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SETTING A PLANER.

To set a planer so that there may be no "wind" in its work is an item of great importance. Professor Sweet, of Cornell University, tells the Polytechnic Review of his success in this matter:

a locality? It would not. It would be safer to sleep in the house, especially if the doors and windows were closed. The reason is, that the house has been warmed during the day, and if kept closed, it remains much warmer during the night indoors than it is outdoors; consequently, the malaria is kept Planing machines vary in size; some by this warmth so high above the head, and take work a foot square through the housso rarefied, as to be comparatively harm-ings, that is, between the side frames; less. This may seem to some too nice a dis- others will plane work twelve times that tinction altogether, but it will be found size. In the following argument, imagine throughout the world of Nature that the my referring to one about two feet beworks of the Almighty are most strikingly tween the posts, as there are probably beautiful in their minutice, and these minutiae more of that size in use than any other. are the foundation of his mightiest mani- It is not possible-at least not practically possible to construct a frame for such a machine that will not spring by its own weight. If made heavier, then there is more weight to spring it; and if made of any of the ordinary forms, and rested upon either two diagonal corners, the frame will spring winding; if supported by the opposite corner, it will wind in the is winding, nothing can prevent its making opposite direction. If the bed of a planer the work done upon it winding to exactly the same extent also.

festations.

Thus it is, too, that what we call fever and ague, might be banished from the country as a general disease, if two things were done. 1. Have a fire kindled every morning at daylight from spring to fall in the family room, to which all the family should repair from their chambers, and

there remain until breakfast is taken.

2. Let a fire be kindled in the family room a short time before sundown; let every member of the family repair to it, and there remain until supper is taken.

In both cases the philosophy of the course marked out consists in two things. First. The fire rarefies the malaria and causes it to ascend above the breathing point. Second. The food taken into the stomach creates an activity of circulation which repels disease. -Hall's Journal of Health.

THE WORKING MAN.

In a large city a laboring man, leaving a large saloon, saw a costly carriage and pair of horses standing in front, occupied by two ladies elegantly attired, conversing with the proprietor. As it rolled away he said to the dealer: "Whose establishment is that?"

"It is mine," replied the dealer complacently. "It cost $3,500; my wife and daughter cannot do without it."

The mechanic bowed his head a moment in deep thought, and, looking up, said, with the energy of a man suddenly aroused by some startling flash: "I see it! I

see it!"

"See what?" queried the dealer.

"See where for years my wages have gone. I helped pay for that carriage-for those horses and gold-mounted harness-for the silks, laces and jewelry for your family. The money I earned, that should have given my wife and children a home of our own, and good clothing, I have spent at your bar. My wages, and others' like me, have supported you and your family. Hereafter my wife and children shall have the benefit of my wages, and, by the help of God, I will never spend another dime for drinks. I see the mistake and a cure for it."

To prevent the winding of the bed, assuming it to be first made true, there are two methods: One is to set it upon a substantial stone or brick foundation. To set the machine is a delicate operation, and the foundations are so costly that but one in a hundred of this size is ever placed upon them. The other plan is the one I have adopted, and with the very best success: It is supporting the machine upon the single support at one end-in other words, resting the machine on three points. I can hardly conceive it possible for any one to have a better test than our surface-plate work; for before this was done we could plane them winding either way at will, by simply loading the floor on which the planer rested, while now it is seldom that we detect the slightest difference. If there is any one thing that I think I know better than another in regard to machine construction, it is that all machines likely to be set upon a floor, which cannot be supported upon a single column, should be rested upon three points. As certain as a surface-plate cannot be made true unless rested upon three points, so certain is it that a machine cannot be kept true unless supported on the same principle.

"Before we were married," said he to a friend, "she used to say 'by-by' so sweetly when I went down the steps."

"And now what does she say?" asked the friend.

"Oh! just the same," exclaimed the man-"buy, buy!"

"Ah! I see," said the other; "she only exercises a little different 'spell' over you." -Cincinnati Times.

OUTWARD BOUND.

Floating, floating from dawn to dusk,
Till the pearly twilight dies,

And the mists float up from the sapphire sea
And cloud all the sapphire skies."
Floating, floating, while golden stars
Seem to float in a sea overhead,
And starry lights from a sea below
Glow orange, and purple, and red;

Till we seem floating out of the sea of life,

The tempests of passion, the storm-winds of strife-
Out into strange, mysterious space.
Till God shall find us a landing place.

