No. 105.] 491 



Finally, the conviction that the interests of agriculture, horticul- 

 ture and floriculture, are of A'ital importance to the welfare of the 

 human race, and that associations established for encouraging im- 

 proved methods of culture, may be truly designated the " collective 

 wisdom" of the republic, is the only apology your chairman has to 

 offer for enlarging on this interesting subject in the present report. 



That each member of the American Institute may energetically 

 fulfil the patriotic duties he has undertaken, in promoting the noble 

 objects contemplated by its founders ; that the proceedings of the 

 Association, in time to come, may continue to be dignified by the 

 administration of " equal justice to all ;" and that it may ever 

 prove the firm friend of the farmer, the gardener, the mechanic, and 

 the manufacturer, is the heartfelt wish of your chairman. 



THOMAS BRIDGMAN. 



Mw- York, October 25, 1845. 



SCRIPTURE'S HORSE POWER, 



The committee to whom was delegated the duty of examining and 

 reporting on Mr. Eliphalet S. Scripture's new arrangement, for ap- 

 plying horse power to move machinery, beg leave to state : That on 

 going to the place where the machine was in operation, they found a 

 horizontal horse wheel on a vertical shaft in the usual manner, but 

 instead of being fitted on the edge or face with cogs, or teeth in the 

 ordinary way, the wheel is so made, that either or both of the faces 

 and the edge may be fitted with a deep groove, each edge of the 

 groove in the material so formed as to produce a truncated semi- 

 cycloidal face inwards, while above, below, or at the edge of the 

 horse wheel, there are shafts placed, which, when horizontal, have 

 their gudgeons in levers, set with the fixed fulcrums a short distance 

 from the gudgeons, and the longer arms weigthed so as to allow a vi- 

 bratory motion in the shafts and gudgeons, and on the shafts thus 

 fitted, Mr. Scripture has fixed what your committee think may be 

 termed " blank pinions," formed as follows : 



A disk of metal is cast convex externally and concave internally, 

 forming an open shell, whose edges are made sectionally, nearly in 

 the same shape as the grooves in the horse wheel, but a little thicker 

 near the edges of the grooves; and just outside this part, an annular 

 groove receives a cover plate ; a hole of the proper size, through 

 both parts, enables the workmen to wedge or key them on the shaft, 

 so that the thickest part of each pinion shall run in and fit tight on 

 the edges of the groove in the horse wheel, wdiich, when put in mo- 

 tion, carries the pinions and shafts with it, by the adhesion of the 

 parts in contact. In situations where metal " blank pinions" cannot 

 be obtained, wood, put in the same shape, will answer the same pur- 



