A Practical Manual On Sea Water Distillation
With A Description Of The Necessary Machinery For The Process

GENERAL OUTLINE AND DESCRIPTION. 5 I.H.P. in H.M. ships. The Committee appointed on the subject of Naval Boilers in the service reported that as much as 6 tons per twenty-four hours per 1,000 I.H.P, was a fair estimate of the loss of fresh water. (6) Use on Land. 11. For Land use, distilling machinery is mostly required lor procuring drinking water, and such machinery is usually installed near the sea shore at points of the globe where pure fresh water is in great demand. But land appar- atus is often used for producing pure water for other purposes, as already said—namely, for industrial uses —and in that case the system of working the distilling machinery can be advantageously varied so as to be adapted to the rather different conditions prevailing on land from what exist on board ship. Thus, on a steam ship there is necessarily a dearth of available space, as compared with a land station ; again, on a steam ship the only heat available is steam heat, whilst on land it is possible to have a suitable boiler, with a coal fire, for supplying the initial heat required for distillation. By this means multiple distillation apparatus (treated of in Chapter xi.)> although difficult to carry out satis- factorily on a steam ship, can be installed on land with the greatest ease and advantage. The water thus pro- duced can also be produced as it is required, for it is sometimes difficult to store a large supply of water, and at the same time keep it fit for drinking purposes. 12. The purposes for which distilled water is produced on land are as follows :—For drinking (when the distilled water is usually filtered and aerated, *so as to make it agreeable to the taste as well as pure), and for indust-