Electric Telegraphs. 413

choked up with a deposit of carbon in four hours; whereas, when worked in the usual way, it is by no means choked in 12 hours, though it (~ught then to be cleaned. If no combination has taken place where has all this carbon vanished to ? 3. Tile combination of carbonic oxide with naphtha is the very ground on which 5J.r. George Lowe took out his patent for naphthalizing coal gas; indeed, he has often said that the more carbonic oxide, the gas~ contained, the more highly illuminating power the naph- thahzed gas posseses; for, according to his own original and forcible words, "though carbonic oxide possesses no illuminating power in itself, it is the best possible beast of burden for carrying it. '~

Mr. Hodgetts then proceeds to say that, at all events, Mr. White does produce 2500 feet of good gas, and two-thirds of a gallon of naphtha from each hundred-weight of resin, and does, by means of his water gas, greatly lessen the deposit of carbon in the resin retort; and as these assertions may, by experiment, be easily proved or disproved, all doubters are in- vited to ~Cgo and see." The spirited corporation of Manchester are at present allowing the erection of White's apparatus on their works, to try the economy of converting their immense production of tar into gas by its means; and the result of this trial will pretty much decide the merits of it.

.Eledric Telegraphs. By JoH~ M.~cGaEGOa.*

In No. 1409 of your present volume there is a notice of a patent for some improvements in Electric Telegraphs--and amongst the abstracts of claims is the following:--

"8. An arrangement for sounding one out of a number of alarums:" It is impossible, of course, to infer from this brief notice what are the

particulars of the invention, and I am not aware of the mode at present adopted. If there be none, by which one only out of a number of sta- tions may be signalled, then I would propose for consideration a plan for effecting this desirable object which occurred to my mind some time ago.

Let the accompanying figure represent a y--3a wheel, with marks 1, 2, 3, and 4, at equal distances on the circumference, and corres- ponding in number to the whole number of stations, say 60, connected by telegraph.

Let the axle of this wheel be made to turn once in a minute by clock-work, and the wheel be so placed on the axle that so long as a detent D rests on a projection P (opposite to the mark 0), the wheel shall be at rest; but when D is lifted (by electricity), the wheel shall have sufficient friction-hold on the axle

W"-I~

to cause it to turn round in the same time--that is, once in a minute. Now let R be a radial arm, capable of being placed at any of the marks 1, 2, 3, &e., and furnished with a projection T, which shall always pass free of D, but be caught by a catch C, provided that catch descends when

~* From the London Mechanic's Magazine, for October, 1850.

35*

414 .Mechanics, Physics, and Chemistry.

T is within a certain distance on either side of the line C M. The catch C is supposed to be moved by electricity, and if it falls so as to strike T, the wheel will be stopped, a certain circuit completed, and a bell rung; but i f (3 does not fall on T, it will be wholly inoperative on the machine.

A wheel, similar to that described, shauld be at every station, and in general the radial arm R at each station should be left opposite to the particular number denoting that station.

Thus the arm R, at No. 2 or No. 27, wilt be at angles at the line D M, particularly representing such stations respectively.

Suppa~ing magnets, circuits, aud bells to be.so arranged that the bell of each station shall be set ringing only when a current is completed through C and T, we may describe the action of the instrument as follows:

I f station .No. 20 requires to correspond with .No. 35, t h e n - - 1. Put the arm R opposite the mark 35 on the rim. 2. Send a current along the wire which will release the detents D at

all the stations, and all the wheels will commence moving (at nearly the same rate.)

3. When the point T comes under C, (that is, in 35 seconds,) the simi- lar point at station No. 35 will then be beneath its catch; therelbre, send another current along the line, which will affect only wheels No. 35 anti No. 20, and will ring the bell of 35.

4. After the communication of the message, return the wheels 20 and 35 to their original position. All the other wheels will have gone round for one mgnute, and will themselves have come into the exact position they were in at first.

By this means, the average time (in the above supposed circumstances) required to signal one station "a, ould be half a minute; but if that should be thought too long (!) the wheels might move at double the proposed rate, and the convenience of this plan will depend on the lime of revolu- tion of the wheels, and the amount of margin which can be permitted on either side of a perfect agreement of their motions.

W e shall see that a comparatively inaccurate adjustment would not impair the usefulness of this simple apparatus; for if the catch C were made of such a breadth as to operate on T when it is at the distance from the line M C, represented by nearly half an interval on either side of that line, an error of nearly half a second in a minute may be allowed without deranging the instrument.

Howth, Sept. 14, 1850.

The New Steamship " ~frlea. ''~.

The "Afr ica ," the latest built of the British and North American royal mail steam fleet, sometime ago made the trip from Greenock to the Bell Buoy in sixteen hours, against a gale of wind which threw the spray clean over the vessel, and high up the funnel. But in the strength of the gale she made thirteen-and-a-half knots. She had previ6usly made a trial trip from Greenock to the Cumbraes~ on which occasion she sailed with comparative ease fifteen miles against a strong tide and wind in an hour and three minutes. She can scarcely be distinguished from her duplicate, the

* From the London Railway Journal, for ]?ffovember, 1850.