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These look like numerous duties as preliminary to starting, but they are all necessary; and the fireman who attends to them all with the greatest regularity, will be valued accordingly. Nearly all firemen are ambitious to become engineers. The best method they can pursue, to show that they are deserving of promotion, is to perform their own duties regularly and well. A first-class fireman will save his wages each trip over the expenditure made by the mediocre fireman: a persistently bad fireman should be sent to another calling without delay. Few railroad companies can afford the extravagance of a set of bad firemen.

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Try the water. That is the most important call upon the engineer when he first enters the cab. If the engine has a glass water-gauge, he should ascertain by the gauge-cocks if the water-level shown in the glass be correct. A water-glass is a great convenience on the road, but it should only be relied on as an auxiliary to the gauge-cocks. Many engineers have come to grief through reposing too implicit confidence in the water-glass. Engineer Williams was considered one of the most reliable men on the A.&B. road. With an express train he started out on time one morning; and he had run only two miles when the boiler went up in the air, with fatal results to both occupants of the cab. An examination of the wreck showed unmistakable evidence of overheated sheets. Circumstantial evidence indicated that the glass had deceived the engineer by a false water-level. When he pulled out, the fire-box sheets, which were of copper, became weakened by the heat, so that the crown-sheet gave way; the re-action of the released steam tearing the boiler to pieces. Numerous less serious accidents originating from the same cause might be cited.