Chapter 6

Wuchang, on the Yangtsze opposite Hankow, is the capital of the two provinces Hupeh and Hunan. Here, every third year, the examination for competitors from both provinces is held, and a correspondent of the _North China Herald_, of Shanghai, describes the scene at the examination at the beginning of September last. The streets, he says, are thronged with long-robed, large-spectacled gentlemen, who inform the world at large by every fold of drapery, every swagger of gait, every curve of nail, that they are the aristocracy of the most ancient empire of the world. Wuchang had from 12,000 to 15,000 bachelors of arts within its walls, who came from the far borders of the province for the examination for the provincial degree. About one-half per cent. will be successful; thousands of them know they have not the shadow of a chance, but literary etiquette binds them to appear. In the wake of these Confucian scholars come a rout of traders, painters, scroll sellers, teapot venders, candle merchants, spectacle mongers, etc.; servants and friends swell the number, so that the examination makes a difference of some 40,000 or 50,000 to the resident population. In the great examination hall, which is composed of a series of pens shut off from each other in little rows of 20 or 30, and the view of which is suggestive of a huge cattle market, there is accommodation for over 10,000 candidates. The observance of rules of academic propriety is very strict. A candidate may be excluded, not only for incompetence, but for writing his name in the wrong place, for tearing or blotting his examination paper, etc. After the examination of each batch a list of those allowed to compete for honors is published, and the essay forms for each district are prepared with proper names and particulars. The ancestors of the candidate for three generations must be recorded, they must be free from taint of _yamen_ service, prostitution, the barber's trade and the theater, or the candidate would not have obtained his first degree. With the forms 300 cash (about 1s.) are presented to each candidate for food during the ordeal. The lists being thus prepared, on the sixth day of the eighth moon (Tuesday, the 8th of September, in 1891), the city takes a holiday to witness the ceremony of "entering the curtain," i.e., opening the examination hall. For days coolies have been pumping water into great tanks, droves of pigs have been driven into the inclosure, doctors, tailors, cooks, coffins, printers, etc., have been massed within the hall for possible needs. The imperial commissioners are escorted by the examination officials to the place. A dozen district magistrates have been appointed to superintend within the walls, and as many more outside, two prefects have office inside, and the governor of the province has also to be locked up during the eight days of examination. The whole company is first entertained to breakfast at the _yamen_, and then the procession forms; the ordinary umbrellas, lictors, gongs, feathers, and ragamuffins are there in force; the examiners and the highest officers are carried in open chairs draped in scarlet and covered with tiger skins. The dead silence that falls on the crowd betokens the approach of the governor, who brings up the rear. Then the bustle of the actual examination begins. The hall is a miniature city. Practically martial law is proclaimed. In the central tower is a sword, and misdemeanor within the limits is punished with instant death. The mandarins take up their quarters in their respective lodges, the whole army of writers whose duty it is to copy out the essays of the candidates, to prevent collusion, take their places. Altogether there must be over 20,000 people shut in. Cases have been known in which a hopeful candidate was crushed to death in the crowd at the gate. Each candidate is first identified, and he is assigned a certain number which corresponds to a cell a few feet square, containing one board for a seat and one for a desk. Meanwhile the printers in the building are hard at work printing the essay texts. Each row of cells has two attendants for cooking, etc., assigned to it, the candidates take their seats, the rows are locked from the outside, the themes are handed out, the contest has begun. The examination is divided into three bouts of about 36 hours, two nights and a day, each, with intervals of a day. The first is the production of three essays on the four assigned books; the second of five essays on the five classics; the third of five essays on miscellaneous subjects. The strain, as may be imagined, is very great, and several victims die in the hall. The literary ambition which leads old men of 60 and 70 to enter not unfrequently destroys them. Should any fatal case occur, the coffin may on no account be carried out through the gates; it must be lifted over or sometimes through a breach in the wall. Death must not pollute the great entrance. At the end of the third trial, the first batch of those who have completed their essays is honored with the firing of guns, the bows of the officials, and the ministry of a band of music. Three weeks of anxious waiting will ensue before a huge crowd will assemble to see the list published. Then the successful candidates are the pride of their country side, and well do the survivors of such an ordeal deserve their credit. The case of those who are in the last selection and are left degreeless, for the stern reason that some must be crowded out, is the hardest of all.

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HIGH SPEED ENGINE AND DYNAMO.

