110 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



sun's rays and continuously directs them upon a body placed in or near the 

 focus to which the rays arc required to converge, the thermoheliostat being 

 made to keep pace or correspond with, the sun's diurnal motion. The 

 patentee proposes to use the thermoheliostat for the purpose of distilling sea 

 water, and obtaining therefrom fresh water ; also for boiling and evaporat- 

 ing and generating steam ; and for purposes of cooking, especially in 

 tropical climates, and in positions where the sun's heat is great, and where 

 it may be difficult or expensive to procure coal, wood, or other fuel for mak- 

 ing a fire, such as at certain lighthouses, in positions little frequented. The 

 patentee states that he prefers reflecting the rays of the sun to refracting 

 them through glass, but describes both. 



MACHINE FOR SORTING IVORY COMBS. 



In the manufacture of ivory combs the blanks are generally cut of as 

 great length as the width of the elephant's tusks, out of which they are 

 made, admits. Therefore there is always a great variety of lengths, and 

 many of them are so nearly of the same size that it is difficult to detect any 

 difference without comparing them closely, side by side. 



It is desirable in putting the combs up in packages of dozens, more or 

 less, to have all the combs in one package of the same size exactly. The 

 only way of sorting them heretofore employed, has been to pick them out 

 by hand, which is a slow and tedious operation, requiring great practice to 

 acquire any considerable degree of skill. 



Messrs. Wm. IToskett and Benjamin S. Stedman, of Meriden, Conn., 

 have recently invented a machine which is intended to perform this opera- 

 tion of sorting, with great exactness and despatch. It consists of a round 

 table with a slot or groove cut through around its edge. Said slot is made 

 in flaring form, being wider at one end than the other. The blanks are 



o * o 



placed one at a time, across the head or movement part of the slot ; there is 

 a pointer in the centre of the table, which then comes around and sweeps the 

 blank along the surface of the slot until a point is reached where the slot is 

 wider than the blank, when it falls through. Boxes are aranged beneath 

 the slot, into which the different sizes fall, and thus are separated. 



IMPROVEMENT IX FLUTES. 



Ail improvement in flutes has been recently patented by M. J. Pfaff, which 

 consists in placing the mouth piece of the flute at right angles to the body 

 of the same, so that the instrument may be played upon without the per- 

 former twisting his arms and neck into an unnatural position. 



NEW METHOD OF MAKING BASKETS. 



The following plan of making baskets has been recently patented : The 

 body of this basket is made entirely of upright splints or staves, without 

 braiding in cross strands. These splints are nearly an eighth of an inch in 

 thickness, and are held firmly in place between the two pieces of thin board 

 that form the bottom and the two hoops that form the top binding or rim, by 



