Mr. Crampton said it had never come under his notice, and he had no hesitation in saying that no such duty ever was performed by any oil, because he never heard of any oil which evaporated more than eighteen to twenty-two pounds of water per pound. However, he was delighted to hear of such progress being made, and though he had been for so many years connected with steam, he never expected it would last forever. He was now making experiments for some large shipowners, for the purpose of facilitating feeding and doing away with dust, but let him succeed to what extent he might, steam would never compete with electricity for such small vessels as these launches. The Chairman asked if he rightly understood Admiral Selwyn that he had recently seen an invention in which one-sixth of a pound of condensed fuel would give 1 horse power per hour. Admiral Selwyn said it was now some years ago since he saw this going on, but the persons who did it did not know how or why it was done. He had studied the question for the last ten years, and now knew the _rationale_ of it, and would be prepared shortly to publish it. He knew that 22 was the theoretical calorific value of the pound of oil, and never supposed that oil alone would give 46 lb., which he saw it doing. He had found out that by means of the oil forming carbon constantly in the furnace, the hydrogen of the steam was burned, and that it was a fallacy to suppose that an equal quantity of heat was used in raising steam, at a pressure of, say, 120 lb. to the square inch, as the hydrogen was capable of developing when properly burned. There were, however, conditions under which alone that combustion could take place--one being that the heat of the chamber must be 3,700°, and that carbon must be constantly formed. Mr. Gumpel said with regard to the general application of electricity to the propulsion of vessels as well as to railway trains, he believed that many of those present would live to see electricity applied to that purpose, because there were so many minds now applied to the problem, that before long he had no doubt we should see coal burned in batteries, as it was now burned in steam boilers. The utmost they could do, then, would be about 50 per cent. less than Admiral Selwyn said could be accomplished with condensed fuel. He could not but wonder where Admiral Selwyn obtained his information, knowing that a theoretically perfect heat engine would only give 23 per cent. of the absolute heat used, and that a pound of the best coal would give but 8,000 and hydrocarbon 13,000 heat units, while hydrogen would give 34,000; and calculating it out, how was it possible to get out of one-sixth of a pound of carbon, or any hydrocarbon, the amount of power stated? No doubt, when Admiral Selwyn applied the knowledge which physicists would give him of the amount of power which could be got out of a certain amount of carbon and hydrogen, he would find that there was a mistake somewhere.