OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : JANUARY 9, 1872. 337 



transported, so appropriate to the Carthaginian navigators who monopo- 

 lized the carrying trade of the ancient world. This quality is symbo- 

 lized by the horse, the type of transportation all over the world, and 

 chosen by all poets as the emblem of the sea, from Homer in the Four- 

 teenth Book of the Iliad to Byron in the finale to Childe Harold. 



This emendation was suggested to me many years ago by my late 

 revered father. 



Six hundred and thirty-ninth Meeting. 



January 9, 1872. — Monthly Meeting. 



The Corresponding Secretary in the chair. 



Professor J. P. Cooke read the following statement by the 

 Rumford Committee of the grounds on which the Rumford 

 Medal was awarded to Joseph Harrison, Jr., of Philadelphia, 

 by vote of the Academy passed May 30, 1871. This state- 

 ment was adopted by the Committee at a full meeting held 

 December 23, 1871. 



An award of the Rumford Medal was made at the annual meeting 

 of the Academy, May 30, 1871, in the following terms: — "Voted, 

 that the Rumford Medal be awarded to Joseph Harrison, Jr., of Phila- 

 delphia, for his mode of constructing steam-boilers, by which great 

 safety has been secured." 



The " Harrison Boiler " consists of a number of hollow cast-iron 

 spheres, about eight inches in external diameter, and three eighths of 

 an inch thick. These spheres are cast in groups of two or four, the 

 spheres of each group being arranged in straight lines, and connected 

 with each other by curved necks about three and one quarter inches in 

 diameter. Moreover, each sphere has two half-necks, which make 

 openings at right angles to the necks previously mentioned. The open 

 necks are rabbeted, so that any number of the groups of spheres (units, 

 as they are called) may be united to each other, and the system thus 

 built up is held together by wrought-iron tie-bolts, which pass through 

 each line of spheres in the direction of the half or jointed necks, con- 

 necting at each end with caps that close the external orifices of the end 

 spheres on each line. The castings are made with such uniformity, 

 and the necks turned so as to fit each other with such accuracy, that 

 when the rabbeted edges are adjusted and drawn together by the screw 



vol. viii. 43 



