122 REPORT—1848. 
being fixed upon the central portion of the shafting of the guard’s carriages, and 
geared by elastic bands with corresponding pulleys in the carriages, suitably placed 
for being turned by the guard or engine-driver, and also observed by him if motion 
be communicated from any other part of the train, thus affording a means of com- 
municating a limited number of useful signals. 
Whatever may be the methods adopted of communicating signals on railway- 
trains, but little will be done towards the prevention of accidents, unless some more 
efficient mode of quickly stopping the train be also adopted. 
When railway-trains seldom exceeded five or six carriages, and the maximum speed 
was about twenty-five miles per hour, it was found that the shutting off the steam 
and applying breaks on the tender were sufficient. Now when trains consist of ten 
to fifteen carriages travelling at the rate of fifty miles per hour, the breaks on the 
tender and those on the one carriage occupied by the guard are evidently insufficient. 
The author, after stating objections to the system now ia use, proposes his own 
views as follows :—It appears to me that the only means of ensuring the safety of 
railway-trains, and efficiently stopping them when required, is by increasing the 
number of breaks to be brought into operation at the same time. But to effect this 
with the appliances now used would require so considerable an addition of railway- 
guards, that companies prefer to run some risk rather than have an increased expen- 
diture. I have therefore proposed the application of torsion-rods for communicating 
motion from one railway.carriage to the adjoining carriages of the same train, so 
that the guard or breaksman may, in addition to working the breaks of the carriage 
on which he is riding, work the breaks on the adjoining carriages. 
I believe the ordinary breaks may be efficiently put in action by the communicated 
circular motion ; but in case the arrangement should be further extended beyond the 
power of the rods, I have devised other methods by which the breaks might be put 
in action by the application of a very slight force, but which I cannot very conve- 
niently explain without better diagrams or models than it has been convenient to me 
to prepare here. By such arrangement the stoker or driver of a railway-train might 
work the break upon the tender as at present, and also the break on the first and 
second carriage of the train; or these might be supplied with self-acting- breaks 
similar to those proposed by Mr. Stephenson, but so arranged that by a further ap- 
plication of my method of communicating motion by torsion-rods, they may be easily 
thrown out of gear; and the guard being, according to the most approved arrange- 
ment, placed at the last carriage of the train, in addition to working the break on 
his own carriage, will work the break on two adjoining carriages; thus an ordinary 
train will be supplied with six breaks instead of two, and without requiring any 
additional guard. 
On the application of Gutta Percha to the Arts and Manufactures. 
By Francis Wuisuaw, C.E., M. Inst. CB. 
This communication, after detailing the general history of gutta percha, and its 
introduction into this country by Dr. Montgomerie, who received the gold medal of 
the Society of Arts, entered into full particulars with regard to the manufacture of 
this valuable substance in the shape of pipes, driving-bands, shoe-soles and heels, 
&c., and also gave the result of experiments as to its strength when mixed with 
various substances, and likewise of the effect of mixing gutta percha with various 
pigments. 
The articles made of gutta percha which were laid before the Section to illustrate 
the communication, consisted of round and flat bands for driving machinery, pipes 
of various sizes, window-lines, thread, shoe-soles and heels, bowls, pump-buckets, 
fire-buckets, jugs, bottles, life-preservers, constables’ staves, paper-weights, pen- 
trays, powder-flasks, bookbinding, curtain-rings, walking-sticks, whips, outside 
letters, surgical instruments, stereotype-plates, felt-edging, patent cloth, cricket and 
other balls, brackets, shields, medallions, coating for telegraphic wires, &c. 
