[R. Dale Flick]

Steamboating colleagues:
Some months back a thread opened here on techniques/products used in lubricating steamboat engines etc. S&D's Prof. Jack White, retired from the Smithsonian Institution and now at Miami University, Oxford, OH., responded to me with an incredibly interesting and well researched paper for the 'Newcomen Society for the History of Engineering and Technology,' London, England, 2004. Jack's nine page article includes some 41 detailed 'Notes & References.' Though titled, 'Some Notes on Early Railway Lubrication,' Jack does touch on steamboat/steamship engine lubrication. Pictures of period oil cups and lubricating devices are shown. He dispels the myth of common 'Breakdowns' indicating that lubrication was a well developed science early on for locomotives. No doubt things did happen by nature or due to careless engineers and 'oilers.' Constant care and attention promoted a well-running set of steamboat engines. I have a video from STEAMSHIP HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA in which a surviving engineer on big walking beam engines discussed, "'Constantly watching, listening, touching and smelling a working engine to detect problems...they demanded constant attention and were labor intensive." With good attention, maintenance steamboat engines, as we know, run for years.

On steamers the engineers often gathered from the cook house [Or restaurants ashore] a supply of animal fat. Suet was free from lime and acids. Tallow, and others, worked in hot situations and evaporated at a slower rate. In the Civil War bacon fat was found to work well and was cheaper. Whale oil was used on some southern railways. Other natural lubrication products were: olive oil, 'plumbago' extracted from the tropical leadwort plant. The Chief Engineer of the French Navy concluded that very pure olive oil was superior for steam engines with realized fuel economy. Many of these practices continued well after the growth of the petroleum industry. There was a decided surge in the whale oil industry again in the 1880s for a time for engines and other high precision equipment and tools.

John Burns, son of old Jim Burns who built the DELTA KING/DELTA QUEEN, related to me before his death that on C.T. Co. boats on the Sacramento all food grease and fat was carefully saved in big containers from the cook houses. He never elaborated and now I wonder if it wasn't to use again in cooking or saved for the engineers? Who knows at this late date? Forget to ask one simple question and the answer is often gone...PFFT...forever.

Jack humorously mentions the distinct smell like cooking in the use of a number of the products above. How many here have watched a steamboat engineer walk out and tenderly put his hand on the revolving crank as the wheel revolves around?

Thanks to Jack for his terrific monograph.

Cheers,
R. Dale Flick