Sidebilder
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

288

ANSWERS TO INQUIRIES-CORRESPONDENCE.

one doctor, either urged by a greater zeal for science, or governed by a more insatiable curiosity, resolved to try the utmost extent of the ani

LONDON BRIDGE.

SIR,I feel obliged for the insertion, in the 97th Number of your valuable little work, the Mechanics' Magazine, the 13th June, giving

mal's powers, and seized it with both of my letter the plan to be adopted

his hands, but had quickly reason to repent his temerity; for he immediately felt a rapidly repeated series of the inost violent and successively increasing shocks, which forced him to leap about in the most extraordinary manner, and to utter the most piercing screams, from the agony that he felt. He then fell into convulsions, in consequence of which his muscles became violently contracted, as, from some strange property in the fish, it became impossible to detach the animal from his grasp. In this situation he remained a considerable time, and would in all probability have expired under the agony of his sensations, if some of the persons had not suggested the plunging of the hands in water, when the eel immediately dropped off. The doctor has since been dangerously ill.

[ocr errors]

my idea as to

at the new London Bridge, and which' I had oftimes before stated to the public, but without effect. I find that my sug gestion has now been attended to by the persons concerned in that building, and that a resolution is come to, on the part of the City, to make the bridge four feet wider than the plan at first adopted. This will be a great accommodation to the public, although I could have wished it six or seven feet wider, instead of four.

the additional expense is estimated at 25,8001., but surely this cannot be an object in a work of such magnitude and benefit to the nation.

I hear, from good authority, that

I am, Sir, yours, &c.
A PROMOTER OF IMPROVEMENTS.
East-place, Lambeth, 18th July.

USE OF SUGAR AS AN ANTIDOTE TO LEAD IN CASES OF POISONING

The following fact has been stated by M. Reynard to the Société des Sciences of Lisle. During the campaign of Russia, several loaves of sugar had been enclosed in a chest containing some flasks of extract of lead. One of these flasks having been broken, the liquid escaped, and the sugar became impregnated with it. During the distresses of the campaign it was necessary to have recourse to this sugar; but far from producing the fatal results which were expected, the sugar formed a salutary article of nourishment to those who made use of it, and gave them a degree of vigour and activity which was of the greatest service in enabling them to support the fatigues of marching. Hence M. Reynard

CORRESPONDENCE.

T.M.B. will please to send on Monday to our publishers, for the explanation he requires.

The communications of our friend J. H. have been received; one has been inserted, and the others will probably have a place very soon.

We shall be glad to hear monthly from Mr. Lean.

A letter has been forwarded to Amicus

Veritatis, as directed.

Communications have been received from Philo-Montis-W. Gx-Mr. Wm. Spencer-N. H.-G. R.-Mr. FarleyA. B-Clio-A Journeyman Carpenter at Royston Caasi Llab-E. B. (Skipton) Isaac B.-L. H.-C. N. B.-Augustus Henry Jones-F, B.

*Advertisements for the Covers of our Monthly Parts must be sent in to our Publishers before the 20th day of each Month.

thinks that sugar might be adopted Communications (post paid) to be addressed to

for preventing the effects of subacetate of lead, instead of the sulphates of soda and of magnesia, which are not always at hand.

the Editor, at the Publishers', KNIGHT and LACEY, 55, Paternoster-row, London. Printed by Mills, Jowett, and Mills (late Bensley), Bolt-court, Fleet-street.

Mechanics' Magazine,

MUSEUM, REGISTER, JOURNAL, AND GAZETTE.

No. 103.]

SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 1825.

[Price 3d. "Even though strength should fail, still boldness shall have its praise; in great attempts it is enough to dare."-Propertius.

[merged small][graphic][subsumed][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][subsumed][merged small][ocr errors][subsumed][ocr errors][ocr errors]

290

AN AIR BALLOON BOAT AND BARGE NAVIGATION.

as could make it from the ori

AN AIR BALLOON, INVENTED IN exact are all copied from the work;

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY,

SIR,-The various excellent inventions given in your estimable work, for the purpose of saving lives from shipwreck, must render the Mechanics' Magazine a peculiar favourite with all nautical men; and I should certainly, ere this, have laid the following Plan before you, had I not supposed it more generally known than I find it is, by some communications I have lately had with

several nautical men of rank; and I find the truth of their opinions still further corroborated by Mr. Higginson's remark, that of the art of aerostation, although acknowledged wonderful, has been always

heretofore described as useless."

