Page:Scientific American - Series 1 - Volume 008 - Issue 29.pdf/8

 �23 2 W ..

---

Stitnfifit bnttitau. Carbonic Acid Ga�� base of the mountain, in one place, a stream Carbon exists in a variety of forms of water alrnost boiling hot, comes out. The same work here at the same price. But even charcoal, anthracite lamp-black, diamond, are surface of the mountain presents a desolate allowing the people ot Albany to put up the all different forms or- states of the same ele appearalice as far as the eye can reach. The figures one half more, they woul d find them ment. There is but a small amount of car mountain is either cracked, burned or broken all against the building of a new and expen bon in the mineral world-none, indeed, but into enormous and fearful depths by the ap sive ship canal, Let them get po werful dredg what is supposed to have been. of organic ori proach of the fires to the upper stratum ; roots ing boats and build walls to narrow the chan gin. But in the organized world it is a funda and trunks of the lofty trees are charred and nel, and then not fear, but a most wondertul mental and universal ele m ent. When wood blackened, mingling their pyroligneous odor change for the better will be effected in the or coal burns or decays, or when living things with the SUlphurous vapors from the hot caves perish, their carbon combines with oxygen, and crevices around. The calcined bones of Hudson River. and the substance formed is known as carbo birds, repti i es, and small quadrupeds, lie here IIogle'. Patent Universal Chnel,. nic acid. This is a universal product of com and there, half mixed with'the mineral ashes, FIG. 1 bustion, whether in the ungovernable confla to fill up the blasted view, while amidst the gration or the measured respiration of the va.t scene of desolation may be seen a solita living animal. C arbonic acid is a heavy gas ry wood-flower, springing from this perpetual :"'it extihguishes fire and destroys all allimal " hot-bed/' and presenting, in the uncongenial lite. If an animal attempts to breathe it atmosphere, a mockery of blr,om. pure, there is spasmodic cl osure of the glottIS and the animal dies as speedily as if strangled Astor Librar y. with a cord. It breathed. when diluted with The funds and property of the institution 9 0 per cent. of air, It acts as a llarcotic poison, a;:.e valued at $450,000. The cost of the inducing, sleep, torpor, and death. Carbonic buil ding and site $70,000, and the expendi acid gas and steam are employed in the Fire ture for books thus far $75,364. More than Annihilator to extinguish flame. There is a 60,000 volumes have been collected, and Dr. small portion of carbonic acid gas in the at Cogswell is now in Europe, authorized to ex mosphere, namely, one gallon diffused through pend $25,000 in the purchase of additional 2,000 gallons of air. This m ay be increased works. Commencing with about eighty ten-told or to one half per cent-more than thousand v.olumes, free from debt, and having this is inj urious. A man exhal es about 20 a vested fund of. $ 1 80,000, the' interelllh of The annexed engravings are a face view cubic feet of carbonic acid per day, which which is to be steadily applied to enlarging (fig. 1), and a back view (fig. 2) of the imwould 'therefore vitiate o r spoil 4,000 cubic the collection, this must ultimately become proved chuck, invented by S. S. Hogle, and feet of air each day, or equal to all that is to one of the largest libraries in the world. for which a patent was granted in November, be found over a space of iJ6 square feet to the 1841, but which has not been introduced into Butter. top of the atmosphere annually. La rger this region, and which is but very little known Forty thousand pounds of butter, recently quantities still are generated by combustion generally-not so much as it should be. E E and decay. . Water has a strong attraction for imported into Boston from Ireland, were ta are the jaws, they are worked by the screws, carbonic acid and absorbs much ot it. It then ken back in the Europa, which sailed on the B B. C C are the nuts o n the back side. acquires new properties, particularly the pow 2nd ult. , not having commanded Ii sufficient E very opposite jaw is. secured o n the same price. erof dissolving a great number of minerals. screw, and is worked by a simultaneous mo :::::.?= tion, except that the opposing screws on the A Rival to Tea. LITERARY NOTICES. same spindle are right and left. A is the cir The " Singapore Free Press 7) recommends THE C OLD GRAPE Ry-By W. Chorlton ; 12mo, cle plate of the chuck, and D are bolt openings the use of 'the coffee leaf as a substitute for pp . 93 ; published by J. C . H iker . 129 Fulton stre.et , in the back plate. The shanks o f screws, B the berry. The writer appears to be an Eng N. Y. This is a useful little manual for the lDe the use o f glass houses, but Wlt B, are tapered at the centre of the chuck, so lish planter of the D utch settlement of Pa grower, i n which advocated by the author a practI out heat, is ably that one works and rolls on the other, which dang, in Sumatra, where the coffee plant has cal gardener who gi y es directi ons as  o th e course

it be wise or not) in our schools, and will be understood, bnt we could not afford to do the

Deep <: ning the River. Clyde and lIudson.

