You will find further on that all check valves are
arranged to prevent any flowing out from the boiler, but nothing to
prevent water flowing in. Such an occurrence will do no harm but the
knowing how it was done may prevent your giving yourself away. A good
authority on steam boilers, says: "All explosions come either from poor
material, poor workmanship, too high pressure, or a too low gauge of
water." Now to protect yourself from the first two causes, buy your
engine from some factory having a reputation for doing good work and for
using good material. The last two causes depend very much on yourself,
if you are running your own engine. If not, then see that you have an
engineer who knows when his safety valve is in good shape and who knows
when he has plenty of water, or knows enough to pull his fire, when for
some reason, the water should become low. If poor material and poor
workmanship were unknown and carelessness in engineers were unknown,
such a thing as a boiler explosion would also be unknown.
You no doubt have made up your mind by this time that I have no use for
a careless engineer, and let me add right here, that if you are inclined
to be careless, forgetful,(they both mean about the same thing,) you are
a mighty poor risk for an insurance company, but on the other hand if
you are careful and attentive to business, you are as safe a risk as any
one, and your success and the durability and life of your engine depends
entirely upon you, and it is not worth your while to try to shift the
responsibility of an accident to your engine upon some one else.
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