General Notices. 83 



newest and best respecting agricultural implements and machines cannot do 

 better than consult Messrs. Cottam and Hallen of London, or Messrs. Slight 

 and Co., Edinburgh. 



The oropholithe {orophe, a roof, and lithos, a stone), a composition used 

 as a substitute for zinc, lead, tile, or slate, and apparently well adapted for 

 covering garden and agricultural buildings, is now attracting a good deal of 

 attention among architects. It appears to be a peculiarly hard cement, 

 spread thinly over a surface of canvass, which may be cut up into squares 

 of any convenient size. " The oropholithe, as applied to buildings, will be 

 found to recommend itself to attention by its cheapness and durabilitj^, as 

 well as by the absence of all qualities capable of attracting electric matter, 

 and which are more or less resident in all metallic substances. This cannot 

 fail to render it safer than either of the metals now used on the tops of 

 houses; while, not being liable to oxidation, and entirely impenetrable to 

 water, it must, on both these accounts, recommend itself to the attention of 

 builders with additional force. Independently of its durable qualities, for 

 cheapness the oropholithe will be found unrivalled. It can be laid down at 

 about half the price of zinc, at one quarter of that of lead, and, from the im- 

 mense saving in the expenditure of time and money, at considerably less than 

 slates and tiles. Then, its weight being so much less than that of any of these 

 materials, the saving of timber in i-afters will not be the least important consider- 

 ation with the architect; as, while the new-invented material effectually resists 

 the action of the elements, when the amount of pressure taken from the roof 

 is considered, the whole under-structure may be much lighter. The oropho- 

 lithe being laid down on large surfaces, and its joints united by the cement of 

 which it is made, the whole superfice of the roof appears covered with one 

 solid sheet of the material ; and this compactness gives it such an extraor- 

 dinary power of resistance that no wind storm, how violent soever, could by 

 any possibility remove it, while the building itself continued firm in its 

 position. As a medium preventive of damp, as fatally injurious to buildings 

 as to the health of their inhabitants, the oropholithe is likely to supersede the 

 custom of stuccoing walls as at present. Lined with oropholithe, the rooms 

 will be instantaneously fit for habitation, free from damp, and the tainted 

 reek so disagreeable in newly built and unseasoned houses; that is to say, for 

 this purpose one side is covered with the material which is placed against the 

 wall, the other, or exterior side, presents a dry surface which may be papered 

 immediately. The resistive qualities of the oropholithe are so great, that 

 after years of exposure to the action of those universal solvents, air and water, 

 no visible alteration in its structure has taken place. Hence its ap})licability 

 in lining baths, tanks, cisterns, fishponds, &c., becomes manifest." Such 

 are the uses of this article, as stated in the prospectus. — Co7id. 



Wirewor/c is now being applied to a great many purposes in gardening, and 

 to some in agriculture, and we expect shortly to be able to announce a mode 

 of coating over wire with zinc by the galvanic process, which, without adding 

 much to its expense, will add greatly to its durability. We have lately fount!, 

 in various parts of the country, that a strained wire fence 4 ft. high can be put 

 up cheaper, all expenses included, than a wooden fence of the same height, 

 even without reckoning any thing for the wood. Land-owners, who have 

 plenty of young larches and Scotch pines that might be used in making such 

 fence's, find that the labour of cutting down the trees and forming them into 

 fences is more than the entire cost of the strained wire fence. Almost every 

 ironmonger deals in such articles. We have before us a great manj' designs, 

 by Mr. Porter of Thames Street, and Messrs. Cottam and Hallen of Wiusley 

 Street, London; Messrs. Young of High Street, Edinburgh; and Mr. Samuel 

 Taylor of Stoke Ferry, Norfolk. Mr. Taylor confines himself to the manu- 

 facture of a cheap and efiective fence against hares and rabbits, which is, at 

 the same time, an excellent substitute for hiu-dles or cords, as sheep-folds, 

 and for sticks for peas, trailers in general, and other garden purposes. Mr. 

 Porter exhibits a great variety of designs for fences and useful ornamental ob- 



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