NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



thnin more rnpidly into gertern) tisp, iintl ns 

 economy is, or oii^lit to bo, liie order of tlic 



I 



(liW, we (lonl)t not tlint m:iny a thril'ly Imiisp 



kopper will be obliired (o us for inforinina: iier, 



that in the use ofthe^^e furnaces there is ;> great 



snving: of fncl. Those who are over-nice will 



be lurtber oblis:e(l to us for informing them, 



(h;it, wilh a little mnnapfement, they cm l<ee() 



their kitchens in as neat trim as their parlors. 



Many place their furnaces in the yard, and we 



have heard of one lady, at least, v.-ho has had 



the backs and jams of iier kitchen chimney j as some 



place nicely whitewashed, being fully deter-] prolial)l 



mined not to use the same dnrin 



season for any culini'.ry purpose. 



'I'he fui'naces otTered for sale arc of a varie- 

 ty of sizes — some calculated lo receive a small 

 tea kettle and others a large ciuldron. The 

 price demanded for them is very moderate, and 

 so little fuel is necessary, that menlion has been 

 made to us of one laniily who did most of their 

 cnokinsr in one of these furnaces, and consumed 



wimble, and thus make the whole take fire. — ■ 

 In Apulia they wrap a Cane wilhin some cord-, 

 and then drawing the cords backward and for- 

 wards, llip cane liecomes ignited by (he motion. 



Fire is also to be procured i-ro.m ntr. sun by 

 means of a double convex lens, a concave mir- 

 ror, or by a combination of a number of plain 

 mirrors. It was by some one of these expedi- 

 ents that Archimedes contrived to set fire lo 

 the ships of the Romans during the siege of Sy- 

 racuse. And that this account is not fabulous, 

 writers have imagined, is rendered 

 tVom the 'ffects which have been ac- 

 tlie summer , liially [irndiiced liy these cntilrivaiices in later 

 ages. The 'following instances will be sudi- 

 cient to eiiumerale. 



At the lipgiiming of the last century Mr. 



Tschiridiausen, a member of the Royal Aca 



my of Sciences, maile several buining glasses, 

 which were either three or four feet in diame- 

 ter, and had a focus of one inch and a half di- 

 ameter at the distance of twelve feet. One of 

 these, which was convex on both sides, and 

 weighed one hundred and sixty pounds, irm us- 

 ed by M. Homberg, who communicated Ihe re- 

 sult of his experiments lo Ihc Academy, and an- 

 nounced tlie following facts. 



" All sorts of wood,"' says he, " though ever 

 so iiard or green, will be fired by this instru 



hul one barrel of charcoal in five weeks! 



Thev are not new inventions. Though till 



lately but little known in the United Slates, 



they have long been extensively used in some 



parts of Europe. In Madrid, especially, where 



injt tew of the houses have chimneys, the use 



of them is almost universal, and in passing 



through the streets of that city, you may see j ;;^'^''i; "^- 'n;,;^;^,; '" Va,. .._, 



numbers of families, cookmg their dinners in 1 ^.j,, f„,ii immediatelv. Tiles, slates, pomice 



these little furnaces, before their own doors.-- ] ^j^^^^,^ ^p,, j^ ;," moment, and vitrify. Any 



We have no wish to see this custom introduced j ^,^,.,1^ , ■^^^^ „,p crevices of a coal, m'clls in 



into Philadelphia, hut we should like to see ; ., „,„„^p„, Le,„l and tin volatilize eiKirelv.— 



economy generally praclice.l, these hard tlm.^s, ; .j,,^^ .^^^^^^ ^^ 1^^,^,^^ ,^^^, ^^^^j become transpa- 



and these small lurnaces have been represent-, j.g|^( |,,^j j^^ .^^^ instant."' 



ed to us by ilisinlerested persons, as admirably , ,, • , „ , i .i , 



y . ' ' -....- Another inslrument an<l one that 



admirably 

 calcuialed to serve the |)urposes of thrifty 

 housekeepers. — rhiladelpliia Gaz. ^ 



FIRE. 

 According to Plmy, fire was for a long lime 

 unknown tesnrne of the a'lcient Egyptians; and 

 when Eudo.xus, the celebrated astronomer, 

 showed it to them, they were absolutely in 

 raptures 



was still 

 more powerful was constructed in Ihe year 

 1773, under the direction of M. do Trudaine, 

 and placed in the garden of the Infanta at the 

 Louvre. It was composed of two large glasses, 

 each four feet in diameter, joined at the edges 

 so as to hold alcoliol. Tliese glasses, wh.ch 

 were without flaw, were two thirds of an inch 

 thick, and formed two portions of a sphere of 

 The Persians, Phenicians, Greeks, „nd ' eight feet radius, leaving between thern a va- 

 several other nations, acknowledged that their '='"''" '^"H''^f '="?''"".'"^? thnty-hve ^ rench 

 ancestors were once wUhout the use of fire ; ?^'l™' •;' ''T'"'" ^Y T '"strument 



the Chinese confessed the same of their pro- , "f ;'' ^.^f '''^'=',"<"f "' '7 '^^^ '<-" '^hes, when 

 ^onius Mela, Plutarch, and oth- ''"'^'' J'""^ ? f ";'"' i. ^' ^!^^f" «* «'^'"'" '"'='^- 



genitors. Pomp 

 er ancient authors, speak of nations, who atthe 

 time they wrote knew not the use of fire, or 

 had but just learnt it. Facts of the same kind 

 are also attested by several modern relations. 



