any very curious and striking results, some of which it would
be interesting to describe, if we had space for such descriptions. But
we must pass to the more immediate subject in this article, which is the
structure of the engine itself, and not that of the community which
produces it.

The engraving on the next page represents the interior of the
engine-room of the Humboldt--a new steamer, which was lying at the dock
at the time of our visit, receiving her machinery; though probably
before these pages shall come under the eye of the reader, she will be
steadily forcing her way over the foaming surges of the broad Atlantic.
The machinery, as we saw it, was incomplete, and the parts in
disorder--the various masses of which it was ultimately to be composed,
resting on temporary supports, in different stages, apparently of their
slow journey to the place and the connection in which they respectively
belonged. The ingenious artist, however, who made the drawings,
succeeded in doing, by means of his imagination, at once, what it will
require the workmen several weeks to perform, with all their complicated
machinery of derricks, tackles, and cranes. He put every thing in its
place, and has given us a view of the whole structure as it will appear
when the ship is ready for sea.

There are _two_ engines and _four_ boilers; thus the machinery is all
double, so that if any fatal accident or damage should accrue to any
part, only one half of the moving force on which the ship relies would
be suspended. The heads of two of the boilers are to be seen on the left
of the view. They are called the _starboard_ and _larboard_
boilers--those words meaning _right_ and _left_. That is, the one on the
right to a person standing before them in the engine room, and facing
them, is the starboard, and the other the larboard boiler. It is the
larboard boiler which is nearest the spectator in the engraving.

The boilers, the heads of which only are seen in the engraving, are
enormous in magnitude and capacity, extending as they do far forward
into the hold of the ship. In marine engines of the largest class they
are sometimes thirty-six feet long and over twelve feet in diameter.
There is many a farmer's dwelling house among the mountains, which is
deemed by its inmates spacious and comfortable, that has less capacity.
In fact, placed upon end, one of these boilers would form a tower with a
very good sized room on each floor, and four stories hi