Battell, with respect to improving the navi gation of the Hudson. In 1 750 there were only three feet o f water in the channel of the river Clyde ; in 1850 there were 1 7 feet of water. In 1 758 an act of Parliament was ob tained to make a lock to secure 4 feet ofwa ter up to Glasgow, but it never was made, for a plan of systematic improvement was laid out by the celebrated James Watt, which was soon acted upon, and from that day to this the improvement in the channel ot the river has steadily progressed. There were at that time

gow," which runs between New York and Glasgow, were built and received their en gines at the same place. The river is a very insignificant one at Glasgow, so far as it res pects the quantity of water discharged into it, and is no more to be compared with the Hud son, than is the Mohawk. It is not insignifi cant, however, in the lesson which it might teach the people of Albany, regarding the deep-lning of the Hudson, to promote its navi gation for vessels of heavy tonnage. As pro mised by us in the Scientific American of last week, we will proceed to prilsent an outline of what has been done on this river, which will be found, to sustain the views of Mr.

All the steamships of the Cunard Line were built on the River Clyde, in Scotland, and re ceived their engines at the City of Glasgow, at the extremity of navigation on that river. The Atlantic screw steamships, which run fro m Philadelphia to Liverpool,and the " Glas

were but 15 inches water, and about 3 feet spring tides. The. lowest tord was at Dum buck, 1 2 miles below Glasgow. It was deep ened in the autumn of 1 770 from 2 feet at low water to a depth of six teet, at an expense of �2,300 ($ 1 1 ,300). The great object of this deep cut was to allow a larger body of tidal water

a number of fords or san d ,. banks in the river, and at Glasgow there was one, on whIch there

the old Roman Empire.

up the river-the next step being by a jetty of stones run out from the shore to secure the ebbing of the waters through the new cut. The largest vessels now sail where once was this ford, which formed the outermost link of " The improvements were commenced . by deepening aMhe fords and running jetties of loose stones out from the shore to low-water

mark ; these guided the water into the chan nel, which was thereby deepened. C ontinu ous dykes, parallel with the current, were then formed, by which a uniform depth was maintained ; and in 1807 a tracking path was formed along the south dyke from Re.lfrew up to Glasgow, 24;i miles of these were dykes formed, and cost from 25s. to 30s. per lineal yard of dyke. In 1824 the tides and freshets had scoured away about two m illion cubic y ards, and gaine d '1 depth of 13 teet. In 1824 the steam dredging machine was introduced, being its first application to a river in Scot land, and since then about three million cubic yards of, tuff have been lifted , besides many tor.s of stones by means of diving bells. III 1 842-5 channels were cut through Port Glasgow and other banks, and 420,000 cubic yards removed. � The water above Glasgo w has, in suspen sion about 22,000 cubic yards of fine stuff' an nually. II: the harbor alone about 80,000 cu

allows them to cross in a very small space. been cultIvated for several generations, and that are and ought to be employe d. Works like It is calculated to chuck articles of a very where it is now prdduced in larger quantity, thi, that are written by really practical m e n, are far or e t o be trusted than the pseudo guides of large size and articles of only three- fourths of and ot b ette r quality than in any country of pretended agric ?-lturis s  ho m or often mislead the than .dlt ect hlm m .the tl g ht path. R eal ly It an inch in diame.ter�. . is strong and simple, the Malayan Islands, Java excepted. The enquirer works, :.written by plain practical men,. are practic al and any chips that may gather in the middle, coffee plant is an evergreen large shrub, which of the 'highest valu e, but the l rashy works of SClen tific quacks in eTery braneh of kno1t'ledge, are worse will fall out on the back side under the yields a profusion of leaves, and bears fruit than usele ss, This work is to be placed in tbe for !,�r category, and i. chea p at any price for real screws. It is adapted for centric and eccen for about t wenty years. T.he leaf, and even knowledge i8 worth its wei ght i n gold. tric chucking. The engravings will at once the twigs, have, i n a minor degree, the same H Graham'S American Magazine," for A p r il, i s e n show the machinist the difference between stimUlating and exhilarating property as the larged to 1 4 4 pages, and is one o f tbe v e r y best lit   . rary publicatiens in the country. The articles, OrI this and other chucks, and how each opposing berry, and its habitual use by the natives of ginal and selected, are from the first authors. D e  pair of j aws can approach near to and recede the country, agri.;ultural Malays of very sim w i tt & D avenport, agents, Tribune Buildings, N e w York. from the centre as may be desired. Instead ple habits, and little amenable to innovation, of having a screw for each jaw or sliding show. that they at least find the coffee leaf gripe piece, as in the old universal chuck, this to make a wholesome and agreea ble beve one. has two screw shafts, crossing one ano rage. The introduction o f this article into ther at right angles, with a right and left- our 'consumption would, we cannot help think ing, be a benefit to the poor, and to our co FIG. 2. lonial planters. In order to render coffee l eaves marketable for European consumption, the best mode of preparation will consist in subjecting them to the same kind of manipulation as tea nnder goes ; and for this purpose it would probably be expedient, at first, to employ, for instruc tion, Chinese skilled in the art, such men as Mr. Fortune lately brought from the northern provinces of China to Upper India. The leaves of coffee, neither fleshy nor succulent, are even more easily dried than those of tea, and being larger and more abun dant, while the plant itself is more easil y reared than tea and embraces a much wider geographical range, it is certain they might be sold at a handed screw on each, so that by the turn l ower price than the poorest Bohea. It may ing of each screw shatt, two jaws are m ade be added that the leaves so prepared would to approach or recede from one another in not be amenable to the charge of adulterations their radial grooves. To increase the capaci so often urged against the ground berry. .--==",=---

