"Captain William King, R.N., Superintendent of the Packet Station at Falmouth, attempted to impress on Viscount Melville, then First Lord of the Admiralty, the advantage of using high-pressure steam expansively in the Royal Navy, to whom Lord Melville replied that he had been taught by his friend, the late Mr. Rennie, that the danger attending such a course was very great, and that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to persuade him to the contrary." [Illustration: CAPTAIN DICK AND CAPTAIN ANDREW, OR THE MAN AND HIS MAN. [W. J. Welch.]] Twenty-five years of precept and example caused the Admiralty to follow suit, and to request Mr. Ward, a Cornish engineer, to construct boilers and expansive valves for the Government steamboat 'Echo.' The writer was entrusted with fixing the machinery in the vessel at the Plymouth Dockyard, and before starting with it from Harvey and Co.'s foundry, waited on Captain King, R.N., at Falmouth, for his instructions, in happy ignorance of the fear of the Lords of the Admiralty to tread on Cornish high-pressure. After eying the applicant as captains in Her Majesty's service are apt to do when dealing with boys in the civil service, he vouchsafed to say, "Mind, young man, what you are about, for if there is a blow up, by ---- you'll swing at the yard-arm." CHAPTER XXVII. HEATING APPARATUS--MARINE STEAM-ENGINES--REFORM COLUMN. "LAUDERDALE HOUSE, HIGHGATE, "MR. GILBERT, "_March 1st, 1830_. "Sir,--I have to apologize for my neglect in not calling on you, but ill-health prevented it. I left home on the 11th February, arrived in town on the 14th, and remained there until the 24th, when I was compelled to leave for this place, having a free good air. I am now taking, twice a day, the flowers of zinc, from which I hope to be soon right again. I am much better, but afraid to enter the city. I hope to be able to call on you before the end of this week, being very anxious to see you, having a great deal to communicate respecting the experiments I have been making, which will bear out to the full our expectations. "Your hot-house apparatus has been finished nearly three months, all but two or three days' work to fit the parts together; I expect that before this they are in Penzance, waiting a ship for London. While making a sketch of your work for the founder, a thought struck me that rooms might be better heated by hot water than by either steam or fire, and I send to you my thoughts on it, with a sketch for your consideration. I find that steam-pipes applied to heat cotton factories, with 1 surface foot of steam-pipe, heat 200 cubic feet of space to 60 degrees. I also found in Germany, where all the rooms are heated by cast-iron pipes about the heat of steam, that 1 foot of external flue heated 160 cubic feet of space to 70 degrees.