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]
[ocr errors]

THOMAS MACFARLANE. Gressnal, July 9th, 1825.ro s • នល់៖

P.S. It is remarkable, that the

term Balloon was the Ship-wracke
new one
in the
17th century. In the
of Jonas," one of the poems trans-
lated from Du Bartas by Sylvester,
4to. 1592, is the following couplet:
Against one ship, that skips from star's

to ground,red,od # 9201 97195

From wave to wave (like windy bulloones *sbound,")&c.sh vs to glute 门 efed19db9201 102 96 of 97 d vedt 19d19dw

[ocr errors]

Geef d,9079mao">

BOAT AND BARGE NAVIGATION

SIR,-In the 86th Number of the

[ocr errors]

When I was in Germany, on my way home with those specimens of the Ruta Baga, which I had the happiness to introduce into England, in 1797, and for which I was voted an honorary member of the Norfolk and other Agricultural Societies, I had the singular felicity of being introduced to the celebrated mathematician, M. Von Mendlesheim, at Stettin, on the Oder, who showed me a drawing of a balloon, in a scarce work, published by John Christopher Sturm, bearing date 1701. It is drawn and described as used by the inventor, and two others, many years previous, for the purpose of bringing them on shore from a ship anchored off Windaw. The whole plan is developed by the author in Latin; and as it covers about nine or ten quarto pages, very closely printed, I must refer your readers to the book itself, which is entitled, did not propel it at the rate or fifteen

"Collegium Experimentale, sive Curiosum, &c. &c. secunda vice publicum adspicere voluit Johannes Christophorus Sturmius,&c. Norimbergæ, 'sumptibus Wolfgangi Mauritii End teri. Typis Johannis Ernesti Adelbulmeri, anno M.DCCI." It commences thus: Tentamen X. Inventum P. Francisci Lanæ singulare, hoc est, naviculæ per aerem remis velisque agendæ possibilitatem, planiore ac simpliciore modo commonstrans."

This and the drawing (which is as

Mechanics' Magazine, we are apprised of the formation of a Company, for the purpose of applying Mr. Brown's Gas Vacuum Engine to the purposes of Boat and Barge Navigation; and that they have offered premiums for models, &c.qq6 of bise direct communication to the ComNot knowing how to address a pany, I shall feel obliged by your nics' Magazine, to inform them, allowing me a corner of the Mechaand all other similar Companies, that I am in possession of an invention, which I would undertake to apply to any well-built boat or barge, on condition, that if the machinery

miles

hour on smooth per water, and at the rate of ten miles per hour, against the current of of of any | our navigable rivers, then I should not be entitled to any remuneration. Beneath, you will perceive my real name and address, which I request the satisfaction of those who may may remaîn' at your Publishers, før desire further information.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

I am, Sir, to ident Your most obedient servant,br P

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small]

PRIZE CHRONOMETERS.

SIR, #Iam led to intrude once more upon your pages, though, from the na ture of my avocations at this moment, is with inconvenience to myfew errors

[ocr errors]

291

must be the possession of capital. In all other cases his merits will be in proportion to his practical knowledge and experience in his profession, and to his skill in the selection of the workmen he employs, where there may hap

self that cationg pen to be a choice. Now, if a chrono

slipped into

which appears in Number 100 of your Journal, under the head of "Prize Chronometers, I feel it incumbent on me

to

[ocr errors]

notice ther of that article asserts, that "a chronometer is not the production of a single mechanic, but the result of the combined labours of many," and he therefore protests, &c. The fact stated by your Correspondent is admitted,but the argument deduced from it is too fallacious to impose on any one atoallacquainted with the process of making a chronometer. It may deceive those who, having imbibed certain ideas of manufacturing, imagine that articles of every description and quality are to be got together by that process, whether they be those of our general commerce, the instruments of science that are used in conducting that commerce to the remotest parts of our globe, or spurious imitations of these instruments, which are manufactured so as to resemble them in external form, but which are as unlike them in internal excellence, as Hyperion to a satyr."The merit of machines of this description may truly be said to appertain to no particular individual, no higher order of mind having been engaged on those parts on which their excellence must depend, than in the manufacture of the brass and steel of which the whole are composed; and Happrehend that any manufacturer Who is so disposed, may claim all the honours of such machines, without any detriment to the various workmen em. ployed.10 to #fine

The fallacy of your Correspondent's argument consists in the assumption, that chronometers, like ordinary watches, or any indifferent article of commerce, be manufactured by any person who shall have acquired the knowledge of transmitting the various parts froin workman to workman, until the arrangement of the whole be complete. But admitting, for the sake of argument, this to be a fact, what are the honours that exclusively belong to may know is carrying on; instances of which occur in most trades, and in the watch trade among the rest; his only merit, then, in such case,

He

the manufacade fut

thing of the

no

meter were a simple machine, that required no extraordinary skill to execute one part more than another, and the manufacturer had any opportunity for of workmen, then, indeed, would your the display of judgment in the selection Correspondent's argument have some foundation in reason; for no individual workman could then claim honours which must exclusively belong to his employer. This, however, is not the fact, and I fear your Correspondent's protests will be but of little avail.

