1896

THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.

[No. 53

a Mercantile Marine Office, pay the fee of £1, and deposit their certificates with the Superintendent. The Superintendent will inform the applicant when and where to attend to be examined. If a candidate fails to pass, his certificates will be at once returned to him.

If he passes, the report (Exn. 15) will be sent to the Chief Examiner of Engineers, and the certificate, together with the form Exn. 2, will be sent to the Marine Department. The words “Certified to have passed in steam,” with the date and place of examination, will then be entered on the certificate and its counterpart, and the certificate will be sent to the Superintendent of the Mercantile Marine Office of the port named in the form Exn. 2, and be delivered to the candidate in the usual manner.

If a candidate fails, he may not present himself for re-examination until the expiration of three months from the date of failure.

The examination is for the most part viva voce, and extends to a general knowledge of the practical use and working of the steam-engine, and of the various valves, fittings, and pieces of machinery connected with it, and of the way in which electric lighting is carried out on board ship. Theoretical questions on calculation of horse-power or areas of cylinders and valves, or any of the more difficult questions relating to steam engines and boilers, will not be asked.

Examiners are to satisfy themselves that the candidates know the names and understand the uses of the various parts of engines and boilers, and their connecting pipes, valves, cocks, &c. Practical knowledge, as distinguished from theories and abstruse calculations, is to be the test of the candidate’s fitness to have his certificate indorsed.

The Examiner should arrange to conduct part of the examination in the engine-room of a steamship, unless from circumstances he finds it impossible to do so; but in the event of the candidate passing, the Examiner should state in writing what circumstances prevented a visit to an engine-room. If an opportunity offer, the candidate should be permitted, under the guidance of the Examiner, to start and stop the engine of some vessel which may have her steam up.

The Examiner, in sending in his report of the examination, should state where the examination has been held.

Candidates will be required to give written answers to sixteen out of twenty questions taken from the elementary questions printed in Appendix B. These questions will be altered from time to time without notice. The twenty questions are not to be difficult, theoretical, or book questions, but are to be such as any man of ordinary capacity who has any practical knowledge of the use and working of the steam-engine ought to answer.

These questions, with the candidates’ answers, should be sent to the Chief Examiner of Engineers, with the reports, after each examination.

If a candidate refers to any book or paper or memorandum, or obtains information from another candidate during the examination, he will be treated as having failed, will forfeit his fee, and will not be allowed to be re-examined for a period of three months.

The Examiners will report, in the case of failure, the nature of the question or questions that decided the failure, or the point in the management of the engine in which the candidate was deficient.

There is nothing in the regulations requiring that applicants for the voluntary examination shall have served on board steamships; all that is required is that they shall have a practical knowledge of the use and working of the steam-engine. Examiners will not fail to appreciate the fact that practical knowledge is best gained in the engine-room; and the examination of an officer who does not produce official evidence of service in steamships, and of experience of engines, must necessarily be more searching than in the case of one who produces evidence of such service and experience.

Examiners will require all candidates to fill up a form (Exn. 15b), and they will forward it to the Chief Examiner of Engineers with the report of the examination.

Masters and mates may cancel questions A, B, and C, but they should fill up the form for questions D, E, F, and G, as evidence of their practical knowledge.

A candidate for this examination is required to have a thorough grasp of the construction of the steam engine and boiler, to enable him, in the first place, to understand the nature and importance of any defect which may be reported to him by the chief engineer, and so that he may work in harmony with him in affording time and facilities for disconnections, inspections, adjustments, and repairs:

To have a looking-on knowledge of what the principal repairs are about engines and boilers and pipes, and how these repairs are accomplished:

To be able to form an independent opinion as to breakdown, and the consequent propriety or impropriety of proceeding under steam with temporarily repaired or defective machinery:

To understand how to estimate approximately the reduction of fuel required for reduced speed, and consequently to sanction such reduction of speed as may seem to him to be warranted by the report of the chief engineer, and to satisfy himself before leaving port that there is sufficient coal for the voyage:

To have an intelligent grasp of the general run of pipes and connections in the engine-room, the marking of cocks, the opening and closing of cocks and valves, how mistakes of importance may be made in the confusion of an accident, and how best to guard against such mistakes:

To be capable of being left in charge of the feeding of a set of boilers, to understand the working of the water-gauge, and to be able to guard against being misled by false indications of the gauge-glass:

To understand about blowing down and surfacing, the reasons for doing so, and the danger which may result from the neglect of these under certain circumstances.

A master or mate presenting himself for examination in steam must be understood to have made up for his want of practical experience by reading up about the steam-engine. He ought, therefore, to show that he has given his mind to intelligently understanding the rationale of the action of the steam-engine. Under this head he should, therefore, be able to state approximately the quantity of heat required in the formation of steam, the remarkable relation of “latent” heat to “sensible” heat, how much steam can be raised by the combustion of one pound of coal, what horse-power measure is, what indicated horse-power is, what is the action of the slide-valve, the course of the steam through the engine, and the advantage of working expansively, and how the expansive action is shown by the indicator diagram: to know the uses of the various parts of the engines and dynamos used for