C. B. WARRING. 187 



vibration when the instrument starts off — this depends 

 much upon the operator — but it soon ceases. 



All these statements seem tome to have been amply 

 verified. But thinking that perhaps it would be more 

 satisfactory to apply to this also the test of experiment, 

 I determined to make a gyrostatic balance, and set- what 

 it would do. 



I found it no easy matter to wind up and set going 

 at once four "gyrostats, 1 ' until, after several more or 

 less unsatisfactory attempts, I adopted the arrangement 

 shown in rigs. 44 and 45. The standard, a a. is a polished 

 steel rod, three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, stand- 

 ing firmly in a solid base, and having at its upper end a 

 highly polished and hardened cup, 1 or depression, to re- 

 ceive the conical point (fine and hard) shown in the dia- 

 gram. At top and bottom are two strips of brass, b b. 

 b b, through the lower one of which is a hole permitting 

 it to play freely up and down on the steel rod. At each 

 angle, and also at c c, is a small brass hinge, allowing 

 free motion in a vertical plane, but none laterally. Be- 

 tween the brass pieces are four gyroscopes. Their axles 

 are hidden in the diagram by their supporting rings. 



To wind it up, I laid the whole thing on a fiat frame, 

 having openings for the wheels and for the cords that 

 were to set it in motion. The four were then wound up, 

 and four equal weights hooked on, which, by a very 

 simple arrangement, were all started at once, and the 

 cords set loose from the axles as the weights reached the 

 floor. 



By winding the cords so that the two on the right 

 hand descend on the inside of the axis, and the two 

 others on the outside, rotation was imparted to all the 

 wheels in the direction of the arrow ellipses on the gyro- 

 scope, in fig. 44, and shown in the diagram in Natun 

 and in Science. 



1 The cup is broad aiul shallow, so that only the point of the cone touches it. 



171 