The inhabitants of the Marian Islands which 

 were discovered in 1521 had no idea of fire. — 

 Never was astonishment greater than theirs, 

 when Ihey saw it on the descent of Magellan 

 oil one of their islands. At first they believed 

 it to be a kind of animal that fixed itself to and 

 fed upon wood. The inhabitants of the Philip- 

 pine and Canary Islands were formerly equally 

 ignorant. Africa presents us, even in our own 

 days, with some nations in this deplorable state 

 of Ignorance. 



The production of fire by collision, and the 

 use of flmt and steel, were probably known 

 long before Ihe time of Pliny ; though the more 

 ancient method of procuring fire was by rub- 

 bing two dry sticks one upon the other with vi- 

 olence. The Indians fasten two slicks of wood 

 together, and then pulling another stick be- 

 tween them, they turn the latter swift like a 



es, when filled with distilled water; and al 

 seven feet when filled with liquid turpentine. 

 Wilh tlris apparatus all Ihe effects already men- 

 tioned were easily produced, and even the 

 clippings of bar-iron were melted in an instant. 



We are informed, liowever, by Mons. Buf- 

 fon, who expended a veiy considerable sum in 

 Ihe construction of difi'erent instruments for 

 concentrating the rays of the sun, that the only 

 way by which the sun's rays can be made to 

 [iroduce an intense heat at a great distance, is 

 by the combination of a considerable number 

 of plain mirrors, so disposed as to throw nume- 

 rous images of the sun upon the same spot. 



One of those instruments, which consisted 

 of 360 plain mirrors, each eight inches long 

 and six inches broad, mounted on a frame eight 

 leet high, produced the following very power- 

 ful efi'ects: 



When twelve of the mirrors only were used 

 light combustible substances were kindled at 

 the dislaiice of twenty feet. At the same dis- 

 tance a large vessel of liu was melted by 4&of 



27 



these mirrors, and a thin piece of silver with 

 117 of them. Willi the entire machine all 

 l!ie metals and melalic minerals were mclieil at 

 Ihe distance of forty feet : and when Ihe skv 

 was clear, wood was kindled by it oven at the 

 distance of 210 feet. 



In a|)procialing the comparative value of 

 concave and plain mirrors, Mons. Biiffon re- 

 marks, (hat as at (he distance of fifty feet the 

 focus, or space in wbirh all Ihe images coin- 

 cide, is about seven inches broad, melals may 

 be assayed by it, and other curious experimeiils 

 made in (he large way, which it is ini|>os'ilrle 

 to execute wilh concave mirrors, in which (he 

 focus is inconveniently near or weak, and gen- 

 erally a hundred times less than that produced 

 by this machine. 



Among other [uirposos for which Ibis inslru- 

 ment may bo employed, the author has staled 

 that it might be used with advantage in ih'J 

 manufacture of salt, by proilucing a quick 

 evaporation of (he salt waler, without Ihe ex- 

 pense of fuel. An assemblage of twelve mir- 

 rors, each a fool square, will, he says, be more 

 than sufficient to give a boiling heat to the li- 

 quor contained in sliallow pans constructed for 

 this piir[>ose. 



There are dilliculties however in applyin* 

 this inslrument lo purposes of general utility 

 which must not be concealed. A cloud passing- 

 over Ihe sun during some processes would be a 

 great inconvenience ; and when the sun does 

 shine in jits full splendour, the motion of the 

 earth will prevent the focus from ever being 

 kept for a minute at a lime on one s|)ot. 



[Far/ccs' Chemical Essays. 



Gcohgktil. — About the 7lli insf. as some brick 

 makers were digging clay, in this town, Ihey 

 struck a stratum of soft earlh which has a per- 

 fect resemblance lo the Jlals mud of salt water 

 rivers. Near this, in the hard clay, were 

 found petrifactions of marine shells. The clay 

 pit on Ihe side of a steep hill, about thirty rods 

 from Ihe river, and about thirty feet above high 

 waler. The stratum of mud is fifteen feet from 

 the original surfiice. 



A more extraordinary case, of this kind, oc- 

 curred a few years since in sinking a well in 

 this vicinity. Thirty feet from the surface the 

 workmen passed a strati m of mud which had, 

 not only the appearance of salt water fiats, but 

 the scent — and this so si long that it was carried 

 home in the clothes of the labourers, and no- 

 ticed by their families who exclaimed, "Why 

 you smell just as if you had been in the salt 

 waler." In this mud were perfect shells. The 

 stratum next above was blue clay — that below 

 a fine sand. This well is perha])S 100 rods 

 from Ihe Penobscot and 60 or 80 feet above 

 high water. 



It ought to be remarked, that such mud is not 

 found on the margin of the river in this vicini- 

 ty. Although the tide frequently ebbs and flows 

 l-dcentij feet, yet it rarely eflects the taste of the 

 water, and never more than to make it a little 

 brackish. — Bangor [Me.) Gaz. 



To pvrify Stone Bottles. — Stone bottles grown 

 musty by use, if partly filled with water, and 

 the water thoroughly frozen, becorne as sweet 

 as ever they were. 



\Parkes'' Chemical Essays. 