to be pursued with dlagrams o f the dIfferent ro ofs

Manufaeture rs and Inventors. A n e w Volume of the year. commence s about the middle of

SCIENTJFIC AI>lERICAN S eptemb er in each

It i s a j ournal o f Scientific, Mechanical, and

with a copious index, and from five to six hundred original engravings, together with a great amount o f practical i nformation concerning the progress o f i n v ontion a n d discoveq t hroughout t h e world. The

fOl'm Buitable for binding, and c�onstitutes, at the end of each year, a splendid volume of over 400 pages,

other improvements ; the advocate o f industry in all its various branch es. It is published weekly i n a

"n<",Y'

per annum to remove. The whole cost of maintaining the depth is upwards of �8000 ty of the chuck separate jaws are put on the a-year ; the average price being, lifting, 8d ; chuck, the o ne fitting into the mortise of the depositing, 4d-equal to 1s. per cubic yard." other, and secured by screws. The foregoing extracts marked as quoted, The assignee of the patent for this chuck, are from a paper on the subject by W. in this state, is Thomas Ashley, of Waterloo, Campbell, C. E. The facts prominently set Seneca C o ., N. Y., who manufactures the ar forth are, that by removing the fords or' sand ticle , and from whom more information may banks, aud dyking or walling up, as proposed be obtained by letter. by Mr. Battel, a river which at one time, only Experiments have been lately made at Ber admitted sloops and coal boats of about 100 and 200 tons, now allows ships o f 2000 tons lin with cannon having rifle bores, and loaded burden to sail up twelve miles above the place at the breech with a conical missile, which is (Dumbuck) where there were only 2 feet of hollow, and contains powder. These experi water 100 years ago. The price of dredging ments are said to be very successful. With and keeping the river clear, is given in Ster- 1 pounds of powder a missile was thrown whkh i. iIl I,e,., (wh'th" more than 6,000 feet.

bic yards of silt accumulate annually, and about 90,000 in the river, including an annual accumulation at Bowling of 60,000 cubic yards, which costs the trustees about �1200

ted and popular j o ur n al of the kind now published. Its E d itors, Contributors, and C orrespondents are among the ablest practical scientific men in th e The Patent

Scientifi C American is the most widely circula.

w or ld.

C laims

are published

weekly and are

invaluable to Inventors and Patentees.

The Burning Co al Mountain.

money to Travelling Agents, as we are not in the

We partioularly warn the public again st paying certificates of agency to any

been consumed up to the surface, and hence the least pressure thereon, it is presumed, might break through and let the adventurer down into the fiery chasm below. At the

nersville and fifteen. from Schuylkill Haven. It is now considered a very dangerous expe riment to travel over the mountain, as it is supposed that in many places the surface is a mere superficial crust or shell, the coal having

That p,ortion of the Broad Mountain, called the " Fiery Mountains,)) from the fact of the anthracite coal at 'that point being on fire which has been burning for the last fifteen years, is situated about five miles from Mi

habit o f furnishing on e.

Letters should be directed (post-paid) to

128 Fulton street, New Yorio.

MUNN & CO.,

Terms ! Terms ! Terms ! One copy, for One Year Five copies, for Six Ten C o pie s

M onth s for She M o nth s for

Six Mon ths

Ten Copies for Twelve Months, Fifteen Copioo for Twelve Months, Twenty Copies for Twelve Months,

.....,,,... fnll nlne.

so'uthern a.nd Western Money taken at par for '"" """ -.. ..... .. th..

$2 $1 $4 $8 $16 22 $28

. J � ,

� 1853 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC