AMERICAN INSTITUTIT. 525 



among us. So with commercial monopolies — the dry-goods importing of 

 New York is now in fewer hands than it was twenty years ago, though the 

 trade is vastly larger. When we have machinery substituted, almost en- 

 tirely for hand labor, there must be a centralization of manufactures and a 

 consequent immense influence in the hands of a few. 



Professor Mason remarked upon the natural indolence of man. Were it 

 not for the vicissitudes of season, we would have no civilization. Never 

 has a truly civilized nation arisen within the tropics. It is a momentous 

 question of the present day to determine whether man, the civilized and 

 enlightened being of temperate latitudes, can maintain his rank, and nob 

 deteriorate in physical constitution and in moral worth within the torrid 

 zone. How is labor to be found, where the climate conduces with man's 

 natural indolence to produce listless inactivity, where we want the fervid 

 energy of Anglo-Saxon civilization? This is a truly important question 

 for us, as scientific men and philosophers — to be considered calmly, and 

 apart from the turmoil of political strife. 



After some further discussion, the subject for the next evening waa 

 chosen, viz: "Governors for Steam Engines," a paper to be read by Mr. 

 Porter. 



The Association then adjourned. 



Polytechnic Association of the American Institute, ) 



December 22, 1859. } 



Prof. Mason, Chairman. Mr. John Johnson, Secretary pro tern. 

 smokeless coal-burning in locomotive engines. 



[London Artizan, Nov., 1859.] 



Extracts by H. Meigs. — Coal, as a substitute for coke in them, is felt to 

 be not only a commercial necessity for reduction of expenditure, but per- 

 fectly practicable as a mechanical problem, in conformity with the acts of 

 Parliament, that railway engines shall consume their own smoke. 



The means of doing so, to be adaptable to a locomotive engine, must be 

 simple in design, facile of application to existing locomotives, easy to 

 manage, easy to maintain, efficient in promoting the combustion of coal, 

 without smoke, to keep up steam, a7id save expense. 



These desirable qualities belong to the system of smoke prevention. The 

 whole apparatus is exterior to the fire-box, and, therefore, not exposed to 

 heat, and is controlled in the most perfect manner by a single stop-cock. 

 Air is admitted, above the fuel, by one or more rows of tubes, inserted 

 through the walls of the fire-box, and jets of steam are projected through 

 the air tubes from nozzles, one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, in small 

 steam pipes outside the fire-box, to increase the quantity and force of the 

 air admitted above the fuel, in order to consume the smoke. The jets of 

 steam are used principally when the engine is standing, with the aid of a 

 light draft from a ring jet in the chimney, to carry off the products of 

 combustion, and these may be shut off when not required. The supply of 



