58 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



tend to impart solidity to the whole track. The rails are fastened in the chairs 

 with wooden keys ; each sleeper weighs 100 Dos., and is buried a consider- 

 able distance in the ground, which, with its great breadth of surface, tends to 

 prevent all lateral motion. 



Excluding Dust from Cars. The following is a device of Joseph Woods, of 

 Jersey City, JST. J., for excluding dust from railway cars . He incloses ah 1 the 

 open space below the car with lattice work, arranged like the lattices of com- 

 mon Venetian blinds. The inclosure extends from the base of the car 

 down as near to the ground as safety permits, the wheels, &c., being covered 

 in. 



The inventor alleges that the dust is raised by the air which rushes in to 

 fill the vacuum occasioned by the rapid passage of the car, as it sweeps over 

 the surface of the ground. It is also said, that the lattice-work serves to 

 cause a suction from both sides inward, underneath the car, and that the two 

 currents of air, when they meet, unite, and rush backwards to the rear end of 

 the train. The dust, as fast as it rises, is thus drawn in beneath the cars, 

 carried back, and discharged at the rear. The improvement is applicable, at 

 very small expense, to all of the ordinary passenger cars. 



Railway Night Signals. The following improvement in night signals has 

 been introduced on the South Western Railroad of England. Two lights, one 

 red and the other white, are to be fixed to an arm at a certain distance from 

 each other, and at a certain angle, and to be connected with the axle of one 

 of the wheels of the last carriage of each night train, and caused to revolve by 

 the motion of the train. The speed at which they turn will be governed by the 

 speed of the train, which it will also indicate, to warn and guide the drivers 

 of trains coming after. The present lights on railway carriages can at a 

 distance be scarcely distinguished from fixed lights, and it is impossible at 

 times to guess, until a collision is imminent, whether the light seen ahead is 

 the one attached to the first or last carriage of a train, and consequently 

 whether the train with such a light is coming towards or going from another. 

 To obviate this inconvenience and danger the revolving lights will be most 

 effectual, for even if a train is stopped and the revolving lights are at rest, the 

 angle at which they are placed will render them distinguishable and easy of 

 recognition. 



HOT AIR LOCOMOTIVE. 



Captain Phineas Bennett, of New York, is the inventor of a new loco- 

 motive constructed within the last few months, and which has been tried to 

 some extent on the New York and Erie track, but we regret to say so far 

 without any strong prospect of final success. It is a full sized, very hand- 

 somely finished engine, with two pairs of six feet driving wheels adapted to 

 the broad 6 feet gauge, and is driven partly by air and partly by steam, the 

 two elements being mingled together and worked off in the usual manner 

 by the aid of cylinders and pistons. The steam is generated in a stout 

 chamber immediately over the fire, the water being kept up in the usual 

 manner by a force pump connected with the machinery. The air is heated by 

 passage <7/V<r//// 1hrmi<jh the fire. It is in fact the same air which usually 



