PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 599 



completed, when tlic feed motion stops, and the machine gives notice by 

 sonnding an alarm. 



The machines are ranged in a row, and one girl can attend some twenty 

 of them. By another process, a piece of hard rubber is i)ressed into tlie 

 prciper form for two combs with the backs at the two edges, and then the 

 teeth are all formed at a single stroke of a press — each tooth of one comb 

 coming from out the space between two teeth of the other comb. The third 

 process is employed in cutting the finest teeth. A very thin blade of steel 

 lias a rapid reciprocating vertical motion over an anvil of block tin, and 

 the comb to be cut is fed along horizontally under the cutter — one tooth 

 being formed at each stroke. In this operation the rubber is kept warm, 

 and no material is cut out — the tooth being formed by pushing aside a por- 

 tion of the substance. 



After the teeth are cut the combs are polished by hand — the work being 

 done mostly by girls. The combs are first ground upon a stone, and the 

 polishing is finished upon a buifer of cotton and oil. They are then packed 

 and sent to market. The business is large, and great fortunes have been 

 m:ide from the manufacture. 



Mr. Joseph Miller said, in the manufacture of large horn combs, there is 

 great difiiculty in getting large plates without cracks. To overcome this 

 trouble the teeth are cut crooked, when, if a tooth breaks out, the horn is 

 heated and pressed out to the required length. 



CLYDONICS No. 2. 



By Prof. S. D. Tillman. — The celebrated liistorian. Buckle, believed the 

 most effective way of turning observations of natural phenomena to account, 

 would be to give more scope to the imagination and incorporate the spirit 

 of poetry with the spirit of science. By this means our philosophers would 

 double their resources, instead of working, as now, maimed and with only 

 one half of their nature. They fear the imagination on account of the 

 tendency to form hasty theories. But surely all our faculties are needed 

 in the pursuit of truth, and we cannot be justified in discrediting any part 

 of the human mind. 



These views if not applicable to methods of original research, are cer- 

 tainly of great moment in considering the best means of diffusing scientific 

 knowledge; and if there is any branch of philosophy' which is pre-eminently 

 entitled to bring to its service the free play of fancy, it is that treating of 

 the force of waves, whether propagated through liquids, eeriform fluids, or 

 more attenuated media. • 



The Pharos. 



A discourse on the structure of the flame of the ordinary lamp might not 

 gain general attention, yet how intense the interest as we speak of the 

 particular light which a captain seeks when his vessel, freighted with 

 human beings, midst storm and darkness, has nearly reached its haven. 

 There are scattered along our vast boundary five hundred such beacons, 

 kept in operation at an annual expense to the United States Government of 

 more than a million dollars. 



A description of one of these is given in the posthumous papers of the 