We illustrate a high speed engine and dynamo constructed by Easton & Anderson, London. This plant was used at the Royal Agricultural Society's show at Doncaster in testing the machinery in the dairy, and constituted a distinct innovation, as well as an improvement, on the appliances previously employed for the purpose. The separator, or whatever might be the machine under trial, was driven by an electric motor fed by a current from the dynamo we illustrate. A record was made of the volts and amperes used, and from this the power expended was deduced, the motor having been previously carefully calibrated by means of a brake. So delicate was the test that the observers could detect the presence of a warm bearing in the separator from the change in the readings of the ammeter.

The engine is carefully balanced to enable it to run at the very high speed of 500 revolutions per minute. The cranks are opposite each other, and the moving parts connected with the two pistons are of the same weight. The result is complete absence of vibration, and exceedingly quiet running. Very liberal lubricating arrangements are fitted to provide for long runs, while uniformity of speed is provided for by a Pickering governor. The high pressure cylinder is 4 in. in diameter, and the low pressure cylinder is 7 in. in diameter. The stroke in each case is 4 in.

The dynamo is designed to feed sixty lamps of 16 candle power each, the current being 60 amperes at 50 volts. The armature is of the drum type. The peculiar feature of it is that grooves are planed in the laminated core from end to end, and in these grooves the conductors, which are of ribbon section, are laid. Slips of insulating material are laid between the coils and the dovetailed mouths of the grooves are closed with bone or vulcanized fiber, or other dielectric. At each end of the core there are fitted non-magnetic covers. At the commutator end the cover is like a truncated cone, and incloses the connections completely. One end of the cone is supported on the end plate of the armature and the other end on a ring on the commutator. A bell-shaped cover incloses the conductors at the other end of the armature. The result is that the conductors are completely incased, protected from all mechanical injury, and positively driven. They can neither be displaced nor abraded. The conductors on the magnet coils are likewise carefully protected from harm by metal coverings. These dynamos are made in sixteen sizes, of which seven sizes are designed to feed more than 100 lamps, the largest serving for 600 lamps.

Messrs. Easton & Anderson are showing machinery of this type at the Crystal Palace Electrical Exhibition now open in London.--_Engineering_.

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CHLORINE GAS AND SODA BY THE ELECTROLYTIC PROCESS.

The decomposition of a solution of common salt, and its conversion into chlorine gas and caustic soda solution by means of an electric current, has long been a study with electro-chemists. Experimentally it has often been effected, but so far as we are aware, the success of this method of production has never until now been demonstrated on a sound commercial basis. The solution of this important industrial problem is due to Mr. James Greenwood, who has been engaged in the development of electro-chemical processes for many years. The outcome of this is that Mr. Greenwood has now perfected an electrolytic process for the direct production of caustic soda and chlorine, as well as other chemical products, the operation of which we recently inspected at Phoenix Wharf, Battersea, London. One of the special features in connection with Mr. Greenwood's new departure is the novel and ingenious method by which the electrolyzed products are separated, and their recombination rendered impossible. This object is attained by the use of a specially constructed diaphragm which is composed of a series of V-shaped glass troughs, fitted in a frame within each other with a small space between them, which is lightly packed with asbestos fiber. Another important feature of the apparatus is a compound anode which consists of carbon plates, with a metal core to increase the conductivity. The anode is treated in a special manner so as to render it non-porous and impervious to attack by the nascent chlorine evolved on its surface. No anode appears ever to have been invented that is at all suitable for working on a large scale, and the successful introduction of this compound anode, therefore, constitutes a marked advance in the apparatus used in electrolytic methods of production.

