wear.

It appears to be suited most for any shaft that passes through a stuffing-box, as for screw propellers and the cylinder trunnions of oscillating engines, also for guide bars for piston rods and cog-wheel shafts in general.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

S. G. DAVIS.

P. S. I have shown my invention to an eminent engineer; his opinion is, that it is new, and good where great accuracy is required; but that in general, with good work, the wear of the brasses is of little consequence.-S. G. D.

A VOICE FROM THE FARMSTEAD, ON MOORE'S ALMANACK, AND SOLAR TIME.

Sir, The recent introduction into Moore's Almanack of the Rising and Setting of the Sun in mean time, is a subject of great complaint amongst people of limited education. A recital of the crude ideas they entertain upon the subject may be a little amusing to your scientific readers, and perhaps afford a useful lesson to the proprietors of that popular almanack-popular still, notwithstanding the Oxford-street druggists, anticipate the total eclipse of an "old and fast growing obsolete contemporary," for sinning against mean time.

The character of the venerable "Francis Moore, physician," as an almanack-maker, was always held in high veneration in the country; the people well understood and valued his columns of equal semidiurnal arcs, that gave to the arch of day all the beautiful symmetry of the rainbow; they admired the exact precision with which he pointed out the period of equality between day and night, that grand epoch in the year's revolution, when the sun rises at six in the morning, and sets at six in the evening. Country people always took great interest in the day when the sun crossed the line, and shed his twelve hours of glorious light over the face of the earth; they consider solar time the best suited to their rural fields and villages; it is the time pointed out to them by the

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finger of nature-the true primitive time shown of old by the dial of Ahaz, and which is shown still by the lights and shadows upon the village church tower. When the season comes for gathering together the "golden grain," the apparent time of sunrise is the beginning of the harvestman's day, and the apparent sunset the end of it; and he would call that man a mean fellow who would venture to talk about mean risings and settings; he would answer emphatically, that solar time is the poor man's time. The adherence to solar time was undoubtedly the principal cause of the popularity of "Old Moore."

They say now, that their favourite almanack is fallen into the hands of some modern quack, some careless blundering innovator, who knows nothing about almanack making; that they cannot at all understand his tortuous columns of mean risings and settings,-that he "maketh the day to go upon odd legs"-or, as some express themselves, "to lengthen at one end, and shorten at the other" or that the equinoxes should be involved in a nine days' mystery; they cannot understand why, in October and November, "the forenoons should be half an hour longer than the afternoons," or that the sun, setting at six o'clock on the 21st of September, should be made to journey nine times round the earth, before he arrives at the six o'clock point of rising. Some say "this looks very like making the sun go backwards.'

The unscientific are sorely puzzled at these apparent incongruities; they exclaim, "Let the learned have their mean, their equated, their sidereal, or any other time they choose to invent, but let them not rob us of the time so well suited to our habits and understandings." There are many well-educated persons, too, who regret the absence of the equal semidiurnal arcs of Moore, accompanied as they always were by an equation table for turning them into mean risings and settings, and which ought to have been considered quite sufficient.

Although strongly advocating what may truly be denominated the people's time, I am desirous that it should be understood that I am not totally ignorant of the value of mean time in exact science, to the astronomer, navigator; and others; but if I want the mean time of the sun rising or setting in my own

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men.

Mean time, may be a very good thing in a dense London fog, but it is of very rare use in our sunny fields and rural villages. The Editor of Moore's Almanack, himself, indeed, was clearly of this opinion, when a very few years since he thus addressed his readers: "I still give the sun's rising and setting in solar time as best suited to my country readers." I can assure him, that when he wrote this, he never wrote a greater truth in his life, and the departure from this rule has created almost as much sensation in the country, as did the striking out at one "fell swoop" the eleven days from the calendar.

West Norfolk, January 11, 1845.

I. L. W.

DESCRIPTION OF A NEW APPARATUS FOR GREASING LOCOMOTIVES AND OTHER RAILWAY VEHICLES, INVENTED BY MR. F. BUSSE, SECRETARY OF THE LEIPZIG AND DRESDEN RAILWAY COMPANY.

The considerable expense incurred by railway companies in consequence of the defective nature of the grease used on most lines, has directed my attention towards improving that branch of the service and putting an end to the rapid wearing out of the axle-tree arms and the axle pans or brasses, occasioned partly by the imperfect grease (palm-oil grease,) partly by the friction of iron upon brass. At present the grease contained in the upper part of the axle-box is not sufficiently sheltered from the dust and sand, and penetrating to the brasses with an admixture of sandy matters, creates a friction both detrimental to the axles and brasses and to the tractive power of the engines. Though replenished at every station I have often found axles very hot, and I know instances where one axle consumed one pound of grease on a station of ten or fifteen miles.

I have invented a mode to construct axle-brasses of wood combined with bone and hard lead, instead of brass, and to grease them with a few drops of rapeseed

oil, well secured against dust and sand. My apparatus is very simple, and can be adapted to any existing railway vehicle at an expense of a few shillings. The axle-brasses constructed according to my principle hardly wear out at all. I have run a wagon provided with them about 10,000 English miles, and found the wear so insignificant, that I could not determine its extent by measurement. The consumption of oil was likewise so trifling (3 pounds) that a calculation of it per mile would hardly have been possible. Axle-brasses cost about 6s. a piece; after a few months' use this value is reduced to about one-fourth; when the grease happens to contain dust or sand, sometimes they may be worn out in a few days. The cost of an axle-brass of my invention will not exceed 1s. 6d. or 28., and if further experience confirms the satisfactory results of the first experiments tried on the Leipzig and Dresden Railway, a wooden axle-pan will wear out ten or more brass ones.

