418 Scientific Intelligence. 
Correspondence of M. Nicklés dated Paris, March 8, 1853. 
Caloric Engine.—The use of hot air as a motive power in place of 
steam has been the general topic of conversation among men of intel- 
5 hay 
ently to Captain Ericsson, MM. Franchot, Lemoine, and Lobereau, 
who, unknown to one another, have applied it in the construction of 
machines; it is evidence of their good faith in the question that they 
have each patented their inventions, which they would not have ven- 
tured to have done, if they had been aware of previous inventions of 
the kind. 
M. Burdin, mining engineer, brought out a machine of another kind, 
using in place of a metallic network, a column of sand, which without 
doubt is less effectual. He was occupied in the construction of a ma- 
chine of 8 to 10 horse-power, on this basis, when the revolution in Feb- 
ruary changed the nature of his labors. 
The priority, so much disputed, appears at present to belong to M. 
Franchot,t as well as to Captain Ericsson, for the latter does not date 
his title anterior to 1838, which is the same period with the patent of 
M. Franchot. 
_ A machine of this kind constructed by M. Franchot was submitted 
in 1840 to a commission named by the Academy of Sciences, com- 
posed of MM. Poncelet, Séguier, Coriolis, Savary, and Pouillet, and it 
was put in operation before these judges. M. Pouillet, who was charge 
with reporting on the engine, used his efforts towards burying the me- 
moir of M. Franchot in the “cartons” of the Academy, with his usual 
aversion to innovations in general; an aversion which he exhibited bee 
fore the full Chamber of Deputies, with reference to the Electric Tele- 
raph, speaking of it as Utopian, and chimerical, at a time when this 
admirable invention was already in successful action in the United 
Sates, : 
_- We do not describe here this machine, as it has only an historical 
f 
Niepce, afterwards inventors of the daguerreotype. PF 
cademy of Sciences an apparatus which they called a pyreoloph as 
trongly heated produced the effect of steam. It was the subject 
fet Be et and Carnot.—N : aici sedis 
called « ht in a short time some 
moderator,” which have — Hs to himself the 
