NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



49 



MR. PAII'lE'S APPABATDS. 



We are indebted to the pToprictors ol'tlie "Com- 

 monwealth"' tor the above engraving of Mr. Paine's 

 large apparatus for generating gas i'xom water. 

 We copy from that paper the following de.scription 

 of the engraving: 



The engraving above represents in perspective 

 Mr. Paine's larger apparatus for generating liydro- 

 gen from water, including three of the simple mag- 

 neto-electro machines previously described in this 

 paper (of TInirsday) , made to combine their cur- 

 rents in one set of electrodes. Tiic machine was 

 got up before Mr. Paine had discovered the catnlis- 

 ing process, by spirits of turpentine, and therefore 

 contains two bell-glass gasometers, one for hydro- 

 gcti and the other for oxygen, so that a light 

 might be made by supporting the combustion of the 

 hydrogen with oxygen. The discovery of a mode 

 of making the hydrogen luminous without any con- 

 siderable expense, renders the generation of the 

 oxygen unnecessary r.nd relieves the process of 

 Borne danger of explosion. 



The machine consists of a tripod iron frame, 

 about three feet in diameter, within which is mount- 

 ed a smaller diamond shaped frame, containing the 



three S';t3 of U magnets, wiih a train of toolhe<i 

 wheels to set in motion the helices, and to give the 

 pole-char?ers one revolution to three revolutions oi 

 helices. There arc two small glasses of water for 

 interrupting the wires so as to prevent the deyelojv- 

 ment of mixed gases, and above them on eac'a side 

 a contrivance, which Mr. Paine calls a governor, 

 for letting off an excess of the electric current, a 

 matter of great importance, which has seriously 

 tasked his ingenuity. On the centre of the frame 

 is a perpendicular rod passing through a large 

 weight. The gravitation of this weight when 

 drawn to the top of the rod, gives motion to the 

 helices through the train of clock-work, and its de- 

 scent will keep them in motion, if we luidcrstand 

 Mr. Paine, for twenty-four hours. Mr. Paine as- 

 serts that the power of this machine, which we did 

 not see in operation, as it was undergoing altera- 

 tions to fit it for exhibition in the World's Fair, is 

 not simply three times that of the single machine, 

 but about twenty-seven times. He supposes that 

 by combining the currents of several magnet-s, the 

 decomposing power increases as thr rubf! of the 

 number of currents. The world of course v.-ill wait 

 to see experiments which demonstrate this. To 