Moreover, I am confident that my plan will obviate the very objectionable lateral motion of the carriages, which is in a great measure the consequence of worn-out brass-pans and axle-tree arms.

The greasing at every station will also be saved, for a vehicle with the contrivance I propose will run 500 miles without greasing.

For further details I beg to refer to the following description, and I am ready to send to any company on demand a complete axle-box, which will best enable them to form a correct opinion on the merits of my invention.

Having taken no patent in England I abandon my invention to public use; trusting to the feelings of those who adopt it for any indemnity they may think proper to allow me.

The accompanying figure is a sectional view of an axle-box, such as is generally used on railways.

A a,

A is the place which contains the palmoil grease. In place of this I substitute a small cast-iron plate with a little rim, and a little oil-box, B; the latter to be filled with oil not higher than the dotted line. A notch is cut into this box as deep as the dotted line to receive a thin cotton-wick C, giving about one drop of oil every three minutes; one end of this wick is placed in the oil-box, the other upon the plate to which it is to transfer

boilers; the steam is prevented from ever blowing off at the safety-valve, by careful management of the fires; and, in short, every precaution that ingenuity can devise, or prudence suggest, is taken, in order to reduce to its lowest possible limit the dispersion of heat, and consequent waste of fuel.

The arrangement of the pumps and their machinery has been greatly improved since the days of Watt, aud no inconsiderable share of the improvements in duty, is attributable to this cause. The description of pumps universally employed now, (except in the lowest part of the well, where a lift pump is placed,) is the plunger pump; three or four of these, according to the depth, being placed at different levels in the shaft.* The rods which connect the plungers with the outer end of the engine beam are necessarily, from their length, of great weight; and it is this weight, or, at least, a portion of it, which causes the plungers to descend, thereby forcing up the water in the ascension pipes. The mass of rods is raised by the action of the steam in the descent of the piston; and when this has arrived at the bottom of its course, and by the opening of a valve, the equilibrium is restored between the upper and lower parts of the cylinder, the rods again raise the water by descending, and are afterwards again raised by the steam in their turn, so that the power of the steam is not immediately employed to raise the water, but lifts a dead weight, which, in its descent, forces down the plungers. The pump-rods generally furnish more weight than is sufficient to overcome the pressure of the column of water in the ascension pipes, and the surplus is counterbalanced by weights attached to levers, or "balanced bobs," placed at the surface, or in horizontal excavations in the shaft. There are many minor improvements which have been made in the valves, and other details of the engine, as well as in the method of managing and working it; all of which have conduced more or less to the advancement of the duty performed, but which our limits will not permit me to describe. They do not, indeed, affect the general principles upon which the engine works; and enough has been said to show that this, by far the most perfect and effective form of an invention, itself the most perfect and useful to mankind of any yet recorded in the page of history-that this is, to all intents and purposes, WATT'S ENGINE; and that it has only been by carrying out, to a further extent, the principles laid down and first put in practice by that great man, that the ex

All these fittings, including "balance bobs," constitute what is called the "pit-work."

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traordinary achievements now witnessed have been accomplished. And, in fact, one of the most eminent of the Cornish mining engineers has said, in speaking of the modern pumping engines, that "the engine is now reduced to its simplest form, a single engine on Boulton and Watt's construction; and, although our engines exceed in duty three or four fold what Boulton and Watt had ever attained, or perhaps thought possible of attainment, yet they are, after all, in name and reality, Boulton and Watt's engines." It would be, however, an act of gross injustice to the Cornish engineers to pass by unnoticed the improvements in the performance of the steam engine, due to their mechanical skill, and scientific knowledge: and, indeed, if their merit be measured by the advantages which have resulted from their efforts, they, as a body, will deserve most memorable mention in the annals of the steam engine.

I shall now proceed to present a brief view of the history of the various improvements in duty which have gradually taken place for the last half century, the materials for this purpose being supplied by a very succinct account compiled by the Messrs. Lean, Brothers, and published by direction of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. To this work I refer for more detailed information.

It will be as well to explain that the word "duty" may be defined to mean the useful effect produced by the engine, considered in proportion to the quantity of fuel consumed. In Cornwall, the duty is always stated in pounds lifted one foot high by the consumption of one bushel (about 94 pounds) of coal. Thus, when it is said that a certain engine performs a duty of seventy millions, it is understood to mean that the engine lifts seventy millions of pounds of water 1 foot high for each bushel of coal consumed.

The connection of WATT with the Cornish miners, who paid him for his great improvements by a per centage upon the value of the fuel saved by them, is well known, and is mentioned in almost every history of the steam engine. It may be sufficient to state here that he raised the duty, from about nine millions, as previously performed by the atmospheric engine improved by Smeaton, to upwards of twenty millions; and the average duty in 1800, when the patent of Messrs. Boulton and Watt expired, and their agent left the county, may be stated at this amount. After this period a great and general deterioration took place, from the want of persons of sufficient experience and scientific acquirements to keep the engines in the same good state, and to work them to the same advantage, as formerly.