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The New York Times.
NEW-YORK, SUNDAY, JAN. 15, 1865.
Interesting Experiments with Steam-Boilers
On Saturday last, some experiments were made with one of the boilers of the sloop-of-war [[italic]] Idaho [[/italic]], now building by Mr. PAUL S. FORBES, of this city, which illustrate on a large scale some of the great truths which chemists are accustomed to show by laboratory experiments. The object of the trial was to ascertain in what time the boilers of the [[italic]] Idaho [[/italic]] could make steam from cold water. The boiler user was one of the auxiliary boilers of the ship, having only one furnace, but in all other respects similar to the large boilers, and it stands on the dock at the Morgan Works, protected by a temporary shed. Water having been left in the water-bottom, was frozen, and consequently the water bottom was filled solid with ice. The remaining water spaces of the boiler were filled from the Croton, whose temperature before lighting the fire was found by thermometer to be 38° Fahrenheit, which is a little lower than the temperature of the Croton, the reduction being due to the colder iron of the boiler itself. The furnace was filled with ordinary pine wood used for kindling, and the match applied at six minutes after one o'clock. At twenty-one minutes after one , or in fifteen minutes after the fire was lighted, steam was blowing off. The safety-valve was then closed and coal supplied to the furnace, so as to make a coal fire. In twenty minutes longer a good coal fire was burning, and the pressure of steam was thirty pounds. Water was then drawn out of the boiler, from a cock about eight inches below the fire grates, and its temperature was 43 degrees; and the thermometer applied to the exterior of the boiler, at the lower side, fell to 32 degrees, thus showing that ice still remained in the water bottom. The steam was then allowed to blow off freely from the safety-valve, and its appearance was that of a transparent gas, of a pale blue color, showing no white or watery particles, till it had passed several inche, from the aperature of discharge, thus proving that no water was working off with the steam, and that the evaporation from the boiler was pure dry steam, unmixed with any water held in suspension. The opening of the safety-valve into the boiler in this case is about fifteen inches above the surface of the water, whereas in ordinary boilers, it is many feet: yet here no water could be blown out, although every expedient was resorted to for the purpose of "lifting the water," if possible--such as suddenly opening the safety-valve wide open, and rapidly repeating the opening and closing it. The curious phenomena of a steam boiler throwing off pure steam from its upper part, and containing in successive descending strata boiling water, cold water, and ice, at the same time, excited some surprise; but it is according to the well-known law that steam and water are almost perfect non-conductors of heat, and that as conveyors of heat they can only convey it upward and not downward, and therefore ice may remain at the bottom of a vessel, if below the fire, for as long time while the water above it is boiling. As a laboratory experiment, this result is shown in YOUMAN'S Chemistry, page No.114, but it is not often seen in a working boiler. Several engineers and men of science witnessed these experiments, and all agreed that it was a most extraordinary and valuable result, that a steamer's boilers should be able to make steam from ice water in fifteen minutes after lighting the fire, and that when in the ship, using warm water, steam could be got in about the time usually required to hoist an anchor, which, for a man of war, would be a most useful [[?]] particularly [[?]] all blockading duty. The boiler 
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