The apparatus by which the new process is being successfully demonstrated on a working scale has been put up by the Caustic Soda and Chlorine Syndicate, London, and has been in operation for several months past. The installation consists of five large electrolytic vessels, each of which is fitted up with five anodes and six cathodes arranged alternately. The anodes and cathodes are separated by the special diaphragms, and each vessel is thus divided into ten anode or chlorine sections and ten cathode or caustic soda sections. The anodes and cathodes in each vessel are connected up in parallel similar to an ordinary storage battery, but the five electrolytic vessels are connected up in series. The current is produced by an Elwell-Parker dynamo, and the electromotive force required to overcome the resistance of each vessel is about 4.4 volts, with a current density of 10 amperes per square foot of electrode surface. The anode sections, numbering fifty altogether, are connected by means of tubes, the inlet being at the bottom and the outlet at the top of each section. The whole of the cathode sections are connected in the same manner. In commencing operations, the electrolytic vessels are charged with a solution of common salt, through which a current of electricity is then passed, thus decomposing or splitting up the salt into its elements, chlorine and sodium. In the separation of the sodium, however, a secondary action takes place, which converts it into caustic soda. An automatic circulation of the solutions is maintained by placing the charging tanks at a slight elevation, and the vessels themselves on platforms arranged in steps. The solutions are pumped back from the lowest vessel to their respective charging tanks, the salt solution to be further decomposed and the caustic soda solution to be further concentrated. The chlorine gas evolved in the fifty anode sections is conveyed by means of main and branch tubes into several absorbers, in which milk of lime, kept in a state of agitation, takes up the chlorine, thus making it into bleaching or chlorate liquor as may be required. If the chlorine is required to be made into bleaching powder, then it is conveyed into leaden chambers and treated with lime in the usual manner. The caustic soda formed in the fifty cathode sections is more or less concentrated according to the particular purpose for which it may be required. If, however, the caustic soda is required in solid form, and practically free from salt, then the caustic alkaline liquor is transferred from the electrolytic vessels to evaporating pans, where it is concentrated to the required strength by evaporation and at the same time the salt remaining in the solution is eliminated by precipitation.

Such is the method of manufacturing caustic soda and chlorine by this process, which will doubtless have a most important bearing upon many trades and manufactures, more particularly upon the paper, soap, and bleaching industries. But the invention does not stop where we have left it, for it is stated that the process can be applied to the production of sodium amalgam and chlorine for extracting gold and other metals from their ores. It can also be utilized in the production of caustic and chlorate of potash and other chemicals, which can be manufactured in a state of the greatest purity. A very important consideration is that of cost, for upon this depends commercial success. It is therefore satisfactory to learn that the cost of production has been determined by the most careful electrical and analytical tests, which demonstrate an economy of over 50 per cent. as compared with present methods. Highly favorable reports on the process have been made by Dr. G. Gore, F.R.S., the eminent authority on electro-chemical processes, by Mr. W.H. Preece, F.R.S., and by Messrs. Cross & Bevan, consulting chemists. Dr. Gore states that the chemical and electrical principles upon which this process is based are thoroughly sound, and that the process is of a scientifically practical character. Should, however, the economy of production even fall somewhat below the anticipations of those who have examined into the process very carefully, it can hardly fail to prove as successful commercially as it has scientifically.

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COMPLETION OF THE MERSEY TUNNEL RAILWAY.

On the 11th of January (says the _Liverpool Daily Post_) will be opened for traffic the new station of the Mersey Tunnel Railway at the bottom of Bold Street. With the completion of the station at Bold Street the scheme may be said to have been brought successfully to a conclusion. It was not until 1879, after the expenditure of 125,000_l._ upon trial borings, that the promoters ventured to appeal to the public for support, and that a company, of which the Right Hon. H. Cecil Raikes, M.P., was chairman, was formed for carrying the project of the Mersey Railway into effect. The experience of the engineers in the construction of the tunnel is not a little curious. It was proved by the borings that the position in which the tunnel was proposed to be bored was not only the most important from the point of view of public convenience, and therefore of commercial advantage, but was from the point of view of engineering difficulty decidedly the most preferable. In this position the cuttings passed through the sandstone rock, although on the Liverpool side the shafts were sunk through a considerable depth through "made" ground, the whole of Mann Island and the Goree being composed of earth and gravel tipped on the old bank of the river. Indeed the miners passed through the cellars of old houses and unearthed old water pipes; excavated through a depth of tipped rubbish on which these houses had evidently been built; and then came upon the former strand of the river, beneath which was the blue silt usually found; then a stratum of bowlder clay; and finally the red sandstone rock. Once begun, the works were pushed forward night and day, Sundays excepted, until January, 1884, when the last few feet of rock were cleared away by the boring machine, and the mayors of Liverpool and Birkenhead met in fraternal greeting beneath the river. The operations gave employment to 3,000 men working three shifts of eight hours each, but were greatly accelerated by the use of Colonel Beaumont's boring machine, on which disks of chilled iron are set in a strong iron bar made to revolve by means of compressed air. This machine scooped out a tunnel 7 feet in diameter; and by successive improvements Colonel Beaumont attained a speed of 150 feet per week, leaving the old method of blasting far behind. As the machine moved forward the rock behind was broken out to the size of the main tunnel and bricked in in short lengths. One remarkable circumstance in connection with the work is that the boring from the Birkenhead side and the boring from Liverpool were found, when they were completed and joined, to be out of line by only 1 inch.

