38 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



ing 3 tons, and of 26-horse power. The engine moves across the 

 centre of the field on a light portable railway. The ploughs advance 

 and recede on either side of the railway, at right angles to it. The 

 plough employed consists of four ordinary, and the like number of 

 subsoil ploughs, fixed in a frame ; it is directed by a person standing 

 upon a small platform. While the advancing plough on one side is 

 working, the receding one on the other is idle, till it regains its 

 proper position for ploughing the next four furrows. The ploughs 

 are attached to an endless chain, 150 yards long, and provision is 

 made in case they strike against any impediments. Such a machine 

 performs the work of sixteen ploughs, driven by as many men, and 

 drawn by thirty-two horses. London Builder, Sept. 



MACHINE FOR HAMMERING WROUGHT-IRON. 



IN the process of hammering or shingling, welding, and rolling 

 wrought-iron, letters patent have been granted for a machine, the in- 

 vention of a well-known iron master, which promises at no distant 

 day to make a revolution in the forge and the rolling-mill, and much 

 decrease the price and improve the quality, not only of the heaviest 

 wrought-iron shafting, but even of the smallest rods. This machine 

 consists of three or more conical frusta of metal, confined in a frame, 

 with their smaller ends downwards, in such a manner that revolution 

 may be imparted to all of them, and the axis of each of them is ar- 

 ranged as near as a right line can be upon the periphery of an im- 

 aginary inverted cone, in such a direction that a line drawn through 

 each axis would not point exactly to the apex of the imaginary cone 

 above alluded to, but a little on one side of it. By this arrangement, 

 a space like a hopper is left between the frusta, and gradually di- 

 minishes as it descends. Masses of iron at a welding heat, or there- 

 abouts, are thrown into this receptacle, and a rotary motion imparted 

 to the frusta, which, on account of their axes being eccentric to the 

 apex of the imaginary cone, gradually screw the heated mass down- 

 wards, compress it and force it out through the circular space between 

 the smaller ends of the frusta. The iron is therefore drawn out, and 

 as it is drawn the fibres are twisted so that they are placed in the rod 

 much in such a way as are the yarns in a strand of rope. By giving 

 slight eccentricity to the axis of the frusta, and great velocity of rev- 

 olution, the strain of them upon their journals may be reduced to any 

 extent required. Puddlers balls may be squeezed in this machine, 

 shafts of any size may be forged, and round iron of any dimension 

 rolled. In the experimental machine a three-inch billet has been 

 rolled down, at one operation, to a half-inch rod. Patent-Office Re- 

 port, 1849. 



MACHINERY FOR ROLLING IRREGULAR FORMS. 



MR. JOHN S. HALL, of Columbus, Ohio, has patented some ma- 

 chinery for rolling irregular forms of metal. The nature of it consists 

 in connecting with the rollers of an ordinary rolling-mill, a shaft 



