94 REPORT—1845. 
In addition to the resistances, force of traction, &c. already described, the author 
briefly detailed several experiments made on the Hunts Bank Incline with two loco- 
motive engines belonging to the Manchester and Leeds Railway Company. Both 
engines had 14-inch cylinders, and 4 feet 8 inches driving-wheels. The first, with all 
the six wheels coupled, took a gross load of 82 tons 2 cwt. up a gradient of 1 in 60 for 
a distance of 1144 yards, and 1 in 46 for a distance of about 900 yards; and the 
whole distance of 2054 yards was accomplished in 6 minutes. 
By the second engine, with only four wheels coupled, the same load was carried 
and the same distance performed in 5 minutes and 30 seconds, being at the rate of 
nearly 12 miles an hour. : 
From these experiments, and others which are still in progress, it is inferred that a 
great saving may be effected in the first outlay and construction of railways; and in- 
stead of spending large sums in tunnels, cuttings and embankments (in order to attain 
easy gradients), it will ensure much greater ceconomy, and prove more conducive to 
the public interests, leaving out of the question the merits of the atmospheric principle, 
to increase the powers of the locomotive engine, and work lines with gradients vary- 
ing from 1 in 100 to 1 in 30. 
On a new Method of converting Rectilinear into Rotatory Motion. By the 
Rev. James Boorn, LL.D., F.R.S., M.R.I.A., Vice-Principal of, and 
Professor of Mathematics in the Liverpool Collegiate Institution. 
The geometrical property on which this motion is founded is one long known and 
of great simplicity. Let a right line of constant length move so as to have its extre- 
mities always in contact with two fixed lines at right angles to each other, the middle 
point of this constant right line will describe a circle, The author then institutes a 
comparison between this method, which he terms the sliding crank, and the common 
crank, as applied to the direct action engine, and shows that in the latter, if # be the 
distance from the bottom of the cylinder through which the piston has ascended, 
while the shaft has been revolving through the angle 6, 2@ and c being the length of 
the stroke and of the connecting-rod respectively, we shall have the equation, 
2 4 6 
:= Bani Po sint? 6+ Qe sintd+R @  sin® 6, &e., 
2 c c3 é 
P QR being numerical coefficients; while in the sliding crank the relation between 
2, a and @ isa = 2 asin” £. Now these equations become identical, by supposing ¢, 
the connecting-rod, indefinitely great; hence it follows that the motion of the sliding- 
crank is identical with that of a common crank, whose connecting-rod moves parallel 
to itself, the most perfect theoretical form of the latter. He then discusses the fric- 
tion on the slides, and proceeds to show that, when the engine is producing its maai- 
mum dynamical effect, the friction is insensible, and concludes by pointing out the ad- 
vantages which this method possesses on the ground of compactness, the space occu- 
pied by the machinery being very small; so that, while in the direct action-engine the 
distance between the shaft and the top of the cylinder is equal to one-half the stroke 
+ the length of the connecting-rod, in this construction the distance is one-half the 
stroke simply,—a property of much importance where room is an object of conside- 
ration. 
