572 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



for stove wood — put into a retort and tlieir essence fried out. A cord of 

 pitch wood gives three barrels of tar worth $14 per barrel, and 18 gallons 

 of spirits worth some $7 or $8 the gallon. 



Torpedoes for Petroleum. 



A submarine torpedo was exploded four hundred and sixty-three feet 

 down in an oil well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, making the 

 oil and water shoot thirty feet into the air. The well had ceased to yield, 

 but as soon as the disturbance subsided oil appeared on the surface as fast 

 as it could be dipped off with a hand-pump; The theory is that the oil 

 veins got stopped up with paraffine, and the torpedo blew them open again. 



Pianos made in the United States. 



The yearly product of pianos in the United States has increased from 

 2,000 to 20,000 in the last fifteen years, the latter number being the esti- 

 mated manufacture of the present year. 



E. p. Needham's Pneumatic Way. 



This novel invention was exhibited in practical operation on a small 

 scale before the association. The tubes used were each about ten feet long 

 and made of glass so that the eflect of the air upon the cork balls could 

 be readily seen. 



Mr. Benjamin Garvey. — Mr. President and gentlemen, I have much plea- 

 sure in bringing before you this evening " Needham's Pneumatic Way," as 

 I believe it to be a great invention and one calculated to revolutionize rail- 

 road travel. To develop its principles and show wlicrein its excellence 

 consists, it will be necessary to recall some of the earlier attempts to sub- 

 stitute stationary engines for locomotives. 



As soon as the locomotive began to be generally used, it was found to 

 possess many disadvantageous points which ingenious men strove to 

 obviate. These were dearness of first cost, a locomotive costing more 

 than five times as much as a stationary engine of equal power; expense in 

 working requiring the undivided attention of a fireman and an engineer, 

 whereas one man can attend a stationary engine ; expense in fuel, needing 

 a superior and costly quality of fuel, while any kind can be used with a 

 stationary engine, and the latter can economize its steam and fuel, while 

 the former is necessitated to waste both ; expense in repairs, the jar of 

 travel soon deranging and wearing out its parts, all of which are very 

 costly ; then the life of a locomotive is not one-fourth as long as that of a 

 stationary engine. Also the locomotive being very heavy — from 60 to 120 

 tons — necessitated the building of a more expensive road than would be 

 required for passengers or freight cars (mly, for so heavy a body moving 

 at a high velocity, strikes every obstacle with incalculable force, and the 

 minute fall from one rail to another produces such an effect that the rails 

 are soon battered and rendered dangerous, and would not endure this action 

 . for even a short time if not massive and firmly fixed ; even the oscillating 



