30 General Notices. 



Steam Carriages, it appears by the report of the select committee of 

 parliament, can be propelled on common roads at an average rate of ten 

 miles per hour ; ascending and descending hills of considerable inclination 

 with facility and ease, and a great saving of expense. How great, then, 

 would be the advantages of equalising, or nearly so, the inclination of all 

 slopes! We have shown {Morning Chronicle, Dec. 31.) that this equalis- 

 ation of slope, even with the aid of horses alone, would not only nearly 

 equalise the value of territorial property, and all its various products, 

 but that it might go far to equalise the fertility of soils, by the facilities 

 which it would give to the transport of earths which were superfluous in 

 one district, to others in which they were deficient. The practicability 

 and advantages of using steam carriages on common roads adds greatly 

 to the value of our own suggestion. — Cond. 



A regulating Thermometer, for effecting the same objects as Mr. Kewley's 

 Automaton Gardener (Encyclopcedia of Gardening, 2d edit. § 1490.) has 

 lately been invented by Mr. J. Lindley (not the Professor), and exhibited 

 in the library of the London Horticultural Society. From a general view 

 of the exterior of this machine, it does not appear to us any thing like so 

 perfect as that of Mr. Kewley; it will also cost more, and, instead of 

 regulating the temperature to a quarter of a degree, like the automaton 

 gardener, it does not operate till a change has taken place of more than 15°. 

 The invention, however, has merit ; and we are exceedingly glad to see it 

 brought forward, because we trust it will stimulate Mr. Kewley to put his 

 simple and most ingenious engine in the course of manufacture for public 

 sale. We believe that, for five guineas, Mr. Kewley can produce an instru- 

 ment not at all liable to go out of repair, which would open and shut the 

 windows of the largest church, public room, or hot-house, so as to regulate 

 the air within to any required temperature. We have felt confident, since 

 we saw this machine, that the business of forcing and exotic culture in 

 gardens, and of ventilating and regulating the temperature of hospitals, 

 crowded theatres, and other large or now badly ventilated places, might be 

 greatly simplified and economised by Mr. Kewley's invention. When we 

 take in connexion with this the present facilities of heating hot-houses of 

 every kind ; and not only of heating them, but of preserving heat in 

 reserve by large cisterns of hot water, we feel convinced that the whole 

 business of forcing, or at all events of keeping hot-house and green-house 

 plants through the winter, might go on for days together with perfect 

 safety, without the attendance of a gardener, or of any person whatever. Tt 

 is evident that these improvements will also tend to render the use of hot- 

 houses more and more general ; so that, if the taxes on glass were taken off, 

 we should not have a farm-house or a tradesman's cottage without its 

 green-house or grapery. 



A self-acting Apparatus for regulating Temperature has lately been in- 

 vented by Dr. Ure, the scientific author of the Dictionary of Chemistry. 

 The principle of the instrument is the unequal expansion of different metals 

 by heat. The Doctor proposes its employment to regulate the safety- 

 valves of steam boilers ; but there can be no doubt that such machinery 

 might be added to it as would fit it for opening the windows of hot-houses, 

 churches, or dwelling-houses, and opening or shutting the dampers of 

 chimneys, or diminishing or increasing the draught of fireplaces. The de- 

 tails of construction will be found in the Repertory of Patent Inventions 

 for December 1831, vol. xii. p. 345. — Cond. 



An Instrument for laying off or transferring Angles, in laying out Flower- 

 Gardens, or performing other Operations in Landscape-Gardening or in 

 Garden Architecture. — Sir, Herewith you will receive a drawing (fg. 6.) 

 of the different parts of an instrument for laying off or transferring angles, 

 which, perhaps, you will think worth publishing for the benefit of your 