The perfect chronometer is one of the highest order of instruments of science, and to these instruments the term manufacturing, in its generally understood sense, is completely inapplicable; the various parts of which they are composed may, indeed, to a certain extent, be manufactured, but the judicious arrangements of these parts, in which the merit of the whole machine, when complete, will consist, must be confided to some master genius.

An engineer constructs a bridge, or an architect a custom-house; the one, from the peculiarity of its construction, chokes up, to an inconvenient extent, the water-way; the other, from the rottenness of its foundation, tumbles about your ears. The engineer and the architect, in these cases, may, or may not, be in fault; but however that may happen, no person in his senses ever thinks of charging the defects upon the hewers of stone and drawers of water employed on these works; and if they cannot be charged with the defects, neither can they, on your Correspondent's own showing, have any claim to the merits and, by parity of reasoning, it may be proved, that in the construction of an instrurent of science, wherein different degrees of talent are engaged, the merit of the whole must depend on the highest order employed, to whose genius alone the others must necessarily be subservient. If this degree of talent belong to a manufacturer or shopkeeper, he is entitled to all the honours, not as a manufacturer or shopkeeper, but as a practical workman in the highest branch of his profession, as the master-genius who has given perfection to a machine, the inferior parts alone of which he employed others to execute,

[blocks in formation]

I know not if this reasoning will be sufficient to convince your Correspond ent of his error, but I flatter myself it will satisfy the majority of your intel ligent readers, who will perceive that the consequence of this gentleman's generalizing system is to annihilate all distinctions, in cases where a divi sion of labour exists; it is to place the intelligent mason on a level with the plodding labourer who carries the hod; it is to pluck a jewel from the diadem of the artist, who has been raised by his splendid genius to a glorious immortality, and divide it with the uncouth daubers whom he may have em. ployed to prepare his ground-works. I might have furnished a triumphant refutation of your Correspondent's ar gument, by an investigation of the different degrees of talent engaged in the making of a chronometer; but I have chosen to avoid the invidiousness of such a task, by a recourse to gene ral and analogical reasoning. In the few distinctions and preferences that I have been compelled to make, I must declare, that I have no intention to un dervalue any man's talent; all are useful in their respective vocations. If your Correspondent imagines that I had any intention to undervalue his merits as a manufacturer or a shopkeeper, he is mistaken I have only to observe to him, that Mæcenas had his merits as a patron, but Horace had much greater merits as a poet; and the due honours may be claimed for the one, without at all depreciating the just demands of the other. Your Correspondent may apply this as he pleases. Much has been said of the responsibility of masters, none of which the workman has to bear. This argument, like the former one I have noticed, is more showy than sound. Pray, Sir, are not workmen responsible to their employers for the quality of their work? Does not the workman stand in the same relative position to the master as the master does to the public? If the genius of the manufacturer, manifested in the excellence of the goods he manufactures, be the quality that recommends him to the public, the genius of the workman is, in a similar degree, his recommendation to the manufacturer; and there is as much responsibility on the one part as there is on the other. A manufacturer ignorant of his profession does, indeed, ex

may be so disposed; but I appreliend your Correspondent will not, for a moment, contend that he incurs a superior responsibility on this account.

The proposition regarding the compact between masters and workmen is only true in an abstract sense; times and circumstances may at one period make the workmen the slaves and dependents of their respective employers; at another, the masters may be placed in a complete state of dependence upon their workmen. When the supply of active talent and industry is less than the demand, the possessors of it may take it to the best market; but when this supply is in excess, they have not then the same power. But all this ar gumentation about the relationship of masters and workmen, has really very little to do with the question in dispute; unless, indeed, this inference is meant should be drawn that your Correspondent employed work men to make machines, which, after they were so fade, became his property, and which property he was entitled to use as he thought proper. If your Correspond ent's argument does not mean this, it meaus nothing, and if it does mean this, then, I say, that this is the sum and substance of the only accusation ever made against him, and which ac cusation is what he pleases to call a vilification of character, and is to justify the application of any epithets which he, in his moderation, may think fit to adopt. As to advising, I must declare that I had no idea of giving any advice on the subject; I questioned, it is true, the suitableness of the language to the occasion, and ventured to suggest a mode that would have been more satisfactory and conclusive: this, it seems, has brought upon me the charge of impertinence a thing of but little consequence in it- ' self, and which only shows what has been shown a thousand times

[ocr errors]

is much easier to call a man that it!

imperti

I

nent than to answer his arguments." do not mean to imply that your Cor! respondent could not answer what 1 urged; on the contrary, I believe he could have furnished a very satisfac tory reply that he has not done so, must, I suppose, be attributed to that prudence which prevents him impart ing his knowledge through any other medium than that of his machines. ain Your Correspondent much

:

pose himself, for a time, to a greater importance to the circulaches

degree of reponsibility, as his igno. rance may be taken advantage of by the dishonesty of any workman who

of the Royal Observatory being open alike to all. I have little doubt but that he very innocently imagines, that the

[ocr errors]
« ForrigeFortsett »