Drifting, drifting to lands unknown,
From a world of love and care.
Drifting away to a home untried

And a heart that is waiting there.

O ship! sail swiftly-O waters deep!

Bear me safe to that haven unknown

Safe to the tender love that walts

To be forever my own;

Till we drift away from the sea of life,

the whole 700,000 feddans (acres) of cotton land in Egypt, and that the crop will then be 7,000,000 cantars of cotton and 5,000,000 ardebs of seed. Taking the cantar at 100 pounds and the ardeb at 270 pounds, this will be 700,000,000 pounds, or 1,400,000 bales of cotton and 675,000 tons of seed. Last year the crop was only 600,000 bales. The accuracy of these calculations remains to be proved.

THE FIRST STEAMBOAT TRIP.

In the Suffolk Gazette, printed at Sag Harbor, on the east end of Long Island, Oct. 12, 1807, is a letter from Robert Fulton to Joel Barlow, giving an account of the first trip of the first steamboat on the Hudson

Till the tempest of passions, the storm-winds of river. It is as follows: strife,

Out to a haven, out to a shore

Where love is life forevermore.-Good Words.

A NEW COTTON PLANT.

NEW YORK, 22d Aug., 1807.

To Joel Barlow, Philadelphia:

MY DEAR FRIEND: My steamboat voy. age to Albany and back has turned out rather more favorable than I had calcu

Albany is 150 miles; I ran it up in 32 hours and down in 30 hours. The latter is just 5 miles an hour. I had a light breeze against me the whole way going and coming, so that no use was made of my sails; and the voyage has been performed wholly by the power of the steam engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners beating to windward, and passed them as if they had been at anchor.

boat would ever move one mile an hour or be of the least utility. And while we were putting off from the wharf, which was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks; this is the way you know in which ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers and projectors.

According to the London Times, the cot-lated. The distance from New York to ton growers of Egypt are excited over the discovery of a new cotton plant, much more productive than the ordinary shrub. The story of its discovery, propagation and yield are so marvelous, that it is almost impossible to resist the suspicion that there may be something fabulous about it. A Copt living at Berket-el-Seb (the Well of the Lion), a station on the Cairo railroad, in the year 1873, noticed in his cotton field one plant that was different from the others, The power of propelling boats by steam and he immediately took a course that is now fully proved. The morning I left shows how thoroughly he understands the New York there were not perhaps thirty art of "inventing a new plant variety.persons in the city who believed that the He collected the pods, separated the seed, and planted it secretly, carrying on the cultivation until he was assured that a new variety of the cotton plant had been produced. The rate of propagation was so rapid that after three years the amount of seed in the country is said to be from 1,500 to 2,000 bushels, all directly traceable to this one plant. As to the real origin of the new variety, some think that the first seed was brought from the Soudan, or equatorial Africa, while the Arabs say that it is the result of a cross between the Bamia plant and the cotton shrub. In appearance it is very different from the ordinary plant, which in Egypt is a shrub about four feet high, and with spreading branches. The new variety, on the contrary, is ten feet high, has no branches, and only few leaves, but its straight, vertical stem is thickly studded with pods, of which as many as 70 are said to have been taken from the parent plant The increase in seed, according to the Times' correspondent, is no less than 60 times the amount of seed planted, while the cotton produced is more than double the amount from ordinary seed. He calculates that by steadily propagating the new seed there will be seed enough by 1879 to plant

Having employed much time and money and zeal in accomplishing this work, it gives me, as it will you, great pleasure to see it so fully answer my expectations. It will give a quick and cheap conveyance to merchandise on the Mississippi, Missouri and other great rivers, which are now laying open their treasures to the enterprise of our countrymen. And although the prospect of personal emolument has been some inducement to me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting with you on the immense advantage that my country will derive from the invention.

