REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 139 



The 'speed of the engine, 320 revohitions per minute, is reduced, 

 by means of belt pulleys situated within the engine-house, to forty 

 revolutions. This speed is transmitted by means of a belt to a main 

 transverse shaft of l|-inch steel running across the houseboat just 

 outside the engine-house. From this main shaft three transmissions 

 are made. 



The first of these is by means of mitred gears to a 1-inch shaft 

 running lengthwise of the well in the center of the houseboat. By 

 means of the gears the speed in this is reduced to twenty revolutions 

 per minute. The other two transmissions are made to 1-inch shaft- 

 ing running transversely on the two floats. The constant change 

 in level between the houseboat and the floats, caused by the motion 

 of the water, made necessary the adoption of universal joints (Plate 

 XVII), invented especially for this purpose, to connect the shaft on 

 the houseboat with the shafts on the floats. These universal joints 

 consist of a pair of toggle-joints united by means of a sleeve in 

 which two pieces of square shafting slide. The toggle-joints make 

 possible the transmission of power at any angle, and the square 

 shafting, sliding in the sleeve, allows for the lengthening or shortening 

 of the distance between the houseboat and the floats. From the 

 two transverse shafts on the two floats, which of course have the 

 same speed as the main transverse shaft on the houseboat, connection 

 is made, by sets of mitred gears, to longitudinal shafts running the 

 length of the centers of the floats. The speed of these shafts is also 

 reduced by the gears to twenty revolutions per minute. These 

 longitudinal shafts are of one-inch steel and are 53 feet long. It 

 might further be said that the shafting used in this longitudinal 

 drive of 53 feet is purposely of 1-inch stock because, with the 

 constant bending of the long float, a heavier shaft, because of its 

 rigidity, would pull out the hangers. The one-inch shafting readily 

 bends with the floats, and the slow speed of twenty revolutions is 

 not materially interfered with. The shafting is supported through- 

 out by ordinary babbitted shaft-hangers. 



From these two longitudinal shafts, and from the shaft running 



