1852.] 



PENNY WISDOM. 



103 



witli a dift'tji-eiit scale. Such is literally the case with the mag- 

 netical piibhcations refen-ed to, all of which inconvetiience would 

 probably have been saved if the machine we refer to had formed 

 a part of the equipment of such establishments, thus allowing a 

 scale of any special value required to be j)roduced as often as 

 needed — with the ordinary engines, the generation of a new scale 

 is a serious undertaking. In fact the uses of Perreaulx machine 

 as an addition to general philosophical ajsparatus, owing to the 

 extreme minutene.ss and accuracy of the linear measurements of 

 which it is capable, and the great variety of scales which can be 

 produced are as numerous as we think they would be found in 

 the more practical pursuits above referred to, and we should be 

 glad to hear of some enterprizing mechanic in Canada providing 

 one of them. The price in Paris is about £42 currency ; for 

 £20 additional the means of circular division are added. 



Penny Wisdom. 



There is a huge heap of chemical refuse now near the banks 

 of the Tyne at Gateshead, which is not only a commercial nothing, 

 but the manufacturer who unwillingly calls it his property, would 

 most kindly greet any one who would take it oft' his hands ; for 

 he has to lease sundry acres of land for no other purpose than to 

 deposit this refuse theieon. It is of such nothings as these that 

 we would speak ; and of the ingenuity which, from time to time, 

 draws something therefrom. And we would also direct atten- 

 tion to a few miscellaneous examples of the useful application 

 of materials loug_, valued — the causing " a httJe to go a great 

 way." 



Schoolboys display great skill in breaking then slates. Shall 

 they be allowed to continue the exercise of this interesting prac- 

 tice ; or shall we. invite them to use the new Wurtemberg slates ? 

 A manufacturer in that country has invented a mode applying 

 a surface coating to sheet iron, which enables it to take freely the 

 mark of a slate pencil ; it is said to be much lighter, and much 

 less hable to injury, than a common slate. If we have sheet 

 iron slates, why not sheet-iron paper ? Baron Von Kleist, the 

 proprietor of some iron works at Nandeck, in Bohemia, has late- 

 ly produced paper of this kind, from which great things seem to 

 be expected. It is remarkable for its extreme thinness, flexibility 

 and strength, and is entirely without flaws. It is used in mak- 

 ing buttons, and various other articles shaped by stamping; and 

 it Ts capable of receiving a very high polish. "Whether the world 

 is ever to see the Times printed on a sheet of iron, we must leave 

 to some clairvoyante to determine ; but, no sooner did our mami- 

 facturere become acquainted with this Bohernian product at the 

 Great Exhibition, than they instantly set their wits to work to 

 produce better and thinner sheet-iron than had before been made 

 in Eno-land. In the Birmingham department, before the exhi- 

 bition closed, there made its appearance about five inches by 

 three, consising of 44 le;.Yes of sheet-iron, the whole weighing 

 about two ounces and a half. We are getting on: the age of 

 iron literature may yet arrive. 



Our learned chemists have lately discovered that, in making 

 or smelting iron, not less than seven-eighths, of all the heat goes 

 off' in waste ; only one-eighth being really made availabe for the 

 extraction of the metal from its stong matrix. What a sad waste 

 of good fuel is here : what a provoking mode of driving money 

 oufof one's pocket! So thought Mr. Budd, of the Ystalyfera 

 ironworks in Wales. He found that the heat which escapes from 

 an iron furnace is really as high as that of melting brass ; and 

 he pondered how he might compel this heat to render some of 



its usefid services. He put a gentle check upon it just as it was 

 about to escape at the top of the furnace ; he gently enticed it to 

 pass through a channel or pipe which bent downwards ; and 

 gently brought it under the boiler of the steam-engine which 

 worked the blowing machine for the furnace. A clever device 

 this ; for this economised caloric heated the boiler without any 

 other fuel whatever, and there was a saving of three^hundred and 

 fifty pounds in one year in the fuel department for one boiler 

 alone. Mr. Budd told all about this to the British Association, 

 at Swansea, in 1848; and at Edinburgh, in 1850, he was able 

 to tell them much more. He stated that he had applied the 

 method to all the nine smelting-furnaces at the Ystalyfera works ; 

 and that it has also been applied at the Dundyvan Works in 

 Scotland. The coal used in the Scotch works is of such a kind 

 that the wasted heat from one furnace is believed to be enough 

 to heat the air for the hot blast, and to work the blast engines 

 for three furnaces. Mr. Budd states that his plan enabled the 

 Dundyvan proprietors to smelt ore with a ton and a cjuarter less 

 coal to a ton of iron than by the old method ; and he shows how 

 this might arise to a saving of one hundred and thirty thousand 

 pounds a year for the whole of Scotland. A pretty-saving this 

 — a veritable creation of something out of a commercial nothing. 



Horse-shoe nails, kicked about the world by horses innumera- 

 ble, are not the useless fragments we might naturally deem them. 

 Military men may discuss the relative merits of Minie rifles, and 

 needle guns, and regidation-muskets ; but all will agree that the 

 material of which the barrels are made should be sound aud tough, 

 and gun-makers tell us that no iron is so well fitted for the pur- 

 pose as that which is derived from horse-shoe nails, and similarly 

 worn fragments. The nails are in the first instance made of good 

 sound iron, and the violent concussions which they receive, when 

 a horse is w-alking over a stoney road, give a peculiar- annealing 

 and toughening to the metal, highly beneficial to its subsequent 

 use for gun barrels. 



An advertisement in the Times notifies, that " the Committee 

 for managing the affairs of the Bristol Gas Light Comj^any are 

 ready to enter into a contract for a term, from the twenty-first 

 December next, for the sale of from sixteen thousand gallons of 

 ammoniacal liquor, produced per month at the works of the Com- 

 pany." What is this ammoniacal liquor ? It is a most unlove- 

 able compound, which the gas-makers must get rid of, whether 

 it has commercial value or not. After coal has been converted 

 into coke in the retorts of a gas-house, the vapours which escape 

 are extraordinarily complex in their character ; they comprise, not 

 only the gas which is intended for illumination, but acids, and 

 alkalies, and gases of many other kinds — all of which must be 

 removed before the street gas arrives at its proper degree of purity. 

 By washing in clean water, and washing in lime water, and other 

 processes, this purification is gradually brought about. But then 

 the water, which has become impregnated wdth ammonia, and 

 the linie, which has become impregnated with sulphuretted hy- 

 drogen and other gases, are dolefully foetid and repulsive; and 

 in the early history of gas-lighting these refuse products embar- 

 rassed the gas-maker exceedingly. But now the chemists make 

 all sorts of good things from them. The lady's smelling-bottle 

 contains volatile salts made from this refuse ammonia, and sul- 

 phate of ammonia is another product from the same source ; the 

 tar, which is another of the ungracious consequences of gas-mak- 

 ing, is now made to yield benezole — a remarkable volatile liquid 

 — which manufacturers employ in making varnish, and perfum- 

 ers employ in making that which is honoured by the name of oil 

 of bitter almonds, and housewives employ in removing grease 

 spots, and economical ladies employ in cleaning white kid gloves; 

 the naphthaline, which annoys the gas-maker by choking up his 

 pipes, is made to render an account of itself in the form of a 

 beautiful red colouring matter, useful in dyeing — in short, our 



