May 3, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



333 



will be observed that there were cleared in seven minutes, 50,400 

 cubic feet of snow, or 7,30b cubic feet per minute. It was esti- 

 mated by one of the railroad officials present that it would have taken 

 100 men an entire day to accomplish what was done in seven minutes. 

 The accompanying illustrations, taken from photographs, show 

 the cardinal principles of the device, yet a brief mention of some of 

 its distinctive features may not be out of place. 



the blades of the cone itself. Thus the snow is sliced off 

 and discharged in one operation, by means of a single mech- 

 anism, the absolute simplicity of which is considered a valuable 

 feature. 



3. It is impossible, the company claims, to choke the hood or 

 blades of the cone with snow. It always comes out of the snow 

 absolutely clean, with its blades free from snow. 



—i-MlLIL]"- I "L£s 



JULL SNOW-EXCAVATOR. 



I. The diagonal arrangement of the bladed cone, so that its 

 apex is at the lower right-hand corner of the hood, while the base 

 is at the upper left-hand corner, is one of its distinctive and impor- 

 tant features. By this arrangement the curved blades of the cone 

 operate directly upon and slice off the face of the snow-bank, from 

 side to side of the hood, without any direct resistance whatsoever, 

 except that of the straight sides of the hood. 



4. The power to operate the bladed cone is supplied by an 800- 

 horse-power boiler, containmg 220 2-inch flues. The engines 

 consist of two 18 by 24 cylinders. 



5. The snow may be thrown to either or both sides of the 

 track without reversing, and, in fact, changed from one to the 

 other without stopping. To quote from the Engineering News of 

 March 30, 1889, "there is no double direction of revolution, no 



JULL SNOW-EXCAVATOR IN OPERATION. 



2. The curvature of the blades is much greater toward the apex 

 of the cone than toward its base, so that in their first contact with 

 the snow the blades operate as an augur. As the velocity of the 

 cone in its revolutions increases toward its base, by reason of its 

 increasing diameter, the centrifugal force generated is correspond- 

 ingly increased ; so that the snow gathered in by the curved blades 

 is thrown out without the necessity of fan-blades, other than 



reversion of knives, and no closed box to hold snow, back of the 

 mechanism which tirst attacks it." 



The JuU Manufacturing Company (Brooklyn, N.Y.), of which 

 Mr. George H. Hobart is president, solicit an investigation con- 

 cerning the merits of their excavator, and state that the centrifugal 

 excavator is also adapted to clear railroad-tracks which have been 

 blockaded by sand. 



