256 Machine for securing Persons attempting Depredations 



All Nature is held together by an universal bond: the ve- 

 getable kingdom is joined to the animal by the sensitive 

 plant; birds and fishes by the bat and beaver; the monkey 

 joins beast to men ; and the sun by his vast influence hinds 

 the worlds together that form our system. Let us extend 

 our views a little further, and we shall have the blazing 

 comet uniting the systems of other suns to ours, forming 

 the links of that chain by which the universe is supported. 



XLIX. Description of a Machine for securing Persons 

 attempting Depredations without affecting their Life or 

 Limbs, By Mr. Robert Salmon, of IVoburn *. 



Sir, 1 beg leave to submit to the Society of Arts, &c. a 

 mantrap, which I hope will meet with their approbation. 

 To those who live in the country it is needless To explain 

 the frequency of petty depredations committed on gardens, 

 orchards, &c. and which are sometimes very vexatious. Few- 

 persons would like to endanger the life or limb of the de- 

 predator bv setting the common steel man-trap, yet it is pre- 

 sumed there are but few who would not wish to detect the 

 offender. The instrument which I have the honour to sub- 

 mit to the Society is for the purpose of catching and holding 

 the person without injury. At the Agricultural Meeting 

 at Woburn last summer, an ingenious invention for a si- 

 milar purpose was produced by Sir Theophilus Biddulph; it 

 consisted of a wood box, containing two springs in iron 

 barrels, and two chains passingover and round them : when 

 this was set, the chains were withdrawn from round the 

 barrels, and extended to a certain distance. A trigger then 

 kept the trap from closing. The whole was then covered over 

 with thin iron plates ; so that if a person set his foot on 

 those plates his leg dropped into the box, and the chains 

 closed round it and held the leg; but as the box was about 

 three feet square and a foot deep, it was requisite that it 

 should at setting be let into the ground, which would be a 

 work of considerable labour, and when done it would be 

 difficult to dispose of the stuff from the hole, or to conceal 

 the trap ; and as the whole apparatus was cumbersome and 

 expensive, it appeared to me not to be well applicable in 

 practice. 



* From Trans action.', of the Society for the fcncnurageme?it of Arts, Manu- 



and Commerce., vol-, xxvii. The silver medal of the Society was 



voted to Mr. Salmon for this communication, and one of the machines is 

 reserved in the Society's repository for the inspection 01 the public. 



I think 



