Forty Tons of Seattle Iron: Moran Brothers' Giant Pumps Head for the Dry Dock

Moran Bros., of this city, have completed and taken over to the government dry dock the three 12-inch centrifugal pumps and upright engines to be used in that dock, now nearing completion. The pumps are the largest and most intricate castings turned out on the Coast, and reflect great credit on the firm and Seattle alike. Work was begun on the pumps and engines about August 1, and considering the delay caused by the recent fire in the foundry, the big contract has been finished very quickly. To give a general idea of the immense amount of iron used in their construction, it may be well to state that each pump weighs in the neighborhood of forty tons.

The pumps and engines were taken over to the dry dock on Tuesday afternoon, loaded on two scows, and from Robert Moran it is learned that they will be in position and ready for work in about three weeks. The work of placing these ponderous machines on the scows was a very ticklish undertaking, on account of their weight and bulkiness. They were taken from the foundry to the scows by means of rollers and a large locomotive engine, and placed aboard at high tide, thus lessening the incline from the wharf to the scows. Arriving at the dock, the scows were towed on the beach, and skids will be placed from the beach to the pump house and a derrick constructed to lower the machines in place. The boilers are already on hand, having been finished and delivered last fall.

The drainage pump and engine, used for pumping out the seepage and drainage, is still under construction at the foundry and will be ready for transportation about the first of June. It is very much smaller than the main pumps. There also remain to be constructed a number of discharge pipes and fittings, which will be finished by June 1.

Each of the main pumps is forty-two inches in diameter, and the three together will have a pumping capacity of 110,000 gallons per minute, and will thus be able to pump out the dock in about two hours. Each pump is arranged so that it will run independent of the others, and each will be driven by a 24-inch stroke vertical engine. Each pump is fourteen feet high. The water enters at the center of each pump, is revolved by a runner on the inside, and flies off by centrifugal force out of the discharge pipe. The action of the water in being forced from the pump by centrifugal force creates a vacuum, which the water rushes in to fill, and so on till the dock is pumped out.

The discharge pipes will be forty-eight inches at the discharge and forty-two inches at the pump, made so as to lessen the friction, the pipe increasing in diameter with the flow. The boilers, already at the site, are in number three, cylindrical horizontal steel return-tubular boilers. Each is six feet in diameter and sixteen feet long and contains eighty four-inch tubes, sixteen feet long. These boilers are constructed in the most approved manner for the type and have a working pressure of 120 pounds to the square inch.

The pumps have been inspected by the government inspector at the dock and have been pronounced first-class in every respect.