546 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



to exist but a small chance for a profitable investment of time in 

 the picking operation proposed, and its powder-proof secureness 

 must be undoubted, there being absolutely no opening from the 

 outside to the interior of the lock in any possible position. 



Mr. Geo. W. Barney, of this city, had on exhibition a full-sized 

 working specimen of Wright's folding machine for packing woven 

 goods. The common method of folding by hand is in this inven- 

 tion supplanted by a modest-looking frame, supporting a curved 

 top, across which the cloth is folded very rapidly and with perfect 

 accuracy, by the aid of a cross-piece attached to levers, projecting 

 upward from a shaft below. The cloth is held at eacli end by a 

 peculiar species of clamp, which holds tightly all it gets, and re- 

 ceives each new fold of cloth as readily as a " short-boy" takes an 

 appointment in the custom-house. The machine is very beautiful 

 in the accuracy and perfection of its working, and will we pre- 

 sume be extensively used in all the varieties of our large cloth 

 manufactories. We should presume that the goods would be 

 measured in this way with considerably greater accuracy than 

 with the old process of stretching across by hand between hooks. 

 It is one of the steps by which machinery is continually super- 

 seding the imperfect results of mere hand-labor, and driving the 

 laborer to thenecessity of cultivating his mental faculties to avoid 

 being completely run over. 



Mr. Veeder remarked, on the recent explosion of a boiler at 

 Albany, and its remarkable power. The boiler was a new one. 



Mr. Tillman, after saying that several of us are connected with 

 the great Fair at the Crystal Palace, and want all our time to at- 

 tend to that, moved that when the Club adjourns it do adjourn to 

 the second Wednesday in September next. Carried unanimously. 



Mr. Stetson desired Mr. Montgomery to state what degree of 

 heat in the water he used to test boilers ? 



Mr. Montgomery explained, and stated as one of the pheno- 

 mena of water, that it remained entirely inert when heated red hot. 



Mr. Meigs recalled the celebrated experiments of the second 

 Perkins, in London, a half century ago; that is heating water red 

 hot, or rather white hot, in cylinders, the water being there con- 

 fined under pressure. 