This excellent result was attained by careful calculations and experiments with perpendicular wires kept in position by weights, which, to avoid oscillation, were suspended in buckets of water. From shaft to shaft the tunnel is 1,770 yards in length and 26 feet in diameter; but for a length of 400 feet at the James Street and Hamilton Square stations the arch is enlarged to 50½ feet. The tunnel is lined with from six to eight rings of solid brickwork embedded in cement, the two inner rings being blue Staffordshire or Burnley bricks. For the purpose of ventilation a smaller tunnel, 7 feet in diameter, was bored parallel with the main tunnel, with which it is connected in eight places by cross cuts, provided with suitable doors. Both at Liverpool and at Birkenhead there are two guibal fans, one 40 feet and the other 30 feet in diameter. The smaller, which throw each 180,000 cubic feet of air per minute, ventilate the continuations of the tunnel under Liverpool and Birkenhead respectively, and the larger tunnel under the river. The fans remove together 600,000 cubic feet of air per minute, and by this combined operation the entire air in the tunnel is changed once in every seven minutes. By the use of regulating shutters the air passes in a continuous current and the fans are noiseless. The telegraph and telephone wires pass through the tunnel, thus avoiding the long detour by Runcorn. Probably, as a feat of engineering, the construction of the new station at Bold Street is not inferior to any part of the scheme advanced. Under very singular and perplexing difficulties it could only be proceeded with in its first stages from midnight until six o'clock the following morning, it being of course essential that the traffic at the Central Station should not be interfered with. During these hours, night after night, trenches were cut at intervals of 10 feet across the roadway connecting the arrival platforms at the station, and into these were placed strong balks of timber, across which planks were laid as a temporary roadway. Beneath these planks, which were taken up and put down as required, the rock was excavated to a depth of 9 feet, and the balks supported upon stout props. Then from the driftway or rough boring beneath well holes were bored to the upper excavation, and through them the strong upright iron pillars designed to support the roof of the new tunnel station were passed, bedded and securely fixed in position. No sooner were they _in situ_ than the most troublesome part of the task was entered upon, for the balks had then to be removed in order to allow to be placed in position the girders running the length of the new station, and resting on the tops of the upright pillars. From these longitudinal girders cross girders of great strength were placed, and between these were built brick arches, packed above with concrete. This formed the roof of the new station. One portion of it passed under the rails in the station above, and had to be constructed without stoppage of the traffic. The rails had consequently to be supported on a temporary steel bridge of ingenious design, constructed by Mr. C.A. Rowlendson, the resident engineer and manager of the company, under whose personal supervision, as representing Sir Douglas Fox, the work has been carried out. With this device the men were enabled to go on in safety although locomotives were passing immediately above their heads. After the completion of the roof the station below was excavated by what is technically called "plug and feather" work--that is to say, by drilling holes into which powerful wedges are driven to split the rock.

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A STEAM STREET RAILWAY MOTOR.

While in Paris, President Yerkes, of the North Chicago Street Railway Company, purchased a noiseless steam motor, the results in experimenting with which will be watched with great interest. The accompanying engraving, for which we are indebted to the _Street Railway Review_, gives a very accurate idea of the general external appearance. The car is all steel throughout, except windows, doors and ceiling. It is 12 ft. long, 8 ft. wide, and 9 ft. high, and weighs about seven tons. The engines, which have 25 horse power and are of the double cylinder pattern, are below the floor and connected directly to the wheels. The wheels are four in number and 31 in. in diameter. The internal appearance and general arrangement of machinery, etc., is about that of the ordinary steam dummy. It will run in either direction, and the exhaust steam is run through a series of mufflers which suppress the sound, condense the steam and return the water to the boiler, which occupies the center of the car. The motor was built in Ghent, Belgium, and cost about $5,000, custom house duties amounting to about $2,000 more.--_The Railway Review_.

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TWENTY-FOUR KNOT STEAMERS.

Probably the most important form of steam machinery is the marine engine, not only because of the conditions under which it works, but because of the great power it is called upon to exert. Naturally its most interesting application is to Atlantic steaming. The success of the four great liners, Teutonic, Majestic, City of Paris and City of New York, has stimulated demand, and the Cunard Company has resolved to add to its fleet, and place two ships on the Atlantic which will outstrip the racers we have named.