









> 



i 



t 



1844.] 



n — t^rr of the complete success of Mr. Meyer's 



lb ?i«„r?e had been induced to engage him for the 



operauons. thr0U gh his means the same exemp- 



pUrP Thi otnelublishmfnt at Portnall Park; to which 

 uon at di» ^^^^ of ra(g had been occasioned by Mr. 



Mere^s successful dispersion of them from his neigh- 

 y, Tin that part of Surrey.— At the succeeding Council, 

 Colonel Challoner, being called upon by the President 

 t« favour the members with a report on the result of 

 Mr Meyer's operations at Portnall Park, he stared to the 

 ntJrtin* that the applications had been perfectly suc- 

 S5ul in his own case, as in that of others ; that the rats 

 Tever died in the house, the peculiar effect of the pre- 

 paration causing them to seek the open air, without 

 demoting to return to their former haunts; its odour 

 driving them away, while its substance, if eaten, caused 

 certain death. Colonel Challoner suggested, that as 

 there was a very general complaint among farmers at the 

 present time, of the waste and consumption of produce 

 effected by these destructive animals, it would be satis- 

 factory to many members, whose premises were infested, 

 to hear from Mr. Meyer himself a statement on the 

 lubiect.— The Council then granted leave accordingly, 

 for Mr. Meyer to attend the ensuing weekly meeting on 

 the 29th of May.— Mr. Meyer, in his personal statement 

 on that day to the Council, explained the general effects 

 of his preparations, and the uniform success which had 

 attended their use. He had several of these prepara- 

 tions, which were applicable in rotation according to 

 circumstances, but not one of them contained a single 

 grain of arsenic or other poison, strong enough to produce 

 death in larger animals, in the quantities in which it was 

 employed. The expense of the ingredients was very 

 trifling ; and the ease with which estates or premises, of 

 any extent, could be rendered free from rats, constituted 

 the difference between his own mode of extirpation 

 and that of other parties who professed to accom- 

 plish that object. There was, in fact, he be- 

 lieved, no place entirely free from these animals, for 

 any long time together, and the process he employed was 

 bo simple that any farmer could follow it out as effi- 

 ciently as he could himself, on being made acquainted 

 with its principle. His chief secret consisted in the 

 chemical nature of his compounds, and a knowledge of 

 their proper application, employed by his father (a prac- 

 tical chemist in Germany) for 30 years, and by himself 

 for 12 years ; the peculiar action of the poison affecting 

 the respiration of the animal and driving him from the 

 house to seek the fresh air, such access of fresh air into 

 the lungs only accelerating the fatal result. In a few 

 days, any premises whatever could be thoroughly cleared 

 of rats, and would remain so for a period varying from 

 nine to fourteen months, according to circumstances. 

 No poultry would be injured by the preparations used, 

 and cats or dogs would be affected by only a temporary 

 sickness. The remedy not only drove away the rats, 

 but by its odour continued to have that effect for several 

 months afterwards. It had the same influence over 

 water-rats as the common rats on land. — On the motion 

 of Lord Portman, seconded by the Marquis of Down- 

 shire, the Council returned to Mr. Meyer their thanks 



for the communication with which he had then favoured 

 them. 



Analysis of Limestones and Marls. — Sir 

 Humphry Davy, in his " Agricultural Chemistry," de- 

 scribes a simple and exact mode, by which a person un- 

 acquainted with the minute details of analysis may 

 ascertain, by inspection, the volume of carbonic acid gas 

 given out by a limestone or marl, on the solution of a 

 given portion of it in muriatic acid, and thus deduce, 

 with a practical exactness sufficient for all ordinary pur- 

 poses the quantity, to the one-tenth of a grain, of car- 

 oonate of lime which may be present in any particular 

 son. u r . Ure having devoted much of his attention for 

 rPftnUn 8 t0 a general salification of the apparatus 

 tindi? y P ractical Persons, in the processes of par- 

 scien ' P U " U1 ]» connected more or less with chemical 



f wZ'a « ended the C ° Uncil of the 29th of M «y, and 

 ratuc sLi m r bers ™h the inspection of an appa- 

 but si Z ' ln " 8 object to that of Sir Humphry Davy, 

 prove t 7 m ° dl6ed in its construction. In order to 

 Counril n aCCUraCy ' Dr - Ure Performed before the 

 marble pri e -^ enment witb 10 ° S rains of pounded 

 rationale «? i ? ,nfo at each ste P of the Process, the 

 of carbon,-. •!? P roceedin S- The equivalent amount 

 instrument- t * aS , almost immediately shown by the 

 sident Dr tt repl y to an «q™y by the Pre- 

 of showing fk d that the apparatus was capable 



of ma-npS- pres . ence an <* amount of the carbonate 

 bat that » e C ° n - tamed iQ the magnesian limestones, 

 a subsequent f^f SCa l e VVOuld be "q«ired, and also 



*en P ^V?oVco e a f . Ml * ion r D ;- u ? 



