MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 71 



IMPROYED ANTI-FRICTION BOX. 



MR. HENRY STANLEY, of New Hampshire, has recently invented, says 

 the Scientific American, a good improvement in journal-boxes. It 

 relates to the employment, around a journal or axle, of anti-friction 

 rollers, which are allowed to roll around the C3 T lindrical interior of the 

 box. The manner in which said rollers are applied is different from 

 that in other journal-boxes ; the rollers, in this case, consisting of hol- 

 low tubes, Avhich fit easily on a series of spindles extending between the 

 two rings, or plates, which fit within the box and around the shaft, 

 without touching either. This allows the rollers to keep rolling round 

 the shaft, and keeps them at a proper distance apart, and at the same 

 time they take the whole weight of the shaft on their peripheries. In 

 other roller journal-boxes the rollers are generally fitted with their 

 spindles into end plates, and they do not revolve round the shaft or 

 axle, but revolve on their own fixed spindles, and, as they do not touch 

 the inside of the box, their spindles take all the weight upon them, and 

 they soon wear untrue, and do more harm than good. In some boxes, 

 rollers are put in loosely, and sometimes balls have been so put into 

 journal-boxes : both rollers and balls, thus arranged in journal-boxes, 

 foul as it is termed one another, and wear unevenly on their 

 surfaces in a very short time. This improvement is designed to obvi- 

 ate these difficulties. 



NEW BRICK-MACHINE. 



A NEW brick-machine, invented and patented by "Woodworth and 

 Mower, of Boston, is now in successful operation, manufacturing the 

 brick from dry clay, near that city. The machine is of iron, simple, 

 compact, and massive, weighing seventeen tons. It works with great 

 steadiness and precision, and turns out three thousand bricks per hour. 

 The machine and the clay-pulverizer are operated by a steam-engine 

 of twenty horse-power. The clay is first dried, then ground, by pass- 

 ing between heavy rollers, then screened or sifted, and passed into the 

 machine in a uniform, state, where it is subjected to the immense 

 power of the machine, and a beautiful, perfect face-brick^ is produced, 

 almost as smooth and dense as polished marble. The bricks are taken 

 from the machine and immediately set in the kilns ready for burning, 

 thereby obviating the necessity of spreading on the yard to dry before 

 burning, as well as injury or loss from wet weather. By this process, 

 a superior face-brick can be produced, at less expense, than the coarsest 

 common brick by the old process. Boston Journal. 



SINGER'S SEWING-MACHINE. 







A NEW sewing-machine has been invented by Mr. Isaac M. Singer, 

 of Newark, N. J., which is claimed to have superior merits. The 

 machine sews not only straight seams, but curves of any kind, angles, 

 and even ornamental stitching. The work is done at the rate of from 

 one to two yards per minute. The way in which the stitch is per- 

 formed is by two threads, one supplied by a shuttle, the other by a 



