hand man in his exhibition and it was a very interest- 

 ing one. 



He had a long water tank in the centre of the room 

 in which he exhibited various ways of propelling 

 boats. He had one little boat with the ordinary 

 paddle wheels propelled by clock work. He would 

 have his visitors time it in the long tank and he would 

 then take out the wheels and substitute his feathering 

 wheels in their place. These paddles entered the 

 water edgewise and came out in the same way, as he 

 said "the skillful rower feathered his oar." He had 

 Saxton's '"package express," an arrangement of cords 

 over differential wheels the draft being given at the 

 periphery close to the contact with the rail — a pretty 

 plaything. [49] 



I do not think Mr. Saxton ever had the idea of 

 applying this practically, but merely as an attractive 

 feature to the exhibition; it certainly caused much 

 amusement to take hold of the cord, and by a short 

 draft hurl the little car from end to end of the long 

 gallery. Saxton also had on exhibition an electric 

 magnetic motor of his own invention and construction 

 in which great velocity was obtained, the power being 

 from battery, as in Page's engine, that at that time 

 was exciting much attention in America. 168 [50] 



[There was also] a hydrostatic machine to measure 

 the compressibility of fluids; an arrangement of 

 evaporating pans to show the circulation of water; 

 but the great attraction was his [Perkins's] steam 

 generator and steam gun, with which at certain 

 hours or when there were sufficient visitors to witness 

 it, a stream of leaden bullets would be shot the length 

 of the room and flattened and shattered against an 

 iron target. The show never lasted as much as a 

 minute but an almost incredible amount of lead 

 was shot. The bullets were about l^-inch j n diam- 

 eter. I had notes of the weight of lead thrown in a 

 given time but I have lost them. His steam generator 

 instead of being the round massive tubes used by 

 Hawkins, were cast iron and square, as much as 5 

 or 6 inches on a side, the holes through their centres 

 being not much if any greater than one inch in 

 diameter. They passed from side to side in layers 

 through the fire chamber of his furnace. With every 

 stroke of his force pump a given quantity of water 



<££ 



3) 



168 The reciprocating electromagnetic engine of Charles G. 

 Page (1812-1868) was developed in the mid-1840's. See 

 Dictionary of American Biography. 



^f 



Figure 55. — Saxton's locomotive differential 

 pulley. An endless rope (as shown in top 

 figure) was wrapped around each of two con- 

 centric pulleys integral with the shaft o (lower 

 figure). The rim of the carriage wheel (not 

 shown) provided a pivot point at a. Force 

 applied on rope produced turning forces in 

 opposing directions at b and c, causing the 

 shaft to move to the right about 10 times as far 

 as horizontal ropes moved. This effect can be 

 demonstrated by pulling thread from the 

 lower side of a spool that rests upon a flat 

 surface. After British patent 6351, December 

 20, 1832. 



was thrown into the highly heated water in these 

 massive tubes and a like quantity was discharged 

 into tubes of still higher temperature in which it 

 flashed into steam from which it passed into his 

 great cannon or what he called his safety chamber in 

 which he claimed to have a steam pressure of over 

 1000 lbs. to the square inch and from which his 

 steam gun got its supply. I have no recollection by 

 what device, nor the arrangement that let the bullets 

 from the hopper into the barrel of his gun, nor how 

 they were discharged so closely one after another as 

 to appear like a stream of lead in their contact with 

 the target. 



132 