or normal eiinn u Council six samples of real, 



bis careful anal' ■ of which bad been the subjects of 

 going a slow but 1 '' . uano being a substance under- 

 goes brou 2 ht tn°fv!- am chemical change, the various 



conditions of dm i countr y were as various a3 the 

 never been import.? • chmate could make them, and had 

 in which the suh« f m tUe ori g inal or normal condition 

 ai «binft- the .unni ". were void * d by the sea-fowls fur- 



enr J'u r , lchly charged with uric acid, the 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



381 



grand 



* 



fertility fo r "' P^ulum of manure, which would give 

 les8 advanced i m a 8tate of P utr efaction more or 

 re *nlts ofthatdpl }Ses 8 P° ke °- ammonia and other 

 note *Ut i a th P T mp ° S . Uion ' but such compounds did 

 ^ i,eiil other Lr n °. Witsl ° ri « inal state, as voided ; 

 T the »«ic acid [TnA at !°! l8of 8am ples, it was found that 

 c ?wg«d by heat anT , b animal matter bad become 

 c, rle gone off i n !„ mo « J*"* and all the azotised prin- 



gas, nothing remaining but a carbona- 



ceous residuum of no comparative value. He had | about GO lbs. per square inch acted on the surface of the 



stw^ Tit! ? 6 JOUr 7 l C ° mmittee a P 'P" '* iQ the «!« in order to expres the Ss w th 

 showing-lst. These chants of uric acid: 2d. An sufficient celerity ; and he had shown in a former report 



to the Society, that the Kentish pipes were denser than 

 other machine-made tiles ; also, that those of the smallest 

 bore and thinnest substance were denser than the larger 

 and thicker pipes. He imagined that Mr. Clayton's 

 machine would produce them yet denser than these, as he 

 employed greater pressure and made them thinner than 



- . - -- uric acid; 2d. An 



account of guano in its fresh, decaved, or spurious state ; 

 3d. A detailed view of the new methods of chemical re- 

 search, which, after a period of twenty years' research, 

 he had now brought to a practical result. The specimens 

 of guano he presented were the Bolivian, Chilian, Peru- 

 vian, and African. He obtained the Bolivian from Bo- 

 livia about a year and a half ago : and because it gave no 

 indications of the presence of ammonia, the cargoes were 

 treated with perfect indifference by the merchants who 

 had been accustomed to the article in its decaying state ; 

 but he found, that although dry as Irish snuff, that inva- 

 luable guano was rich in uric acid and animal matter, 

 and capable of producing 22 per cent, of ammonia on 

 its decomposition as a manure. It was so highly valued 

 by the natives, that they were so much averse to its leav- 

 ing the country, that genuine cargoes were now difficult 

 to obtain. —On the motion of the Duke of Richmond, 

 seconded by Mr. Pusey, M.P., the best thanks of the 

 Council were voted to Dr. Ure for the presents he had 

 then submitted to the Society, and for his kindness in 

 making an experiment before the Council. 



Draining Tiles and Tools — Mr. Slaney reported 

 to the Council the result of an inspection which had been 

 made by the Marquess of Downshire, the Hon. Mr. 

 Clive, and himself, of Mr. Clayton's new machine for 

 making pipe-tiles, at 21, Upper Park-place, Dorset-square. 

 They were much struck with the simplicity, cheapness, 

 and effective operation of the machine in question ; and 

 particularly remarked the recent improvement in it, by 

 which the clay, in its transit through the cylinder to the 

 die at the bottom, was made to pass ^through a kind of 

 sieve or strainer. This served to arrest any small stones 

 or hard substances, which would otherwise have impeded 

 the production of perfect pipes. A force of 25 lbs. on 

 the winch sufficed to communicate, through the pinions 

 and wheels, the requisite pressure to the piston ; and so 

 easy was the labour of working the machine rendered by 

 this multiplication of power, that a woman might be em- 

 ployed for the purpose. Mr. Clive thought that many 

 clays might perhaps be worked through this machine 

 without pugging. 



Mr. Pisey was of opinion that pipe-tiles were likely 

 to come into general use, yet the members of the Society 

 should exercise some caution in their proceedings. He 

 had ordered one of Mr. Clayton's machines, but first 

 thought it wise to send up some of his clay for trial, as 

 he had two sorts. Neither of these clays were found to 

 be suitable for pipes. On the other hand, the Speaker 

 of the House of Commons had one of the same machines 

 in use, which produced excellent pipes from his clay of 

 the plastic kind. He particularly desired to call Mr. 

 Parkes's attention to those points in the treatment of 

 clays which bore on their necessary preparation for pipe 

 machines, as also on the cost of burning pipes with coal. 

 Mr. Pusey mentioned that he had heard from a Worces- 

 tershire farmer that pipes for drains had been success- 

 fully used for a longer period than had hitherto been 

 imagined ; but he had also heard of a case in which 

 drains, formed of pipes and laid in a very soft soil, had 

 failed for want of a method of joining them ; and he 

 thought that in soft and irregular subsoils a means of 

 junction was desirable. He had early suggested the em- 

 ployment of a short piece of pipe of a larger size, into 

 which the ends of two smaller pipes might be inserted. 

 Another method had been adopted by tapering one end 

 of a pipe 2 feet long, so that it entered the larger end of 

 another pipe, and so satisfied was a farmer, neighbour to 

 the party whose drains had failed, of the sufficiency of 

 this method, that he had ordered 100,000 of such pipes. 

 Colonel Challoner desired to know from Mr. Parkes 

 to what extent he considered the density of pipes ought 

 to be carried, as he and others gathered from his previous 

 remarks that Mr. Parkes attributed a considerable part 

 of their action to their porosity and power of suction or 

 absorption of water from soil. 



Mr. Parkes stated, that some misapprehension of his 

 meaning on a former occasion, seemed to have arisen as 

 to the amount of the action performed by a pipe in ab- 

 sorbing water from soil. The experiment alluded to, re- 

 lated to the absorbing power of a pipe when immersed in 

 water, and was cited as furnishing proof of porosity ; but, 

 under the circumstances in which pipes existed in drains, 

 t. e. t embedded in earth, he conceived that, however wet 

 the soil might be, a pipe would not be in a condition to 

 absorb water so freely as in the experiment mentioned. 

 It was easy to show, indeed it must be self-evident, that 

 by far the greatest proportion of the water of drainage en- 

 tered the conduit through the crevices between each pair 

 of pipes. Nevertheless, he considered a certain degree 

 of porosity to be a valuable property in a pipe, as the con- 

 tinued absorption of moisture must necessarily tend to 

 harden the floor of a drain, and dry the soil in immediate 

 contact with the pipes, after the flow ceased; to this 

 effect alone he intended his previous remarks to apply. 

 It would be impossible to assign, theoretically, what 

 might be the best practical degrees of density and porosity 

 to be given to such an article as a drain-tile. It is pro- 

 bable that its durability, which was very important, would 

 depend on the quality of the clay and its density com- 

 bined. The old Roman bricks made in this country 

 were well known to have possessed wonderful durability, 

 and they were very dense compared with the more porous 

 and perishable modern English bricks. Yet, even the 

 Roman bricks absorbed water, and he thought it would 

 be very difficult, even were it desirable, to compress clay 

 into the shape of a small cylindric pips so as to render it 

 unabsorbent. In Mr. Clayton's machine, a pressure of 



the old machine; but the density of a pipe would greatly 

 depend on the texture and fineness of the clay employed 

 in its manufacture. 



With respect to the importance of some kind of union 

 between every pair of pipes, Mr. Parkes agreed with 

 Mr. Pusey that such an arrangement was desirable for 

 very soft bottoms, and absolutely necessary, in order to 

 adapt pipes as conduits in spouting sands, &c. ; but 

 he preferred, for such cases, the inserting an inch-bore 

 or other sized pipe, according to the discharge required, 

 a few inches into a full-length pipe of a larger size, easily 

 fitting;, rather than the using short pieces to form a joint. 

 By the former plan, a great length of pipes could be put 

 together on the surface, and then be let down into the 

 prepared trench, where they would repose on the whole 

 length and have the full bearing of the larger pipes, 

 instead of resting on short pieces. Such a chain of pipea 

 could never siuk in places— the whole length must sink 

 together, and equally, or not at all. Excepting, how- 

 ever, in very difficult cases, he did not think a joint 

 necessary, if the trench were correctly formed as before 

 explained. Simple means may be often used to render a 

 soft bottom firm. He instanced Mr. John Taylor, of 

 Mereworth, Kent, who, in draining some of his land with 

 pipes from 3 to 4 feet deep, met with bottoms of soft boggy 

 matter ; sods were forced down into these soft places, and 

 a firm bottom was secured, on which to place the pipes. 

 No failure or disturbance had occurred in this work, and 

 the drains ran throughout the year, is they receive the 

 water of springs as well as rain. Clay, rammed down to- 

 the bottom of trenches in soft soils, would often answer, 

 and make the work permanent. 



In reply to a question from the President, Mr. Parkes 

 said that he had referred, on a former occasion, to the elon- 

 gation of a pipe, when wet, compared with the same when 

 dry. He had found by nice measurement, that a small 

 extension in length occurred when a perfectly dry pipe- 

 was moistened ; he deemed it, therefore, of some conse- 

 quence to keep pipes quite dry until they were placed in 

 the drain, as the subsequent longitudinal expansion in a 

 line of pipes would act as a force to keep their ends 

 firmly pressed against each other, provided they were 

 originally well and closely laid ; and this force would 

 contribute to prevent a pipe from sinking, if a small fault 

 should occur in the floor of a drain underneath a pipe. 

 He had found that it required a considerable force to 

 dislocate or separate one pipe from another, when the 

 ends only thus butted one against another. 



In compliance with Mr. Pusey's desire, he had col- 

 lected a good deal of information as regarded the prepa- 

 ration of clay, and the cost of burning pipes with coal. 

 On the latter subject he had found, from personal in- 

 quiry of two highly respectable pipe tile-makers in Suf- 

 folk, that from 3 to 3j cwts. of coal were required to 

 burn 1000 pipes 12 to 14 inches long, weighing from 

 2500 to 3000 lbs. per 1000 ; and Mr. Thomas Law- 

 Hodges, of Hempsted Park, Cranbrook,Kent, had recently 

 informed him that his experienced potter, Mr. Hatcher, 

 states, n The nearest calculation I can give, from expe- 

 rience, is, that 1 ton of good coals will be sufficient to- 

 bum 18,000 pipe-tiles of 1 inch bore or diameter ; and 

 500 common brushwood faggots will produce the same 

 effect." This was equal to about 1 l-9th cwt. of coal 

 per 1000, and per 1000 lbs. weight, as the inch-pipes- 

 weighed about 1 lb. each. 



As regarded the preparatory operations for rendering 

 clays fit for being made into thin pipes, their nature 

 varied with that of the clay. He believed there were 

 few, if any, beds of clay to be met with which were fit 

 for use without passing through the pug-mill ; though he 

 knew of pipe-tileries where washing was not found neces- 

 sary. The washing of clay was an excellent and cheap 

 process, and was capable of reducing hard as well as 

 stony clays into a state fit for the pipe-machine. It was 

 to be seen at most of the brick and tile-yards about 

 London. The cost of getting the clay and washing here 

 was about 2s. per 1000 bricks, weighing nearly 500O 

 lbs. ; or about 5d. per 1000 lbs. of burned goods. This 

 included the pumping up of water, which was rarely ne- 

 cessary in country tileries. He had found in Suffolk that 

 getting and washing cost about 6d. per 1000 tiles, weigh- 

 ing 2500 lbs. ; and Mr. Etheredge had informed him 

 of a case in which it cost him Id. for about 3000 lbs. 

 The cost of washing was, therefore, quite insignifi- 

 cant when reckoned on pipes weighing only 1000 lbs. 

 per thousand, and that of the apparatus would not 

 exceed from 10/. to 15/. 



Mr. Slaney remarked, asregards the porosity'of pipes> 

 and their absorption of water, he was disposed to attri- 

 bute a greater action to them than did Mr. Parkes, the 

 ingenious author of that idea. At the same time he 

 would mention that another description of unglazed 

 earthen pipe had been brought before the notice of th* 

 Commission on the Health of Towns, made in Scotland, 

 which had been proved, he believed, to be capable of 

 sustaining a vertical column of water 600 feet high with- 

 out passing water through them. If he recollected 

 rightly, the experiment had been conducted by Mr. 

 Smith, of Deanston, with a view of showing the ntness 



S 



of such pipes to convey water into towns. 

 Mr. Saiasbury,'of Devizes, thinking that it .did 



not 



