It was a question of testing a new
vaporizer or burner for liquid fuel. The experiment was a repetition
of the one that the inventor, Mr. G. Dietrich, recently performed with
success in the presence of Admirals Cloue and Miot.

The Flamboyante is 58 ft. in length, 9 ft. in width, draws 5 ft. of
water, and has a displacement of 10 tons. She is provided with a
double vertical engine supplied by a Belleville boiler that develops
28 horse power. The screw makes 200 revolutions per minute, and gives
the yacht a speed of 61/2 knots.

Mr. Dietrich's vaporizer appears to be very simple, and has given so
good results that we have thought it of interest to give our readers a
succinct description of it. In this apparatus, the inventor has
endeavored to obtain an easy regulation of the two essential
elements--naphtha and steam.

Fig. 1 represents the apparatus in section. The steam enters through
the tubulure, A, and finds its way around the periphery of a tuyere,
D. It escapes with great velocity, carries along the petroleum that
runs from two lateral tubulures, B (Fig. 2), and throws it in a fine
spray into the fireplace, through the nozzle, C (Fig. 1), which is
flattened into the shape of a fan opened out horizontally. The mixture
at once ignites in contact with the hot gases, and gives a beautiful,
long, clear flame. The air necessary for the combustion is sucked
through the interior of the nozzle, H, which is in front of the
tuyere. It will be seen that the current of steam can be regulated by
moving the tuyere, D, from or toward the eduction orifice. This is
effected through a maneuver of the hand wheel, F. In the second place,
the flow of the petroleum is made regular by revolving the hand wheel,
G, which gives the piston, O, a to and fro motion in the tuyere, D.

[Illustration: FIG. 1--THE DIETRICH PETROLEUM BURNER.]

The regulation may be performed with the greatest ease. It is possible
to instantly vary, together or separately, the steam and the
petroleum. Under such circumstances, choking is not to be feared at
the petroleum orifice, where, according to experiment, the thickness
of the substance to be vaporized should not be less than 0.04 of an
inch.

The petroleum might evidently be made to enter at A and the steam at
B; but one of the conclusions of the experiments cited is that the
performance is better when the jet of steam surrounds the petroleum.
It will be understood, in fact, that by this means not a par