34 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



given parallel with the second, and a fourth at right angles with the 

 third, when the sheet, having received the folds required, emerges be- 

 tween a pair of pressing rollers upon the stand or carrier's basket. 

 The folding knives or straight-edges are raised and withdrawn by 

 means of cams. The whole process is exceedingly rapid, the machine, 

 when driven by steam-power, folding the papers as rapidly as they 

 can be printed, and with greater neatness and accuracy than can be 

 done by hand. The rollers are supported in a stout wooden frame- 

 work, and the whole machine occupies about the same space as the 

 printing-press. It is managed by the ordinary pressman, requiring no 

 additional attendant. It has been in daily and successful operation for 

 nearly a year, and has given great satisfaction. The patent-right for 

 this country and Europe is owned by a company, of which Hon. Geo. 

 Bliss is President, incorporated by the Massachusetts Legislature. 

 Several more of the machines are finished and about to be brought 

 into use. The folder can be applied to folding books and pamphlets 

 as well as newspapers, with a slight alteration of the machinery, and 

 it is here that its importance is most obvious. Editors. 



CLEMENS'S COTTON-PRESS. 



MR. S. A. CLEMENS, of Granby, Conn., has invented a cotton-press 

 which is alike remarkable for the principle and efficiency of its action. 

 The various kinds of baling-presses hitherto in use are designed to 

 compress at once the whole amount of material forming the bale, and 

 hence require an application of power sufficient to meet the expansive 

 tendency of the entire mass. Differing from all these, this new press 

 forms the bale by a continuous process of aggregation, only a small 

 quantity of the material undergoing condensation at any moment, 

 while the expansion of the accumulating mass is prevented, in such a 

 way that it does not react upon the motive power which drives the 

 machine. As a baling-press, it admits of universal application, such 

 modifications being made in the subordinate parts as may be necessary 

 in adapting it to the nature of the material upon which it is designed 

 to operate. When used for baling cotton, it is attached to the com- 

 mon plantation cotton-gin, and driven by a belt connecting the two 

 machines. A description of the process by which a bale is formed 

 will serve to introduce the characteristic features of the invention. 



The cleaned cotton, as it is thrown from the gin, falls upon a lap- 

 cylinder, where it is formed into a continuous sheet of uniform width 

 and thickness. This, descending from the lap-cylinder, passes be- 

 tween two horizontal cylinders, which are in the middle of a system 

 of horizontal rollers, devised to lie upon the cotton when condensed in 

 the machine, and prevent its expansion upwards. Passing between the 

 receiving cylinders, the " lap" of cotton rests upon a table suspended 

 below the horizontal rollers by four vertical screws, supported above 

 by a carriage, which, resting upon girders of the frame which receive 

 the bearings of the rollers, is made to traverse back and forth a dis- 

 tance corresponding to either the width or length of the bale, accord- 

 ing as the machine maybe arranged. The screws are geared together 





