MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 83 



coal fire. The meat roasted by this range, owing to the regularity and 

 certainty of the operation, is of a more nutritive character than that 

 cooked by the ordinary process, as more of the juices are retained, as is 

 ascertained by the comparative small loss of weight after cooking. By 

 the operation of broiling, twelve chops can be cooked at once, at a cost, 

 in Liverpool, of not more than two pence per hour for gas. Comfort 

 and cleanliness to the cook, and economy to the consumer, are among 

 the qualifications of this useful invention . 



PIN MANUFACTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



THE "American Pin Company," and the "Howe Manufacturing 

 Company," now manufacture nearly all the pins consumed in the 

 United States. Since the depression of 1846 to 1848, the business at 

 the two companies named has been reasonably profitable, having been 

 rendered so rather by reducing the cost of production and the expense 

 of selling, than by the small advance in price which has been realized. 

 Both companies manufacture the wire for making their pins. During 

 the last year the two companies have used principally Lake Superior 

 copper for making their wire ; their joint consumption of copper 

 amounting to about 250 tons per annum. The present weekly pro- 

 duction of pins by the two companies may be stated at about eight 

 tons. 



In connection with the improvement effected in the manufacture of 

 pins, by the introduction of self-acting machinery, superseding a pro- 

 cess which formerly required six or seven different manual operations, 

 important improvements have been made in the method of sheeting the 

 pins, or sticking them on paper. This, as previously performed by insert- 

 ing a few pins at a time by hand, was a tedious process, at which five or 

 six dozen papers were as many as a good hand could do in a day. By 

 the improved machinery now in use, one hand will stick from 75 to 125 

 dozen a day, and do the work better than it was usually done in the 

 old way. The present price of American solid-headed pins is believed 

 not to exceed two thirds of the lowest price at which imported pins of 

 equal weight were ever afforded before the manufacture was introduced, 

 and, for service, they are undoubtedly better than the article of which 

 they have taken the place. The American improvements in both the 

 pin-making and pin-sticking machinery have been for several years in 

 operation in England and probably in other parts of Europe. Hunt's 



Merchant'' s Magazine. 



MANUFACTURE OF ICE. 



THE London Mechanic's Magazine thus describes Dr. Gorrie's new 

 process for making ice, and the results obtained from it : "To under- 

 stand this machine, conceive of two vertical pumps, made precisely 

 like steam-engines one of which is adapted to condense atmospheric 

 air, so as to squeeze out of it a portion of its gaseous heat, and the 

 other is constructed to admit of the expansion of the same air, connected 

 with the extremities of a beam common to both, and you will form an 

 idea of all that is indispensable to manufacture ice on this principle. 



