“To John Elder belongs the entire credit of introducing and perfecting the compound engine, and there has been but little improvement in his work up to this time. MacFarland Gray at that time was a persistent advocate of this engine, and his work on ‘Engineering’ was of great value. He took especial pains to aid us in our investigations. “This trip was a most useful one besides the investigation of compound engines; it gave us an opportunity of examining every method pertaining to hull construction and equipment there, and to discuss all of the problems and methods belonging to it. “Two great changes in mechanical method and practice in certain details of engine building took place in Great Britain as a result of our visit, and the arrival of the ‘Pennsylvania,’ the first of the American Line; although we took no active measures in that direction. “We found during this trip that the art of flanging boiler-plates in Great Britain was entirely unknown, and that all British boiler-heads were secured to the side plates and to the furnace ends by means of angle bars in the corners, a crude and primitive method of construction. It was impossible for us to understand this backwardness or ignorance on the part of the British, as the flanging of boiler-heads had always prevailed here. “We called the attention of the British builders generally to this superiority in boiler construction, but little or no attention was paid to what we said at that time; but when the four ships of the new line arrived in Liverpool, draughtsmen from all quarters were sent to make sketches of the boiler work, and of many other devices new to them, besides the boiler construction, one of which was the use of white metal in bearings and journals. This feature in the engine construction the British had not taken up when we visited their works. “We can claim to have introduced boiler flanging and the use of white metal in British ship construction on account of our recommendations, and the practical illustration of their utility on the arrival of the ships of the American Line. “The builders there, however, were very slow in the general adoption of these methods. At first boiler-heads were delivered at engine-works flanged by the mills that made the plates, and Sampson Fox added boiler flanging to his business of making corrugated furnaces. Having seen a boiler furnished with corrugated furnaces by Sampson Fox in England, I introduced them in two yachts built for George Osgood and Charles Osbourne, the first furnaces of the kind in America. These yachts were known as the ‘Corsair’ and the ‘Stranger.’”