1874.] -^71 [Price. 



influence of changes of grade is rarely considered by locomotive engineers. 

 The change from a level road to an ascending grade of 100 feet per mile 

 would cause the water in the boiler to flow back to the fire-box end so as 

 to raise the water-level about 1^ inches, depressing the water-level for- 

 ward by the same amount or a total variation of 3| inches. 



If the level of the water be found at the top gauge whilst the engine 

 is running with unvarying velocity up a grade of 100 feet per mile, and 

 the engine be stopped upon a descending grade of 100 feet per mile, the 

 actual level of the water over the crown-sheet of the fire-box would be 

 Hi inches below the top gauge-cock. 



If the first observations had indicated one gauge of water only, the 

 actual level of the water, after the engine had been stopped on the 

 descending grade, would be far below the level of the crown-sheet. 



From observations made upon an engine by means of a glass gauge 

 on the water column, I have found that the water-level is greatly dis- 

 turbed during the running of the engine by every change of speed. 

 Whilst at rest the water surface is level ; upon starting the engine 

 the water does not take up the motion immediately, but is crowded to the 

 back part of the boiler, and remains so in a greater or less degree until the 

 motion is checked, when the water at first becomes level and then crowds 

 towards the front end of the boiler until the engine is stoj)ped, when its 

 surface becomes level. Running at a speed of about 25 miles an hour, 

 first forward and then backward, the vai'iation at the water-level was 

 about four inches. 



D. 



A record has been made of the effect of injecting fresh water into 

 boilers containing hot concentrated solutions of various salts ; but as 

 analysis of the water supplied to this engine show that they contain but 

 a moderate percentage of salts in solution, it is unnecessary to give the 

 results of the experiments, as the effect produced in practice would add 

 but little to the destructive forces already fully explained, and which are 

 of themselves more than sufficient to account for explosions under the 

 conditions stated. 



AK OBITUARY NOTICE OF CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN MEREDITH 



READ. 



By Eli K. Price. 



{Bead before the American PMlosopMcal Society, December 18, 1874.) 

 It is within the scope of our comprehensive charter to commemorate 

 the life and character of our deceased members. To do so is to promote 

 knowledge, and to render service to science and society. It is thus the 

 dead shall yet speak, and through our press speak to the most intelligent 

 of the civilized world, and to such in future times. 



He whose memory we would perpetuate to-night was a most diligent 

 student and able administrator of the science of jurisprudence ; that 