However, I will not admit that it is half so important as the torpedo system of defense and attack; for out of this will grow the liberty of the seas; an object of infinite importance to the welfare of America and every civilized country. But thousands of witnesses have now seen the steamboat in rapid movement, and they believe-but

394

they have not seen a ship of war destroyed
by a torpedo, and they do not believe. We
cannot expect people in general to have a
knowledge of physics, or power of mind
sufficient to combine ideas and reason from
causes to effects. But in case we have war,
and the enemy's ships come into our water,
if the government will give me reasonable
will soon convince the
means of action,
world that we have surer and cheaper
modes of defense than they are aware of.
Yours, etc.,
ROBERT FULTON.

MAKING RUSSIA LEATHER. The following story of how our late Minister to Russia discovered the method of manufacturing the celebrated Russia leather is a good one, if true, as told in the New York Tribune:

PAPER CALENDER ROLLS. Paper calender rolls are almost as hard as iron, but are used in preference to iron because, while they will preserve their roundness, truth and smoothness, they possess a certain amount of elasticity, and are therefore less liable to damage from the strain due to any foreign substance passing through them.

The method of fixing the paper to the rolls is as follows: Disks of thin, common brown paper, of a diameter large enough to turn up to the required diameter of roll, and with a hole in the center of each large enough for them to pass freely over the roller shaft, are first cut out; then a numiber of similar disks, with the central hole made about four or six inches larger, are In putting these disks upon the roll made. shaft, four having the smaller holes are put on, and then one with the larger hole-the object being to insure that the paper shall press together at and towards the outer diameter of the roll, and not bind so tightly towards the center; thus the outer part of the roll is sure to be the most compact. and therefore the most durable. To avoid bending the roll shaft by reason of any unevenness in the thickness of one side of the sheet of paper from which the disks are cut, every other disk is turned halfway around when placed upon the shaft.

When General Jewell was Minister in Russia, he visited the tanneries of that country, and found out the secret in the manufacture of Russia leather. The secret is in the use of birch-bark tar, with which the skins are dressed, in place of tallow and grease, the latter substances being so largely used for food by the lower classes. This tar, which is carefully saved as it exudes from the wood when burned, was first used as a substitute for wheel-grease in Russia, as it is to this day, and then for When the shaft is filled with these disks, the filling and dressing of skins. By a system of careful inquiry, and literally it is placed under a very powerful hydraulic following his nose during his visits to some press, giving a pressure of about two hunof the great Russian tanneries and cur-dred tons, which compresses the disks solid riers' shops, Mr. Jewell found this compound in a great kettle, ready for use, and thus the mystery was solved. It is not expensive, costing but about ten dollars a barrel, and he immediately ordered ten barrels and sent them, with instructions, to various leather manufacturers in this country. The result is that genuine Russia leather goods are now made in America, and doubtless will soon be sold at nearly fifty per cent. below former rates.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. In 1807, Fulton took out the first patent for the invention of the steamboat.

The first steamboats which made regular trips across the Atlantic Ocean were the Sirius and the Great Western, in 1838.

In 1813, the streets of London were for the first time lighted with gas.

About the year 1832, the first railroad in the United States was completed. In 1840, the first experiments in photography were made by Daguerre.

First sewing machine patented in 1845. The anthracite coal business may be said to have begun in 1820

In 1835 the first patent for the invention, of matches was granted.

In 1844, the first telegram was sent. The first successful trial of a reaper took place in 1833.

together without the aid of glue or other adhesive substance. The disks are allowed to stand until they are compressed sufficiently to give room for additional disks, which are added in the same manner as before, the whole being again compressed. This process is continued until the intended length of the roller is filled with compound paper, when the latter is fastened as follows:

Upon each end of the roll shaft a recess is turned, and a flange, made in two halves, is bored, smaller than the recess referred to by the amount allowed for shrinkage. The outer diameter of the flange is then turned, larger than the recess cut in the iron disks or flanges forming the end of the roll by the amount allowed for shrinkage; which flange is made slightly smaller in diameter than the intended size of the paper roll. The two half flanges are put in place upon the recess in the shaft, and the end flange or disk is shrunk on over the diameter of the two half flanges, thus firmly locking the whole to the shaft through the medium of the recesses on the shaft. This locking device is placed on one end of the roll before the paper disks are placed in position; then, after the disks are compressed, and while the roll is in the hydraulic press, the flanges or disks at the other end are shrunk on. This plan is the one generally adopted in this country--that employed in England

being considered deficient, in that it gives the paper opportunity to expand 3⁄4 inch in the locking process.

The rolls are then turned up in the lathe with a front tool for iron, the speed being but little greater than that employed to turn iron of equal diameter. The finishing is done by an emery wheel, the same as for an iron roll.

AN ISLAND OF PONIES.

AFFECTING REMINISCENCES. Buell, the junior slasher of D. P.'s Capital, is reminded, by a recent scene in the of his boyhood's sunny years: Senate, of the following dramatic incident

A neighbor of ours had a fine plum orchard, which was surrounded by a high board-fence, and in which, by way of additional security against the depredations of small boys, the owner was wont to pasture an old Merino ram, with enormous horns Off the north-eastern shore of Virginia and a disposition similar to that of Holand about five miles from the main-land, man. One day half a dozen of us small lies a small island known as Chincoteague— boys held a consultation about those plums. an island possessed of peculiarities shared We agreed to capture some of them. We by no other portion of the eastern United all climbed the fence. I was detailed to States; for here roams, in an entirely un-look after the Merino ram, and, in distamed state, a breed of horses, or rather ponies, as wild as the mustangs of Texas or the Pampas.

charge of this delicate responsibility, was soon involved in what a Southern gentleman would call "a difficulty." I got a good hold of the fellow by the horns, and immediately my philosophic mind was beset by the perplexing question as to whether I had the ram or the ram had me.

But no sooner was the dead-lock perfect than all the other small boys ran away to the owner of the orchard, and told him there was a wicked urchin out there trying to steal his plums. Then the owner came out and lifted me over the high fence, partly by the tip of my ear and partly upon the tip of his boot.

How these ponies first came upon the island is not known except through vague tradition, for when the first settlers came there, early in the eighteenth century, they found the animals already roaming wild | about its piney meadows, The tradition received from the Indians of the main-land was that a vessel laden with horses, sailing to one of the Elizabethan settlements of Virginia, was wrecked upon the southern point of the island, where the horses escaped, while the whites were rescued by the then friendly Indians, and carried to What hurt my feelings worst was that, the main-land, whence they found their after having dismissed me in this feeling way to some of the early settlements. The manner, he praised the other small boys horses, left to themselves upon their new for their honesty, and gave them all the territory, became entirely wild, and, prob- plums they could stuff into their pockets. ably through hardships endured, degene-That episode destroyed my faith in human rated into a peculiar breed of ponies.

In 1670 the island was first prospected. It was subsequently granted by King James II to a person by whom it was sold in minor sections to various others. At present it is greatly subdivided, though one land-owner-Kendall Jester by nameholds over six hundred acres of marsh and pine land, and there are other holdings scarcely less in extent. Among the earliest settlers were the Thurstones, Taylors and Miffiis; the head of the last-named family was a well-known Quaker, who, upon the introduction of slavery into the island, removed thence to the town of Camden, in the upper part of the province of Maryland, Delaware.

nature.

A TIN-CLAD CATFISH.

A boy, while fishing in Lake Butts des Morte the other day, felt a nibble, and served a half gallon fruit can trailing on the drawing his book towards the shore, obbottom. Having secured the vessel, he was greatly surprised to find that a large catfish had taken up his abode therein and remained until his increased dimensions did not admit of egress. He had evidently flopped around in his tin parlor until a hole was made in the rust-eaten bottom, through which his tail protruded. In this condition the catfish had power to navigate from one It was long before Chincoteague was fairly settled, and even as late as 1838 there place to another, and must have been rewere but twenty-six houses there. Now,garded by his aquatic neighbors as a kind of iron-clad monitor.-Menasha (Wisconsin) however, many strangers, tempted by the Press. exceptionally good fishing and oysterdredging of the place, are pouring in from

the main-land to settle there. To mere Mr. G. H. Darwin thinks that the position visitors the ponies are still a great, if not of the earth's axis may have been altered the main attraction, and during the periods from one to three degrees of latitude by of "penning"-driving them into corral-the rise and fall of large continental areas, numerous guests arrive daily from the such as are supposed to have taken place in coast.-Scribner. past times.

Scientific.

[From The Galaxy.]

a considerable range of velocities in the vicinity of the maximum coefficient, the coefficient is sensibly constant."

