MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 85 



and greater sense of security to the rider or driver. For women, or 

 inexperienced and feeble persons, it promises an exemption from the 

 common risk of getting hold of the wrong rein, amid fright and confu- 

 sion. 



IMPROVED SPRING MATTRESS. 



Maurity & Demeure, of New York, have introduced the following 

 improvement in the construction of spring mattresses. The springs 

 are made of copper wire, set upon iron slats which are fixed at the 

 bottom of an iron frame. At the top, the springs, instead of being 

 connected together by wooden slats, rudely fastened, as is the case in 

 the ordinary spring mattress, are united by smaller spirals, also of cop- 

 per wire, which cross the mattress from side to side, and from end to 

 end, connecting the several ranges of springs in each direction, and 

 giving the most equal elasticity and yieldingness possible to every part. 

 So firmly are the springs fastened, that it is not necessary to envelope 

 the mattress in a tick ; it has no cover, and offers no retreat for ver- 

 min. A thin mattress of hair or moss upon it is all that is necessary. 



SELF LOADING CART. 



A self-loading cart has been invented by Messrs. Parks & Rue, of 

 Illinois. The cart is so constructed that two plows with mould-boards, 

 turning in opposite directions, passing inside the wheel, and near its 

 track, raise the earth and throw it into a series of buckets formed in 

 the inside of each wheel near its periphery. The wheels, by their 

 revolution take the earth, thus thrown within them, upwards, by their 

 revolution, to the top of the box, into which it falls, over an inclination 

 of the bucket, and an inclined slide plate upon the top of the box. 

 Scientific American. 



IMPROVEMENTS IN PRINTING. 



Several improvements in types and printing have been invented in 

 London, England, by Mr. Beniouski, the most important of which is 

 thus described. It consists in forming the letter of the type upon its 

 feet and sides, by which the composition can be read as soon as set up, 

 without the necessity of taking a proof. The letter formed upon the 

 foot of the type is so placed that when the type is inverted in the com- 

 posing-stick, with the embossed or printing letter removed from the 

 eye of the compositor, it presents itself to his eye in the same relative 

 position with regard to the other letters in the same line with itself as 

 it occupies on the printed page. By this ingenious arrangement there 

 is no occasion to turn the type to see the letters which have been 

 picked up, and no occasion to be skilled in reading the surface of type. 

 The back of the type presents letters to the eye in the proper succes- 

 sion for reading off, and if a mistake has been made, the foot-letter in- 

 stantly discloses the fact. To make this arrangement perfectly effective, 



