an engine that we know would run, so that we could get experience before we tried any frills.

Mr. HOBSON. No form of gas will give you the power equal to steam for exhaust, but the double-acting engine would be such a great advance as to power that it would almost cut the weight in two? Admiral CONE. It does just about cut it in two. One foreign firm built a 6,000 horsepower double-acting engine.

Mr. HOBSON. How many cylinders?

Admiral CONE. Three. This is the engine that was destroyed by the accident and fire already referred to. The same firm has built a smaller engine of similar design which they have kept for experimental purposes.

The CHAIRMAN. How did it work?

Admiral CONE. Reports state that the engine has worked well in shop tests, but it has not been installed in a ship which would indicate that there are difficulties.

Mr. HOBSON. That was a smaller cylinder?

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir. This smaller engine develops about 1,000 horsepower in the 3 cylinders. Its design follows the development which we are all working to in the future, an engine resembling the present reciprocating type of engine.

Mr. ROBERTS. You spoke of the oil engine and of the oil vaporizing in the cylinder. Where do you get the power to vaporize, supposing there is no power aboard the ship?

Admiral CONE. You have to start with a small oil or steam engine that operates an air compressor. You pump the air into a reservoir and from this air reservoir you spray the oil into the cylinder and with the compressed air also start the engine. It is done from compressed air by an auxiliary rig.

The CHAIRMAN. Last year we appropriated $75,000 for the development of Alaska coal, and $75,000 is asked again this year in another portion of the bill. Please tell us what you have done and what you contemplate doing and the status of that matter.

Admiral CONE. If you will note, we do not ask for any additional money; we simply ask to use the $75,000 out of the fuel appropriation. It is not $75,000 additional.

The CHAIRMAN. But you ask for an increase of $1,000,000 for "Coal and transportation.'

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And the $75,000 comes out of that?

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir. Our aims have been to determine whether

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the best known coals in Alaska were suitable for naval use. only way was to get a sufficient quantity of this coal down and put it on board of a ship and actually burn it to determine practically whether it would be suitable for naval use, and the members of the expedition were instructed to determine, if possible, the extent of the coal deposit from whence they could get coal sufficient to be regarded as a source of supply for the Navy for the future. After we secured this information we were directed to submit a full report to Congress. The first thing we did was to turn the technical operation of this expedition over to the Bureau of Mines, of the Department of the Interior, which was done; and we sent as our representative in the field a naval officer, a doctor in the service, as the disbursing officer so as to do away with the necessity of employing an additional member as a doctor on this expedition, at the same time using his services as a naval officer as disbursing officer.

Mr. HOBSON. Who was that?

Admiral CONE. Passed Asst. Surg. J. O. Downey. The plans contemplated the mining of about 900 tons from the Bering River district. That is the only coal field that we knew about where we could get the coal in time, owing to the lateness of the season when the money was available.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the distance?

Admiral CONE. The distance by trail and river is 45 miles from the port at which we take the coal. It is only about 20 miles from the sea.

Mr. HOBSON. Is that the same grade of coal which comes from Matanuska?

Admiral CONE. The chemical qualities are similar, but it is supposed to contain more lump.

Mr. ROBERTS. Was this coal, 900 tons, taken from one site or from the territory?

Admiral CONE. It was taken from the semibituminous section of the Bering River field. We decided that we would have to have about 900 tons in order to tell absolutely whether this coal was going

to be suitable for the Navy. We sent this expedition to this field, but at the same time we made provision to get equipment and send it up to the other coal field, the Matanuska field, where the second deposit of coal reported to be good enough for the Navy lies. The main body of this expedition left Seattle September 1, practically as soon as the money was available, consisting of 30 miners and a number of other people, assistants, cooks, etc. Two geologists already in the field selected the location where we could get the coal. The geologists examined 150 surface outcroppings and 22 tunnels in their investigation.

Mr. ROBERTS. Twenty-two tunnels?

Admiral CONE. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBERTS. Did they dig the tunnels?

Admiral CONE. I do not think they did. This was in the famous Cunningham tract, and probably a good many of the tunnels had already been driven. We had certain difficulties in the transportation of the supplies. We lost one lighter with about $13,000 worth of supplies. Later, in October, two launches were shipwrecked, and we lost one employee. From all accounts, they have pretty bad weather in that country in the winter time. The whole expedition got into the field and started in prospecting and trying to select the places from which they were going to take the coal. They wanted to get coal that would analyze out chemically as being suitable, and they finally selected a location along what is known as Trout Creek, where it is estimated that there is about 6,000,000 tons of coal. The salary of the expedition was about $4,000 a month. Of course, they were very anxious to go ahead as fast as they could, and on December 1 they reported that they had mined, screened, and sacked ready for bringing down 855 tons, and I cabled them to stop and break up the expedition, which they did. The expedition has returned to Seattle, with the exception of a few men, two naval enlisted men, one of whom is going to bring the coal down to the coast this winter over the ice. He has with him some packers, 8 horses, and 16 sleds to accomplish this work. The other enlisted man is going up to Kiuk where the equipment was shipped to take it in over the ice to the Matanuska field and have it there so that when the winter breaks up, if we get this money allowed, we will start in mining next

summer.

Mr. HOBSON. Whose life was lost?

Admiral CONE. I do not know. This winter we propose to get the coal that they mined down to a river, where lighters and canoes can reach it in the spring. Arrangements have been made to send a collier next spring to get the coal and bring it down to Seattle or Puget Sound and put it on the same ship (the armored cruiser) that conducted the coal tests with the west coast coals and test it out in every way we can to see whether or not we can practically burn it in the Navy. At the same time I expect to have 50 tons shipped to the experiment station and to test that out scientifically. When that is completed, which I hope will be by the middle of this summer, I feel confident that we will be able to answer the question definitely as to whether or not the quality of that coal is going to be suitable for the Navy.

Mr. ROBERTS. Do I understand that chemical tests have been made of the coal?

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