These variations explain the antagonistic results given above. Morin experimented under conditions which gave him a coeffiTHE LAW OF FRICTION. cient near the maximum, and therefore Engineers have long suspected that the nearly constant. Bochet made his tests on received laws of friction deserved but little railroad trains, having high speed, great reliance. Within a very few years the pressure and hard surfaces, and his coeffispeed of many kinds of machinery has been cient decreased as the velocity became increased, and the effect upon industrial greater. Hirn had exactly the opposite arts is of the highest importance. In rail-conditions very light pressures and thorroad work the most economical rate of ough lubrication. The three observers, travel for freight trains is now found to be therefore, stand at different positions on eighteen miles an hour, instead of twelve, Prof. Kimball's scale of coefficients. The as formerly supposed, and this discovery general result of Prof. Kimball's inquiry is may be considered to increase the capacity that for lines of shafting high speeds should of the roads one-half, for in freight traffic be adopted, as their coefficient of friction the economical limit of speed may be said is much less than that of low speeds. For to control the operation of the road. At instance, an experimental shaft gave the the same time this general discovery was following coefficients at different speeds: 24 made, it was also found that each road has revolutions, 1.00; 90 revolutions, 0.60; 200 its own individual economical limit, de- revolutions, 0.40; 430 revolutions, 0.29. pendent upon the mode of constructing its Friction of intermediate motors is often a permanent way, engines and cars. It is, great consumer of power, and attention to therefore, entirely supposable that the rail- this new discussion of its laws may result road system of the whole country may ul- in a marked economy. timately be brought to a certain degree of uniformity in the effort to reach the highest economy of speed. Having indicated the importance of velocity as a prime factor of economy in the arts, let us see what the laws of physics teach us in regard to its effect on friction. The commonly received law, following the results of Morin and Coulomb, is that the coefficient of friction does not vary with the velocity. Rochet says it decreases as the velocity increases. Hirn says it increases as the velocity increases. Strange as it may seem, Prof. A. S. Kimball, of the Worcester Institute of Industrial Science, says that all of those contradictory expressions have their ele ment of truth, and that their discordance may be ascribed to the different conditions under which the different sets of experiments were made. He gives the following as the true law:

ASSAYING FOR COINAGE.

An address was delivered at a recent meeting of the Franklin Institute at Philadelphia, by Outerbridge, on "Metallurgy and Assaying of the Precious Metals for Coinage." An abstract is given in the Polytechnie Review, from which we quote a few points:

Silver is received at the mint in the form of bars, pigs, dore bullion, coin, old plate, photographers' waste, etc. It often contains a variety of base metals, which destroy its ductility and color, and render it unfit for coin. The usual way of eliminating these impurities is by means of oxidizing fluxes with borax to dissolve the oxides of the base metals. The precious metal is then ready for the process of refining by nitric acid, to separate the gold, as practiced in the mint at Philadelphia. In most of the foreign mints, and at the assay office in New York, this "parting" is effected by means of concentrated boiling sulphuric acid in cast-iron kettles. In the former case the nitrate of silver is precipitated in a large tank holding 1,200 gallons, by salt water, the nitrate of soda formed is drawn off, the chloride of lead is reduced, by granulated zinc, to the metallic size; it is then pressed into large "cheeses," dried, melted in sand pots and cast into bars, or the requisite proportion of silver added for coin.

"The coefficient of friction at very low velocities is small; it increases rapidly at first, then more gradually as the velocity increases, until, at a certain rate, which depends upon the nature of the surfaces in contact, and the intensity of pressure, a maximum coefficient is reached. As the velocity continues to increase beyond this point, the coefficient decreases. An increase in the intensity of the pressure changes the position of the maximum coefficient, and makes it correspond to a smaller velocity. The more yielding the materials between which the friction occurs, the higher is the velocity at which the maximum coefficient is found. The most modern discovery in the refinHeating the rubbing bodies ing of gold and silver is by the direct applichanges the position of the maximum co- cation of a stream of chlorine gas through efficient to a higher velocity, since by heat the metal while in the molten state. The the bodies are made softer and are caused chlorine unites with the base metals, formto yield to pressure with greater ease. Foring volatile chlorides which pass up the

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