24 



SCIENCE. 



" Kelly," &c. All of the United States buildings having 

 elevators, and in short, nearly all the most valuable pub- 

 lic buildings, hotels, fashionable stores, apartment houses, 

 &c, to the number of thousands, in this and other Ame- 

 rican cities, contain specimens of hydraulic or steam ele- 

 vators of the same admirable manufacture. 



The new hydraulic elevator is indeed a prodigy of 

 simplicity and automatic power, with simple gravitation 

 of air and water for its only law and mode of action, and 

 with a conspicuous absence of the objections heretofore 

 observed, as well as of all ethers conceivable. It consists 

 of an upright cylinder and piston, only about a foot in 

 diameter, and half the height of the lift ; two p : pes and 

 two valves. That is all, save the car with it? hoist ropes 

 and sheaves, and whatever means, natural or other, may 

 be used to bring a head of water into connection with 

 the cylinder. One of the two pipes is a circulating pipe 

 which connects the two extremities of the cylinder, and 

 affords a passage for the transfer of water from one end 

 to the other — that is, from above the piston to below it. 

 It is also the medium for the pressure of water from the 

 other or hydraulic pipe ; a pressure thus made at all 

 times continuous and uniform on the top of the piston 

 head, wherever it may be, in motion or at rest. This 

 pressure (when not neutralized) forces clown the piston, 

 thereby drawing up the car by the hoist rope attached to 

 the piston rod. 



Let us first suppose the car at the top of the lift, and 

 the piston consequently down at the bottom of the cylin- 

 der; or, the car stationary at any point in the lift, and 

 the piston at a corresponding point in the cylinder. As 

 the cylinder is always full of water, and the full head of 

 pressure always on, wherever the piston may be, the only 

 possible way for the piston to move in either direction is 

 for the water to get out of its way through some outlet. 

 To let the piston rise (pulled up by the weight in the de- 

 scending car) it is only necessary to open a valve that 

 closes the lower end of the circulating pipe, thus open- 

 ing communication from the part of the cylinder above 

 the piston to the part of the cylinder below it. This 

 allows the water above the piston to be pressed out be- 

 fore it, and clown and back into the cylinder under it. 

 The steadiness and ease with which the piston follows up 

 the receding water — which, in turn, follows it up as 

 steadily beneath — o«n not be exceeded by any movement 

 in art or nature. At the same time, the movement is 

 graduated perfectly to the will of the operator, whatever 

 the vatiation of load, by opening or contracting, more 

 or less, the valve orifice through which water is transfer- 

 red from the top to the bottom of the cylinder. No 

 water is expended. 



Finally, to force clown the piston and hoist the car, the 

 circulating valve before mentioned must, of course, be 

 closed ; but this only renders motion either way impossi- 

 ble, because an immoveable body of water without vent 

 fills the cylinder both above and below the piston, and it 

 might as well be solid iron, for the matter of allowing 

 the piston to stir. Another of the simplest things in the 

 world must be done, namely, to open a discharge valve 

 from the lower part of the cylinder, when the water there, 

 in flowing out, begins not only to make room for the descent 

 of the piston, but to make a vacuum beneath it which 

 brings the atmospheric pressure upon the top of the pis- 

 ton, in addition to the pressure of the hydraulic column, 

 which is never withdrawn. The descent is the same per- 

 fectly balanced, steady, soft and fluid motion previously 

 noticed in the ascent ; graduated likewise to perfection 

 by controlling the size of the orifice with the valve rope 

 in the hands of the operator in the car. The symplicity 

 of the valve motion is also very beautiful. The two valves 

 are simply two plugs a few inches apart on one stem, fit- 

 ted inside a pipe, and drawn up ordown by an easy motion 

 of the hand rope. They are so adjusted with the orifices 

 of circulation and discharge, respectively, that while they 

 are at an interniediate position, all motion of water, and 



consequently of piston and car, is blocked ; if lifted, they 

 gradually and simultaneously open the discharge and close 

 the circulation orifice, as much or little as the operator 

 pleases, causing and graduating descent of piston and as- 

 cent of car; or if lowered, they cut off dicharge abso- 

 lutely, and open circulation as gradually as desired, caus- 

 ing ascent of piston and descent of car. 



The multiplication of the piston motion two or three 

 fold in that of the car ( which is all that can be necessary 

 in the highest buildings with these long-cylinder machines) 

 is done by single pairs of sheaves, and consequently with- 

 out making the ropes cross the plane of revolution of their 

 sheaves, and therefore without special friction, as well as 

 without special strain and wear. All moves easily, natur- 

 ally, straightforwardly, imperturbably, like the silent music 

 of the spheres. The power, unlike that of steam, is as 

 definitely limited and as invariable under all circumstan- 

 ces as the weight of so many cubic feet of water, with 

 which the entire motive apparatus is exactly filled at every 

 moment, never a drop less or a drop more, or the space 

 of a drop vacant. The chances of breaking anything are 

 reduced to a minimum so remote as to be hardly more 

 than metaphysical ; and yet all the standard safety appli- 

 ances stand on guard against that conceptual possibility, so 

 that there is probably no other kind of vehicle or mode of 

 motion on sea or land so safe as that of the new hy- 

 draulic elevators above described. It is estimated that 

 thirty millions of passengers are now annually conveyed 

 to and from the upper stories of buildings in the eleva- 

 tors recorded on the salesbooks of Otis Brothers & Co. 

 Up to the present time, this inconceivable amount of 

 passenger business has been performed without a single 

 reported instance of injury to life or limb from the failure 

 of any part of the machinery. The fact is, so far as we 

 know, without a parallel in the history of machinery, and 

 may well direct earnest attention not only to the general 

 qualities, but to the special features, of these remarkable 

 machines. 



OXIDIZED OIL. 



To welcome a new industry is always an agreeable 

 task, but special interest is attached to those instances 

 in which the application of scientific principles have con- 

 tributed to the results. 



We have now to record a few facts relating to a means 

 of manipulating oils, which result in the formation of a 

 substance which has many of the advantages and char- 

 acteristics of Rubber, but which can be manufactured at 

 a fraction of its cost. 



Reduced cost in the manufacture of a staple article, 

 where a monopoly can be secured, naturally suggests 

 great profits, and as capitalists are now competing for 

 the privilege of manufacturing this new material, a few 

 words respecting its nature and properties may be 

 acceptable to our readers. 



A few years ago a man of studious habits and inven- 

 tive genius noticed that around the. mouth of a can of oil, 

 the oil had acquired the property of solidity, and 

 finding that the effect was due to the oxidation of the oil, 

 he conceived the idea of turning this property of linseed 

 oil to practical account for various purposes in the Arts 

 and Manufactures. 



Mr. Frederick Walton, (for that was the name of the 

 gentleman to whom we have referred) occupied several 

 years in studying this subject, and making practical experi- 

 ments relating to the behavior of oils under various con- 

 ditions, and at length arrived at such successful results as 

 to warrant his reading a paper before the London " Soci- 

 ety of Arts," entitled " Introduction and Use of Elastic 

 Gums and Analogous Substances." In this paper, after 

 discussing the sources and qualities of india-rubber and 

 gutta-percha, he described a method which he had in- 

 vented of manufacturing an artificial product, which not 

 only possessed the principal qualities of Caoutchouc and 



