Progress of Invention. 237 



PROGRESS OF INVENTION". 



Utilization op Woollen and other Rags. — Hitherto, ras;s have 

 he en, with the exception of woollen, employed only in the produc- 

 tion of paper, and other matters not constituting articles of clothing. 

 Woollen rags have been formed into sJwddi/, a wool which has been 

 rendered of an extremely short staple — and therefore is inferior 

 as a material for textile fabrics — by the mode employed for tearing 

 the rags asunder. A large amount of the shoddy found in com- 

 merce is little more than a woollen powder : yet there is no reason 

 why the staple of the wool obtained from worn-out textile materials 

 should not be nearly as good as it ever was, nor why the same wool 

 should not be manufactured advantageously over and over again ; 

 in which case our stock of materials would, in practice, be greatly 

 increased, and clothing, for the poor at least, be greatly and most 

 beneficially reduced in price. Ingenuity has at length discovered a 

 means of not only preventing the destruction or serious damage of a 

 vast amount of wool, but also of disintegrating, without injury, other 

 textile matters, and separating the woof from the warp, when this is 

 desirable from their being of different colours or materials. After 

 the fabric has been separated into threads, these are opened by 

 suitable apparatus, so that the wool, or other fibre of which they 

 are composed, is not broken or damaged. The contrivance used 

 for the purpose is simple, and mainly consists of hooks judiciously 

 ranged. 



Substitution of an Electric Current for a Fulminate, with 

 Fire-arms. — An application of electricity, more curious perhaps than 

 useful, has recently been made in France. Instead of placing a 

 fulminate within the cartridge, and thus rendering it liable to 

 explode accidentally, a very fine platinum wire is inserted into it. 

 This, by a simple mechanism, is connected at pleasure with two 

 very minute galvanic batteries, which are enclosed in the stock, and 

 becoming incandescent, explodes the powder. The arrangement 

 acts extremely well ; but, for various reasons, it does not seem 

 likely to be ever employed in practice, except perhaps for 

 artillery. 



SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS. 



The British Association met this year at Dundee, on the 3rd of 

 September, and on the whole its proceedings were very successful, 

 though its managers having mistaken the spirit of flunkeyism 

 for that of science, had elected a President without information or 

 attainments corresponding with his position, and the subject of 

 their choice, the Duke of Buccleuch, was unable to prepare any thin a- 

 that could fairly be called an "address." One of the most im- 

 portant items in the Report of the Society related to the arrange- 



