1 54 Explosive Engine. — Rifle Rockets. 



twenty miles. I have written to a friend at Kincardine, to 

 inquire if there was any water-spout, or other remarkable 

 phaenomenon observed in that quarter on Tuesday evening. 



Yours truly, 

 Gavin Inglis. 



explosive engine. 



An engine of a very remarkable kind is, we understand, 

 about to be brought into public notice ; which, if it answer the 

 high expectation of its inventor, may ultimately supersede the 

 use of the steam-engine. The patents for England and Scot- 

 land are, we believe, both completed, so that we may soon 

 expect to hear the particular details of its construction. At 

 the lower end of a small cylinder is placed a minute appara- 

 tus for producing oil gas. As the gas is generated, it elevates 

 a piston so as to admit as much atmospheric air as when com- 

 bined with the oil gas would render the mixture explosive. 

 When the piston has reached this height, the gas is exploded, 

 and the mechanical force of the explosion is employed to drive 

 machinery. Experiments have, we understand, been actually 

 made with this power, which was employed to force up water 

 to a considerable height. — Brewster's New Journal. 



RIFLE ROCKETS. 



In the last number of the Asiatic Journal, I observe an ac- 

 count (principally taken from the Calcutta John Bull) of an 

 experiment of rockets of Capt. Parlby's manufacture, which 

 took place on the 13th December last. I question whether it 

 is fair to Sir W. Congreve, to call them " Capt. Parlby's rifle 

 rockets," because their construction does not differ from the 

 original inventor's ; and the credit that Capt. Parlby aspires 

 to, is not, I conceive, for having made a " new discovery in 

 the department of projectiles," but in having been able to ma- 

 nufacture in India, a weapon that has hitherto been procu- 

 rable only in England. His proposition was submitted to the 

 Marquis of Hastings in 1815, when Sir W. Congreve was 

 considered as having established a claim to provide war 

 rockets : and if since that period such pretensions be contro- 

 verted, many considerations must be well weighed before En- 

 glish rockets be superseded by those of Indian manufacture ; 

 and I might enter into a few of them now, but that a little de- 

 lay may give us the means of doing so more satisfactorily. Of 

 twenty-four rockets with shafts, fired by Capt. Parlby on the 

 above occasion, six exploded, and six hit the targets (the size 

 of which I have not seen specified). There is no doubt of his 

 being able to make rockets that will range 3000 yards ; I have 



seen 





